Eddie’s expression changed to anger. Nina looked away. ‘I’ll call you again soon, okay? Please don’t do anything without letting me know.’ She gave Imka her contact information, then disconnected.

Her husband concluded his own call, saying goodbye to Macy before rounding on his wife. ‘What? You want to go looking for this thing?’

‘Oh, come on, Eddie,’ she replied. ‘You know I’m going to. People have already died because of whatever Wim Stapper found.’

‘And it never occurred to you that he might have killed them himself and pretended to go crazy ape bonkers to cover it up?’

‘If he’s faking, there’ll be an Oscar heading his way for Best Actor. And why would he come up with such an insane story when he could have just kept it simple and said his ship hit the iceberg and everyone else drowned?’ She paused, thinking. ‘I’m certain the text on one side of the key is in the Veteres language. Their existence is a secret I promised to keep; we both did. Because if the truth gets out, it could throw half the world into turmoil – as if things weren’t bad enough already! If there really is some kind of Veteres outpost frozen in the ice, I need to see it.’

‘So you can decide what to do with it.’ It was not a question but a statement, annoyed at her assumption of authority.

‘If I have to. You’d rather someone else did?’

‘If it means we don’t have to leave our daughter behind for a week while we traipse around on a fucking iceberg, yeah.’

‘There’s something else,’ Nina went on. ‘I wasn’t sure before, because the photo on the dark web wasn’t good enough to show all the details. But now that I’ve seen the key in person . . .’ She stood and headed for the door. ‘Come on.’

‘Where to?’

‘Cheng’s room. I want to show you something.’

He reluctantly accompanied her to the neighbouring room. She knocked.

‘Uh – wait, please! Wait, please!’ the young man responded from within. A pause, long enough for the couple to give each other quizzical looks, then the door opened. Cheng blinked at them. ‘Oh! Professor, Mr Chase. Hi. Er . . . can I help you?’

‘Hi, Cheng,’ said Nina. ‘Is it okay if I look at the key?’

‘Yes, yes, of course. It’s right here.’ He led them to a desk. His laptop was closed on it, but she noticed that some LEDs set into the case were alight and the fan was still going, as if it were in the process of entering sleep mode.

Eddie realised the same thing. ‘Catch you watching porn, did we?’

‘What? No, no!’ Cheng stammered.

‘Eddie!’ chided Nina. ‘Excuse my husband, please. He has a . . . youthful sense of humour.’

‘That’s okay,’ the Chinese replied hastily. ‘No problem.’ The key was next to the computer; he presented it to her. ‘Here.’