The Ice Child (16 page)

“Did I?” he repeated.

“I told you that I’d already met Alicia and she threw me off your property.”

Doug nodded, as if this were to be expected from his wife. Then, “I’m sorry, Jo. I don’t remember much of what we said on the ship.”

“You were pretty well out of it, even the next day,” she said. “But then, we didn’t talk about Alicia then. Just Greenland and Crozier. But”—she leaned forward—“you didn’t tell me about the cans. The provisions. This lead poisoning.”

Doug nodded. He leaned back against the couch and slid a hand under the small of his back, pulling a face. “Good old Stephan Goldner,” he muttered. “The Grim Reaper.”

She nodded. “It reads like a murder mystery. He supplied all the tins to the expedition?”

“Every one.”

“But he’d done this before, supplied Admiralty ships?”

“Yes, plenty,” Doug said. “And always worked the same way. Delivered late, in all the wrong sizes. Basically to avoid having his work checked. When he was hired for Franklin, he had a good reputation. But he got much worse as time went on.”

“But they kept on hiring him?”

“He did have the capacity to fill huge contracts. And he did have this … well, you and I would call it a death warrant. He called it his patented system for preserving foodstuffs.” Doug shook his head. “More modern technology, you see?” he said. “They wanted the best, the newest patented this and that.…”

“And all the cans were contaminated. That’s what you think too?”

“I don’t think. I know. Getting worse and worse the longer they were left before they were opened. Beattie found lead in Torrington’s bone and hair.”

“Yes, Peter just told me.”

“A huge quantity of lead,” Doug said. “From four hundred thirteen to six hundred fifty-seven parts per million. In a culture that isn’t exposed to lead—like the Inuits in the area, at the time, for instance—you might find, say, thirty parts per million.”

“Jesus,” Jo breathed.

“And Hartnell was anything up to three hundred thirteen per million.”

“And Braine?”

“Two hundred eighty.”

“And … all from the cans?”

Doug shifted again in his seat. “Well, Victorian society was lead saturated, compared to today,” he conceded. “For instance, all their tea was wrapped in lead foil. And they had pewterware, and lead-glazed pottery. All those things could contaminate. Probably John Torrington’s level was so high because of the lead in coal dust. Or perhaps because they’d fed him exclusively from the tins, for weeks, in an effort to improve his health. But”—Doug slapped his hand on the couch—“it was the tins, and Goldner’s bloody greed. That’s what did for them all.”

“You think that Franklin’s men opened the tins and found it bad?” Jo asked.

“In some cases, yes,” Doug said. “In others, maybe the meat looked all right, but it was probably not only tainted with the lead solder that had been used to seal the tins in the first place, but with all kinds of toxic stuff. Botulism, for a start. Victorian slaughterhouses and food preparation left a lot to be desired. Okay if you ate the stuff straightaway, and cooked it thoroughly. But Goldner canned it and then cooked it, without any real proof that his heating method got through to the meat in the center of the can. So …”

“So whatever was on the meat in the center of the can, uncooked, or partially cooked …”

“Putrefied inside the can and infected everything in it.” He grimaced. “Imagine opening that two years down the line.”

“My God,” Jo said, shocked.

He gave her a small smile, and hesitated. His gaze slipped over her, as if seeing her in a slightly new light. She saw the spark of interest, and her stomach did a lazy little flip. She crossed her arms. Defense.

Against herself? Him?

Well, what? she thought. She dug her nails into the inner flesh of her elbow, but a flush spread to her face in spite of herself. A phrase of Gina’s sprang to her mind, something that Gina had said one night as they shared several bottles of Beck’s, and put the world, and each other, to rights.

“You’ll never get a man while you hold yourself back,” Gina had said.

“What are you talking about?”

Gina smiled. “Keeping yourself behind glass.”

“I do not,” Jo had protested.

Gina had sat back, grinning at her. “Oh yeah? Name one man, then. Someone you really let yourself go with.”

“Well, I …”

“Just
one.
”

“Simon.”

Gina had hooted derision. “Name one within the last two years, I mean.”

Jo had pulled a face. “I get along.”

“Oh, yeah,” Gina said. And she had leaned forward and touched Jo’s arm. “Kid, I worry for you. I really do.”

“No need.”

