A Slippery Slope (19 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

‘I
don’t know why it is but there seem to be certain places on these mountains
where my phone just can’t get a signal!’ Verity said. ‘I called Josh and left a
message, then gave Mum a quick call. Josh called me back and left a lovely
message but then I got another one and as soon as I went to pick it up, the
damn thing lost signal! That was more than fifteen minutes ago and it’s still
showing as out of service area! I hope he doesn’t think I’m ignoring him.’

‘Why on earth would he think that? Isn’t it usually the guy who
doesn’t return the calls after a night of sex, not the other way around?’ Lucy
giggled. ‘Don’t worry about it. You can pick it up later. I don’t suppose it’s
anything urgent. My phone’s dead too. I checked a minute or so ago. Besides,
we’ll only be an hour and then we can both go and ... have some après ski with
two very hot guys.’

‘
Hot
is the word, Lucy! I’m not sure you really want to
hear this from your mother – I know it makes me cringe sometimes when I hear it
from mine – but last night, the sex was unbelievable!’

Lucy beamed at her. ‘It’s so good to see you like this, Mum. You
look ... ecstatic. Tired, but happier than I’ve seen you for a long time.’

‘Thanks, I think. Oh look, isn’t that Mathieu whatshisname?’

‘Mathieu Deschamps,’ Lucy said. ‘Yes, it is. Shall we stop and say
hello?’

‘I don’t know. Both Josh and Etienne asked us to stay away from
him, didn’t they?’

 ‘Oh Mum! You’re not going to start doing everything Josh tells
you to, are you? Besides, if we do talk to him, perhaps we can find out why
Josh and Etienne don’t like him. I don’t know about you but I’d quite like to
know. Hello, Mathieu!’ Lucy waved at him.

‘Lucy! Verity! Bonjour! Did you ’ave a good Christmas?’

His English wasn’t as good as Etienne’s, Verity thought, but then
it wouldn’t be, would it?

‘Brilliant! And you?’ Lucy asked.

‘Mais oui! You will join me?’ He pointed to the empty chairs at
his table and raised his arm to call the waiter over.

‘Just for a quick coffee,’ Verity said, sitting down. ‘Etienne
says there’s a weather front coming in and we want to do a bit more skiing
before it hits. We’ve only been out for about twenty minutes.’

‘Ah yes. Always careful is Etienne.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with being careful, Mathieu,’ Verity said,
feeling a little irritated with the man already.

‘But careful is not fun.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Lucy said, grinning broadly. ‘Last
night Etienne was a lot of fun!’

Mathieu frowned momentarily. ‘Ah!’ he said, smiling at her as if
he had just realised what she meant. ‘You and Etienne are ... together?’

‘Yes. Do you know him very well?’ Lucy asked. She leant forward
conspiratorially. ‘Any secrets I should know?’

His eyes narrowed for a split second. ‘Etienne? Non. But Josh! Ah,
yes.’

Verity sat bolt upright as she and Lucy exchanged surprised
glances. ‘Josh? Really? He ... he doesn’t seem the type.’

‘Ah, yes! And women ... women fall for men like Josh.’

Verity didn’t feel comfortable talking about Josh like this but
something made her want to hear what Mathieu had to say.

‘Well, he is very charming,’ Verity said, ‘and incredibly
handsome. I may have even fallen for him myself.’

Mathieu sat bolt upright now. ‘Non, Cherie! I ... can tell you of
Marianne, and you ... you will no more fall for Josh.’

‘Marianne? You mean the chalet where we work?’ Lucy asked, looking
both confused and concerned.

‘Mais non! Marianne ... Josh’s amour. A beautiful woman before
Josh ...’ He let his voice trail off dramatically.

Every fibre of Verity’s being screamed at her to get up and leave
– not to ask – to ignore this man whom neither Josh or Etienne liked. Hadn’t
Etienne told Lucy last night that Josh was just your average guy where women
were concerned? Admittedly, he’d said that Josh had dumped the last girl and
that she’d gone berserk, but why was that? And was that even what really
happened? Etienne loved Josh like a brother; of course, he’d take Josh’s side.
But would he lie? She saw Lucy looking at her as if to say, ‘Do you want to
ask?’

