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If you’d been proceeding in a westerly direction (as we say in court) along the Belconnen cyclepath in Canberra at 8:32 AM on Thursday the 20th of January, you would have passed an Inspector of the Federal Police, mounted on a Raleigh twelve-speed in pursuit of a sixteen year old girl on a Malvern Star. The girl was slim and fair: the Inspector broad, heavily built and balding, with a face that suggested a lifetime of lost prize-fights. Had you been told they were related, you would have found it very hard to believe: but we are, all the same. She got her good looks from her late mother, fortunately, not from me.

She was outdistancing me, too. Understandable, because she only weighs about half as much. I put on a burst of speed and shrank the distance between us. We were riding in from our townhouse in Bruce, approaching her school and my work, through the scrub and bushland that extends like a finger pointing to Belconnen. Near Northbourne Avenue we came to a broad belt of deciduous trees. Some Anglophile on the Development Commission planted these when this part of Canberra was laid out thirty years ago. Australian plants are all the rage now — scrawny gums, looking half-starved and pathetic, Pittosporum, which take years to reach a decent height — all very patriotic: but to an old Yorkshire boy these oaks and elms are a memory of home. In autumn, when the acorns crunch under your wheels and the leaves blaze with green and gold, when the mist is pulling back and there’s an edge of frost to the air — then it could be Bradford Common, almost.

Here, amongst the trees, Julie slowed her bike. “See you, Dad.”

 “Cheerio, lass. Have a good day, eh?”

“You too, Dad.” She waved and wobbled off. I used to kiss her, but she’s too old for that now.  Instead I watched her weaving down the narrow side-track to her college. Other cyclists were there already, boys and girls her own age, one or two teachers, none of them a patch on Julie. Funny how your own kith stand out from the others, isn’t it?

I set foot to pedal and was off again, changing rapidly up to the faster gears. When I left the Force in England the village bobbies were just handing in their bikes — dirty great big black three-speeds, they were, with back-pedal brakes. You could stop a lorry with them, if you had to — they weighed about as much.  Now we all drive air-conditioned cars. The crime rate keeps on going up, but at least we’re comfortable. Mind you, you’d look a bloody fool pedalling like mad along the expressway after a hit-and-run.

 

At work I undid the quick-release nuts on the front wheel, put it next to the back one, threaded a hardened steel lock through both wheels and the frame, and fastened it to the bike rack by the entrance.. For good measure I took off the sheepskin seat-cover and slid it into my briefcase. So what if this is police headquarters? That just makes it all the more exciting for petty criminals, vandals and louts, kids looking for thrills in our sterile sanitized city. Toytown, that’s Canberra to me — Toytown, with Mr. Plod the policeman, and Noddy driving around in his little car, and all the buildings made of wooden blocks, and all the people too. Trouble is, everywhere else is going the same way.

Nodding to the Sergeant at the desk, I went up to my office. Its door is hidden behind pot plants — useful camouflage — at the edge of a busy open-plan area. We’re an arm of the Federal Government: uniformed police share the hack work with Public Service clerks and stenos. No more two-finger typists tapping out reports on noisy typewriters; it’s all word-processed these days. I share a secretary, Marta, with Cary Pratt, another Inspector. She can type with all her fingers: I know she can, I’ve seen her doing it. Why, then, does it take her four times as long to type a report as it takes me to write it? My theory is that she writes romances all day, using a special code that makes them looks like police business. She had a message for me when I got there: “Superintendent Devine wants to see you.”

“What’ve I done wrong?”

“Search me.”

I contemplated her form: bony round the joints and too much make-up, but solid with it. “I wouldn’t mind.”

She sniffed and vanished back into her VDU. Another five thousand words, another beautiful young nurse paired off with the dashing, misunderstood brain surgeon. I entered my office, put down my briefcase, hung up my jacket and combed my hair. Attention to detail: Superintendents like that. There was a photocopied sheet of news clippings there which I glanced at: nothing I could see there for Devine to get ropy about. “Am I presentable?” I asked on the way out.

