ONE

January, and East Anglia under a mantle of snow. It was still falling, tiny flakes driving across the flatness of the airfield, hangars edged with icicles and only the cleared runway cutting a black swathe through the bitter cold. I had left the guardroom till last, knowing they would have kept it warm. There was damp rot in the floorboards under the reception window, worm in door lintels that were beginning to rot at the base. I completed the entries on my clipboard and stood there for a moment checking back through my notes.

The Admin Sergeant, who had been escorting me round the various messes and quarters, returned from answering the phone. ‘Station Commander would like you to join him for a drink before you leave.’

I didn’t say anything, my mind concentrated on the job in hand, wondering whether I had missed anything. Twenty-three pages of notes and tomorrow I would have to cost it all out, produce a report, and an estimate, of course. It was an old station, mostly built in the war years, the quarters patched again and again, windows and doors largely of untreated wood protected only by paint. There were huts, too, that were beginning to crumble. It would be quite a big job, and whether Pett, Poldice got it would depend on my figures, as would the profit they made, and this was my first big survey since the company had been taken over.

I closed my clipboard. The Sergeant repeated the invitation and I asked him, why the Station Commander? I had done RAF stations before and it was the Wing Commander Admin who had always looked after me, never the Station Commander.

‘Couldn’t say, sir.’ He glanced at the clock over the desk. ‘He’s waiting for you in the officers’ mess, so if you’ve finished I’ll take you across.’

It was past one and no sign of a rise in temperature as we walked along the frozen roadway past the main gate where the security men huddled for warmth in their glassed-in box. The sound of engines warming up was loud on the freezing wind and our breath smoked. The Great Ouse would be edged with ice today right down to King’s Lynn, and my little yawl, lying in its gut on the Blakeney salt marshes, would be frozen in.

The Group Captain was waiting for me in the main bar, a tall, dark man with an aquiline nose and a craggy face. There was a wing commander and a squadron leader with him, but he didn’t introduce me and they drifted away as he asked me what I would have to drink. When I said a whisky mac, he nodded – ‘Good choice, but I’m flying this afternoon.’ He was drinking orange juice.

The bar was dark, the lights on, and as soon as I had been handed my drink he took me over to a table in the far corner. ‘You know a good deal about ships, I believe. Wooden ships.’ He waved me to a chair.

‘Do you mean sailing ships?’

He nodded.

I told him I had been on a few. ‘Sail training ships.’ The grateful warmth of the drink seeped down into my stomach. ‘And I’ve a boat of my own,’ I added. ‘Wood, not fibreglass. Why?’

‘Old ships,’ he said, not answering my question. ‘Square-riggers.’ He reached into the buttoned pocket of his uniform and pulled out several folded sheets of paper. ‘This time last year I was in the Falklands.’ He was silent a moment, looking down at the sheets. His mind seemed to have drifted back to his period on the islands. ‘Strange place,’ he murmured. ‘The most extraordinary command I ever had.’ He lifted his head, his eyes focussing on me again. ‘How long do you reckon a wooden ship would last in the Antarctic, in the sort of icy conditions you get down there?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Depends on a lot of things – the type of timber used in the construction of the hull, its condition, the latitude you’re talking about and the range of temperature.’ And I added, ‘It’s also a question of how many months of the year it’s’ subjected to freezing, and particularly whether the timbers are immersed all the time. If the air has been allowed to get at them …’ I hesitated, staring at him and wondering what was in his mind. ‘So many variables, it’s impossible to say without knowing all the circumstances.’

He nodded, opening out the folded sheets and smoothing them against his knee.

They were photocopies of what looked like pages from a notebook, very creased and the scribble illegible from where I was sitting. ‘You’re thinking of the hulks still lying around the Falklands, are you?’ I asked him. One of our directors had gone out there at the time they were preparing the SS Great Britain for the long haul back to the original graving dock in Bristol where she had been built. He gave slide shows locally of the pictures he had taken, and since wood preservation was still the company’s main business, many of the pictures were close-ups of the wrecked and abandoned ships he had seen around the islands. ‘If you want information about the Falkland hulks, you’d better ask Ted Elton,’ I told him.

‘No, not around the Falklands. I don’t know where, that’s the trouble.’ He tapped the sheets he was holding. ‘These are pages from a glaciologist’s notebook. They were found on his body and I had them copied before sending his things back to London.’ He passed them across to me. ‘He was probably on the flight deck waiting for his first sight of the Ice Shelf, otherwise he wouldn’t have seen it.’ And he added slowly, ‘Or did he imagine it?’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘A ship. A big sailing ship. Locked in the ice.’

‘An old ship? You said something about an old ship, a square-rigger.’

He nodded. ‘Read what he says.’ He passed me the sheets and I held them up to the light.

There were three of them stapled together and the first words that caught my eye were: Masts gone, of course. Just the stumps, all coated in ice. The deck, too. All I could see was the outline. An old wooden ship. I’m certain. Unfortunately my camera was back aft with my gear. Three masts and what looked like gun ports, the deck a clear stretch of ice bounded by battered bulwarks, and aft of the wheel …

I turned to the second page, the writing suddenly very shaky, almost illegible, as though the aircraft had hit turbulence.… a figure. The helmsman, frozen to the wheel. That’s what it looked like. The ghost of a man, and the ghost of a ship, all draped in white, snow or ice, only the outline showing. And then it was gone, my eyes blinking in the ice glare. I almost didn’t believe what I had seen, but this is what it looked like … And on the third page he had drawn a rough sketch of the vessel.

‘Have you shown this to anyone with a knowledge of old ships?’ I asked the Group Captain.

‘I haven’t personally,’ he said, ‘but the National Maritime have reported on it. They say it looks like an early nineteenth-century frigate. But of course that’s largely guesswork. The sketch is too rough for anybody to be certain, and the question they raise is the same that everybody has raised who has read those pages – did Sunderby really see it or did he hallucinate? His name was Charles Sunderby.’ He paused, tugging at the lobe of his left ear. ‘He had been home on sick leave, his trouble apparently requiring psychiatric treatment.’ He said it hesitantly. ‘The effect of a winter at McMurdo. He had done several Sno-Cat journeys to icebergs out in the pack, examining the heavy layering that apparently takes place when new ice is forced up over older ice.’ He turned his head, looking suddenly straight at me. ‘So, back to my original question: could a wooden vessel of the late 1700s, or early 1800s, survive almost two centuries in that part of the world? I know in Alaska and the north of Canada, where there are no termites, wood can last almost indefinitely. The gun carriages at Fort Churchill, they go back to the formative years of the Hudson Bay Company.’

‘It depends very much on the degree of humidity in the summer months,’ I said. ‘But even if the timber could last, would the ship?’

He nodded. ‘Knowing what the winds are like down there you’re probably right. But I met the man. We had a drink together the night before he left.’ He sat there for a moment, staring down at his glass, lost in thought. The odd thing was he was scared. That’s why it sticks in my mind so.’ He spoke slowly, reminiscing. ‘A glaciologist and scared of the ice. That’s why he’d been home on leave, to sort his problem out. Or did he have some sort of premonition? Do you believe in that sort of thing?’

He looked up at me, his grey eyes wide. Not the sort of man who’d know about fear, I thought. And then he said, ‘Poor bugger. I nearly lent him my amulet – the one given me by an Ethiopian just before he died. We were on the grain run from Djibouti. Grain and rice, and I had pulled him aboard at the last minute, thinking to hell with regulations, I’d save one of the poor bastards. But I didn’t succeed and he gave me this …’

He put his hand inside his shirt and pulled out a face like a sunflower carved out of some pale-coloured stone. ‘Worn it ever since.’ And he added, ‘We all of us have moments when we need to grip on to something – something that will reassure us that the luck hasn’t run out. So I never gave it to him and his plane disappeared into the ice.’ He slipped the amulet back inside his shirt, silent again.

