Tromsdalen Football Club hosted a party after the game, for the teams that took part and for the crowd who had stayed. It was held in a large room underneath the main stand, a row of white-cloth-covered tables running along one of the walls, bearing food and drink.
Once changed, the England team joined everybody else. Hatty, Lily and Adnan ahead. Kester wheeling Lesh in through the bottom of the stand, keeping back so they could talk. They both looked out towards the city to see that the impressive security operation was ongoing. A perimeter of armed vehicles was still there, along with dozens of troops.
‘Is she still here?’ Kester muttered, leaning into Lesh.
‘I didn’t see her leave,’ Lesh said. ‘I stayed outside to check.’
As they entered the function room, Kester stood on tiptoe to look round the room.
But it was Lesh who saw her first. ‘There she is,’ he spoke quietly into his mic. ‘Far corner. Underneath the stone steps. On her own.’
Hatty and Adnan – who were wired up to Lesh – saw the girl and walked across the room to intercept her as she started to move towards the door. They needed to find out who she was and why she’d been filming just as the attack took place. Of course they couldn’t ask her directly, but they could find out more about her.
Kester spoke into his mic as he walked. ‘Anything coming up on face recognition, Lesh?’
‘She doesn’t come up as known on the system,’ Lesh reported as Hatty and Adnan closed in on her. ‘But what I can tell you is that her facial features match those of a Canadian Inuit. What people used to call Eskimos. So she might have some sort of reason to be here: to protect Canada? There’s every chance she’s linked to White Fear. Keep that in mind.’
Hatty, now fully informed, had reached the girl.
‘Hello,’ the girl said in a friendly voice. ‘Well done this afternoon. You were very good.’
‘Thank you,’ Hatty said, noticing how dark the girl’s hair was and how beautiful she looked up close. Hatty was also surprised at the girl’s friendliness and that she hadn’t needed to engineer a conversation herself.
‘I’m Katiyana,’ the girl said, beaming. ‘I saw you at the hotel before the accident.’
Hatty smiled now. This girl wasn’t hiding anything. She’d not expected her to draw attention to that. The conversation began to feel more like a game.
‘We saw you too,’ Adnan cut in. ‘I’m Adnan. This is Hatty. So you’re from the Canada team?’
‘Yes. But we did not play well today.’
‘I don’t think anyone did,’ Adnan said. ‘It’s been a strange day.’
Then suddenly, and before they had the chance to talk any more, the girl’s expression changed completely, from smiling and chatty to something much darker. Adnan was worried it was aimed at him. That he had said something to offend, or worse, alert her, but then he heard Lesh’s voice in his earpiece.
‘Frank Hawk. Right behind you, Adnan.’
It happened quickly. ‘Hello, children. I’m Frank Hawk. I’m with the American negotiating team. I wanted to say thank you for the game today. It was very entertaining.’
‘Thanks,’ Hatty said, studying the man’s short grey hair, spotting a tiny shaving cut on his neck. Why had he come over when they were all talking – just as he had with Lily and Lesh? Had he chosen that moment especially – or was it a coincidence? Did he suspect the Squad? And did that mean that they should suspect him of something?
‘I should probably want Canada to win, being American,’ Hawk went on. ‘But my great-grandfather was from England, so I was rooting for you kids today.’
Adnan nodded. The American was being friendly, but he noticed Katiyana was not.
‘Well, thanks again for the entertainment, kids,’ the American finished. ‘Keep playing well … until you play the USA.’
The three children stayed quiet for a few seconds as Frank Hawk moved away to speak to some other people. Katiyana was still scowling.
‘Do you know him?’ Adnan asked, wanting to understand why the girl’s manner had changed so dramatically.
‘I know of him,’ Katiyana replied. ‘He’s not a good man.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Why? What’s he done wrong?’
‘You know who he is?’ the Canadian girl said after a long pause.
‘No,’ Hatty said. ‘Should we?’