Marta regarded me quizzically. “That’ll be the day.” she said.

 

Up two floors the rooms are quieter, the carpets and the secretaries lusher. Alex Devine holds court here over the Territorial Division, rewriting the bad news from downstairs into good news for the exalted Assistant Secretaries on the next floor up, the one below the roof. (Public Service ranks are like that: the less important somebody sounds, the more important they really are). The rooftop, as a gesture to democracy, is given over to the canteen.

Devine’s secretary Linda is slim, trim, highly trained and extremely efficient-looking. She never does any routine typing; her talents are reserved for important matters, and anyway her nails are too long. So far we haven’t found anything important enough for her to do, but when we do I bet she’ll be good at it. “Is the Old Man in?” I asked her.

She buzzed the intercom without condescending to reply. “Inspector Thrale to see you, Superintendent.”

“Send him in.”

Linda made to wave me through the door, but she was too late: I was already there.

 

Devine is a fat florid man with coarse leathery skin and a few wisps of blonde hair pasted across his scalp with brilliantine. He wears brown suits with blue nylon shirts and black wool ties, and looks as though he would really have preferred to stay on the family farm down by the Murrumbidgee. He was in a good mood today, which was ominous. Devine’s good moods usually result from doing somebody important a favour, and the favour usually involves dropping someone like me up to their necks in it. I folded myself into an armchair by the desk. “You wanted me, Super?”

“G’day, Ozzie. How are you? Ride in today?” Like many Australians, for some reason Devine can’t cope with my given name Oswald.

“Mm-hmm. Warm out there this morning.”

“I should think so. They had bushfires up the Brindas last night. I thought the house down the road was gunna go.”

We exchanged similar pleasantries for a moment or two. Then “Much on your plate at the moment?” he asked me, as if he didn’t know.

I took the luxury of a moment to think before I shook my head. “Not a lot.” I said. “Nowt I can’t pass on. Why?”

For answer Devine sat back in his chair and sucked his breath in between his teeth, the irritating habit of an ex-pipe smoker. “What d’you know about Antarctica?” he asked.

If he was trying to surprise me he didn’t succeed. Nothing surprises a policeman. “It’s bloody big and bloody cold. If you keep going south you can’t miss it.”

“That’ll do to start with. D’you know we administer a big chunk of it?” I didn’t. “Two big chunks, really.” Devine drew a photocopied map from a file on his desk and passed across to me. It showed the roughly circular shape of the southernmost continent. Imagine a pie — lemon meringue, to get the colour right — with one half intact and the other half cut into three equal slices. Of those three slices one is missing, one has been nibbled at by mice, and the third piece has been sliced in two crossways, and the outer section smeared out into a string of crumbs. The crumbs sweep past the Falkland Islands and halfway to South America. Look at a map if you don’t get it. Not that it matters.

Devine indicated the intact half of the pie. “Two-thirds of that is ours. This big bit here and this smaller bit next to it. The little wedge in between belongs to France. God knows why they got that bit — I don’t. This chunk — “ he pointed to the ragged edges of the absent slice “ — belongs to New Zealand. This bit — “ the intact part “ — belongs to the USA. This bit near the Falklands — “ the smeared part “ — is British. And the rest — “ the top third of the intact half “ — is Norwegian.”

“Done all right for ourselves, haven’t we?” I studied the map more closely, taking in the names and boundaries. “Pardon my ignorance, Super, but if all this is ours why are there Russian bases on it?”

“Because of the Antarctic Treaty.” He pulled another document from the folder. “This goes into all the details, but I’ll just read you the guts of it now. ‘Following the success of co-operation in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year 1957-58, a treaty was signed by Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the UK, the USA and the USSR....’.”

“Hang on.” I said. “Why Belgium? What have they got to do with it?”

Devine shrugged. “You haven’t heard anything yet. ‘Later signatories included China, Czechoslovakia, Hungary...’ “ He looked up. “Basically all of the Commos, all right?...’Papua New Guinea ,and Spain.’’“

“Sounds like everybody wants to get into the act.”