‘When did it happen?’ I asked him.

‘What? Oh, the plane. Let’s see. I’ve been back almost six months now and it happened just before I left MPA. Funny thing, you know, it was only by chance that he caught that particular flight. He had been flown out from somewhere in the States in an Argentine Air Force plane. He was Argentinian, you see. At least, that’s what his passport said. But he was an Ulsterman really. His nature, I mean – very puritan. He landed up at the Uruguayan base near Montevideo, then hitched a ride to Mount Pleasant on one of our aircraft that had been diverted to await an engine replacement. All chance – haphazard airlifts that were like stepping stones to oblivion, the final step when he hitched the ride on that American plane. It landed in my bailiwick because of an electrical fault, and as soon as my engineers had sorted it out it took off, and that’s the last anybody saw of it.’

‘How did you come by the notebook then?’ I asked him.

‘A big German icebreaker found the bodies. They were lying out on a layered floe of old ice about thirty miles north-west of the Ice Shelf, not far from where Shackleton’s Endurance was crushed. No sign of the plane, no flight recorder, nothing to indicate what happened, just the bodies lying there as though they had only had time to scramble out onto the floe before the plane sank.’ His hand was fingering the lobe of his left ear again. ‘Very strange. The whole thing is very strange. The only written record we have of anything that happened on that flight is there in Sunderby’s notes on ice conditions and his sighting of that extraordinary Flying Dutchman of a vessel.’ He sighed. ‘Could he have imagined it? He was a scientist, very precise in his speech …’ He hesitated, shaking his head. ‘Well, it’s past history now and it all happened a long way away. A very long way away.’ He repeated the words thoughtfully as though he needed to remind himself that time had moved on and he was back in Britain.

He glanced at his watch and got to his feet. ‘I’ve got to go now. A young pilot who’s a wizard in the air, but can’t handle money, or women it seems.’ And he added, ‘Expensive boys, fighter pilots. Cost the taxpayer a hell of a lot to train them. And after I’ve done my best to sort the poor devil out …’ He smiled at me, a sudden flash of charm. ‘One of the joys of flying is that you leave everything behind you on the ground. Including that muck.’ He nodded at the tall windows where the light had almost vanished as snow swept across the flatness of the airfield. ‘At fifteen thousand feet I should hit blue sky and sunshine.’

I handed the notes back to him and as we went towards the door he said, ‘It was the AOC reminded me of it. Had a visit from him last week. He’d just come back from Chile where they had flown him down to Punta Arenas, that base of theirs down in the Magellan Strait. There was a lot of talk apparently of an old frigate with an Argentinian crew and flying the Argentine flag having been sailed through the Strait just after the war en route to their base in the far south of Tierra del Fuego. Apparently some woman, a relative of one of the crew, had recently been making enquiries.’

He paused as we reached the big carpeted foyer at the front entrance of the Mess. ‘You all right for transport?’ And when I told him my car was parked behind the building he took me down a corridor that led past the cloakrooms and showed me a short cut through some offices. ‘Strange,’ he said as we parted, ‘the way that episode stays in my mind. Those bodies tying out on the ice, and Sunderby’s notebook recording ice conditions in the Weddell Sea, nothing else, and at the end of all that scientific stuff, those three pages describing the glimpse he’d had of a sort of ghost ship locked in the ice.’ He shook his head, his features dark and sombre as though the man’s death was something personal, his memory a physical hurt. ‘Drive carefully,’ he said as he opened the door on to a brick passageway. ‘Everything’s freezing out there.’ His hand was on my shoulder, almost pushing me out, the door shutting abruptly behind me as though in talking to me he had revealed too much of himself.

At the end of the passage I walked out into the bitter wind that whistled across from the open space of the airfield to find my car with the windscreen iced over. I sprayed it, but even so I had to run the engine for a good five minutes before I had even a peephole I could see through, and all the way back the roads were icy as hell despite the salting, the weather conditions so bad I didn’t reach King’s Lynn until past four.

The factory was in the industrial estate on the flats down river, but the Pett, Poldice offices were where they had always been, close by St Margaret’s and the old Hanseatic ‘steelyard’ that had been a sampling yard before the 1500s. The building was cold and strangely silent. Everybody seemed to have been sent off early. The office I shared was empty, my desk clear except for a letter typed on a single sheet of K.L. Instant Protection notepaper.

I picked it up and took it over to the window, shocked and unbelieving as I stared down at those two brief paragraphs, two paragraphs that told me I wasn’t wanted any more.

Dear Mr Kettil,

This is to inform you that the Pett, Poldice operation will be closed down as of today. All manufacturing will thereafter be concentrated at the KLIP factory at Basingstoke, the whole Group being administered from Instant Protection’s Headquarters at Wolverhampton. Your services being no longer required, you will kindly vacate your office forthwith as both the office building and the factory have now been sold.

The terms of your employment will, of course, be met, and our Wolverhampton office will be in touch with you at your home with regard to redundancy pay, pension, insurance etc.

A man describing himself as ‘Personnel Executive’ had scrawled a faceless signature at the bottom.

I think I must have read that letter through at least twice before I finally took it in. Redundancy, like newspaper disaster headlines, is something that happens to others, never to oneself. And we were such an old-established company.

I stared out at the brown brick of the warehouse opposite that had been converted into flats, the narrow gap between it and the next building showing a cold glimpse of the river. A mist of light powdery snow fell out of a pewter sky. It was typical of our firm to have held on to these offices for so long. The directors had thought the antiquity of the building an asset, for Pett, Poldice went right back to the days when ships were built of wood. They had been timber merchants then, and as the vessels coming up the Great Ouse to King’s Lynn changed from wood to iron, younger generations of the Pett family had diversified into importing tropical hardwoods, and later still into the preservation of timber, particularly the oak-framed and oak-roofed buildings of East Anglia.

It was only when men we had never seen before began poking around the various departments asking questions about cashflow and cost ratios that we learned the Pett family had sold out to Instant Protection, a subsidiary of one of the big chemical companies and our keenest competitors. I should have realised then what was going to happen. But you don’t, do you? You bury your head in the sand and get on with your work. And there was plenty of that, for we had a full order book, which made it all the more tragic.

I put my anorak on again, scooped up the few things that belonged to me and shut the door on almost five years of my life. Nobody even to say goodbye to, just an empty building and a security guard I’d never seen before on the door.

I had never been forced to look for a job in my life. I had never been unemployed. I had simply followed in my father’s footsteps. He had worked for Pett, Poldice ever since the Navy released him from national service in 1956, and because I had always known there was a job there for me, most of my spare time was spent sailing out of Blakeney exploring the Wash and the Norfolk coast. That was after we had moved from the North End part of King’s Lynn to Cley, and when I had finished school I volunteered for one of the Drake projects, then crewed on a Whitbread round-the-worlder.

I was lucky. I could do that because the certain prospect of a job with Pett, Poldice gave me a safety net from which to launch myself at the world. Now, suddenly, that safety net was gone and I discovered how harsh a world it could be. I had no qualifications and in the field of wood preservatives everybody seemed to be cutting staff – ‘streamlining’ was a word I heard all too often so that I met others who had been declared redundant, and quite a few of them did have the qualifications I lacked.

