In the hall there had been ice, floodlights, stands, music and enough space for people to hide behind the ceremonies. Here in the club room, there were only glass display cases with trophies, yellowed team photos, small brass plaques bearing names that no one outside this valley had ever known, and in between, the cold, harsh light of a room that had played at honour too often to be well prepared for the truth.
Now, on a long table, lay newspaper clippings, the debt statement, the asbestos report, the list of reallocated donation receipts, Fox’s notes and Dana’s preliminary figures, and even an old-fashioned microfilm that Mulder had found at the base of the silver trophy.
The old challenge cup stood in its display case once more, as if it had nothing to do with any of it.
Dr Dorian Toolidle, the tournament doctor, was already in the room. His hands neatly folded. His face buried in that medical neutrality which, in his case, always seemed like a rehearsed version of innocence. Shane stood on the left-hand side of the table, outwardly calm, inwardly on edge. Ilya on the right, smoother, colder, and for that very reason no less tense.
Fox and Dana entered. Jennifer and Jonathan followed half a step behind.
The door closed.
Fox didn’t sit down. Neither did Dana. Jennifer placed a folder on the table. Jonathan stood so that he could see the door, as if he no longer trusted even the walls in this building.
“Thank you for staying,” said Fox.
Toolidle gave a slight nod. “As a doctor and as a citizen, I had little choice, Agent Mulder.”
Jonathan muttered, “It’s suspicious when people say ‘as a citizen’.”
Jennifer shot him a quick glance that meant: we’ll laugh about this later, not now.
Fox took the Innsbruck photo and placed it face-up in the middle of the table.
“Then let’s just do it.”
The doctor looked at the photo for just a moment before shrugging his shoulders.
Shane and Ilya looked over almost simultaneously.
Beneath the picture it read: US sports doctor Toolidle and his Soviet rival Frantzusov at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck.
Shane said nothing. But his shoulders tensed.
Ilya read the second name again.
“Frantz—?”
“Frantzusov,” said Dana.
Toolidle looked up from the photo. His voice remained calm.
“Old press kits are often inaccurate. Names get mixed up. Captions even more so.”
Jennifer added a second page. Same name, different newspaper clipping. Innsbruck again, and Toolidle and Frantzusow once more.
“Then Innsbruck was evidently unusually inaccurate. And that was over 60 years ago, when there were no AI-generated fake news stories yet.”
Toolidle now glanced briefly at her. Not hostile. More irritated that there were not only investigators in this room, but also intelligent hosts.
Fox continued speaking, without giving him time to construct a coherent story.
“So Walter Franklin wasn’t always Walter Franklin. He appears in old records as Frantzusow, a Russian sports doctor. Linked to you and to Soviet sports medicine, long before he turned up in the US under a new name in 1979.”
Shane looked from Fox to Toolidle, then to Ilya.
Ilya was staring only at the photo.
“My grandfather might have known him.”
The doctor replied too quickly. “Perhaps.”
“Or certainly?” asked Fox.
Toolidle clasped his fingers tighter. “Agent Mulder, we’re talking about press photos from sixty years ago. Back then, the entire winter sports medical community from the Western Bloc, the Eastern Bloc and the Northern Bloc met somewhere in Innsbruck.”
Jonathan said dryly: “Well, it’s rather convenient that you of all people and our deceased ended up together in an ice rink again today.”
Toolidle ignored him.
Jennifer now placed the list of debts next to it.
“And tonight of all nights, we discover that Franklin wasn’t a generous sponsor, but bankrupt. The scholarship money didn’t exist. The donation proceeds had already been reallocated. The demolition of this rink became a money pit because of asbestos.”
She pushed the relevant pages towards him.
“That’s a very poor economic backdrop for a heart attack.”
Fox walked slowly round the table.
“Captain Hollander heard in the corridor about old documents, Soviet supply routes and payments. So he thought of Rozanow.”
Shane stared at the edge of the table.
Fox continued: “Captain Rozanow heard about a popular boy, pictures, rumours and blackmail. So he thought of Hollander.”
He stopped between them.
“Both were wrong, or at least half-wrong.”
Toolidle said calmly: “Or they both heard exactly what two young men with too much imagination and hormones hear when adults discuss complicated matters.”
For the first time, Dana spoke directly against him.
“Complicated matters like Soviet sports medicine?”
Toolidle looked at her. “Complicated matters like old careers, Agent Scully.”
“And old names.”
A brief silence.
Fox now placed the preliminary toxicology results next to them.
“We’ve got something else. None of the four captains were contaminated with a relevant contact poison. Neither Moreau nor Arslan, neither Hollander nor Rozanow.”