‘He’s Frank Hawk. He’s a businessman. He likes people to think he’s trying to help the world by talking at conferences, like the one they’re having here. But all he’s interested in is making money from his oil companies.’
‘Oil?’ Adnan asked, feeling Hatty elbow him in the ribs. He was showing too much specific interest.
‘Yes, oil. And the more oil he drills and burns, the more the ice melts up here – and in Canada. He says he’s an expert about the Arctic. He says the ice isn’t melting. He lies. I live in the Arctic. I know. He only says these things so that he can drill for more oil. He pays scientists to lie and to say that they’ve done experiments that prove there’s no such thing as global warming.’
Lesh – who could hear the conversation in his earpiece – made mental notes. Things he wanted to find out more about. As much about the girl as Frank Hawk. She was a suspect now too.
‘Have they proved that there is global warming though?’ Hatty asked, trying to sound rude, so that the girl might react badly to her and give something away.
‘Yes, they have. I have,’ the girl said. ‘I live in Nunavut in Canada. People are losing everything where I live. The ice is melting and that means the way we live and make our money is coming to an end. Our way of life is disappearing. People who say it’s not true have no idea. No idea at all.’
‘You sound like you’d do anything to change people’s minds,’ Hatty said, deliberately trying to provoke Katiyana further.
Suddenly Hatty heard a familiar voice behind her.
‘Hi.’ It was Rio. Rio with Finn.
‘Hello.’ Katiyana smiled sweetly, making her look even more beautiful than ever.
‘I’m Rio. I’m the England captain.’
‘I know.’ Katiyana blushed. ‘I saw you on the pitch. You were good.’
And Hatty realized that their conversation was over.
The five Squad members chose to walk back to the hotel from the TUIL Arena. Their route took them through a housing estate and past a modern white cathedral to the Bruvegen Bridge. They needed to go over the bridge from Tromsdalen back to Tromsø.
The air was cooling. Once they were on the bridge, the wind that passed down the channel buffeted them. A cold, icy wind. They could feel the bridge shuddering as the air currents moved around it. With no mountainsides or buildings to shield them from the Arctic weather, they were very exposed. But it was a beautiful setting, so the wind didn’t worry them.
The children saw two things as they walked across the bridge. The first was a huge red-and-white boat heading in from the south, HURTIGRUTEN written on its side. As they saw it, they heard it too: its horn filled the fjords with a deep blast of sound that echoed from mountainside to mountainside.
‘That’s the Hurtigruten,’ Lesh explained. ‘It’s a boat service that runs up and down the Norwegian coast. There are a few boats going north and south at any one time. It takes a week to travel the length of the country.’
The other thing they all saw from the bridge was a man standing exactly halfway across, hundreds of metres above the choppy water. And he looked familiar.
‘Isn’t that …?’ Kester asked.
‘Sergei Esenin,’ Lesh confirmed. ‘No question. Just like he looks in the photos we saw.’ ‘What’s he doing here?’ Lily asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Kester replied. ‘But is it normal to stop on a bridge and just stare into the water?’
‘Well, we’re doing it,’ Hatty pointed out.
‘True,’ Kester conceded.
The Squad carried on talking as they moved past Esenin, covering the sort of trivia they knew would sound normal. Football. Who was winning and who was losing back in England.
The Russian’s eyes were so fixed on the channel of water beneath him that he didn’t seem to notice them anyway. He looked young and extremely fit. Not at all how they imagined a scientist to be.
When they were safely past him, Kester asked the question everybody had lodged in their minds. ‘What was he looking for?’
‘Something in the water?’ Lily suggested.
‘Or under it?’ Lesh added. ‘A Russian submarine?’
‘The warhead,’ Hatty said. ‘He knows it’s coming in and he’s monitoring it. Maybe.’
‘I think it’s time we reported back to the Prime Minister,’ Kester concluded. ‘We’re starting to get some ideas about what’s going on – and who might be involved.’
The five children picked up their pace, heading towards the conference hotel, as a vicious hailstorm swept off the mountains.