Blue Ice

Then the moon rose over the lip of the mountains. The snow shone white and cold. The piled-up ice of the Suphelle glacier glistened a cold green. The waters of the fjord looked blacker than ever. As I stood back and handed my pick to Curtis, I glanced past the church to the village. All was quiet as the grave. Yet I had the awful feeling that we were being watched, that at any moment irate villagers might rush to protect their little graveyard from this sacrilege. ‘See anybody?’ Dick asked in a whisper.

‘No,’ I answered. My voice was harsh.

He leaned on his shovel and watched the village.

‘Give me that,’ I said and took the shovel from him and began lifting out the earth loosened by the pick Curtis wielded.

Every time I paused I was conscious of the moonlight and the silence. The little torrent hissed and gurgled over the boulders to the fjord. The stillness of the mountains stood over us, cold and remote. We must be visible for miles.

The earth became softer, less frozen. The grave pit deepened until suddenly the pick struck wood. In a few minutes we had cleared the soil from the rough pine coffin. Then we bent down and lifted it out of its shallow grave.

And at that moment Dahler stiffened beside me. ‘Somebody is coming,’ he hissed.

‘Where?’ I whispered.

His head turned towards the stream. ‘Something moved down there.’

‘You’re getting jumpy,’ Dick whispered.

I turned back to the coffin. Curtis had the pick again. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Open it up.’

But he didn’t move. He, too, was staring down towards the stream where it ran into the fjord. ‘There is somebody there,’ x said. ‘Look!’ He seized my arm and pointed.

In the moonlight I saw a figure moving across the bed of the stream. It was white in the moonlight — a human figure dressed m white. It stopped and looked up towards us. Then it began ť move again. It crossed the torrent and started up the slope.

‘Who can it be?’ Dick whispered.

I caught a glimpse of a scarlet jumper and I knew who it was. ‘Open up that coffin,’ I snapped at Curtis.

But he didn’t move. A moment later Jill stopped, facing us. Her breath came in great sobs of exertion and her eyes were wide in her white face. She was wearing a light-coloured raincoat. It was torn and muddied. Her slacks were wet to me knee.

I stepped forward. ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ I said.

But she was staring at the coffin, lying aslant on the pile of loose earth. ‘How could you?’ she breathed. And she began to sob uncontrollably.

I looked at her torn clothing and realised how she must have hurried through the darkness and the moonlight along the rough foreshore. ‘I had to,’ I answered roughly. Then I turned to Curtis. ‘Open it up,’ I said.

‘No,’ he answered. ‘You shouldn’t have done this without her permission.’

‘If you don’t do it, I will,’ I said, and seized the pick from him. I heard Jill cry out as I brought the point down into the crack between the top and sides. With a splintering of wood, I prised up the top. It came away in one piece. Few nails had been used. I ripped it up with my hands and flung it back. Curtis had pulled Jill away. Her face was buried against his chest and she was sobbing. Very gently I pulled the white shroud away from the body.

Then I shuddered. The body was a mangled mass of frozen blood and flesh. The head was smashed in, the neck broken and the left arm and hand crushed to a pulp. I straightened up. How was I to tell whether Farnell had died by accident or design? The body was so broken and destroyed that I couldn’t even recognise it as Farnell. It wasn’t decomposed at all. The frozen ground had seen to that. It was just that there was nothing left by which to recognise him. The face was pulp and the hand … I suddenly bent down. Why had that hand been so badly battered? Of course it could have happened naturally. He’d fallen a great height. Boulders might have crashed down on top of him. But I’d seen a lot of accidents — accidents in mines where men had been crushed by fallen rock. Hardly ever had I seen a man as badly smashed as this. It was almost as though the body had been deliberately smashed in such a way that it wouldn’t be recognisable. That left hand. I picked up the broken, lacerated member. The torn flesh and congealed blood were stiff and frozen. In the light of my torch I saw that the bones of the fingers were all crushed and the splinters stuck out like sharp teeth from the flesh. I examined the little finger. The top two joints were missing, just as Farnell’s had been missing. But a long sinew stuck out from a torn joint.

A sudden urge of excitement swept through me. What other identification marks had Farnell got? I couldn’t think of any, but surely there must be something, some mark on his body. I turned to Jill. ‘Jill,’ I said. ‘Is there anything by which you would know George Farnell, other than his face and the little finger on his left hand?’