Toolidle said nothing.
Fox tapped the paper.
“That exonerates our athletes in a certain way. But it leaves someone who didn’t have to win on the ice to be close enough.”
Toolidle raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Takamura?”
Jennifer answered before Fox could.
“Japan is too refined for murder; it would be incompatible with the principles of Shinto to poison someone—that was also Dr Amara El-Amin’s direct instruction. Nor are we accusing you. We’re merely noting that you’ve been associated with Franklin for decades, remained close to him tonight, were likely aware of his financial distress, and were the first to claim medical authority.”
Fox immediately turned to Shane and Ilya.
“You two know more about each other than would be reasonable for two mere competitors.”
Ilya said nothing, nor did Shane.
Jennifer looked back and forth between them.
“And that’s exactly what Franklin or Toolidle probably sensed.”
The doctor chuckled softly, the first inauthentic sound he’d made.
“You overestimate the significance of youthful drama.”
Jennifer stood her ground.
“No. I rarely underestimate how old apocalypticism exploits it.”
Dana looked back at her readings.
“At the moment, we know the following: Franklin did not die from simple direct contamination via one of the four captains. That doesn’t rule out poison. It only rules out the obvious transmission via our players. Dr Toolidle had an old connection to Franklin. Franklin was financially ruined. Hollander and Rozanow had both heard something that had made them wary of each other and, at the same time, of each other.”
Fox said calmly, “And that rules out Moreau and Arslan.”
Toolidle spoke sharply enough that the sentence almost became a slip of the tongue.
“Of course they do. The sons were too obvious.”
Fox looked at him.
“That was quick.”
Toolidle realised it too late.
Jonathan exhaled softly.
“Oh, Dorian.”
Toolidle turned his head slowly towards him.
“My name is Dr Toolidle.”
Jonathan looked at the photograph.
“That won’t spare you any pain in the electric chair.”
Scully pushed the Innsbruck photograph a little closer.
“You two have been dealing with each other for decades. What was it all about?”
Toolidle replied immediately. “Sports medicine. Exchanges. Conferences. Official programmes.”
Fox asked almost casually: “And Soviet sports secrets?”
No answer. Shane now looked openly at Ilya. Not with reproach. With the cold realisation that both had fallen into the same vicious cycle. Ilya noticed and looked back.
Jennifer caught a dragonfly that was flying through the room for some inexplicable reason, stroked it, and let it fly on.
Fox said: “I don’t believe that either of our two captains killed Franklin. But I do believe that Franklin and perhaps you, Dr Toolidle, put both young men in a position where each had to regard the other as dangerous.”
Toolidle said nothing.
Dana took a step closer to the table.
“And if Franklin wanted to settle old scores tonight, buy silence, or discipline someone with shame, then we need his complete medical and historical records. Immediately.”
Toolidle looked at her.
“You have no basis—”
“Yes, I do,” said Dana. “A dead man.”
Silence. Jonathan walked slowly to the door to position himself as a guard, a silent reminder that no one was simply leaving this room now.
Jennifer remained at the table. Fox looked in turn at the three remaining people: Toolidle, Shane and Ilya.
“Right,” said Fox. “Then let’s start from the beginning. Dr Toolidle, you bought Soviet sports secrets from Frantzusov. And when he was caught by Alexey Rozanov, Ilya’s grandfather, you helped him flee to the US to protect him from execution for high treason – and yourself from the KGB’s revenge. And now that Franklin was broke, he wanted to blackmail you with this secret or sell his backers to the KGB, whichever would bring in more money. Is that correct?”
The silence following Fox’s last sentence lasted only a breath before Toolidle moved. The tournament doctor took a small step back, as if merely to shift his stance. His right hand brushed almost casually along the edge of the table, pushed one of the folders slightly to one side and, at the same moment, bumped his elbow against the narrow glass display cabinet beside him. The glass tipped over immediately and shattered with a clatter. For a split second, the room lost its order.
Jonathan reacted first.
“Oh, no—”
Toolidle was already through the gap that had opened up, astonishingly fast for a man of his age. Not towards the door, which Jonathan was half-blocking, but towards the window leading to the back garden.
Fox gave chase, but slipped on the shards of glass.
“Stop right there!”
Toolidle didn’t, of course.
Shane was even faster than Fox. No thinking, just muscle memory, athletic instinct and the brutal desire to finally stop something tangible. He pushed off the table and chased after Toolidle towards the window.
“Shane, don’t—”, Dana shouted too late.
