“Good,” said Paxton. “All of you can stay here. There’s safety in numbers.”
“There wasn’t for Morris and Bannikov,” Senko pointed out. “They were together, but they still went.”
“Stay here anyway,” said Paxton. “You can keep an eye on each other.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Julie, regarding him warily.
“I mean that it’s possible one of us is responsible. If the three of you are together, then nothing untoward’s going to happen.”
“Unless the culprit’s you,” said Julie softly.
“In that case, you’ll be safe with Hall and Senko,” said Paxton shortly. “I’m going to look around the drill-house, since that’s where people go missing. I’ll find out what’s going on if I have to tear it apart plank by plank.”
“Wait,” said Julie, running after him. “I’m coming with you. You said we should we stay in pairs, and you’re right. Hall can stay with Senko.”
They reached the drill-house, and Paxton dropped to his hands and knees to begin an intricate inspection of the floor. Julie watched.
“What are you looking for?”
Paxton shrugged. “I’ll know when I find it. Four people don’t disappear and leave no trace. Maybe I’ll find a spot of blood, or something that suggests foul play.”
Julie looked unconvinced, but knelt next to him and poked about with the sturdy penknife she always carried. It was cold, miserable work, and after about an hour, she stood, closing the knife with a snap.
“This is hopeless. There’s nothing here. I’m going back to the others.”
Paxton did not blame her. As the door closed, he moved to a new area, beginning to feel that she was right and that he was wasting his time. He was stiff from kneeling on the ice, and the prospect of a hot drink in the kitchen was an attractive proposition. He was about to give in to it, when a spot of colour caught his eye. It was a fragment of wood, and attached to it were a few hairs – long, dark hairs, like Tanya’s.
He studied them thoughtfully. He had found what seemed to be a clue, but had no idea what its significance could be. Had the hairs been in the drill-house for some time – before Tanya had disappeared – or had they been pulled from her head during some kind of struggle? He realized that there was no way to know.
Placing his find in a sample bag, he began to walk towards the kitchen. He was tired from tension and lack of sleep, and walked unsteadily over the slick ice. He stumbled over a carelessly placed wire, and grabbed at a high stack of crates in an attempt to steady himself. Without warning, they began to totter, and he hurled himself to one side just as the whole pile came crashing down, narrowly missing him. They were heavy, filled with canned food, and smashed open as they hit the ice, spilling tins that rolled in every direction.
He scrambled to his feet and gazed at the crates in bewilderment, not understanding why they should suddenly become unstable, but knowing he would have been killed had they landed on him. He gazed around wildly, but there was nothing to see. The door to the kitchen burst open and Julie rushed out, Hall and Senko on her heels. She gaped at the scattered cans in horror.
“What’ve you done? Surely you didn’t expect to find one of your clues among those?”
“They fell,” said Paxton lamely. “I’m getting paranoid. I was beginning to wonder whether someone tried to push them on top of me.”
“Who?” demanded Hall. “We were in the kitchen, and the others’ve gone, remember? No one pushed them. You are paranoid!”
Julie went to the broken crates and inspected them carefully. “Someone put an empty box on the bottom that made the stack top-heavy. It was only a matter of time before it went.”
“Coincidence,” said Senko, patting Paxton on the shoulder. “Come inside. The last thing we need to do is start getting suspicious of each other.”
“Right,” agreed Hall. “We’ve got the Lake Vostok monster to contend with.”
“Did you find anything?” asked Senko, ignoring Hall’s comment as he followed Paxton into the kitchen. “Any clues as to what happened to the others?”
Paxton shook his head, not wanting to mention the hairs. Although he was convinced they were somehow important, he also thought that speculation would do them no good. Julie started to make some coffee.
“We’re out of condensed milk,” she said, waving an empty tin.
“Already?” asked Hall. “I opened a new can yesterday.”
“I’ll get another,” offered Senko. “I saw one in the crates Paxton tipped over. I won’t be a minute.”
He left, closing the door behind him. Paxton watched him through the window. The Russian crouched down, and began poking among the spilled cans on the ground. Then there was a sudden loud pop that made Paxton almost leap out of his skin. Julie gave an apologetic grin.
“Sorry. It’s the gas on the cooker. It does that sometimes.”
“Not to me,” said Hall, taking the matches from her and lighting the flame. “It only does that when you light it.”
Paxton smiled, and then turned to look out of the window again. Senko was not there. With a growing fear, Paxton raced outside, his feet skidding on the slick ice. But the Russian, like the others, had disappeared.
“I was watching him!” Paxton yelled in angry frustration. “I saw him kneeling here, looking through the cans. How can he have disappeared?”
Julie glanced around her. “Perhaps there’s something here that’ll tell us what happened to him – drag marks or something.”
“Drag marks?” asked Hall in a squeak. “What do you think’s going on around here?”
“I don’t know,” snapped Julie. She took a deep breath to calm herself. “We thought everyone disappeared from inside the drill-house, but we were wrong – Paxton virtually saw Senko go, and he was out here.”
Hall gazed about him fearfully, as if he imagined something might come barrelling out of the snow and bear him away to its air, while Paxton wondered what to do next. Absently, he picked up a tin and tossed it from hand to hand as he watched Hall and Julie prod among the spilled crates. Hall was using a pencil and Julie had her penknife. Paxton glanced at the can he held. It was the milk Senko had been searching for. He gazed down at it, wondering why the Russian hadn’t found it immediately, when it had been lying on top of the pile. Then he inspected it more closely. The rim was damaged, as though something had hit it very hard, and a fibre of red wool clung to it. Senko had been wearing a red hat. Had he banged his head on the can as he had fallen? Or had someone hit him with it? If Senko had fallen, then he had done so very hard, because the dent was a deep one.
“I’m going back to the drill-house,” he said, not knowing what else to do. “I think we’ll find answers there, not here.”
“I’m not going in there,” whined Hall. “It’s too dangerous.”
“We’d better stay together,” said Julie nervously. “And we should finish searching here first.”
“I’ll leave the door open,” said Paxton. “We’ll be able to see each other.”
Hall and Julie exchanged a glance that suggested visual contact was not especially reassuring, given what had just happened to Senko. Paxton propped open the door to the drill-house and walked inside, crossing the ice floor to examine the drill itself.
He leaned his head against the cold metal, wondering what was happening to the team that had rubbed along so well for six months. They were all dedicated scientists, almost fanatical about the work they did, and there was a degree of rivalry. But it was usually friendly, and Senko and Hall were the only ones who ever had any serious arguments. Paxton glanced across at the American. Was he responsible for the mysterious disappearances? Paxton did not think so, and would have laid his money on the infinitely more cunning Senko as being the culprit.