Ice Diaries (17 page)

“Dear me.” Archie’s
mouth straightened into a firm line. “I’m on my way to
speak to him. I wanted to call here first in case there’d been
some mix-up.”

I had to make him see this was a really
bad idea. “Ooh, I wouldn’t do that, Archie. It wouldn’t
do any good, and he might get nasty with you.”

The stove lid clanged down. Morgan came
towards us. “He doesn’t like being told he’s wrong.
He’d chew you up and spit you out. Or rather, get Mac to.”

“Nonetheless, someone needs to
tell him.”

I said, “He’s probably
going today. Morgan thinks he will. No one got hurt. Honestly, I’d
leave it.”

Archie lined his glasses up at me,
concerned. “If you say so, Tori.” His expression was
dubious.

At that moment there was a roar of
engines and we got up to look. The noise got louder, then all six
snowmobiles flashed past the window in a spray of snow.

“There, you’ve missed him
now anyway. Have a cup of tea instead.”

“I’d love a cup of tea.”
He put his jacket by the stove. “I don’t like you being
so near him. What a blessing Morgan’s here to protect you. Oh,
Greg asked me to tell you he wouldn’t call in today. I think he
was afraid of bumping into Mike.”

I made tea and Archie sat with us and
drank it, talking about the situation. Reading between the lines,
Nina had thought Archie’s visit unnecessary. She had totally
fallen under Mike’s spell and wouldn’t hear a word
against him, dismissing what Greg had told her, saying he must have
got it wrong. Before he left, Archie said to me, “Do take care.
If there’s anything I can do, just ask.”

He plodded off through the soft fresh
snow, turning to wave. Waving back I said, “He’s such a
nice man. Brave, too, being prepared to tell Mike off.”

“So the vicar fancies you.”

I turned to stare at him. “What
do you mean? No he doesn’t. People can be brave and kind
without fancying you.”

Morgan shrugged.

I said, “He’s a married man
with principles. And a lot older than me.”

“What’s that got to do with
it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

I went and chose a book to read and
settled on the sofa. Morgan stood at the windows with his binoculars.
The snow had almost stopped. Suddenly he said, “They’re
going to search the Gherkin.”

I got up and joined him at the window
and took a look. The snowmobiles were lined up outside the window
with the missing glass and I could see people moving about. They must
have followed his trail from the night before.

“Did you leave the gold there?”

“Yes. He’ll have a job
finding it, though.”

“Why? Where did you hide it?”

“I split it into seven lots,
plastic bags sellotaped into tight packages, and hid it in different
places all over the Gherkin. He’s probably looking in spaces
big enough to hide a backpack.”

“It’s an enormous
building.”

“Yup.” He smiled a wicked
smile. “They’ve got no chance. They’ll be really
pissed off by evening.”

Morgan spent most of the day at the
window. While he was sitting there, he wrote out a list of where to
find six of the bags of gold and the ACE. An hour before sunset, we
heard the snowmobiles return. Ten minutes later Big Mac appeared
outside my balcony on a black and red Polaris pulling a trailer –
a proper one, not a car roof box. Morgan let him in, and he silently
handed over keys and a plastic bag. He barely glanced at me. Morgan
peered inside the bag and put it on the counter, went outside and
started the engine, turned it off, came back and sat down.

“Okay.”

After an expectant pause, Mac said,
“Mike wants the location of the ACE and the gold.”

“He won’t go now it’s
getting dark. He can have it tomorrow as he’s leaving.”

“He’ll no be happy.”

“Tough shit. I told him the deal.
Call for it when you’re ready to go.”

Mac left. He didn’t look happy
either. When he’d gone, Morgan said, “That’s
capitulation.”

“So why make him wait?”

“Because I can.”

“I’m not sure it’s a
good idea to rub his nose in it.”

“I doubt it makes any
difference.” He smiled. “If you want a practical reason,
I don’t want him sabotaging the Polaris before he goes. It’s
a pity I can’t bring it inside.” He looked fondly at the
machine. “It’s nice to have it back.”

“Why did you take the ACE, then,
instead?”

“Because it was Mike’s.”

