Tundra by Tim Stevens Page A

he’s in his workshop trying to figure out exactly how you managed to fuck up his machine.’
    At his shoulder, Purkiss saw Budian glance up sharply at him, as though gauging his reaction.  Keys winced and turned away.
    But Avner’s comment had broken the ice.
    Purkiss said, ‘I’ve been a bit of a disruptive influence, haven’t I?’
    He sat down between Clement and Montrose, both of them shuffling their chairs over to give him room. A litre bottle of vodka stood on the table, already drained below the neck. To Purkiss’s mild surprise, Clement reached for it and unscrewed the cap and poured a measure into each of the  plastic tumblers that were arrayed haphazardly between the bowls and the plates piled with hunks of hot bread.
    Avner raised his cup. ‘To not getting blown up by faulty snowmobiles.’
    The tumblers were raised, and Purkiss risked a swig. The liquor scorched his throat. The lightening of the atmosphere was too valuable for him to risk it by seeming not to partake.
    They set to their meal with the appetites of a group of people exposed to prolonged extreme cold. Purkiss savoured the dense pungency of the stew, feeling its vitality spread slow warmth through his system. The near miss on the snowmobile had sent his adrenal glands into overdrive, depleting his body’s reserves, and he needed the nourishment of protein and carbohydrate more than he’d realised.
    As the food was consumed and the vodka flowed, the conversation began to settle into a comfortable pace. There was talk of the day’s work, the weather conditions, current affairs. For the first time, Purkiss heard Budian speak at length. She was, he reflected, the person at the station with whom he’d had the least interaction since his arrival. Her accent was denser than Medievsky’s, the guttural Russian vowels more pronounced.
    Avner, directly opposite Purkiss, laid down his spoon and poked the peak of his cap back with a finger and said: ‘Okay. John. What’s your story? You’re going to be interviewing all of us, so... a little about yourself first. You married?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘But you’re shacked up, right?’
    Purkiss thought of Hannah. Their relationship had begun in extreme circumstances last summer, after she’d saved his life when a car bomb had gone off in a south London street. The intensity of their first six weeks had been brought to an abrupt halt when Vale had dispatched Purkiss to a supposedly brief job in Copenhagen, one which had led on to a two-month stint in eastern France involving a complex sting operation. By the time Purkiss returned to England, Hannah, who worked for the Security Service, MI5, had herself become caught up in a painstakingly meticulous undercover project in Birmingham. They’d continued to see one another ever since, but their days and nights together had become the exception rather than the norm.
    ‘Kind of,’ said Purkiss.
    ‘Ah. Yeah. Like that.’ Avner tipped his tumbler at Purkiss. ‘I’m getting a sense of, don’t even go there .’ He laughed mirthlessly, took a drink.
    Beside Avner, Budian leaned in swiftly and said, ‘You have done science reporting before?’
    ‘Not a lot,’ said Purkiss. ‘I was at the G8 climate change summit last year. But I was just relaying what the leaders discussed. This is my first time in the field, as it were.’
    ‘Are you enjoying it?’ Montrose hadn’t addressed Purkiss directly so far, and his voice was startling. Purkiss looked at him. He wasn’t drunk, not in the slightest.
    Purkiss decided to play along. ‘Well, apart from the small matter of the exploding snowmobile... yes, I am. Very much.’ He looked at his watch. ‘In fact, if it’s not too late, I wonder  if one or two of you would be prepared for me to interview you this evening. About your particular field of expertise.’
    There were shrugs, nods. Purkiss glanced round the table.
    ‘Dr Keys? You first?’
    Keys stared at Purkiss, as though he hadn’t been listening and