The Collected Short Stories (43 page)

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Authors: Jeffrey Archer

BOOK: The Collected Short Stories
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On the first morning after our arrival, we took the ski lift up at about ten-thirty, and once we had reached the top, Caroline duly reported to Marcel. As she departed with him for the A-slope, I returned to the B-slope to work on my own. As always we agreed to meet back at the ski lift or, if we missed each other, at least for lunch.
During the days that followed I went over and over the plan I had perfected in my mind and practiced so diligently at Harrow until I felt sure it was foolproof. By the end of the first week I had convinced myself I was ready.
The night before Travers was due to arrive, I was the last to leave the slopes. Even Caroline commented on how much my skiing had improved, and she suggested to Marcel that I was ready for the A-slope with its sharper bends and steeper inclines.
“Next year, perhaps,” I told her, trying to make light of it, and returned to the B-slope.
During the final morning I skied over the first mile of the course again and again, and became so preoccupied with my work that I quite forgot to join Caroline for lunch.
In the afternoon I checked and rechecked the placing of every red flag marking the run, and once I was convinced the last skier had left the slope for the evening I collected about thirty of the flags and replaced them at intervals I had carefully worked out. My final task was to check the prepared patch before building a large mound of snow some twenty paces above the chosen spot. Once my preparations were complete I skied slowly down the mountain in the fading light.
“Are you trying to win an Olympic gold medal or something?” Caroline asked me when I eventually got back to our room. I closed the bathroom door so she couldn't expect a reply.
Travers checked in to the hotel an hour later.
I waited until the early evening before I joined him at the bar for a drink. He seemed a little nervous when he first saw me, but I quickly put him at ease. His old self-confidence soon returned, which only made me more determined to carry out my plan. I left him at the bar a few minutes before Caroline came down for dinner so that she wouldn't see the two of us together. Innocent surprise would be necessary once the deed had been done.
“Unlike you to eat so little, especially as you missed your lunch,” Caroline remarked as we left the dining room that night.
I made no comment as we passed Travers seated at the bar, his hand on the knee of another innocent middle-aged woman.
I did not sleep for one second that night, and I crept out of bed just before six the next morning, careful not to wake Caroline. Everything was laid out on the bathroom floor just as I had left it the night before. A few moments later I was dressed and ready. I walked down the back stairs of the hotel, avoiding the elevator, and crept out by the fire exit, realizing for the first time what a thief must feel like. I had a woolen cap pulled well down over my ears and a pair of snow goggles covering my eyes: Not even Caroline would have recognized me.
I arrived at the bottom of the ski lift forty minutes before it was due to open. As I stood alone behind the little shed that housed the electrical machinery to work the lift, I realized that everything now depended on Travers's sticking to his routine. I wasn't sure I could go through with it if my plan had to be moved to the following day. As I waited, I stamped my feet in the freshly fallen snow and slapped my arms around my chest to keep warm. Every few moments I kept peering round the corner of the building in the hope that I would see him striding toward me. At last a speck appeared at the bottom of the hill by the side of the road, a pair of skis resting on the man's shoulders. But what if it turned out not to be Travers?
I stepped out from behind the shed a few moments later to join the warmly wrapped man. It was Travers, and he could not hide his surprise at seeing me standing there. I started up a casual conversation about being unable to sleep, and how I thought I might as well put in a few runs before the rush began. Now all I needed was the ski lift to start up on time. A few minutes after seven an engineer arrived, and the vast oily mechanism cranked into action.
We were the first two to take our places on those little seats before heading up and over the deep ravine. I kept turning back to check there was still no one else in sight.
“I usually manage to complete a full run even before the second person arrives,” Travers told me when the lift had reached its highest point. I looked back again to be sure we were now well out of sight of the engineer working the lift, then peered down some two hundred feet, and wondered what it would be like to land head first in the ravine. I began to feel dizzy and wished I hadn't looked down.
The ski lift jerked slowly on up the icy wire until we finally reached the landing point.
“Damn,” I said, as we jumped off our little seats. “Marcel isn't here.”
“Never is at this time,” said Travers, making off toward the advanced slope. “Far too early for him.”
“I don't suppose you would come down with me?” I said, calling after Travers.
He stopped and looked back suspiciously.
“Caroline thinks I'm ready to join you,” I explained, “but I'm not so sure and would value a second opinion. I've broken my own record for the B-slope several times, but I wouldn't want to make a fool of myself in front of my wife.”
“Well, I—”
“I'd ask Marcel if he were here. And in any case you're the best skier I know.”
“Well, if you—” he began.
“Just this once, then you can spend the rest of your vacation on the A-slope. You could even treat the run as a warmup.”
“Might make a change, I suppose,” he said.
“Just this once,” I repeated. “That's all I'll need. Then you'll be able to tell me if I'm good enough.”
“Shall we make a race of it?” he said, taking me by surprise just as I began clamping on my skis. I couldn't complain; all the books on murder had warned me to be prepared for the unexpected. “That's one way we can find out if you're ready,” he added cockily.
“If you insist. Don't forget, I'm older and less experienced than you,” I reminded him. I checked my skis quickly because I knew I had to start off in front of him.
“But you know the B-course backwards,” he retorted. “I've never even seen it before.”