The evening passed slowly. Given the
hostility between the two men I felt on edge, waiting for something
to happen, and Morgan had a watchful air. I suggested playing cards,
but he didn’t want to, so I read. He paced about or sat by the
windows. We went to bed early. I slept well, so I don’t know if
he did.

The following morning we’d got up
and had breakfast when we heard the whine and judder of engines. Five
snowmobiles stopped a hundred yards away. Four of them towed trailers
and one had two passengers. Big Mac detached himself from the group
and walked across the snow to my balcony, climbed over the railing
and came in.

“We’re headed south,”
he said.

Morgan handed him the sheet of paper.
Mac read it slowly, his frown deepening. He got to the end and looked
up. “The ACE isnae working? And you buried it so we’ll
have to dig it out?” He shook his head. “Mike’ll no
be happy about this.”

“You keep saying that, like I
give a fuck.”

Mac gave him a dark look before he
left. “Maybe you should.”

We sat side by side watching them for a
bit through our binoculars. The sun shone so we had a clear view. It
seemed to take an age. The sleds parked at the Gherkin, then four
people walked round the building out of sight, presumably to disinter
the ACE. How would Eddie be managing with his smashed nose? It must
be painful, but at least he’d had BJ who would know what to do
about it. The other two, whom I guessed to be Mike and Serena, went
inside through the broken window on the trail of the gold. You’d
think with all that glass we’d have been able to see them now
and again, but the building was too vast and shiny and far away.

“Where did you hide it?”

“I put most of the packages in
office drawers in the middle of big areas full of desks.” He
replied absently, fiddling with his focusing wheel. “I wrote
details of how many paces north etcetera. He’s only got to
follow my instructions. One’s right at the top in a microwave
behind the bar, twenty-eight storeys up – that’ll give
him some exercise, if he didn’t get enough yesterday. Amazing
view from up there. Another’s below the reception desk at
ground level in the dark with the rats. Serena’ll like that.”
There was satisfaction in his voice.

“Don’t you have any
sympathy for them? After all, you were with them for a year, most of
them. I’d have expected you to be more friendly.”

“Mike believed in divide and
rule. He didn’t want us to get on too well. He used to say,
‘You have to earn your place on my team. That sled is yours as
long as I say it is, it’s not yours by right. Underperform and
I’ll leave you behind.’ Each sled’s got two keys,
and Mike keeps all the spares on his keyring. When he invited BJ to
join us, everyone was waiting to see who’d be dumped. He took
his time telling us, he wanted to keep us unsure, competing with each
other. That doesn’t make you feel friendly.”

Morgan put his binoculars down.
“They’ll be a while.” He pulled his sweater over
his head. “Come on. While we’re waiting I’ll carry
on turning you into a lean mean fighting machine.”

It was nearly lunchtime before Mike’s
lot left. Whenever we took a breather we checked up on what they were
doing, so we saw when they brought the ACE round the building and
worked on the engine. At last the whole group mounted the sleds and
disappeared in a flurry of snow, heading away from us towards the
south. I’d thought Mike might call at Nina’s to say
goodbye; the fact that he didn’t bother made me hope he had no
intention of coming back.

Morgan put down his binoculars. “I’ll
leave tomorrow morning. You’ve got till tonight to decide to
come with me.”

“
Whether
to come with
you.”

“That’s what I said.”

After lunch Morgan took me behind him
on the Polaris to collect the last package of gold and his
belongings. The passenger seat had a backrest and handles at the
side, so I didn’t have to cling on to him. I loved whizzing
across the snow after a year of trudging through the damn stuff.
Morgan picked up on my excitement. He dropped off the trailer at the
Gherkin and we went down to Tower Bridge and east to the unbroken
expanse of snow that shows where the Thames lies frozen. To the west
I could see the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye.

“No worries here about catching
on buried buildings,” he shouted over his shoulder,
accelerating. At top speed he turned and curvetted over mounds of
snow, carving deep lines over the virgin surface, kicking up a spray
just to show off and make me gasp. It was huge fun. I made him
promise to take Greg for a ride before he left.