‘Before Josh ...?’ Verity found herself asking. She very quickly
wished she hadn’t.

***

‘Do you believe it, Mum?’ Lucy asked as they stood at the top of
the piste Mathieu had suggested they take.

‘I ... don’t know what to believe. Why would he lie about
something so awful?’

‘But Etienne said–’

‘Etienne idolises Josh. Of course, he wouldn’t say anything
against him. But ... Josh just doesn’t seem ... I don’t know. All I want to do
is get home and find out.’

‘You’re going to ask Josh?’

‘Yes. I need to hear his side of this dreadful story. I need to
know.’

‘But what makes you so sure he’ll tell you the truth? I’m not
suggesting he won’t and I think Mathieu must have made a mistake, or worse
still, is lying for his own reasons because as I said, I don’t believe a word
of it. But ... well, if any of it is true, even the slightest little bit, do
you honestly think Josh would admit it?’

Verity looked Lucy in the eye. ‘I ... think he will. Don’t ask me
why, but I do. Which way did Mathieu say we should go?’

‘Left, then through the trees and out between the blue and the
black runs. But ... Etienne said we shouldn’t go off piste without a guide.’

‘You were the one who said earlier that we shouldn’t do what
Etienne or Josh tells us, Lucy. Mathieu assured us it was safe.’

‘Yes, but Mathieu also assured us that his story about Josh was
true and for the life of me, I don’t see Josh as the type of man who would ever
hit a woman, and definitely not a woman who was pregnant with his child. I know
looks can be deceiving but I don’t believe it. Neither do I think he’d wreck
his own chalet after she miscarried so that he could blame her and threaten to
press charges unless she left Meribel. I’m sorry, Mum, but it’s nonsense. I’m
sure it is. I just don’t believe a word of it.’

‘I don’t believe it either. But then I would never have believed
your father would have an affair – or leave me for an eighteen-year-old girl.
People aren’t always who we think they are – or who we want them to be. I have
to ask. I just have to be sure. And then I have to know why Mathieu hates Josh
so much that he would make up a story like that. Come on, the sooner we get
down, the sooner we’ll know the truth and this weather is getting worse.
They’ll start shutting lifts before long by the look of that sky.’

The weather front Etienne had mentioned was clearly moving in. The
sun was obscured by heavy snow clouds and what, just minutes earlier had been a
gloriously sunny day, was rapidly turning into a dark, forbidding yellowy-grey
sky as the wind began to bring whirling snowflakes. It was just a light flurry
at first but getting thicker and faster by the minute and a grey fog-like mist
was gradually creeping up the mountain, forming blind pockets where it was
impossible to see for more than a metre in any direction.

As Verity skied behind Lucy and her board, all she could see was
Josh’s face and his incredible blue-grey eyes and she wanted more than anything
for Mathieu’s story to be a pack of lies.

‘Do you have any idea where we are?’ Lucy said, stopping at what
seemed to be a large area of unmarked piste. ‘Because I don’t. We should have
seen the trees Mathieu told us about by now. Mind you, in this weather it’s
getting harder to see by the minute.’

Verity shook her head. ‘No, darling. And I really wish I’d
listened to you now. I’m so sorry! I can’t see the top of this piste and it
looks like there’re huge rocks over there. We must be off piste somewhere but
God knows where.’

‘It’s okay, Mum. We’ll find our way home. I wish I could get a
signal on my phone but it’s still showing as no service.’

‘Mine’s completely dead now. I forgot to charge it up yesterday.
It was such a mad day.’

‘Great. Oh well, onwards and upwards,’ Lucy quipped.

‘I’m rather hoping it’s downhill all the way,’ Verity replied,
moving away from Lucy slightly to continue down the mountain. ‘Oh! Did you hear
that ‘whoomp’ sound? Was that thunder? Can you–?’

‘Mum! Quick! Get–’

Verity felt as if she had been hit by a ski-bus, and the last
thing she saw was her daughter reaching out for her as the cloud of snow took
Lucy too.

***

‘I’m getting very worried now,’ Josh said as he, Etienne and
Mistral were still sitting in the bar where they’d been for over an hour
waiting for either Verity or Lucy to call. ‘They’re still not answering their
phones and this weather is getting worse.’