“Too right.” Devine said. “No-one wants to miss out on the chance of a quid. ‘The Treaty stipulates that Antarctica be used for peaceful purposes only, that nuclear material not be tested or dumped, that no mining or removal of non-renewable resources take place without the agreement of the signatories, and that scientists from the signatory countries can freely inspect other countries’ sites and exchange information. It also fixes the territorial boundaries as they are during the life of the Treaty. Clear?”

“I think so.” I said. “The Russkies toddle over to our bases and we show them our bits and pieces, and in return we toddle over to their bases and they show us theirs. But if we try to actually use the place for anything we get half the United Nations breathing down our necks and telling us not to.”

Devine slid the document back into the folder. “That’s more or less it, yes.”

“Does it work?”

“As far as I know.” Devine said. “Right now it’s too bloody cold and expensive to do anything except study the place, so nobody’s worried too much about the territorial claims — so far.”

“And when does the Treaty expire?”

“There’s no fixed expiry date. It comes up for review in two years.”

“What if someone discovers something down there in the meantime that’s worth hanging on to?

“Then the Treaty could go bang.” Devine said. He closed the folder. “That’s not our problem. Our problem is that Australian Antarctica is a Commonwealth Territory. We’re responsible for law enforcement there.”

“I get your drift. What happened — one of our boffins get bumped off?”

Devine sat back with a sigh. “Ozzie, that’s exactly what’s happened.”

 

Murder is not funny, even at a distance, even when you make a business of it. There was a silence in the office before Devine went on. “His name was Samuels, Doctor Paul Samuels. He was a zoologist at Whale Base. We have three year-round bases down there, Seal Base, Whale Base and Penguin Base. That just about covers the local fauna. Whale Base is relatively new. The other two have been there since the 1950’s. All of them are staffed throughout the year by volunteers — either career public servants or else recruited for the duration. You’ve probably seen the ads in the paper — wanted, scientists and tradespeople for a one-year stint. It’s a tax-free zone, and there’s nothing to spend your money on but grog, so they either come back pretty rich or pretty drunk. “

“I prefer the Gold Coast for my holidays.” I told him.

“Hm. Anyway, the scientists — they call them ‘boffins’ — are employed by the Department of Science, the tradespeople by Housing and Construction. They travel down by ship in the summer, when the pack-ice melts and the ships can reach the shore. All the bases are on the coast. There’s been talk of building an inland one with an airstrip, but it hasn’t happened yet. Some of the expeditioners leave at the end of summer when the boat comes back. Others stay there till the ice melts again and the ship can get back to pick them up and drop off the next lot. That can be up to eighteen months. Nobody’s allowed to spend two winters in a row down there, but a fair few people go back for a second trip or more.”

“Gluttons for punishment.”

“They say it’s beautiful.”

“So’s the Gold Coast.”

He looked at me hard, but I kept my face blank. “Eighty people are wintering down there this season.” he went on. “Thirty of them are at Whale Base, where Samuels was stationed. Twenty-eight are men and two are women. There were two zoologists including Samuels. The Officer-In-Charge of the base is an Executive Research Officer from Defence called Machin. There’s been an attack on him too. Samuels was staying at a remote hut. Someone apparently drove out there from the Base, poured some whisky down his throat and dragged him out in the snow to die. Not very pretty.” He slid the file across to me. It’s all in here.”

 “Whale Base has radio contact via satellite with the Antarctic Research Commission in Tasmania when the weather down there is good, and they can fax documents then, too. I’ve asked Machin to send up his log, and that’s coming through to Hobart in dribs and drabs. And at the moment that’s all I know. The Minister’s keen to get it cleared up before the papers have a field day. The Press have got wind of it already.” He paused. “There’s no holds barred on this one, Ozzie. Work out what you need to spend, and spend it. I hope you can sort it out from here, but if you can’t — “ he sighed “ — we’ll manage to get you down there somehow. Have a look and let me know if you come up with anything, eh?”