Ilya swore in Russian and was on the move the next moment as well.
Jennifer watched them, then immediately turned to Jonathan.
“Block the door!”
Jonathan nodded and went to the front door, where he already stopped the first curious policeman with a single glance before turning the key in the lock, pulling it out and tucking it away with confidence.
Toolidle was no longer running elegantly. He was fast, but now clearly an old man in a club room that had been built not for escape, but for chatter. 
Shane caught up.
“Stop right there!”
Toolidle yanked the steel champagne bucket shaped like a boar’s head from its stand and smashed the window with a strength unusual for a man of his age. The cold wind made everyone in the room freeze. Colder air hit him.
Shane was right behind him and grabbed his arm.
He got hold of him, which is why for a split second the matter seemed decided.
Then Toolidle twisted out of the grip with astonishingly ugly determination. He didn’t strike cleanly or fairly, but with the same boar-headed champagne bucket in an old, vicious way, so that the stylised tusks pierced deep into Shane’s chest and a crack suggested something broken between his collarbone and ribs.
Shane exhaled, half in pain, half in shock, and lost his footing.
Fox followed, seeing only the movement, Toolidle’s arm, Shane crashing into the wooden panelling of the club room.
“Damn—”
Ilya was there now and didn’t go for Toolidle, but straight to Shane.
That was the problem—not wrong in human terms, but tactically misguided.
He half-caught Shane as he sank, reached for the injured spot, realised immediately that it was wrong, and pulled his hand away again.
“Shane—”
Just the name shouted, too raw, too real.
Shane clenched his teeth and tried to push himself up.
“I’m fine—”
He wasn’t fine.
Everyone could see that now.
Fox and Jonathan were now on Toolidle. Jonathan didn’t grab the doctor elegantly, but with just the right mix of anger and practical experience, as if he’d seen enough bad men in his life to know how surprisingly little style was needed to bring them to the ground. The champagne bucket clattered to the floor; the leap from the window onto the fire escape was prevented. Fox took his other arm, twisted it cleanly behind his back and pinned Toolidle against the wall.
“You don’t understand,” Toolidle gasped. “Ask Langley. I’m doing this for Langley!”
Fox pulled out the handcuffs. “That’s rarely a good sign.”
Jonathan held him tight.
“And usually no excuse.”
Dana was now with Shane too and took it all in at a single glance:
Shane pale, breathing too fast, bleeding; and something in Ilya’s face that, by any reasonable explanation, could no longer be called mere sporting rivalry.
Dana went straight to Shane.
“Away from the wound. Both of you.”
Ilya pulled his hands back as if he’d been burned.
Shane tried to stand up. Dana pushed him back against the wall with professional brutality.
“No. Stay seated.”
She felt his collarbone, then carefully his shoulder and sternum. Shane flinched. She searched for the source of the bleeding, quickly checking whether a major blood vessel had been damaged.
“Shit—” Shane managed to say.
“Take shallow breaths,” said Dana. “The wound is deep, but not life-threatening, as far as I can see. Don’t move yet.”
Ilya was still kneeling beside him.
“Is it broken? Why is there so much blood?”
Dana looked up at him.
“I need space.”
Ilya didn’t move immediately.
Jennifer stepped up beside him, for she had seen the scene and instantly grasped everything socially dangerous about it.
Not the injury or Toolidle’s embarrassing attempt to escape through the club room window, but Ilya, kneeling beside Shane as if the rest of the room had suddenly become completely irrelevant to him.
Jennifer walked straight over to them.
“Ilya.”
He looked up at her. As if from a great distance.
“Stand up!”
Ilya obeyed.
Jennifer stepped between him and Shane, briefly placing a hand on Ilya’s forearm and, with the gentlest firmness imaginable, turning him out of direct line of sight.
“Dana needs light, space and peace, no spectators, not even brave sports comrades.”
Ilya wanted to say something, but didn’t, as he was blinded by the gleam of her platinum jewellery set with fragments of black coral.
Jennifer looked at him. For a single moment, utterly maternal and utterly unambiguous, she whispered in his ear: “Help him by getting out of the way.”
It hit him because it was true. Ilya took a step back. Shane looked up at him. Pain, shame, worry—all too much at once.
Dana noticed, but simply said: “Breathe, don’t think.”
Shane almost laughed, which was a bad reaction.
“Big fan of both right now.”
Dana ignored him and carried on, tearing his jacket and shirt off.
Jonathan was still holding Toolidle; Fox had now handcuffed him and was preparing a piece of old tablecloth as a gag.
“That was a reflex, not a confession. The lad’s having an asthma attack and needs fresh air and anaesthetics!” said Toolidle.
