“Yes, yes, dear. Lord, I hope nothing’s happened to her. MISS? Best set of references I’ve ever seen. Jon Thompson and old Brownlow fairly foaming at the mouth. Probably got a face like a coal bucket. MISS!”
“DADDY! WILL you pay attention! I’m the one you’re here to meet.”
He looked at her in genuine horror. “Oh my God! If I’m here to meet you now, when was I supposed to meet this Edwards woman?”
Kate almost screamed. Instead she took a deep breath. “Daddy; now listen. Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You are here to meet me because I am Elizabeth Edwards. NO! Do not say a word. The references you have had from Jon Thompson and Professor Brownlow are about me. They wrote the references because they thought I should get the job, and we made up the name Elizabeth Edwards because we thought you wouldn’t give the job to your own daughter. They have both written to you explaining. I have the letters.”
“But why? I don’t understand . . .”
“Partly for my thesis which is on the effects of extreme cold on certain of the simpler algae, but mostly to see you.”
“But I need an assistant, not a daughter! The work on fast-breeding phytoplankton must be completed before the winter sets in, and I have to get back to the laboratory. Kate, go back to England at once, and send over this Elizabeth Edwards, even if she has got a face like a coal-scuttle. She sounds like just what I need!”
“What precisely is your work on, Daddy?”
“What? Oh, my basic brief is alternative foodstuffs, and I’ve come up with some interesting protein and productivity readings on simple phytoplanktons.”
“The Chlorophyceae?”
“Oh yes, some of them . . .”
“Protococcales.”
“Yes, that’s right . . .”
“And Ulvales.”
“Yes! Precisely! I have a reading of more than 0.3 per cent on some of the larger flagellata! But wait a minute, how did you . . .”
“Because as it says in my application under my name Elizabeth Edwards, I have been researching protein levels in diatoms in general and phytoplanktons in particular myself, in my lab in Oxford.”
The doctor lit his pipe. It took him several moments. Then he said, “So it was you who got eighty-seven in your Final Botany paper?”
“No, Daddy, that was you. I got eighty-six. Your record still stands. Moreover,” she linked her arm through his, “only one other person has come within five marks of us for more than ten years.”
“Where are the letters from those so-called friends of mine?” he asked gruffly. “They’ve landed me right in it. I wish you did have a face like a coal-hole. My God, some of those men up at Barrow haven’t seen a woman since Christmas!”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I hope so; I really do. Now, if I accept that the academic references are accurate, what about the other stuff?”
“Field trips to Norway and Greenland? Quite correct.”
“You,” he said, “are too good to be true.”
“Oh Daddy! Ever since I can remember I have been working as hard as I could especially so that one day you would think I was too good to be true!”
“Me? But why? Never mind. Here’s someone I want you to meet.”
As they talked, they had been crossing the concourse to the baggage handling area. Now they stopped, and when Kate looked up, they were standing by Colin Ross. Her heart lurched. Her father was saying, “This is Colin Ross. Ross, my daughter Katherine, alias Elizabeth Edwards; probably known as Liz the Whiz to the criminal fraternity in the botany department of my old college. Kate, Colin is one of the best cold-weather men in the business, and my bosses have tempted him out from behind some desk in Washington to come and do a logistical survey of my camp, among other things.”
“Yes, Doctor. We met unofficially on the plane. Miss Warren, how do you do?” Kate found her hand lost in the huge but gentle grip. He was big, but not a giant after all. Six feet six or seven. The top of her head was almost level with his chin.
Nor, when she turned and was suddenly facing him, was Job a dwarf. The top of his head was level with her eyes, which made him five-seven or so, but his shoulders were so wide, and his stomach so large that he gave the impression of being shorter than he was, and beside Colin Ross he looked quite squat. “How do you do, Job,” she said as her father performed another circumlocutory introduction. When he smiled, she noticed for the first time that he was an Eskimo.
“Now,” said her father, “to work. Colin, you take Katherine for a cup of coffee. Job and I will help Simon load the plane.”
“Right. They sell coffee over here, Miss Warren . . .”
“No, really, I . . .”
“Go with him, Kate. Which is your case? The black? See it. Job and I’ll be OK. Go on. Don’t be too long, mind. Colin, call her Kate: if they think she’s with you at Barrow, there’ll be no trouble at all. Go on away both of you.”
Ross took her by the elbow, and steered her through the crowd.
Behind them Doctor Warren bellowed at Job, “Good idea that, making them think she’s with Ross. I mean he’s so big. Bit worried when I first saw her. Brilliant references, but she used another name: didn’t know it was going to be my daughter. Puts me in a position: I have trouble enough keeping female assistants up there with all those frustrated snowmen, even the ugly ones get more offers of one sort or another; but my own daughter. And she’s quite a beauty too. Did you notice? Got that from her mother. Got her brain from me, thank God . . .”
“If you would like to sit here,” said Ross, “I won’t be a moment.”
She sat bemused, watching the bustle of the busy airport. Passengers, laughing, quiet, in groups and alone, came and went. Over the hubbub they made, the Tannoy announced the inevitable round of arrivals and departures: from Magrath and Bethel; Skwetna, Kena, Valdez and Cordova; to Fairbanks, Nome, Old Harbour and the Aleutians, Seattle, Tokyo and to Europe over the Pole.
Then Ross was back with two coffees on a tray, held in his huge right hand. He had taken the gloves off at last. Kate’s eyes flicked to his left hand held stiffly by his side. No, the black glove was still there. Affectation, she thought, like a gunman in a western. He set the tray down carefully, and sat opposite her as though he did not fully trust the chair.
“I didn’t know the doctor had a daughter,” he said.
“Neither did the doctor really. I’ve been at boarding schools, et cetera.”
“Oh. Well, he’s been pretty busy.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’ve come to help him.”
“That’s right.”
“And you’ve never been up to Barrow?”
“No,” she said, and quite suddenly she was angry at them alclass="underline" angry with her father for his offhand welcome, angry with Ross because he confused her, angry with herself for coming, for expecting more, for being a little disappointed, lost-childish. “And speaking of that,” she continued, “there will be no need for you to protect me in Barrow. I am quite capable of looking after myself.”
She said it more angrily than she had meant, and she saw in his eyes a more confused reaction than she would have expected.
Someone’s hurt him, she thought; and, who could hurt someone so gentle? and, well, I just did, for one, and for no reason.
She drew in breath to apologise, but never said the words. Job came puffing up, a worried frown incongruous on his face. “Colin, we have trouble: Simon Quick is there.”
Ross swung round tense, like an animal. “Where?”
“At the plane.”
All of Kate’s unreasoning fear of the night before flooded back. These two were hiding something terrible, and it might touch her father.
“I’ll go on,” she said, but they weren’t listening.
At their new, smaller plane, which was to take them north to Barrow, the same scene was being played in a slightly different manner by her father and a stranger.
“Why didn’t you tell me who it was going to be?” asked the stranger, his voice under tight control.