Only the sales staff, the younger ones in particular, seemed able to shift jobs with relative ease. I discovered this about a month after Pett, Poldice was shut down. Julian Thwaite, an ebullient extrovert from the Yorkshire Dales, who had been our sales manager and lived quite near us at Weasenham St Peter, suggested we all meet for a drink in the centre of King’s Lynn, ‘to exchange experiences, information, contacts and aspirations’. It was a nice idea, done out of the goodness of his heart, for he himself had apparently had no difficulty in switching from wood preservatives and special paints to lubricating oils. Almost fifty, out of a total workforce of seventy-nine, turned up at the Mayden’s Head in the Tuesday Market Place, and of those only fourteen had found new jobs. It was the workers at the factory and the specialised staff at the old Pett, Poldice office that were, experiencing the greatest difficulty in adjusting.

Within a week of being declared redundant I began toying with two possibilities, both of which excited me and had been in my mind for some time. The first was to sell my boat, borrow enough cash to get me a big 35–40 foot motor-sailer and set up as a charter skipper. The other was to set up my own wood preservative consultancy. Both these possibilities were exciting enough to have me lie awake at night planning, and as often as not fantasising. It was that evening at the Mayden’s Head, talking to those other poor devils who had lost their jobs and hadn’t got another, that finally decided me.

I started looking at the charter skipper possibilities first, for the very simple reason that it had always been something of a dream of mine and I knew my way about the sailing world of East Anglia, the people to ask. But I soon discovered that the cost of borrowing the money to buy the boat meant that at least two months of my chartering would disappear in interest payments before I even started meeting all the other costs: maintenance, equipment replacement, stores, expenses, etc.

It just wasn’t on, not unless I could finance it myself. And so I set myself up as a self-employed wood consultant, and instead of writing to possible employers, I started offering my services to companies and institutions I had been in touch with during the five years I had been at Pett, Poldice.

One of those institutions was the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. We had once done some rather specialised work for them on a newly discovered figurehead. I got a nice letter back from the Deputy Director, but no offer of work. He saw no prospect of requiring the services of anybody outside of the Museum staff in the foreseeable future.

It was what I had expected, so I was a little surprised, about six weeks later, to receive a further note from him to say that, though he couldn’t promise anything, he thought it might be worth my while if I could arrange to be in Greenwich the following Wednesday when he had a meeting fixed with somebody who needed advice on the preservation of ships’ timbers. Not really my province, the note added, but the ship itself is of great interest to the Museum, and the circumstances are intriguing. I thought of you in particular because of your sailing experience. You will see why if you can attend the meeting which will be on board the Cutty Sark at 11.00.

It was a curious letter, and though I could ill afford the time, and indeed the expense, of going up to London, Victor Wellington was too important a figure in the world I was now trying to establish myself in for me to ignore his invitation.

That Wednesday morning I took the early inter-city express, which got me into the bedlam of reconstruction that was Liverpool Street station shortly after nine. The sun was making bright bars through clouds of dust and picking out the network of new iron columns and girders towering above the boarded alleys that channelled the rush-hour traffic through big machines grabbing at the foundations of old buildings. Outside, by contrast, the City seemed bright and clean. I had plenty of time so I stopped for a sandwich and a cup of coffee at a small café by the Monument, then walked on to Tower Pier and caught a boat down to Greenwich.

Twenty minutes later we were turning into the tide in Greenwich Reach, crabbing across the river to snuggle up to the pier. Beyond the pier buildings, the masts and yards of the Cutty Sark stood high against a blue sky, varnish and paintwork gleaming in the clean bright slant of the sun’s light. To the left, as I stepped ashore, I could see the green of grass between the pale grey stone of Wren’s riverside masterpiece. I glanced at my watch. It was not yet ten-thirty.

The Cutty Sark stood bows-on to the river, her great bowsprit jabbing the air midway between Francis Chichester’s Gypsy Moth IV and the pier entrance. I walked over to her and stood for a moment leaning on the iron railings, looking down into the empty dock that had been specially constructed for her. Stone steps led down on either side so that visitors could look up at the sharp-cut line of her bows and the figurehead with its outstretched arm and flying hair. There was a walkway all around the inside of the dock to a similar set of steps at the stern. A gangway and ladder on the starb’d side led up to the quarterdeck, but the main entrance to the interior of the vessel was to port, almost amidships between the first and second of her three masts. It looked something like a drawbridge, as though it had been lowered from the tumblehome of the ship’s hull to lie flat on the stone edge of the dock.

I still had twenty minutes to wait and I strolled across to Gypsy Moth. Looking at the slender racing lines of that Illingworth thoroughbred, I marvelled that a man in his mid-sixties, keeping cancer at bay on a vegetarian diet, could have sailed her single-handed, not just round the world, but round the Horn. By comparison with the Cutty Sark she looked tiny, of course, but standing there, close by the wind-vane steering, gazing up at the main mast standing against the sky, she looked one hell of a handful for an elderly man all alone.

I thought of my own boat then, the beauty of the June morning making me long to have her back, to be sailing out of Blakeney, north down the gut, seabirds white in the sunshine, and out by the point seals basking on the shingle, their heads popping up to look at me out of limpid brown eyes … And here I was in London, the boat sold and myself urgently in need of work.

I glanced at my watch again as I walked back to the Cutty Sark. Sixteen minutes to eleven. I would have liked to go on board to refresh my memory of the ship’s layout, but somehow I felt it would be wrong to be more than fifteen minutes early. If Victor Wellington heard I was on the ship, he would almost certainly send for me. It would give an impression of over-eagerness. Pride, of course: I didn’t want him to know how desperate I was for some sort of a contract from the National Maritime, however small. If only I could get that, then I felt other business would follow.

The sun was already striking warm off the stone surround of the dock as I wandered down the starb’d side, the Gypsy Moth pub shining gold on brown beyond the ship’s stern, its sign painted with Chichester’s yacht on one side, his plane on the other, and there was a youth standing alone on the concrete viewing platform. His back was against the railings, a slim, lounging figure in light blue cotton trousers and a loose-fitting gold blouson with a brown sweater tied round his neck. He had a camera slung from his shoulder, but somehow he looked more like a student than a tourist.

I noticed him because he wasn’t looking at the Cutty Sark. He was standing very still, staring intently at the Church Street approach where one of those little Citroëns was trying to squeeze in between a delivery truck parked outside the Gypsy Moth and the row of five chain-secured crush barriers separating the roadway from the brick and concrete surround of the dock.

A young woman got out of the car after she had parked it, her black hair cut very short, almost a crew cut, so that it was like black paint gleaming in the sun, the bright silk of a scarf tied loosely around her neck – and something in her manner, the way she stood there looking up at the Cutty Sark, her head thrown back, her body tensed … It was as though the tea clipper had a special significance for her.

By then I had reached the stern of the Cutty Sark. I walked past the student, then stopped, leaning my back against the railings, watching as she reached into the car, pulling out an old leather briefcase and extracting a loose-leaf folder, which she rested on the bonnet. She stood there for a moment, turning the pages. The student shifted his position. He was short and dark, a gold ring catching the sun as he unslung his camera, opening it and checking the setting. Like his clothes, the camera was an expensive one.

There were plenty of tourists about, but they all seemed to be at the bows of the ship or gathered around the entrance amidships, so that at the moment when she locked her car and started walking towards us the student and I were the only people standing at the stern of the Cutty Sark.

She moved slowly, stuffing the folder back into the bulging briefcase. Her manner seemed abstracted, as though her mind was far away and she saw nothing of the beauty of the morning or of the tea clipper’s masts towering against the blue sky. She was of medium height, not beautiful, but striking because of the firm jut of her jaw and the curve of her nose. It was a strong face, her cheekbones sharply etched in the morning light, the forehead broad, and the eyes, which caught mine for a moment as she approached, were brightly intelligent under straight black brows.