“Moon rock!” said Fox. “Yours was flight. His was decency.”
Jennifer turned halfway towards the men with the handcuffed doctor.
“Take him out and gag him at last! Now.”
Jonathan looked at her, and she returned his gaze.
The tone left no room for negotiation, so Fox and Jonathan dragged Toolidle towards the door, which Jonathan immediately unlocked again.
The doctor tried once more to talk his way out of it. “You don’t understand what Franklin would have done. You must contact Langley. This is a matter of national prestige!”
“Then you can tell us later,” said Fox, before finally shoving the dusty old tablecloth fragment into his mouth.
Jonathan added: “Much later.”
Toolidle was led out, leaving only Dana with Shane in the room, Jennifer half a step behind her and Ilya at the edge.
Dana continued to feel her way cautiously. “Open wound, definitely a bruise or a collarbone injury, perhaps a tear. Don’t move your arm! I’ll stop the bleeding first and hope it wasn’t the subclavian vein.”
Shane nodded briefly, breathing too quickly.
Ilya said quietly, “He did it because of me—”
Jennifer cut him off immediately.
“No!”
Ilya looked at her.
“Right now we’re treating a casualty. And you’re a brave competitor who helped. That’s our story.”
It took his breath away, but it also saved him. Shane closed his eyes briefly. Pain, exhaustion and something dangerously close to panic about his shoulder, his career and something unspoken in the room.
Dana noticed the change in rhythm immediately.
“Huhuhu, stay with me! Jennifer, give me your silk scarf. I need something clean to stop the bleeding. It’s not an artery, but I’m not using anything dirty or sweaty here.”
Shane’s breathing became shallower.
“I’m here!”
Jennifer untied her precious silk scarf without hesitation and handed it to Scully, who made a pressure bandage out of it.
“It was a gift from Jonathan in Lubumbashi, Congo.”
 
“That speaks to its quality,” said Scully, before applying the pressure bandage made from the precious scarf to Shane. “You’re slipping away. Slower. In. Out. Breathe!”
A heartbeat later, Jennifer recognised it: the mixture of pain and panic. She looked at Ilya, who had unconsciously taken another step forward.
“Don’t!”
She gently pressed her flat hand against his chest. He stopped.
This time, Jennifer knelt down on the other side of Shane herself.
“Shane. Just breathe to four! Nothing more—that’s what Max always does when he runs out of breath mowing the lawn but still has to be ready for the cocktail party. We’ll take care of the rest.”
Shane tried, failed, tried again.
“Good,” said Jennifer. “One more time.”
Ilya stood at the edge of the freezing-cold club room, through whose broken window the cruel wind was driving snow. Because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, he lowered the blinds, which did little to help against the cold but at least kept out the snowstorm. Then he drew the heavy, dusty velvet curtains, which probably hadn’t been aired out since 1947. Ilya looked as though every second he was forced to do nothing cost him more than a slap in the face. That was precisely why Jennifer stayed between him and Shane.
Scully made a makeshift pressure bandage.
“We’re taking him to a warmer room now.”
Jennifer nodded before standing up, walking over to Ilya and speaking quietly enough to keep it private.
“You’re not coming with us.”
Ilya said immediately: “He needs—”
“What he needs most right now is no onlookers who feel too much.”
Ilya fell silent. Jennifer briefly placed her hand on his arm, a gesture of both comfort and a boundary.
“If you want to help him, then let Dana do her job. And don’t give the men outside a second more of material than they already have. We’ll sort everything out later.”
Ilya nodded once, hard enough that it almost hurt. Jennifer saw that he had understood. Fox returned to the door.
“Toolidle has been secured and handed over to the police, gagged.”
He looked at Shane, then at Ilya, then back at Jennifer. He, too, understood immediately that standing here were not just an injured man and a suspect, but something more social, more fragile, which in the wrong hands would instantly become a weapon.
Jennifer simply said: “We’re taking Shane. Everyone else out.”
Fox nodded as Jonathan held the door open.
Dana helped Shane up carefully. He gritted his teeth and didn’t say anything stupid this time.
Ilya took a half-step reflexively, but stopped when Jennifer merely looked at him. As he walked out, Shane turned his head; for a moment, he looked at Ilya.
Jennifer went out with Shane and Dana.
Jonathan followed with Fox.
Ilya was left alone for a moment in the cold room.
Amidst the wood panelling, the humming, and the echo of a blow that might have struck only a vein — but had exposed something else, much deeper. And the silver cup glinted diabolically in the small pool of blood.