Flashback

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Tupungato, The High Andes

The air did not satisfy Hrafn’s breath. It was emptier than the wet winds of Snæfellsjökull, the Icelandic glacier whose slopes Hrafn and his brother Ragnar had bested as teenagers. Hrafn waved down to Ragnar, who did not wave back. Their guide, Guillermo, touched his hat and smiled.

Hrafn removed his sunglasses and considered Mount Tupungato.

They were two days out from Laguna del Diamante. The Lagoon of Diamonds had been Hrafn’s first experience of air at 10,000 feet. He regarded himself as a fit fifty-year-old. He ran and swam before breakfast. But the rarified airs had slowed his movement, and Guillermo had mooted a return to Mendoza. One look was all it took: one look between Hrafn and his younger brother. The old competition returned. They grinned.

‘Onwards,’ Hrafn said.

‘And upwards,’ said Ragnar.

That first night, they had made camp in the boulders near the lagoon. The constellations were inverted. Guillermo explained that tupungato meant ‘place to observe the stars’ in the tongue of Huarpe Indians. He made hot chocolate andinista style and gave them oatmeal bars. He told them about his travels on the mountain. In return, Hrafn offered the story of an aeroplane called Star Dust. Guillermo knew it well, he said, but stopped when he saw the despair and sadness on Ragnar’s face. All eyes turned to the hot chocolate and the conservation ended with quiet bids good night.

Ragnar and Hrafn slept side by side as though decades of absence from Iceland had been spliced out and they were boys again, bored on their aunt’s farm near Akureyri, looking for trolls.

‘Why didn’t you tell him about your bogeyman, Hrafn?’

‘I’m not sure he was there.’

‘Is it related to the German plane crash?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You know, you should go back to air-crash investigation. You’re good at it.’

‘I tried to get back into it and I couldn’t. It’s over.’

‘Why are we really here?’

‘Because I promised you a birthday present.’

‘Plus you hate not being sure.’

‘That too. Now go to sleep.’

They left the lagoon in a Land Rover brought by Guillermo’s brother, who spoke less Spanish than Hrafn. They bounced in silence to San Carlos. In a basement shop, Hrafn remained silent during the fitting of his gear while Guillermo outlined the itinerary. If they made no discovery at the foot of the glacier, they would attempt the high ice fields, perhaps the summit zone itself. Hrafn nodded as his straps were tightened. From San Carlos, they travelled to Santa Clara, and from there to the Portezuelo del Azufre. Ragnar raised an eyebrow as Hrafn translated the name: Brimstone Gorge.

Some days later, after four acclimatisation hikes, they entered the array of brown rocks at the glacier terminus.

Now, heaving another chestful of air, Hrafn waited for Guillermo and Ragnar to catch up. Their bright clothing bobbed against the dun moraine. Here spread the dying days of the Argentine summer. In three weeks, perhaps less, the passes would be closed.

‘So you’ve,’ gasped Guillermo, ‘adapted to the altitude.’

Ragnar stumbled between them. He put a hand on Hrafn’s shoulder.

‘Next time, just buy me a cake.’

‘Ragnar, this is an experience.’

‘A slap with a wet fish is an experience, with the advantage that it won’t cause an embolism.’

‘Mediocrity is climbing molehills without sweating.’

‘Tell that to a mole.’

Guillermo unclipped his GPS unit. ‘Hrafn,’ he said, ‘we should start.’

Hrafn removed his gloves. They dangled on Velcro straps from his wrists, and he felt a momentary ridiculousness, a touch of childhood. He pulled a sheaf of paper from his jacket. It was an aviation accident report written following the discovery of Star Dust’s debris in 2000. Hrafn read aloud the coordinates of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.

They wandered through the boulders with little breath to talk, and Guillermo stopped often to direct his doubt at the sky. The summit of Tupungato was now occluded by a scarf of cloud. They reached the correct coordinates an hour later, but there was no engine.

‘Maybe they took it,’ said Ragnar. ‘When the army came.’

‘No,’ said Hrafn, ‘they only took samples. The engine is too heavy.’

‘I suggest we spread out,’ said Guillermo. ‘But not more than fifty metres from this point. Understood?’

