The Split - Sharon Bolton Page 0,14

known as Flick now? That shouldn’t bother him. It does.

‘Aye,’ the man says and then he too looks Freddie up and down. ‘She said something about going up the coast for a couple of days.’

The woman nods. ‘That’s right. She was stocking up on provisions.’

Another customer approaches the counter, standing far too close to Freddie. ‘To Bird Island, wasn’t it?’ the man says.

‘I thought that’s what she said. Thanks, love. That’ll be nine pounds fifty.’

‘And is that far?’ Freddie asks. There are tiny islands dotted all around South Georgia. Without the chart he can’t remember them all.

‘’Bout as far as you can get,’ the woman tells him. ‘Why don’t you ask up at the base?’

‘I’ll do that,’ he says. ‘Thanks.’

* * *

At the rear of the museum, out of reach of the wind, Freddie unrolls his chart. Bird Island is at the most north-westerly tip of South Georgia, a good sixty, maybe seventy miles away. He cannot possibly reach her there. Panic churns inside him. He cannot have travelled so far to have it all slip away.

He wants to talk, that’s all. To explain. And maybe hold her again, just once. Just the tips of her fingertips will do.

He can’t give up now.

Jogging back down to the beach, he catches the skipper of the launch before it sets off back to the Snow Queen.

‘I’m going up to the scientific base.’ He points to the buildings across the bay. ‘I know someone who works up there. I’ll get them to bring me back to the ship, probably after dinner, so don’t worry about collecting me.’

The boatman frowns, but it is early in the day and he has a lot of other passengers to ferry to shore.

Freddie sets off walking towards King Edward Point.

12

Felicity

If Grytviken is a grim place, Husvik is worse. Bigger than its sister settlement, long since forbidden to visitors, it lies in the southern arm of Stromness Bay like a malodorous corpse. Grytviken might be dreadful, but Husvik is dangerous. Riddled with asbestos and dripping with broken glass, Husvik is entirely unstable. More than half the settlement’s buildings – the catcher’s store, guano factory and carpenter’s workshop – have caved in on themselves and the frequent gales send their roof tiles scurrying around the bay like missiles. The few buildings still intact seem to be holding together just long enough to collapse on an unwary intruder.

Oil tanks, pipework, factory chimneys and vast sheets of corrugated iron lie strewn around the settlement in disordered heaps while the skulls of long-dead animals grin up from the shale. When the winds blow down from the mountains the whole unruly mess jumps and sings and dances like a ghostly percussion band.

Felicity’s heart sinks as she steers into the bay. She hates Husvik and is already regretting her decision to come here. She is hardly any distance from King Edward Point by boat and Freddie has seen her. He might persuade people to come looking. He might get hold of a boat somehow. He could be here within hours.

Scattered along Husvik’s foreshore is a graveyard of ship’s propellers, and a huge old whaling ship is beached near the water’s edge. The colour of dried blood, it lies on its side, beaten and exhausted, denied even the watery grave of other shipwrecks.

For a moment, Felicity is tempted to turn the RIB, head out to sea again, but there is nowhere else to go. Apart from King Edward Point and Bird Island, the only place on South Georgia where people can stay in anything close to comfort is the BAS station at Husvik. And since she left base, the weather has turned. A storm is getting up. She has no choice.

She avoids the crumbling jetty. Seals risk it, and most of them weigh more than she, but they’ll survive a plummet into icy water when the rotting planks give way. She might not. Instead, once she reaches the shallows, she cuts the engine and paddles into the shell of an old boat house. Only when the RIB is securely tied does she unload her stuff. The rucksack goes onto her shoulders. The rest of the kit she carries in two holdalls.

The BAS station is housed in the villa that once belonged to the manager of the whaling station. It is only half a mile along the waterfront, but the rail locomotives that would have made the journey easy in the old days lie rusting beneath scattered stones. Nor can the coast path be attempted. Since she