She was then only a few yards away and the student had his camera to his eye. I heard the click of it as he took a picture of her. She must have heard it, too, for she checked, a momentary hesitation, her eyes widening in a sudden shock of recognition. But there was something more than recognition, something that seemed to leave her face frozen, as though with horror, and behind the horror there was a sort of strange excitement.

It was a fleeting expression, but even so my recollection of it remains very vivid. She recovered herself almost immediately and walked on, passing quite close to me. Again our eyes met, and I thought she hesitated, as though about to speak to me. But then she was moving away, looking down at the heavy watch on her wrist, which was of the kind that divers wear. She was stockier than I had first realised, quite a powerful-looking young woman with a swing to her hips and strong calf muscles below the dark blue skirt. At the entrance to the ship she had to wait for a group of school children, her head thrown back to gaze up now at the Cutty Sark’s masts. Then, just before she disappeared into the hull, she half paused, her head turned briefly in my direction. But whether she was looking at me or at the student I couldn’t be sure.

He had his camera slung over his shoulder again and had turned as though to follow her. But then he hesitated, realising I think that it would be too obvious. I was standing right in his path, and now that I could see his face, I understood something of what had perhaps affected her so strongly. It was a very beautiful face. That was my overriding impression. A bronzed face under a sleek black head of hair that beneath the beauty of its regular features was touched with cruelty.

It was only a few seconds that we stood facing each other, but it seemed longer. I nearly spoke to him, but then I thought perhaps he didn’t speak English. He looked so very foreign, the eyes dark and hostile. Instead, I turned away, walking quickly the length of the dock. I would give it another five minutes before going on board. As I reached the bows the student was crossing the entrance gangway. He glanced quickly in my direction, then disappeared into the hull, and my mind went back then to the meeting ahead, wondering again what would come of it. That note from Wellington, the reference to a ship that was of great interest to the National Maritime, and that bit about the circumstances being intriguing. What circumstances?

As I passed under the bowsprit and the maiden with the outstretched hand and flying hair, a car came through the barrier and parked against the Naval College railings. Three men got out of it, all of them dressed in dark suits, and one of them was Victor Wellington. They were talking earnestly amongst themselves as they made their way quickly across to the ship and up the gangway to the quarterdeck. They stood there for a while, looking for’ard at the rigging, still talking with a degree of concentration that suggested perhaps they weren’t looking at the ship or at anything in particular, but were entirely engrossed in the subject of their conversation.

They were there about a minute, an incongruous little gathering in their dark suits, then they moved to the after end of the coachroofing and disappeared down a companionway. I rounded the stern of the ship and headed for the entrance. There is a ticket desk on the left as you go in and when I told the CPO on duty my business, he directed me to a little cuddy of an office on the far side, where one of the Cutty Sark’s captains was seated at the table drinking a mug of tea.

‘Mr Kettil?’ He glanced at a typewritten note on the table in front of him, then got to his feet and shook my hand. ‘The meeting is in the after cabin. Do you know the way?’

I shook my head. ‘I’ve been here once before, but I don’t remember the layout.’

‘I’ll show you then.’ He gulped down the rest of his tea. ‘The others have arrived, all except one.’ He then led the way to the deck above, up the ladder to the quarterdeck and aft till we were just above the wheel position. Brass treads led down into a dark-panelled interior. The beautifully appointed dining saloon ran athwartships, taking up the whole after part of the officers’ living accommodation.

As soon as I had ducked my head through the doorway I remembered it, the superb quality of the woodwork. The panelling was of bird’s-eye maple and teak, all of it a dark rich reddish colour. So was the refectory-type table that ran athwart the saloon, plain planked seats like pews either side with backs that folded up for easy stowing, and aft of the table a magnificent dresser with a mirror back and barometer set into it as a centre piece. There was a skylight over the table with a big oil lamp gleaming brassily below it, and just behind the for’ard pew was a little coal grate set in what looked like a copy of a cast-iron Adam fireplace.

There were four men seated at the table: Victor Wellington, the two who had boarded the ship with him, also a somewhat gaunt individual, and at the far end was the young woman I had been so conscious of as she walked from her car to the ship. She looked up from her loose-leaf notebook as I entered, and again I was aware of her eyes and the look of appraisal; also something else, something indefinable, a sort of recognition, not quite animal, but certainly sexual.

The ship’s duty captain had taken his leave and Victor Wellington was introducing me, first to a very slim, live-featured man, an admiral, who was Chairman of the National Maritime Museum, then to the young woman who was sitting next to him – ‘Mrs Sunderby’.

She smiled at me, a quick lighting up of her features. ‘Iris Sunderby.’ She pronounced it ‘Eeris’. The eyes were very blue in the electric light beamed down from the big brass lamp above her head. ‘I’m the cause of all these kind gentlemen giving up so much of their time.’ She smiled at me, but very briefly, her English careful now and her eyes on the door.

The other two men were the Chairman of the Maritime Trust and, next to him, the almost legendary figure who had saved the Cutty Sark and then gone on to form the World Ship Trust. Victor Wellington waved me to a seat opposite Mrs Sunderby, and as I manoeuvred my body into the position indicated, I was remembering why her name was familiar. I hesitated, then leaned across the table. ‘Sorry to ask you this, but are you still married? I mean, is your husband alive?’

Her eyes clouded, the lips tightening. ‘No. My husband’s dead. Why?’

‘He was a glaciologist, was he?’

‘How did you know that?’

Hesitantly I began telling her about the strange conversation I had had some weeks back with a station commander who had served in the Falklands, and all the time I felt the need to tread delicately, not sure if she knew about her husband’s psychological state, his fear of the ice. I was skating round this when the discussion about presentation of a World Ship Trust International Heritage Award was interrupted by the arrival of the man we were all apparently waiting for.

His name was Iain Ward and everybody at the table rose, no easy feat I found, the polished plank edge of the pew catching me behind my knees. I think it was innate good manners rather than respect for wealth, though the fact that he had suddenly found himself presented with a cheque for over a million probably made some difference. It was the Chairman of the National Maritime Museum who said with a friendly smile, ‘Good of you to come all this way, Mr Ward.’ He held out his hand, introducing himself with no mention of a title.

It was as they shook hands that I realised the man’s bulging right sleeve ended in a black-gloved hand. He had paused in the entrance, his head slightly bowed as though in anticipation of contact with the deck beams. He was about my own age, tall and heavily built with long sideburns and a slightly diffident smile. ‘Sorry if Ah’m late.’ He had a very strong Scots accent.

Iris Sunderby stepped out from the restriction of the pew opposite and moved towards him. ‘Do come in. I’m so glad you could make it.’ And the Museum Chairman, still with that charming smile of his, said, ‘You’re not late at all. We were early. We had other business to discuss.’

She introduced him to the rest of us and he went round the table, shaking everybody very formally with his left hand. Clearly his gloved hand was artificial, but what the bulge in the sleeve was I could not quite figure out. When she had finally ushered him into the vacant place beside her, she handed everybody a typewritten sheet of paper, a memorandum setting out very briefly the reason for this meeting. Iain Ward glanced at it momentarily, then lifted his head to gaze round the table. He was seated right opposite me, his big frame squeezed into a loud check sports jacket, his shirt open at the neck to reveal a heavy gold chain round a thick bull of a neck. There was also a gold signet ring on one of the fingers of his left hand.