Hrafn and Ragnar nodded.

Guillermo called them back almost immediately. They tottered towards him, down the slope, and found him kneeling alongside a ribbon-like piece of metal. Hrafn asked Ragnar to get the camera from his rucksack.

‘So what is it?’ Ragnar asked.

‘Part of a propeller blade. See the way it’s buckled towards the end? It was turning on impact.’

‘Guillermo, can you move back? You’re blocking the light. Guillermo?’

Ragnar touched the shoulder of their guide but he did not raise his head. Guillermo had a string of beads in his hands and his eyes were closed.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ Ragnar asked.

Hrafn cuffed Ragnar’s ear and knelt next to Guillermo. Ragnar, frowning, did the same. They stared at the shingly rock and the propeller and considered the last moments of the passengers and crew. Hrafn scratched his scarred neck.

‘Shall we note the location?’ asked Guillermo, at last.

Hrafn oriented himself. ‘I’m not sure there’s any point. If this propeller is the same one recorded by Bauza in his report, and I think it is, then it’s moved several metres since 2000.’

‘It’s the glacier,’ said Guillermo. ‘Nothing stops her. Star Dust is here. I feel every piece. Some on the surface of the glacier, some below. Whatever she holds, she gives up, but in her own time. Who knows how long it will take? She does not listen to us.’

‘Are you OK, Guillermo?’

Their ebullient host seemed exhausted. ‘We need to return to camp. That will take two hours, and we have three hours of light left.’

‘Just a few minutes longer.’

‘A few, no more.’

At first, they found nothing larger than a scrap of pinstripe suit—Hrafn thought of a Palestinian man standing at the window of a departure lounge, separated from the conversation. Then, later, Ragnar saw a mummified hand. Hrafn unfolded his metal detector and swept it over the rocks. He cupped the earpiece to protect his hearing above the wind. When he found a strong signal, he called to the other men and they helped him disinter a tent peg. On the second occasion, he kept his discovery to himself, and proceeded to dig alone. He laid his detector against a rock and placed a pencil as a marker. He scraped but found nothing. Ten minutes later, Guillermo approached.

‘We must leave, my friend.’

‘Help me.’

Guillermo gestured to the cloud around the summit.

‘Dr Óskarson, please.’

Hrafn kept scraping until Guillermo joined him. Soon, aided by Guillermo’s trowel, they had cleared a pit thirty centimetres deep. There was no room for Ragnar to help. He pottered through the scree, turning to them occasionally. Hrafn was about to abandon the hole when his fingernail snagged a metal surface. With Guillermo’s help, he revealed the object. It was a grit-filled metal cylinder with the letter ‘P’ visible on one side. Hrafn knew that ‘YRENE’ would follow. He imagined Cory holding this fire extinguisher as it burned in his hand. But, of course, this could be one of the many extinguishers on board. And even if it could be proved that this extinguisher had been housed in the cockpit, it did not directly corroborate Cory’s story.

‘So,’ said Guillermo, ‘does this help you?’

‘We need to find the hose. He told me he cut it.’

‘Told you?’ asked Guillermo. ‘Who told you?’

Ragnar tapped Hrafn’s shoulder. Ragnar was holding something behind his back, as though playing the childhood game of guess-which-hand.

‘It’s a few months early,’ he said, ‘but happy birthday, Hrafn.’

He gave him a piece of black piping. It was hard and cracked. There was a V-shaped cut in the end.

‘So,’ continued Ragnar, ‘is this the thing your friend Saskia wanted?’

‘No,’ said Hrafn. He found himself close to tears. ‘I mean, I think she wanted me to find it for myself.’

‘Now we go,’ said Guillermo. ‘Tupungato is no place to linger at night.’

They stood. Hrafn waited, dazed, while Ragnar wrapped the hose in a handkerchief and stowed it in his rucksack. Their two-hour walk did not represent a significant descent, but only at the camp, with its white river and steaming hot chocolate, could Hrafn truly breathe.

Ragnar joined him at the edge of the river.

‘You’re going back to the investigation, aren’t you?’

‘If they’ll have me.’