I took the file. “What about his family?” I asked. “Any leads there?”

“Wife and young child in Perth, parents in Albany. I’m expecting a report from the WA force, but I wouldn’t count on much. The investigating officer over there is a woman that I know slightly. She rang me this morning and said that the wife couldn’t help at all. She was totally stunned and had to be sedated for shock.”

I nodded. “All right, Alec. I’ll let you know what I need.”

 

Back in the office I composed a curse that encompassed politicians in general and Ministers in particular. Ministerial patronage is a pain in the neck: get it right and they take all the credit, get it wrong and you wear the blame — at least until the department changes hands. And when politicians interest themselves in something it’s usually something very murky indeed.

I pulled the material out of the file and arranged it on the desk. It was an odd assortment, cobbled together quickly from the material on hand. There were maps of Antarctica, plans and descriptions of the bases, transcripts of the specific messages in which the Acting Officer-In-Charge had asked for our help. None of it made much sense without a bit of background. I buzzed. “Marta?”

“Yes?”

“Find someone with nowt to do and send him in here, will you?”

“Him or her.”

“Him, her or it. I don’t care which, as long as they can drive and read.”

 

A few minutes later the door was opened by a large pair of red-framed glasses. A young woman came in behind them and blinked at me owlishly. “You sent for me, Inspector?”

“Kerri, isn’t it? Come in.” We recruit an annual dose of Bright Young Things straight from the universities. The smart ones shoot through as soon as they can. The dim ones stick around forever.  I didn’t know which type Kerri was yet. I waved her to a chair. “Got a notebook?”

She nodded, settling a writing pad on her knee.

“All right. I want you to dig up some information for me. Start with the Department of Science at Woden, then try the National Library, then the morgue at the Canberra Times — after that it’s up to you. I want information on Antarctica in general, on the Australian Antarctic Territory in particular. I want it labelled, tied up in neat little packages that I can read without getting bogged down in details. And I want it by this time tomorrow. It’s for a murder.” I paused, seeing her flinch. “Does that upset you?”

“It’s just a surprise.” she said. “I haven’t worked on a murder before.”

“I have. Lots.”

“Why Antarctica?”

“Because that’s where it happened.”

Her eyes widened. “I read that in the paper.” she said. “A man was found dead from exposure. Do you mean that was a murder?”

“You know more about it that I do.” I told her. “Get me a paper too, eh?”

“Yes, sir.” She closed her notepad and rose to go, pausing at the door. “Do you think we’ll get him, sir?”

“That depends on how well you do your research, doesn’t it?” I said. “Anyway, how do you know it was a he ? That’s sexist language, that is — you talk to Marta like that and she’ll soon put you right.”

“Yes, sir.” She nodded, trying to look efficient. “I’ll get right on to it.”

“That’s the way.” I told her. Unsmilingly she left the room.

Graduates! A police cadet would have written down every word, called me ‘Chief’, laughed at my jokes, and then gone off and looked up the Arctic. You knew where you were with cadets. But graduates — who could fathom ‘em?

 

I went back to the file. Some facts stood out. One: Antarctica was big. Bigger than Europe, one-and-two-thirds times as big as Australia. And scattered all over the icy surface were fewer than five hundred people, most of them male. The same number of people as worked in the Federal Police Building. I imagined the building picked up by a giant hand, whisked off to the south, and shaken like a pepper-pot over Antarctica. According to my pocket calculator, if they were spread out evenly over the continent each person would be a hundred and sixty kilometres from the next. I had a comforting image of the Assistant Secretary buried up to his waist in snow, one hundred and sixty kilometres from the nearest stenographer.

Two: despite Australia’s claim to own about a third of it, our Antarctic presence was pretty feeble. One base on Macquarie Island, only halfway there; and three others spread out along the eastern coast like fleas on a whale: Penguin Base, Seal Base and Whale Base, the last one the closest to Australia. Around the coast and towards the interior there were lots more foreign names: Pushkin, Lysenko, Byrd, Ellsworth, Amundsen . The Norwegian section had a smattering of royalty: Crown Princess Martha, Crown Prince Olav. Some of the Russian and American bases had airstrips, but none of ours did. Conclusion: if someone wanted to play rough, we wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of fighting back.