“Right.” Gina had nodded. “No need. But you’ll fall. You’ll fall, girl, and when you do”—she’d wagged her finger—“when you do, girl, you’ll fall
hard
. You wait. Trust me. I know.”

Jo had thought little of it at the time. She could get a man if she wanted, she always reasoned. She just didn’t want. And there would be plenty of time and opportunity, when she was ready. And when she
was
ready, it would be on her terms, not his. Her time, not his. Her … She looked again at Doug.

Oh shit
, she thought.

She suddenly leaned forward. “Do you mind me asking how old you are?” she said.

“I was forty last week,” he told her. “Why? How old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

Doug nodded, a small smile on his face. “So …”

“Nothing,” she told him. The blush came back with a vengeance. “Nothing.”

She went back to a safer subject. “It seems like all sorts of things were wrong with this voyage from the start.”

“Yes.”

“Especially the lead.”

“That’s right. And to make matters worse, when they looked at William Braine’s body,” Doug said, “they found clostridium. In fact, they cultured it.”

Jo did a double-take. “It’s
alive?
The bacteria in his gut?”

“Yes.”

“From a hundred and sixty years ago?”

“Yes.”

“That’s incredible.”

“It is.”

“And what is clostridium?” Jo asked.

Doug shifted again in his seat, easing the leg a little from its precarious balance. “Well, you find it in soil,” he said. “It’s the main thing that breaks down organic matter. It’s the family of bacteria that causes tetanus and gangrene.”

“If it’s in soil, it must be very common,” Jo said.

Doug considered. “You mean, common enough to be on items outside the tins, and not just in them?”

“Maybe. Didn’t they have live cattle on the ships?”

“For a short time.”

“And hygiene wasn’t exactly pristine.…”

“It could have come from a variety of sources,” Doug acknowledged. “But when you have thousands of tins belowdecks, there’s a good primary source. And
Clostridium botulinum
flourishes in badly processed tinned food.”

Jo sat back in her chair. She looked hard at him. “So, what do you fancy for lunch?” she asked.

His laughter was punctuated by the ringing of the doorbell. A few seconds later they heard one of the other tenants of the house go down the stairs, a muffled conversation on the threshold, and then a second set of footsteps—lighter and more measured—coming up to Doug’s room.

“Expecting anyone?” Jo asked.

“No,” Doug said.

Alicia appeared in the doorway.

The first thing that occurred to Jo was that Alicia looked even more composed, more glacial, than she had a month ago. She had also taken extreme care over her appearance, it seemed. Her hair was a shade or two lighter than Jo remembered, and a little softer, curling onto her shoulder. Her makeup was faultless. She wore a linen suit and carried a large portfolio leather case. On one arm was a little woven basket with a cloth tidily tucked over its contents. Her gaze traveled very slowly over her husband, then onto Jo.

“Hello,” Jo said.

Alicia looked at her expressionlessly. She didn’t reply. Instead she walked over to Doug. She leaned down and kissed his cheek.

“This is Jo Harper,” Doug said.

“Yes, I know,” Alicia replied. She perched herself on the edge of the couch. She looked into his eyes. “How are you?” she asked him.

“I’m fine. Alicia, this is Jo Harper.”

“You don’t look fine,” she said. “In fact, you look utterly dreadful.”

Jo wriggled a little in her chair. Doug did not look dreadful. Tired, maybe. Fussed with the nagging irritation of the ache. But not dreadful.

“I am fine,” he repeated.

Alicia glanced down at the blankets. “Camping out,” she said. “It’s so unnecessary, darling.”

Jo saw a slight flinch at the
darling
. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

Alicia smiled. If anything was dreadful, Jo considered silently, it was the sight of that tight, hard mouth. The older woman turned her head in Jo’s direction. “More to the point, why are
you
here?” she asked Jo.

Doug visibly stiffened. “Alicia …”

“I read your piece,” Alicia said.

“Did you? What did you think?” Jo asked.

“Unpleasantly sensationalist,” Alicia told her.

“Really?” Jo said. “That’s lucky.”

“Lucky?” Alicia repeated.

“Lucky I don’t really care one way or the other,” Jo told her. “We’re just going to lunch. Would you like to come?”

“Lunch?” Alicia said. “That will be interesting to see. He can’t get down the stairs.”

“I can,” Doug said.

“I can help him,” Jo added.