An awkward silence was broken by Victor Wellington saying, ‘Now that we’re all here I think we can get started.’ He waited until we were settled, then went on, ‘To go back a bit, Iris first got in touch with me about this Flying Dutchman of a ship shortly after her husband’s death. Since then she has been very busy trying to raise money and, at the same time, making enquiries in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, and more particularly in the far south of South America, at Punta Arenas in the Magellan Strait and at Ushuaia in the Beagle Channel. As a result, we have, all four of us, come to the conclusion that if her husband did in fact sight the wreck of a square-rigged ship in the ice of the Weddell Sea before the plane he was in crashed, then it has to be the frigate Andros.’ He looked across at the World Ship Trust representative. ‘You have some photographs, I believe?’

The other nodded. ‘Two in fact. One taken just after she was raised from the mud of the River Uruguay in 1981, the other after she had been restored and purchased by the Argentine Navy. Both are from the World Ship Trust’s International Register of Historic Ships.’ He had several copies and these he passed round the table. When we had all looked at them, Wellington said, ‘Speaking for the Museum, and the Chairman is in full agreement, we would support any effort on anybody’s part to obtain for exhibition in Britain a fully-rigged Blackwall frigate. That’s what we believe it to be. It would be one of the earliest frigates on display anywhere in the world …’

‘You support the idea,’ the Chairman of the Maritime Trust put in, ‘but you’re not prepared to put your money where your mouth is – that right?’

Wellington glanced at his Chairman, who said, ‘Moral support, yes; money, no. We’ve none to spare at the moment, as you well know, but we’ll help in any way we can if and when restoration is in progress.’ He looked across at Iris Sunderby with a lift of his eyebrows. ‘Perhaps Victor will let you have the floor now. And you, sir,’ he added, turning to Ward. ‘If the ship is there, and if it can be recovered, and presuming it really is the Andros …’ He gave a quick shrug, the smile back on his face. ‘A lot of ifs, I’m afraid.’ He stared at the man. ‘You’re serious, are you? About financing the search for the vessel, and its recovery if found?’ Then he added, speaking slowly, ‘Expeditions, my friend, do not come cheap. It’s a hell of a lot of money for one man to put up.’

‘Ye doubtin’ Ah’ve got it? Is that it?’ Ward leaned forward across the table, his tone suddenly belligerent.

‘No, of course not. That’s not what I want to talk to you about.’

‘What then?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Look, just in case ye didn’t believe it, Ah brought these along to show ye.’ His left hand, delving into the breast pocket of his jacket, came out with a bundle of press-cuttings. He almost threw them across the table. ‘There ye are. There’s even a close-up of the cheque. Y’see what it says – one million tae hundred an’ thirty-six pounds, seventeen pence. But understan’ this: Ah’m only interested in the search, no’ in the restoration.’

The Admiral nodded. ‘Of course. We understand that. And I’m sure, once we have a full appraisal of the ship’s condition, and what remains of the hull is berthed in a proper port so that an appeal can be launched, there will be no difficulty in raising the necessary money.’

‘Mrs Sunderby has included a memo …’ Wellington’s voice trailed away as the Admiral’s grey eyes turned suddenly frosty.

‘A memo is not the same, Victor. Mr Ward here needs to be assured that his commitment ends with the arrival of the ship’s remains in say Port Stanley or even Grytviken in South Georgia. Just as we need to be assured, before we lend our support to the project, that he has a proper idea of the cost. And the dangers,’ he added, turning back to Ward. ‘That’s what this meeting is all about. Now –’ and his eyes fastened on the Scotsman – ‘if I can put a few questions to you: as I understand it, or –’ and he glanced quickly down at a sheet of paper in front of him – ‘as you have given Mrs Sunderby to understand, you’re prepared to commit up to half of what you’ve apparently won on the pools to the search and recovery of this icebound ship, and apart from being consulted regarding type of vessel to be used in the search and the make-up of the crew, the only proviso you make is that, whatever the circumstances, you will be included in the search team. In other words, you’re buying into the expedition. Correct?’

‘Aye, but ye’ve got to understan’ –’

‘One moment.’ The Admiral held up his hand. ‘You have a handicap. And here I’m going to speak to you man-to-man as a naval officer. In fairness to the others, who will be risking their lives with you on the edge of the Ice Shelf in areas where the pack is continuous throughout the year, I think you should reconsider the condition you’ve made –’

‘No!’ It exploded out of him, his body bending forward across the table, the left hand clenched so tight the muscles showed in knots and his eyes levelled at the Admiral. ‘This is what Ah want. Ah’ve had a wee bit o’ luck, see. Ah’ve won the pools, got mesel’ a bloody great cheque, an’ now the house Ah live in is inundated wi’ beggin’ letters, postbags of it, all the usual charity professionals trying to get their snoots in the trough, an’ callers too, a lot o’ no-good villains an’ half the dropouts an’ cranks in Britain. First thing Ah got was an incinerator. Ah burn the lot in the backyard. Ah know what Ah want, see. The reason Ah’m here is that Ah asked the OYC – that’s the Ocean Youth Club, Ah sailed on one o’ their boats once – an’ they suggested Ah contact the World Ship Trust.’

The words poured out of him, a dam breaking. ‘It’s no’ the ship Ah’m interested in. It’s the excitement, the sense o’ somethin’ worth while. Ah wanted somethin’ Ah’d have to fight fur, somethin’ that’d take me sailin’ half across the world. And then –’ He turned his head, smiling suddenly, his eyes gleaming – ‘Then Ah saw Mrs Sunderby’s ad, in one o’ the yachtin’ mags. She wanted crew fur this Antarctic ship search, crew that could pay their way an’ contribute to the cost. So here Ah am.’ He had turned back to the Admiral. ‘Me condition stands. If Ah finance the expedition, then they got to take me wi’ them. Understand’?’

There was a sudden silence round the table, the young Scotsman and the grey-haired Admiral staring at each other. Finally the Admiral said very quietly, ‘I’ve never been to the Antarctic, but as a youngster I was on an Arctic exercise. We were marooned in the ice for two weeks. I know what it’s like. You don’t. Fitness is everything. And if we support Mrs Sunderby’s expedition –’

‘My expedition,’ the other cut in harshly. ‘If Ah’m payin’ fur it, then it’s my expedition. The Iain Ward Antarctic Ship Search. That’s what it’ll be called.’ He suddenly grinned. ‘Ye got yer place in history, sir. Ah want mine. Even if it kills me. See.’

‘And if it kills the others?’ The Admiral paused, the grey eyes hard as they stared at Ward. ‘How would you feel then?’ And he added, his words coming slowly so that they carried weight, ‘Speaking for the Museum, I cannot agree to supporting an expedition that’s saddled with a fundamental weakness.’

‘Meanin’ this?’ Ward patted the gloved right hand.

‘Yes. Meaning just that.’

‘And that’s yer only objection?’ Ward’s face was flushed. ‘Ye’re goin’ to damn the whole thin’ just because o’ me participation, wi’out the slightest knowledge o’ what the poor wee hand God gave me can doe, wi’out even botherin’ to test it out?’ He scrambled out of his seat, came round to where Victor Wellington was seated opposite the Admiral. ‘Shift over, will ye.’ His gloved hand reached out, fastening on the man’s shoulder and pulling him sideways. Then, bending to avoid the deck beams, he scrambled out of his jacket, sliding his long body into the space that had been made for him. ‘Right.’ He rolled up his shirt sleeve to reveal a withered claw of a hand set high up on the arm, wrist and elbow seemingly all one, the joint merging into the muscles that bulged below the shoulder. The hand was fastened round a plastic grip that activated the artificial hand through a bright metal connecting arm. ‘Now, ye just take hold o’ me artificial paw an’ we’ll test it out, ye an’ me, an’ Ah’ll bet ye a fiver ye’ve no’ the grip or the muscles Ah’ve got.’

The Admiral hesitated, staring at the withered mockery of a hand and the gloved fingers that had opened ready to clasp his own. Slowly, almost unwillingly, he nodded his head, reached forward and gripped the gloved hand, wincing as the steel fingers closed on his own flesh and bone.