‘Me too,’ Etienne said, anxiously redialling Lucy’s number and
getting her voicemail again. ‘There’s Francois. He was going up on his own for
a while whilst I had a beer with you. Francois! Have you seen Verity or Lucy,
the beautiful blonde girls who work at Josh’s chalet?’

Francois, who was a French-Canadian, shook his head but came over
to them. ‘No. But there aren’t many people left on the slopes and they’re
starting to close lifts now.’

‘Shit,’ Josh said.

None of the twenty or so other people they asked had any news of
Verity and Lucy.

‘You are looking for Verity and Lucy?’ Mathieu Deschamps
approached them with a concerned look on his face.

‘Yes,’ Etienne said, none too warmly. ‘Have you seen them?’

‘Mais oui! Some time ago.’

‘Where?’ Josh asked, grabbing Mathieu by his arm. ‘I know we’re
not the best of friends, Mathieu but this is serious. They aren’t answering
their phones. Where did you see them and when?’

Mathieu glanced at Josh’s hand on his arm but he didn’t try to
remove it. Before he had a chance to answer, a man yelled in the distance,
‘There’s been an avalanche! We saw two people caught in it!’

‘Please, God! No!’ Josh exclaimed, letting go of Mathieu and
racing towards the man, terrified that the victims could be Verity and Lucy. He
spotted a member of the Ski Patrol team. ‘Jean-Paul!’ he called out.

Jean-Paul nodded. He was on his radio co-ordinating with search
and rescue. Josh heard him say that the first response team had been scrambled
and other members of the Ski Patrol in the area were already near the scene.

‘We need to be involved in the search,’ Etienne said. ‘We think it
may be our girlfriends.’

Mathieu was beside him. ‘I will come too,’ he said, and in less
than two minutes, they were heading towards the avalanche zone.

Josh was going mad with worry but a glimmer of hope shone through
as they reached the avalanche track. It had clearly been a Sluff avalanche, and
few people died in Sluffs, especially if you were at the top near the point of
release. Those with knowledge of the mountains sometimes started Sluffs on
purpose, to release the loose snow and make it safer for others.

But even small, loose snow avalanches could kill, and as they
started small and spread downhill collecting more snow on the way, they held
the power to destroy buildings and sweep people over cliffs, or slam them into
rocks or trees or ...

No! Josh told himself. They would be safe. They had to be safe.
There was a chance.

Time was of the essence. Everyone in the mountains knew there was
a fifteen-minute window to find someone alive. The odds reduced dramatically
after that and most were found dead after thirty, although there were
exceptions. A few extremely lucky ones survived for several hours. But they
were all people who were trapped where there was a pocket of air.

Most people caught in avalanches were encased by concrete-like
compacted snow, rendering them incapable of moving so much as their fingers,
and those who survived the fall, mainly died from internal injuries or
asphyxiation. But Sluffs rarely killed, he reminded himself. People often
walked away unharmed. Miracles happened and Josh prayed for two such miracles
as they raced across the undulating terrain to help the small search team.

They found Lucy within minutes, just a few inches below the
surface; apart from a few bruises, shock, and panic for her mother, she was
unharmed. She refused to leave until Verity was found and nothing would make
her do so. She even joined in the search, as many rescued avalanche victims do.
Etienne’s prayers had been answered; Josh continued to hope his would be too.

The minutes ticked away and after fifteen, Josh became frantic.
The avalanche dogs still hadn’t arrived and when Josh heard they had been
deployed elsewhere at a second, larger avalanche, he felt as if the gods were
conspiring against them. Two avalanches in one day sometimes happened but the
Ski Patrollers in Meribel were always so aware of risk areas that they were
rarely caught by surprise. But this was an exceptional year for avalanches and
there had already been several across the Alps, some of which had claimed
lives.

Mistral who had bounded off into the distance just seconds after
they arrived, raced back, sat beside Josh and barked, pawing at his leg. He
pushed her away. That’s what she did when she wanted to play but this was no
time for play. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on him though. Mistral’s
handler, Claude had been taken by an avalanche. Now Verity? No! He wouldn’t
give up hope. He wouldn’t. But Mistral was no help. She hadn’t even found Lucy
and Lucy was an easy find.