Alicia stood up. “It won’t be necessary,” she announced. “I brought lunch with me.”

“I’m going out,” Doug objected.

“No,” Alicia said. “Not unless you’re coming home. That would be different.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Doug said.

Jo stood up. She picked up her bag. “I’ll go, I think.”

“No,” Doug retorted, holding up his hand.

“Good-bye,” Alicia said.

“Good-bye, Doug,” Jo said. “Nice to talk.”

“For Christ’s sake, she’s driven up from London,” Doug told Alicia. “You might at least be civil. I invited her, not you.”

“Let her drive back again,” Alicia said.

“She’s not bloody driving back again,” Doug yelled. “I’m going out to lunch with her.”

“I’ll catch you some other time,” Jo said.

“You will not catch me some other fucking time,” Doug said. He was struggling to get up, casting about him for his walking stick.

“Don’t be so absurd,” Alicia said.

“Why don’t you leave me alone,” Doug told her. “Jo …”

“How do you think you’ll get him downstairs?” Alicia demanded of Jo. “Do you realize that he hasn’t been out of this room since he got back?”

Jo looked at Doug. “No,” she said. “He didn’t tell me.”

“You see?” Alicia said to her husband.

“He has to go out sometime, I suppose,” Jo observed.

“Damn right,” Doug said.

Jo took a step forward. She put her hand on Doug’s arm. He gave her a look that was almost plaintive, like a dog being left in the house when everyone else is going for a walk in the country. For a second she thought that he was actually going to say,
Don’t leave me
.

“I’ll be back another time,” she said. “Really … it’s probably impractical—”

“I’ll show you out,” Alicia said.

“Thanks,” Jo told her, “but I can find my own way.”

Eleven

They were under sail, heading south in the Arctic summer.

It was August 1846.

And Gus was ill.

He didn’t know when it had started, or even that he was truly ill at all. But he knew that there was something different, especially in his dreams; dreams that invaded his waking hours. And he knew that he was thinner and lighter, and he didn’t look at his wrists and hands anymore, hiding them, whenever he could, under the sleeve cuffs of his shirt or jacket. His hands did not belong to him. They belonged to John.

John, on New Year’s Eve.

He was so ashamed of his conviction. How could he tell people that he had someone else’s hands? It was so fanciful as to be funny. Perhaps it
was
funny. Perhaps he was living a joke that someone was playing on him. Perhaps someone had whispered, one night before he went to sleep, that they were not his own hands but Torrington’s, and that thought had been sewn into his mind as if it were his own. Now he couldn’t rid himself of it. Inside the coffin, far behind them now on Beechey, were his own fingers. The yellow-white hands that had been tied against Torrington’s legs had been given to him.

He carried them like some terrible trophy.

He was so tired too; tired enough not to really follow where they were, even though they had left Beechey at a run one morning in July, scattering possessions, leaving behind even the stacks of tins that, lately, he had made into careful rows, and which some of the men intended to use for target practice. One of the mates left a pair of his best gloves, which he had pinned out to dry, weighed down by stones. Things of consequence and those of no consequence were scattered as they ran: empty coal bags; and pieces of canvas that they had been patching and ought to have been snatched up immediately, and not discarded.

Worst of all, to Gus’s lasting horror and dismay, as he charged down the shore, he heard a faint metallic noise on the stones, stopped, and could not see what it had been. Only when he was on the ship did he realize that he had managed to drop the key from Torrington’s little box, the key that he had promised to Torrington’s mother. It was too late by then, of course; they were already under way. And with terrible shame at his carelessness Gus stared back at Beechey, and the three wood-headboarded graves, which looked so forlorn as they left the inlet, so very far from home.

As they sailed, he did not feel inclined to work, although work was the principal purpose of his being there, and he had formerly been so very proud of all he could do. On some days he was in good spirits, and only the curious obsession with Torrington’s hands, and the shame of his own, stayed with him. On other days—the worst—a sensation of complete fatigue swept him under. Once his stomach cramped as he stood in line to climb the rigging, and he was excused, with a threat and the back of the hand. And he had hidden himself, trying to swallow down a strange, sweet taste like metal, longing for something from home … the milk from the cart. Plain milk with the top skimmed from it. He would have killed for a drink like that, for the feeling of it passing down his throat. For any taste at all that was not metal, or salt.