Athabasca by Alistair Maclean

Author:Alistair Maclean [MacLean, Alistair]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction:Misc
ISBN: 9780449200018
Publisher: Collins
Published: 1982-04-11T23:00:00+00:00

"How come?"

"Instinct, I guess." The bitterness in Houston's voice was unmistakable. "One of those finely honed instincts that comes into operation about ten hours too late."

"Meaning that Finlayson could have been saved if this instinct of yours had been operational ten hours ago?"

"Maybe -- but almost certainly not. John was murdered."

"Shot? Knifed? What?"

"Nothing like that. I didn't examine him. I knew that Mr. Morrison and you wouldn't want me to touch him. I didn't have to examine him. He's outside, it's thirty below, and all he's wearing is a linen shirt and jeans. He's not even got shoes on. That makes it murder."

Dermott said nothing, so Houston continued. "Apart from the fact that he'd never have crossed the outside doorstep voluntarily without his Arctic clothing, he'd never have been permitted to do so anyway. There are always people in the reception area, besides a person who mans the central telephone full-time. By the same token, it would have been impossible for anyone to carry him out."

"Lugging corpses is conspicuous. So?"

"He wouldn't even have had to be a corpse. I think he was silenced in his own bedroom and bundled straight out the window. The cold would have finished him off. Here come your friends. I'll go get some more flashlights."

Outside, the cold was breathtaking. The temperature, as Houston had said, stood at thirty below. The forty-mile-per-hour gale brought the combination of temperature and chill-factor down to minus seventy. Even double-wrapped as a polar bear, without an exposed inch of flesh, the fact remains that one still has to breathe -- and breathing in those conditions, until numbness intervenes, is a form of exquisite and refined agony. In the initial stages it is impossible to tell whether one is inhaling glacial air or superheated steam: a searing sensation dominates all else. The only way to survive for any length of time is to breathe pure oxygen from a suitably insulated tank -- but those are not readily available in the Arctic.

Houston led them around the right hand corner of the main building. After about ten yards he stopped, bent down and shone his flashlight between the supporting pilings. Other beams joined his.

A body lay face down, an insignificant heap already half-covered by the drifting snow. Dermott shouted, "You have sharp eyes, Houston. A lot of people would have missed this. Let's get him inside."

"Don't you want to examine him here, have a look around?"

"I do not. When this wind drops we'll come back and look for clues. In the meantime, I don't want to join Finlayson here."

"I agree," Morrison said. His teeth chattered audibly, and he was shaking with the cold.

Recovering the body from under the building provided the four men with no problem. Even if Finlayson had weighed twice as much, they would have had him out in seconds flat, such was their determination to regain shelter and warmth as soon as possible. As it was, Finlayson was slightly built, and handling him was like handling a 150-pound log, so solidly frozen had he become.

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