‘If it’s too uncomfortable Ah’ll drop the artificial extension an’ ye can test out the grip this claw o’ mine’s got. But then, o’ course, it will have to be elbows off the table.’

‘No, we’ll try it this way. I’ve seen artificial limbs like this before and I’ll be interested to check the efficiency of it.’ He was smiling now. ‘Haven’t played this game since I was a middy.’ He planted his elbow on the table. ‘Say when.’

Ward had placed his own strangely-shaped elbow-cum-wrist in position, the muscles above beginning to swell as he said, ‘Okay, let’s go.’

Squared up to each other, their faces tense and set, they began to strain, arms literally trembling with the effort. The theatricality of it was almost ridiculous, an expedition into the Antarctic apparently depending on the outcome. Ward was like an actor slipping into a well-worn part and I knew he had done this before, a sort of party trick. He was enjoying himself. You could see it in his face. So, in his different way, was the Admiral. Socially, and probably politically, they were poles apart, yet in their personalities there was something remarkably similar. Seeing them face-to-face like that, the good hand locked with the gloved steel, muscles straining, the blood pulsing, they were like two gladiators – one could almost hear the crowd baying.

And then in a flash it was over, the Admiral’s arm bending outwards, his whole body being pressed sideways until his arm was flat on the table.

Ward released his grip on the artificial forearm and the gloved fingers let go the Admiral’s hand. ‘Would ye like to try it wi’out the gadget?’ The metal extension fell with a dramatic clatter on the table-top. ‘It’ll have to be standin’ up, elbows free, o’ course.’

The Admiral shook his head, flexing his fingers.

‘Ah was born like this,’ Ward said almost apologetically. ‘Ah’ve been learnin’ to cope wi’ it ever since Ah were shoved out into this wicked world, an’ gradually Ah’ve built the muscles till Ah’ve a lot o’ strength here.’ He tapped his shoulder as he got to his feet. ‘Ah’ve even got a black belt. Karate.’ He was putting on his jacket again. ‘Does that set yer mind at rest or d’ye want me to run up the Cutty Sark’s riggin’ and scramble over the futtock shrouds or whatever?’

The Admiral laughed. ‘No. I think my objection has been very conclusively overridden.’ He turned to Mrs Sunderby. ‘What about crew? I presume you’ve given some thought to that.’

She nodded, pulling another file from her briefcase. ‘I contacted the Whitbread people, the RYA, the STA and the RORC. Out of a list of over a hundred names for which I had some biographical and performance details, I narrowed it down to just over twenty who might have the time and the inclination to join this sort of expedition. As a result I have seven possibles.’ She hesitated. ‘If you have somebody in mind, Admiral …?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘Alas, those that leap to mind are all too old for this sort of a lark, myself included. Now if I were forty years younger –’ He gave a little shrug. ‘What’s the total complement you have in mind?’

She glanced down at the typed sheet in her hand. ‘Apart from myself and Mr Ward here, I’ll need an engineer, an experienced navigator, a sailing master, a deckhand with Arctic experience and a cook who is also a sailor – five in all. I think that should be enough, though we could do with one extra in case of injury, and I’ll need somebody who is a competent radio operator.’

‘You’ve got them lined up, have you?’

‘Yes, I think so. Four of them anyway. The hardest to find will be a deckhand with actual experience of working with sledges on ice. A man who is available and has a great deal of experience on North Polar sea ice is, in my view, too old; also he has a wife and three kids and his fee is commensurate with his family responsibilities. There was an Irishman who had done all sorts of things, half of which I didn’t really believe, and an Australian who ran a radio shop in Perth and had worked for a year at the Australian Antarctic base largely as stand-in radio operator. He claimed to have done quite a lot of sailing and to have been a member of the reserve crew for one of the America’s Cup contenders when the race was run in Perth. Unfortunately he recently married a veterinary graduate and didn’t want to leave his wife. She had sailed the coast of Western Australia in her father’s boat, so I suggested he bring her along. A vet isn’t quite the same as having a doctor on board, but at least she would have been able to stitch up wounds, set bones and dish out the right pills. But in the end she said, No, it would ruin her chances of becoming a partner in the firm she had recently joined. A pity. They sounded ideal, particularly as he says he’s a ham radio enthusiast. The others …’ She gave a dismissive little shrug. ‘It’s not easy trying to get crew when you still haven’t solved the financial problem. They’ve got to be the right people. They’ve got to have the right temperament as well as the experience. And we do need somebody to handle the radio side. It’s our lifeline to the outside world.’ She glanced at Ward, adding quickly, as though afraid she might have discouraged him, ‘I’ve still got feelers out, of course, and I am sure, once I have the boat, and support for the expedition is guaranteed, I will be able to attract the right people.’ Her eyes looked nervously round the table. ‘Anyway, that’s the crew situation at the moment.’

The Admiral nodded and turned to his Director. ‘You agree, Victor? We give moral support.’

Wellington hesitated, his eyes searching his Chairman’s face. ‘The one thing the Museum lacks, apart from money, of course, is a full-size ship to complement our superb building. Something like the Cutty Sark here, so that visitors can walk straight from historical exhibits on to the deck of the real thing. It’s something that the Friends of the Museum, and quite a few of the staff, have been pressing for over the years. If this Blackwall frigate really exists, if there really is a ship like that down there in the ice …’ His eyes gleamed and his voice changed, taking on a sudden note of almost boyish enthusiasm as he told Ward what it was that made this particular type of frigate so special.

Apparently they were not naval vessels at all, but large East Indiamen built at Blackwall on the Thames just downstream of the Navy Yard. By then the Company, and also the Dutch, needed faster vessels, ships that could outrun or fight off any attacker, so they began building to the lines of the naval frigates and the first of the Blackwall-built vessels was the Seringapatam. ‘This was in’ 1837, in the last days of the East India Company, so not many of them were built.’ That first vessel had been of 818 tons, almost half the size of the largest they ever built, which was 183 feet long with a beam of 40 feet and a tonnage of around 1,400. The Andros, he thought, was about 1,000 tons. ‘Most of these ships were later used as emigrant transports; they also went south round the Horn for the Californian and Australian gold rushes.’

While he was talking I had become increasingly conscious of the sound of voices from beyond the door that led for’ard to the officers’ galley and cabins, children’s voices mainly. And then a movement caught my eye above the hanging lamp, two small faces peering down at us from the skylight. As soon as they realised I had seen them they vanished and in their place was a young man’s face, dark, intense, the eyes slightly protuberant and a thin spoilt mouth, the dull gold sleeve of his blouson flattened against the glass. He was looking down at Iris Sunderby, a strange glint in his eyes. Was it lust? Hatred perhaps? I couldn’t be sure. All I knew for certain was that the sight of her sitting there, her head bent over her papers, had sparked off some violent emotion.

He must have sensed I was watching him for he suddenly turned his head and looked straight at me. I could see his eyes more clearly then, very dark and full of malevolence. Or so it seemed at the time. But it was such a fleeting glimpse, then it was gone and I thought he smiled at me. A second later I was staring up at an empty rectangle of blue sky. ‘Tourists,’ Wellington said. ‘They get all over the place.’

I glanced quickly across at Iris Sunderby, wondering whether she had seen him and what her reaction had been, but her head was now turned towards Victor Wellington as he described more fully the Andros frigate; dimensions, masts, rigging, all the construction details so dear to a curator contemplating a prize exhibit.

