Presumed Dead (4 page)

‘She looked very much like you,’ he said,
turning to look at Alice, ‘except she had darker hair. When I opened the door
last night and saw you there in the shadows, for one crazy moment I thought she
had come back to me. Then later when it was dark and I was close to you, I
allowed myself to believe it for a while.’

Alice’s heart went out to him, but all she
could think of saying was, ‘I really am very sorry.’ They sat in silence for
another few minutes, then as the sun finally left the peaks and the shadows
started to creep up from the valley leaving them in chilly darkness, they went
inside.

The hut was really nothing more than a
wooden shed about twelve feet wide by eight feet deep with a small window set
high up in the rear wall. The only furniture was a table in the center and a
pair of wooden bunk beds built against each of the two side walls. There was no
heating and very few creature comforts. Philippe lit his gas lantern then
prepared some dinner for them both on his Primus stove, which they ate in
silence before retiring for the night, this time in separate beds.

.

Back down on the yacht off Monaco, Ross was
enjoying dinner. He’d spent the day conspicuously on deck, in the swimming pool
or in the salon playing cards, making sure that there would be plenty of
witnesses to swear to his whereabouts during the day if the need arose. During
the afternoon, he’d received a text message on his cell phone from Alex, which
simply read ALL OK. That was their agreed signal, which meant he’d managed to
lay the false trail into the mountains as planned, so that when Alice was
reported missing, the rescue services would know where to start looking for her
body.

Just as the main course was being cleared,
Ross excused himself saying he’d promised to telephone his wife in Chamonix
during the evening. He moved away from the table but stayed in the dining room.
Taking out his phone, he sat at a small corner table and dialed Alice’s cell
phone. After getting transferred immediately to voicemail, he dialed the hotel’s
main number. When the call was answered, he said, ‘Madame Webley s'il vous
plaît?’

The hotel operator connected the call to
suite thirty-two and let it ring for half a minute before coming back on the
line. ‘Madame does not answer, Monsieur.’

‘That’s very strange,’ Ross said, just loud
enough for the others to hear. ‘Is she in the restaurant, do you know?’

‘One moment please, I will find the manager
for you.’ Within seconds, the manager came on the line.

‘Monsieur Webley here,’ Ross said. ‘I am
trying to reach my wife, is she in the restaurant do you know?’

‘I am sorry, Monsieur, but Madame is not in
the hotel.’

‘Not in the hotel?’ Ross asked
incredulously. ‘Has she gone out for the evening?’

‘No Monsieur, she went out early this
morning dressed for walking, and has not returned.’

‘I see. Oh well, not to worry, probably met
up with friends and is eating out. Get her to call me when she comes in, will
you? She has the number.’

‘Yes Monsieur, I will put a message with
her key.’

Ross thanked him, rang off, and then
wandered slowly back to the dining table seemingly deep in thought. By this
time, most of the guests had picked up on the conversation he’d been having and
were bursting with curiosity. One of the women at the table asked, ‘Is
everything all right Ross? You look worried.’

Ross looked up absently, ‘What… oh yes,
fine. It’s just that my wife went out early this morning to do some walking in
the mountains and hasn’t returned to the hotel yet. I’m a little concerned
about her.’

‘I’m sure she’s perfectly all right,’ the
woman said.

‘You’re probably right. She’s bound to be
back soon.’ Ross said smiling. ‘I’ll give her another try later.’

 With that, the conversation returned to
more general and trivial things and Ross joined in, being careful to maintain a
slightly worried look although inside he was elated. He’d achieved exactly what
he wanted. A one hundred percent watertight alibi that covered him from the
time his ‘wife’ was seen alive and well setting off on her walk, up until the
time she was overdue back at the hotel. Just one more call to make, he thought,
then it’s mission accomplished.

.

Up in the hut, Alice was having trouble
sleeping. Her mind was a turmoil of thoughts about the way she’d survived the
fall down the same mountainside that had killed poor Philippe’s wife. Somehow,
the two events were inextricably linked and she felt a strange bond with the
man on the other side of the small wooden cabin who had saved her life.

All day, while she’d been dozing on and
off, she’d been thinking about Ross, going over and over their life together in
her mind, trying to come to terms with what had happened. As the day had worn
on, her white-hot rage had gradually cooled to an overwhelming desire for
revenge, sweet revenge, served up cold and hard.

One thing she knew for sure, Ross would be
certain she was dead. He couldn’t possibly think anything else after what he’d
done to her, and that was going to buy her the time she needed to think very
carefully about what she was going to do to him. She could, of course, just go
to the police, but they would never believe her story, it was too incredible.
And besides, Ross would easily bluff his way out of trouble, he’d been doing
that all his life. No, she’d decided, she was going to have to handle his
retribution personally.

She desperately wanted to talk about it,
and instinctively felt that Philippe would understand. Finally making up her
mind, she turned to face him across the dark cabin and whispered, ‘Philippe,
are you awake?’

Philippe was immediately out of his sleeping
bag and by her side with a flashlight in his hand. ‘What is wrong?’ he asked
with concern. ‘Are you feeling pain again?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘but I need a friend to
talk to. If you’re not too tired, I’d like to tell you what happened to me last
night.’

‘Of course,’ he said, sitting down on the
bed next to her, ‘I want to hear it.’

She started by telling him a little about
her life, about Ross and Charles and her father. It was cold in the cabin and
she’d only been speaking for a few minutes when she felt Philippe shiver. She
was still wearing his all-in-one ski suit and was under several blankets and a
sleeping bag, but he was just in his T-shirt and thin trousers. ‘You’re cold,’
she said. ‘Why don’t you come under these blankets with me?’

