LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

me darling! And he’ll change his mind for safety reasons. It must have been embarrassingly clear to everyone last night that you and I can’t stand the sight of each other. This is the Arctic—one of the most unforgiving environments in the world. It would be stupid to send us out together. Stupid and risky.’

      To her fury Jud laughed. ‘You always were quick-witted in a crunch. That hasn’t changed.’ Then he went on with an air of calm reason that infuriated her, ‘However, much as I hate to disappoint you, Garry isn’t going to change his mind. It’s very simple. I need to photograph muskoxen. You know where the herd is. Therefore we’re going out together.’ He raised one brow in mockery. ‘But if you’d rather discuss our plans in public in the kitchen, that’s OK with me...by the way, you’ll never make it to the pages of Vogue magazine with those pyjamas.’

      His eyes drifted down her legs, hidden by the thick green pile of her pyjama bottoms. Then suddenly his gaze sharpened. He got up from the chair and crossed the room, standing so close to her that she could see the individual stitches in his sweater. ‘That rug,’ he said, the tone of his voice altogether different. ‘I remember it—your mother made it, didn’t she?’

      Kathrin fought the urge to step back. ‘Yes. The year you finished high school.’

      Jud dropped to his knees, and unwillingly she looked down on his bent head. His hair was just the same, she thought, exactly as it had been since he was a small boy. She had always loved the ravens who nested in the tall beeches at Thorndean, admiring their adaptability and their fierce independence; and Jud’s hair had the same blue-black sheen as a raven’s wing. His fingers—the long, flexible fingers that she remembered so well—were caressing the blue strands of cloth interwoven in the rug. ‘My dad gave me that shirt,’ he said quietly. ‘I wore it until it was nearly falling apart.’

      The words came out in spite of her. ‘You tore it the day you fell down the ravine. My mother mended it for you.’

      ‘Yeah...’ He glanced up, his eyes a much deeper blue than the faded fabric, and for the first time his face was unguarded and open, the face of the Jud she had always known. Kathrin’s breath caught in her throat. She said loudly, ‘Ivor’s cashmere sweater is part of the rug as well.’

      As if prison bars had slammed shut, Jud’s face changed. He stood up, his gaze trained on hers. ‘I think you fell in love with Ivor when you were in the cradle,’ he said with a total lack of emotion. ‘So why didn’t you marry him, Kit?’

      With all the dignity she could muster she answered, ‘I don’t want to talk about Ivor. The breakfast bell’s going to ring any minute and I’m not ready—it’s not fair to keep Pam waiting.’

      ‘You’ve got it wrong,’ Jud said with a softness that rippled with menace. ‘It’s due time we talked about the past, you and I. About Ivor and my father and all that happened seven years ago. But not now. Not before breakfast. In that, at least, you’re right.’ He smiled at her, a smile every bit as menacing as his voice, and turned back to the door. But as he opened it, he looked at her over his shoulder. ‘You don’t think it’s coincidence that I turned up here do you, Kit?’ he said, and closed the door gently behind him.

      Kathrin’s bare toes curled into the softness of the rug. With Jud gone, the room had resumed its normal proportions. Yet the silence within the four board walls echoed and pulsed with his presence, and with a sick feeling in her heart she knew that everything had changed. For she had not for one instant doubted the claim he had made on his way out of the door. Jud had indeed come here seeking her out. And he would not go away until he had achieved his purpose. Whatever that purpose might be.

      With a raucous clang the breakfast bell split the silence. All her movements mechanical, Kathrin got dressed, not even noticing the small pleasures of a newly folded shirt and clean socks. Pulling on a pair of leather mukluks, she grabbed her jacket from the hook and left the hut.

      It was a beautiful day, the breeze from the plateau tinged with real warmth. She’d do a wash this morning, she thought, and ask Pam to take it in for her. That way she could set off to find the muskoxen after lunch. Without Jud.

      ‘Kathrin! Got a minute?’

      A wrench and an oil can in one hand, Garry was emerging from the white-painted building that housed the generator. She smiled at him, happy to see his bearded, pleasant face. No surprises with Garry, no hidden depths. ‘Isn’t it a wonderful day?’ she called, walking to meet him.

      ‘Supposed to stay like this until the weekend. Not that I ever trust the weather reports.’ He replaced the wrench in his metal tool box, which was sitting on the bench outside the hut. Then, without finesse, he plunged into what he had to say. ‘Pam told me about you and Jud. But it’s no go, Kathrin. Jud’s prepared to underwrite one whole research programme for us, and you know what that means.’

      Kathrin’s heart sank. The research station received only minimal government support, depending on funds from universities and private donors. With all the cutbacks in recent years, the donors were becoming more and more crucial to the station’s survival. ‘He can’t have that much money,’ she said sharply.

      ‘He’s already given me a certified cheque—he made a small fortune on that prison movie he produced.’ At Kathrin’s look of mystification Garry went on, ‘You must have seen it, it came out a couple of years ago and did phenomenally well in the States.’

      ‘No, I never did.’ She frowned in thought. ‘That would have been the year I was taking honours and working part-time, I either had my nose buried in a textbook or I was trying to catch up on my sleep.’

      ‘Look, I know this is awkward for you,’ Garry said. ‘But in the interests of the station, I think you should be able to ignore any personal differences. All Jud wants is some shots of muskoxen. You’re the logical person to go out with him.’

      She did not feel logical. She felt trapped and rebellious. ‘What does he want photos of muskoxen for?’

      ‘His next book will—’

      Floundering in a sea of unknowns, Kathrin sputtered, ‘I didn’t know he was a writer.’

      ‘Well, you haven’t seen him for years, have you?’ Garry said patiently. ‘His first book, on west coast grizzlies, is due out next month. I saw the advance copy—some inspired photography and a really excellent text; the man knows his stuff. He’s even willing to plug the station in this Arctic book—so we sure can’t afford to antagonise him.’

      As a boy Jud had always been fiddling with cameras; that at least was familiar territory. ‘All right, I get the message,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll take him out there and I’ll find him a herd of muskoxen if we have to walk thirty miles. But I’ll only be as polite to him as he is to me. And I won’t nursemaid him.’

      Garry clapped her on the shoulder, and not until she saw the relief in his face did she realise he had half expected her to refuse. ‘Great!’ he said heartily. ‘He’ll carry all his own gear, and I’m sure he won’t be any trouble to you. Apparently he camped out in the Rockies for the better part of a year doing his first book—you won’t have to nursemaid him.’ He plunked the oil can beside the tool box. ‘Let’s go for breakfast. Pam’s making bacon and eggs.’

      Every piece of information Kathrin was gathering about Jud only served to confuse her more and more. The Jud she had known when she was fifteen had certainly had the skills for wilderness camping. But the man who had cold-bloodedly stolen from his father and then spent four years in prison? How could that man have survived in the awesome silence of the mountains, alone and thrown upon his own resources?

      Unhappily she trailed behind Garry to the kitchen. Inside, Jud and Karl were bent over a topographical map, Karl explaining the layout of the beach ridges, lakes and plateaux of the Carstairs lowland in his careful English. Turning her back on them, Kathrin helped herself to an orange and began peeling it. The delicious smell of frying bacon filled the kitchen. As Calvin offered her a freshly baked muffin and as she bit into the first sweet, juicy segment of orange, her

Скачать книгу