Three: Antarctica is a desert. The word took me aback for a moment, but the report explained it. There’s not much snow, simply because there’s no heat to evaporate it. Nearly all the water is locked up as ice. Savage winds chuck drifts of old snow around, but there isn’t much new snow; Antarctica is one of the dryest places on Earth.

Four: like most deserts Antarctica is short on life.  Devine’s catalogue of fauna — whales, penguins and seals — became complete when you added the fish and seabirds that call in there annually on their way to somewhere else, and the squid and crustaceans that live in the bottom of the ocean where it never gets too cold — just five degrees or so. There was a lot of talk about krill, which turned out to be a kind of small shrimp, breeding in vast numbers. Whales thrive on it, apparently, and so do Japanese: hence the dwindling number of whales.

Five: it’s cold. The lowest recorded Antarctic temperature is minus eighty-eight degrees Celsius, cold enough to liquefy chlorine and freeze mercury (have you ever seen frozen mercury?).  The hottest was a sunny fifteen degrees, recorded at the furthest tip of the peninsula that crawled north towards the Falklands. At Whale Base the temperature had once reached a record nine degrees in midsummer. Canberra was equatorial by comparison.

 

All of this useful information had come to us courtesy of the Australian Antarctic Research Commission, conveniently abbreviated ARC. ARC was based in Kingston, near Hobart, another city not noted for its tropical climate. Here expeditioners were trained and kitted out before being loaded on board ship for the long trip down. A photograph of ARC Headquarters showed a big group of low buildings connected to a massive warehouse — the store. ARC assured the taxpayers they were getting their money’s worth by means of a quarterly magazine, of which there were several recent copies on the file. It was full of black-and white photographs showing people in heavy clothing, little spherical huts dotted about arid lunar landscapes, and various mysterious devices doing inexplicable things. Nobody looked as though they were having lots of fun, but then taxpayers don’t like to see that anyway. There were lots of scientific reports full of jargon, and acronyms of the kind that bureaucrats love — AWSs, ARGOS, SCAR and ATCMs.

 

One of the recent journals showed small head-and-shoulders photographs of the wintering staff at each base, taken just before they left. Samuels, the murdered man, had been a round-faced pudgy balding fellow in his mid-thirties. His was one of the few faces that wasn’t smiling. Machin, the Whale Base OIC, was smiling, but he didn’t look as though he made a habit of it — a lean, deeply tanned man with fair wispy hair and wrinkles around his eyes.

Two other faces caught my attention. One was of the Medical Officer, Helena Craig. I noticed her first because she was clean-shaven; only when I read the name did I realize she was a woman — a woman with a man’s face. Her cheekbones were female, but she had a coarse thatch of dark hair and a rugged plainness that brought to mind a recent unpleasantness about a pair of allegedly female East German discus throwers. She too was smiling, but there was a grimness to her expression, a resigned look that I’d seen on ugly women before.

The other striking face was a different proposition altogether — Debbie O’Sullivan. A sparkling blonde in her twenties, with clear skin, good teeth, and just enough character in her face to pass for attractive in Canberra, where there was plenty of competition. At Whale Base she would be devastating. The journal listed her as an Observer Grade Two. What an Observer was I had no idea, but I couldn’t help thinking that for the next year or so Ms. O’Sullivan would be more observed than observing.

I went over the photos again. Slightly more than half of them were tradesmen, a hearty-looking bunch who wouldn’t have looked out of place with their boots on the bar rail of a country hotel. The rest were scientists, mostly young, fresh-faced and eager to be off on their big well-paid adventure. Samuels, slightly older and patently miserable, stood out like a sore thumb. I couldn’t imagine what would make anyone go to Antarctica, much less a man with a loving wife and a young child. I wrestled with the problem for a while without success, then decided it was time to think about something else. Like lunch.