She turned onto her side to make room for
him in the narrow bunk, and Philippe snuggled gratefully in beside her, pulling
the blankets up around his shoulders. ‘Now, what were you saying?’ he prompted.

 Being so close now she barely had to
whisper. She hesitated for a few moments then said, ‘Last night, my husband
tried to kill me.’

In the absolute silence all Alice could
hear was her heart beating and Philippe’s slow steady breathing. After a few
moments he asked, ‘He beat you and left you in the mountains to die?’

‘No… he didn’t beat me,’ Alice choked, ‘he
threw me out of his plane.’ She burst into tears and buried her face against
his shoulder.

Philippe encircled her with his arms the
same way he’d done the night before, and drew her close. Her shoulders heaved
and shuddered as her body was wracked with sobs. He stroked her hair and the
side of her face saying, ‘It’s okay… it’s okay,’ until she eventually calmed
down.

‘I’m sorry,‘ she sobbed, ‘I just can’t
believe he could do such a thing.’

‘It is hard to believe,’ Philippe said
softly. ‘Why don’t you tell me everything that happened?’

‘All right,’ Alice said, pulling away from
him slightly and wiping her eyes with the back of her bandaged hand. ‘We got up
yesterday morning and packed our suitcases ready to go on holiday. Ross was
going to fly me to Geneva where I was going to hire a car and drive up here to
Chamonix. He was going to carry on to Nice then Monaco.

‘I remember, I’d just finished packing and
had come downstairs when he asked me if I wanted some lunch. I wasn’t really
hungry but he insisted he wanted to eat before we left, so I sat in the sun on
our patio drinking a glass of wine while he barbecued some steaks. I remember
eating the steak, but that’s about all until I woke up in the back of his
plane. I guess he must have drugged me.’

‘You don’t remember how you got into the
plane?’ Philippe asked.

‘No… I vaguely remember being undressed,
which must have happened because I was wearing a yellow skirt and jacket when
we ate, and I remember being carried by my feet and shoulders, but that’s about
all.’

‘So there was someone else involved also,
you think?’

‘I think it was our secretary, Alex,
holding my feet, but I’m not sure. There was something strange about him,’ she
said, struggling to remember. ‘It all seems like a dream.’

‘This Alex,’ Philippe asked, ‘what is he
like?’

‘Just an ordinary young man,‘ Alice said.
‘His full name is Alexander, but he prefers it to be shortened to Alex because
he says Alexander makes him sound like a Russian ballerina. He’s about thirty,
my height, very slim, short brown hair, very smart and efficient. He’s been
with us for about five years.’

‘And you trust him?’

‘I always have, although I must admit when
he first came to work for us I was a little wary about having a young man around
the house, especially with my husband being away quite often. But there has
never been any suggestion of anything improper in his attitude towards me, and
he’s very fond of our son.’

‘Do you think maybe your husband has paid
him to help kill you?’

‘Maybe, I just don’t know.’

‘Tell me, what happened when you woke up
and found yourself in the plane?’ Philippe asked.

‘The door at the rear of the cabin was open
and I was lying on the floor right next to it. There was a terrible noise and a
rush of air. I remember it was dark except for a red light shining through from
the cockpit. Ross was standing over me with his face all sweaty and contorted.
He looked like the devil. He was struggling with something behind my back, then
I remember he lifted me up, then everything was black and I was falling.’ Alice
started to cry again.

‘And you landed on the glacier?’ Philippe
asked with disbelief.

‘No,’ she said, drying her eyes again, ‘I
must have hit the snow someplace very high up, because I remember tumbling and
sliding down a steep slope for what seemed like ages. When I finally stopped I
was on the snow at the top of the glacier, so I started to climb down.’

‘And that’s when you found the hut?’

‘That’s right, I kept seeing a light and
just followed it right down.’

Philippe knew she’d definitely come to the
hut from above because during the day while she’d been asleep, he’d followed
the trail of blood and found that it led up towards the top of the glacier. He
just couldn’t believe though, that anyone could survive being thrown from an
plane. But if that hadn’t happen, how else could she possibly have got that
high up?

‘The one thing I do not understand,’
Philippe said after a while, ‘is how your husband thought he could get away
with it. I mean, how would he explain the fact that one minute you are in
England, and the next you are high up in the Alps?’

‘I don’t know,’ Alice replied bitterly,
’but you can be sure of one thing, he wouldn’t have done this if he didn’t
think he was going to get away with it.’

‘What do you intend to do?’ he asked
eventually. ‘Go to the police?

‘They would never believe me.’

‘Probably not,’ he agreed. ‘Do you have
another plan?’

‘That rather depends on you.’

‘On me?’ Philippe asked with surprise.

‘I was hoping,’ Alice started nervously,
‘you might be willing to let me stay with you for a while, until I can find out
what Ross is up to and decide what to do about it.’

Philippe thought for a moment then said,
‘Of course I will continue to look after you for as long as you want me to. If
you are feeling well enough tomorrow, we will walk down to the Montenvers
station on the Mer de Glace where we can get on the train for Chamonix. I have
my car parked there at the station and I will take you home with me to my house
near Nîmes in the south. You will be warm and safe there for as long as you
want.’

‘Thank you,’ Alice sighed. ‘You have no
idea how grateful I am.’

They lay in silence for a long time after
that, until Philippe realized she had fallen asleep. Being careful not to
disturb her, he slipped out of her warm bed and crossed the dark hut back to
his cold sleeping bag, where he lay awake long into the night, thinking.

.

Back down on the yacht, Ross was giving his
final performance of the day as a worried husband. He’d been on the phone again
to the hotel, getting the manager out of bed and insisting he contact the
police and mountain rescue teams immediately.

Now he was being comforted by his friends
and was telling them that he just didn’t know what he would do if any harm had
come to his precious Alice.