I don’t remember much of what he said, for the face in the skylight had made an extraordinary impression on me. It sounds ridiculous as I write, about it now, just the glimpse of a face through a ship’s skylight, but I knew then, in that instant, there was something between them, something that linked him to Iris Sunderby in a way that was both personal and frightening. It was such a startling impression to form in the photo-flash moment of his staring down at her. But there it is. That face conveyed something, the very intent, very concentrated expression of it sending a chill through me that even now I cannot entirely explain.

‘If the expedition – your expedition – were successful and you found the remains of the Andros in the ice, with Peter Kettil here to advise you on its preservation …’ That mention of my name jerked my mind back from its wild imaginings. It was the first indication I had of the real purpose of my presence here at this gathering.

‘Are you suggesting I advise them – out there?’ My voice sounded small and uncertain.

Victor Wellington’s sharp little eyes fastened on me. ‘Of course. It’s essential to have an expert on the spot to assess what is necessary for preservation of the ship’s timbers so that it can be flown out, together with the appropriate technicians. Then, when the salvage boys have cut a way out for her, the hull can be towed north into warmer seas without fear of it disintegrating.’

‘But –’ I hesitated. The possibility of my being a member of the expedition hadn’t occurred to me.

He smiled. ‘Why do you think I asked you to attend this meeting?’

‘But I’m not qualified,’ I said. ‘Timber preservation, yes – but sailing in the Antarctic …’

‘You know about ships. You’ve sailed, and you have a boat of your own.’

‘I had. But on the Norfolk coast. You’re talking about the Antarctic.’

‘Nelson,’ the Admiral cut in. ‘Burnham Thorpe. He was brought up on the edge of the saltings there. And the north of Norfolk is sometimes referred to as the Arctic – Shore. It’s cold and it breeds a certain type of man. You’ll fit. Won’t he, Mrs Sunderby?’

I turned my head to find her looking at me very intently. Clearly she hadn’t been ready to make a decision there and then. But suddenly she smiled. ‘Yes, of course. The Admiral’s right.’ And she added, ‘If we do find the ship, we’ll certainly need the sort of specialised knowledge you can provide.’

Nobody asked me how I felt about a voyage into the Antarctic. They just seemed to take it for granted I would go along with them, the talk turning to the availability of a suitable search vessel that would be within the budget Ward was offering. And like a fool I just sat there and said nothing. If I’d had any sense I’d have got to my feet and walked out, for the boat the Sunderby woman had in mind was a sixty-foot motor-sailer with a quarter-inch steel hull and a powerful diesel auxiliary. It was lying in the Chilean naval port of Punta Arenas on the north side of the Magellan Strait and had been strengthened and equipped for a Norwegian prospecting expedition in Queen Maude Land that had run out of money before it had even started.

Mrs Sunderby had been down to Punta Arenas, had seen the boat. Its name was Isvik and it had been left in charge of one of the expedition members, a Norwegian named Nils Solberg. The boat was for sale and she thought Solberg, who was an engineer and whom she regarded as highly competent, would go along with any new expedition.

The discussion then turned to the feasibility of wintering over in the ice. The name David Lewis was mentioned. Apparently he had wintered a vessel of very similar size in the ice in Prydz Bay in the Australian territory of Queen Mary Land with a crew of only six, including two girls. Clearly it could be done, and the meeting finally broke up with Ward agreeing to meet the initial cost, including purchase of the vessel, which Mrs Sunderby thought could be acquired for a figure well below the US$230,000 the bankrupt Norwegian expedition were asking.

The object of the meeting in the Cutty Sark after cabin had clearly been to influence Ward’s decision. But once she had his agreement, she also had the backing of all the three institutions represented there. As she put it, ‘Now all we need is about thirty hours in every day, the right weather and a hell of a lot of luck.’ She rose to her feet, looking round the table. ‘Thank you, gentlemen – for your time, and for your help.’ She was smiling, her eyes shining, and she added, ‘You’ve no idea what this means to me – personally.’ The way she said it conveyed an extraordinary sense of excitement. And as the maritime heritage men said goodbye and ducked out through the after door beside the dresser, leaving just the three of us there in the cabin, the thing I was chiefly conscious of was her vitality. Now that she had got what she wanted, she seemed packed full of energy, so that just being there with her gave me an extraordinary lift, my feeling of depression quite gone.

‘Did you come by car?’ She was speaking to Ward.

‘No. Water bus.’

‘Can I give you a lift then?’

He shook his head. ‘Ah’d prefer to go back the way Ah came. There’s a lot to see on the river here. Also, Ah’ve a wee bit o’ thinkin’ to dae, ye understan’. Ah’ve never before had anythin’ to dae wi’ this sort of an outfit – Ah mean admirals an’ directors o’ museums an’ maritime trusts. It’s all new to me. An’ there’s the wee matter o’ what Ah’m lettin’ mesel’ in fur. Ah mean, six months, maybe a year if we’re locked into the ice, searchin’ fur a vessel Ah’m no’ at all sure really exists.’

‘But you’ve read the notes Charles made.’ The voice was crisp and sharp. ‘You know very well that he must have written that description of the ship within minutes of having sighted it. We’ve been over all this on the phone and I’ve explained to you that I have a navigator in mind, a man I’m convinced has actually seen what my husband saw.’

‘Aye, but ye haven’t produced the man. Ye haven’t even told me his name or where Ah can contact him.’

‘No.’

They stared at each other, hostility building between them so that the atmosphere in that panelled saloon was almost frigid.

It was Ward who finally broke the heavy silence. ‘Och hell!’ he muttered. ‘What’s it matter?’

‘How do you mean?’ Her eyes blazed.

‘Just that Ah don’t care very much one way or t’other. Whether the ship exists outside o’ yer husband’s imagination is no’ all that important to me. Ye say this nameless navigator o’ yers has also seen it?’

‘I think so.’

‘Okay then. But Ah want to see him before he joins us as navigator. Where can Ah meet him?’

‘At Punta Arenas. That’s if he agrees.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Somewhere in South America.’

She turned away, the movement and the expression on her face making it clear she was unwilling to answer any more questions.

Ward hesitated, then gave a little shrug. ‘Okay, if that’s the way ye want it. But understan’ this, girl, it’s my money an’ ye don’t ship crew wi’out Ah check them first. Okay?’ And he added almost waspishly, ‘If we find the ship, good – but Ah’ll no’ lose any sleep if we don’t set eyes on her. It’s like Ah was sayin’. Ah’ve made some money an’ now Ah want to use it to dae somethin’ Ah’ve always wanted to dae. The ship is merely an objective.’ A sudden smile lit up his features. ‘If it’s there, fine. But it’s the challenge o’ the thin’. That’s what’s important to me.’

His manner, his whole bearing, the way he faced us, was pure theatre. He was playing a part and we were the audience. ‘A challenge,’ he repeated. And then he smiled that attractive smile of his, held out his left hand and said, ‘Ah’ll be thinkin’ about it all the way back to Glasgae, Mrs Sunderby. O’ ye, too. Let me know when ye’ve fixed the boat, an’ the price – then Ah’ll talk to the lawyer men Ah seem to have acquired. Also the accountancy laddies who check the figures.’

He left us, his mouth stretched into something near a grin as he ducked through the after cabin doorway like an actor going off stage at the end of his big scene.

Iris Sunderby’s reaction was similar to my own. ‘God!’ she breathed, tossing her head back in a gesture of irritation as she listened to the sound of his footsteps on the deck above. ‘Much more of that man and I’d –’ She checked herself with a wry little smile, then snatched up her briefcase and began stuffing her papers into it. ‘Do you think that accent of his is real?’ She turned and looked at me. ‘Well, do you?’

I shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes, it does.’ There was a note almost of desperation in her voice. ‘If it isn’t, then the man’s far too complex, has much too much imagination. And if I can’t stand his play-acting here, how the hell am I going to manage in the close confines of the boat. It could be for month after month, you know. If we get locked into the ice, per’aps for a whole winter. ¡Dios mio!’

She stood there, staring at her reflection in the dresser’s mirror. The silence for that moment was absolute. ‘Trouble is,’ she went on slowly, ‘that man is just about my last hope.’ She snapped the lock of the briefcase shut and moved towards the door. ‘I’ve been knocking on big company doors till I’m sick of the sight of men trying to avoid telling me outright my husband was a nutter. And the endless letters …’ She shook her head. ‘If it hadn’t been for the Admiral –’ She turned and looked at me again, holding out the bulging briefcase. ‘All these notes and memos of mine,’ she said angrily. ‘All wasted on him. An ego a mile high and that Glasgae accent of his … The Admiral saw it at once.’

‘Saw what?’ I asked.

‘Ward’s reluctance. That it was all just a game to him. He’d only come down from Scotland out of curiosity. A Glaswegian truck driver – Ah’ve never before had anythin’ to dae wi’ an outfit o’ this sort.’ It was a fair imitation and she repeated, ‘The Admiral saw it at once. Clever, the way he handled the man.’

‘You mean that man-to-man stuff about his disability endangering lives?’

‘Of course. You don’t think the Admiral behaves like that normally? Not in his nature. But he saw Ward’s reluctance, realised he wasn’t going to throw his cash around, so he go straight for the jugular.’ She was excited, her English slipping as she moved towards the door again. ‘Where are you going – Liverpool Street station, is it?’ And when I nodded she offered to drop me off. ‘I’ve got to go through the City anyway. I need to visit the Argentine Embassy, Cadogan Gardens.’

It was while we were saying goodbye to the Cutty Sark’s Captain that I saw the student again, standing by one of the pictorial display panels. He lingered there until we moved towards the exit, then he started walking casually down the length of the deck. He emerged into the sunshine just as we reached the ship’s stern. ‘I see your boyfriend is still keeping you in his sights.’

I said it as a joke, but she didn’t take it that way. ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’ There was a sudden tension in her voice, and she didn’t turn her head to see who I was referring to.

‘You know him, don’t you?’

She didn’t answer and we walked in silence until we reached her car. As she unlocked it he passed us, running along the upper walk that led past the big square flower tubs to the kiosk and on to Chichester’s Gypsy Moth. He kept on the far side of the platform, and since we were at a much lower level, I only caught a glimpse of his head and shoulders until he came off the raised level and ducked down to the right, towards the underground car park run by the British Legion.

She was leaning into the back of her car, rearranging her things, and she hadn’t seen him. A family of tourists stood near us, talking to an old man who had just come out of the Gypsy Moth pub. ‘They call it Church Street now,’ he told them. ‘’Cos of the church there, St Alfege. But way back, afore they brought that ship ’ere an’ knocked all the buildings down to build a dock for ’er, this was a street of shops an’ ’ouses, right down to the pier. Billingsgate Street. That was the name of it.’

They passed out of earshot, a child’s voice raised, demanding ice-cream. We got into the car and she drove off. Looking back as we turned into College Approach, I saw a bright red open sports car shoot out of the street opposite the Gypsy Moth, a man at the wheel, and no passenger. It followed us as we turned right by the entrance to the Royal Naval College and right again on to the main road.

When I told her he was following us, she didn’t say anything, but her face had a set look, her eyes on the rear-view mirror.

‘Who is he?’ I asked. ‘What’s he want?’

She didn’t answer, and when I repeated the question, she shook her head.

‘Is he a student, or just a visitor?’

‘A student, I think.’

We drove in silence, heading down river till we joined the motorway and turned north. Several rimes I looked back, but it wasn’t until we were dipping into the entrance of the Blackwall Tunnel that I caught the flash of that red sports car weaving through the traffic behind a big cement truck. She had seen it too and she changed lanes, putting her foot down till we were nose-to-tail with the car ahead.

‘Do you think he’s following us?’ I had to yell to make myself heard above the noise of engines reverberating against the wall of the tunnel.

She nodded.

‘Why?’

She turned her head. ‘Why do you think?’ she yelled. Her mouth was a thin line, her eyes blazing with anger.

I shrugged. It was nothing to do with me. But I had an uneasy feeling it might be if I landed up crewing that boat of hers down into the Antarctic. ‘Who is he?’ I asked again as we came out into the relative peace of the above-ground traffic.

‘His name is Carlos.’ She banged the wheel again. ‘He send that fucking little sod. One of his boys, but he’s some sort of a cousin, too. He even looks like him.’

‘Like who?’

‘Ángel.’ She looked at me out of the corner of those extraordinary blue eyes and laughed. ‘Oh, you’ll love him.’

‘Who is this Ángel?’ I asked.

Still looking at me, she almost ran into the vehicle ahead. ‘You really want to know? He is half my brother, wonderfully handsome, like that boy. And he’s a devil,’ she added viciously. ‘Fucks any girl he can get hold of and sodoms them too. Nothing he likes better than having them crawl on their hands and knees with their rumps in the air, then he has …’ She glanced at me, the flicker of a smile. ‘I see I have shocked you, but that is the sort of man he is.’ She swerved suddenly, cutting across the front of a lorry as she changed lanes. ‘¡Dios mio! I should know.’ She was silent for a moment, then she said, ‘It’s the Italian in him, a legacy from a bitch of a woman named Rosalli Gabrielli.’ She swung abruptly left on to an intersecting cut-off. Another glance, and a funny little laugh, her eyes alight with a strange excitement. ‘Don’t look so worried. The libido don’t thrive, I think, down in the ice of the Weddell Sea. You will be safe enough.’ Again that little laugh, a soft, throaty chuckle now.

A road sign indicated that we were in the East India Dock Road. She slowed for some lights. ‘I’m sorry. I should have kept quiet about the family. We are not always very nice people.’ She shrugged. ‘But perhaps that goes for a lot of the human race.’

The lights changed and she swung left into a side street. ‘You ever travel the Docklands Light Railway? It’s rather like riding the El in New York before they build any skyscrapers. I’ll drop you off outside the Telegraph building. The train will take you to the Tower, and from there it’s only a short walk to Liverpool Street station, or you can take the Circle Line.’ She turned left again, a mean, shabby little street with a view of water ahead, then right and more water as she doubled back on her tracks. Another glimpse of the river, and then we were crossing the entrance to some docks.

I glanced back. No sign of the car. ‘Where are we?’ I asked.

‘Isle of Dogs. West India Docks.’

‘You seem to know your way around.’

‘I live here.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s cheap. I have a couple of rooms in a house that’s due for demolition.’ We turned up on to what was the raised quay of the South Docks, two massive buildings of glass and granite-like cladding, and beyond them, seen through the piers supporting the overhead railway, a litter of developers’ high gantry cranes. ‘There’ll be nothing left of the old Tower Hamlets streets in a few years’ time.’

‘There must be other parts of London just as cheap,’ I said. ‘What made you pick on this?’

‘You ask too many questions.’ She swung under the round pillars of the railway and stopped outside the second of the glass-fronted buildings. ‘I like water and here the river and the docks are all around me.’ She nodded to the iron stairway painted in Docklands Light Railway blue that led up to the little station poised overhead. ‘I have your address and telephone number. I’ll be in touch. Hopefully in about two or three weeks’ time.’

I thanked her for the lift and got out. She drove off then, and that was the last I saw of her till the police brought me down from Norfolk to identify the body of a woman they had fished out of the South Docks. When they slid her body out and pulled the plastic sheet away it looked at though she had been battered to death with an axe.