Back at the Gherkin he led me to an
executive’s office on the third floor above the snowline, and
lifted a large dead plant out of its container. Beneath was a
sellotaped black Primark bag full of gold. Next we went up to where
he had left his things. As soon as we opened the door from the lobby
I knew something was wrong from the smell. Morgan’s face
darkened. We rounded the corner into the coffee-making area where he
had camped out. The vile stench of burnt plastic was overwhelming.
Someone had piled Morgan’s possessions into a big heap, tipped
petrol over everything and set it alight. Above, black goo dripped
from the blackened ceiling tiles, and a sticky film darkened the
glass and every surface. The flames’ heat had cracked the
windows and buckled the steel counter. At the centre of the burnt-out
pile you could make out the remains of the trailer, the generator and
tins of food.

I said, “That’s just
unpleasant. A waste of resources.”

Morgan stood looking at the mess for a
moment, his eyes stony. But he only said, “Predictable. It’s
a drag, I’ll have to collect everything all over again.”

“I’ll give you a hand.”

Morgan crossed to a conference room on
the far side of that floor. Inside was a long wood-veneered table
surrounded by chairs. He ducked beneath the table. There was the
sound of tape ripping, and he emerged with a plastic bag full of
something.

“More gold?” But it
couldn’t be, they collected the other bags …

“Semtex.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Mike’s when I was looking
for the spare part. I took the lot. I made up blocks of plasticene to
the right size and used the same wrappers, so he won’t know
till he goes to use it. Then he’ll notice it’s a bit
brightly-coloured for Semtex.”

He’d have got the plasticene from
Argos. I’d helped Gemma make animals with it once or twice.
“Lucky for them you didn’t leave it with the rest of your
stuff.”

He shook his head. “Semtex
doesn’t explode if you burn it, just makes poisonous fumes. You
need a blasting cap to detonate it.”

We descended flights of glass and steel
stairs once more. So now Mike had got his gold again, but lost his
Semtex. There was a lot in the bag. Morgan hadn’t needed all of
it; he’d wanted to wind up Mike. He’d been unable to
resist; had learned nothing from the gold episode. I saw with sudden
clarity that neither of those two men was ever going to back down or
walk away. They hadn’t got it in them. I remembered the
proverb,
before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two
graves
. I doubted burning Morgan’s belongings had made Mike
feel he’d got his own back; merely torching a few possessions
wasn’t enough. I could only hope they’d never meet again.
Surely once they were both out of London the chances of encountering
each other would be slim. On the way down Morgan hid the gold back
where it had come from, being careful not to leave tell-tale traces
of compost on the floor or the edge of the plant container. He said
it was better not to keep it at my place.

“What did you have, that he
burned, I mean?”

“Trailer, generator, tent,
sleeping bag, clothes, stores and general supplies. The problem’s
the generator, it’s a bitch losing it. I was lucky finding that
one, I’ll never find another. The other stuff’s
straightforward.” He glanced at me as we went down the stairs
side by side. “It gives you more time to pack and say goodbye
to everyone.”

“I haven’t decided if I’m
coming.”

“You’ve decided. You’re
just not admitting it yet.”

Ice Diaries ~ Lexi Revellian

I got Morgan to drop me off at
Claire’s. I told him I’d join him later at the Old Street
shops. Paul let me in then went back to installing a stove in the
bedroom, aided by Gemma. In the living room, Claire sat on her sofa
cradling Toby, her dreamy, contented expression making me think of a
Madonna and Child painting. It seemed a shame to interrupt her. I
plumped myself down.

“Have a coffee.”

“No thanks, I’m not
stopping. Claire, I need your advice. Morgan’s going south on
his snowmobile, and he wants me to go with him. Leave here and get to
where there isn’t any snow. D’you think I should?”

Claire’s gaze left Toby’s
face to focus on me. “What do
you
think? That’s
the main thing.”

“I don’t know him well
enough to make a decision. I don’t even know his first name.”

“You could always ask. Mike
didn’t seem to think much of him, going by what he said at
Nina’s. Even before he said all that about stealing his gold
and the sled and fighting Eddie.”

“He was lying, I think. And
Morgan’s given him back the gold.” I told Claire what had
happened after the dinner party.