“I'll agree to a race, but only if you'll consider a wager,” I replied.
For the first time I could see I had caught his interest. “How much?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing so vulgar as money,” I said. “The winner gets to tell Caroline the truth.”
“The truth?” he said, looking puzzled.
“Yes,” I replied, and shot off down the hill before he could respond. I got a good start as I skied in and out of the red flags, but looking back over my shoulder I could see he had recovered quickly and was already chasing hard after me. I realized that it was vital for me to stay in front of him for the first third of the course, but I could already feel him cutting down my lead.
After half a mile of swerving and driving he shouted, “You'll have to go a lot faster than that if you hope to beat me.” His arrogant boast only pushed me to stay ahead, but I kept the lead only because of my advantage of knowing every twist and turn during that first mile. Once I was sure that I would reach the vital newly marked route before he could I began to relax. After all, I had practiced over the next two hundred meters fifty times a day for the last ten days, but I was only too aware that this time was the only one that mattered.
I glanced over my shoulder to see he was now about thirty meters behind me. I began to slow slightly as we approached the prepared ice patch, hoping he wouldn't notice or would think I'd lost my nerve. I held back even more when I reached the top of the patch until I could almost feel the sound of his breathing. Then, quite suddenly, the moment before I would have hit the ice I plowed my skis and came to a complete halt in the mound of snow I had built the previous night. Travers sailed past me at about forty miles an hour, and seconds later flew high into the air over the ravine with a scream I will never forget. I couldn't get myself to look over the edge, as I knew he must have broken every bone in his body the moment he hit the snow a hundred feet below.
I carefully leveled the mound of snow that had saved my life and then clambered back up the mountain as fast as I could go, gathering the thirty flags that had marked out my false route. Then I skied from side to side replacing them in their correct positions on the B-slope, some hundred meters above my carefully prepared ice patch. When each one was back in place I skied on down the hill, feeling like an Olympic champion. Once I reached the base of the slope I pulled up my hood to cover my head and didn't remove my snow goggles. I unstrapped my skis and walked casually toward the hotel. I reentered the building by the rear door and was back in bed by seven-forty.
I tried to control my breathing, but it was some time before my pulse had returned to normal. Caroline awoke a few minutes later, turned over, and put her arms round me.
“Ugh,” she said, “you're frozen. Have you been sleeping without the covers on?”
I laughed. “You must have pulled them off during the night”
“Go and have a hot bath.”
After I had had a quick bath we made love, and I dressed a second time, double-checking that I had left no clues of my early flight before going down to breakfast.
As Caroline was pouring my second cup of coffee, I heard the ambulance siren, at first coming from the town and then later returning.
“Hope it wasn't a bad accident,” my wife said as she continued to pour her coffee.
“What?” I said, a little too loudly, glancing up from the previous day's
Times.
“The siren, silly. There must have been an accident on the mountain. Probably Travers,” she said.
“Travers?” I said, even more loudly.
“Patrick Travers. I saw him at the bar last night. I didn't mention it to you because I know you don't care for him.”
“But why Travers?” I asked nervously.
“Doesn't he always claim he's the first on the slope every morning? Even beats the instructors up to the top.”
“Does he?” I said.
“You must remember. We were going up for the first time the day we met him, and he was already on his third run.”
“Was he?”
“You are being dim this morning, Edward. Did you get out of bed the wrong side?” she asked, laughing.
I didn't reply.
“Well, I only hope it
is
Travers,” Caroline added, sipping her coffee. “I never did like the man.”
“Why not?” I asked, somewhat taken aback.
“He once made a pass at me,” she said casually.
I stared across at her, unable to speak.
“Aren't you going to ask what happened?”
“I'm so stunned I don't know what to say,” I replied.
“He was all over me at the gallery that night, and then invited me out to lunch after we had dinner with him. I told him to get lost,” Caroline said. She touched me gently on the hand. “I've never mentioned it to you before because I thought it might have been the reason he returned the Vuillard, and that only made me feel guilty.”
“But it's me who should feel guilty,” I said, fumbling with a piece of toast.
“Oh, no, darling, you're not guilty of anything. In any
case, if I ever decided to be unfaithful it wouldn't be with a lounge lizard like that. Good heavens no. Diana had already warned me what to expect from him. Not my style at all.”
I sat there thinking of Travers on his way to a morgue, or even worse, still buried under the snow, knowing there was nothing I could do about it.
“You know, I think the time really has come for you to tackle the A-slope,” Caroline said as we finished breakfast. “Your skiing has improved beyond words.”
“Yes,” I replied, more than a little preoccupied.
I hardly spoke another word as we made our way together to the foot of the mountain.
“Are you all right, darling?” Caroline asked as we traveled up side by side on the lift.
“Fine,” I said, unable to look down into the ravine as we reached the highest point. Was Travers still down there, or already in the morgue?
“Stop looking like a frightened child. After all the work you've put in this week you're more than ready to join me,” she said reassuringly.
I smiled weakly. When we reached the top, I jumped off the ski lift just a moment too early, and knew as soon as I took my second step that I had sprained an ankle.
I received no sympathy from Caroline. She was convinced I was pretending in order to avoid attempting the advanced run. She swept past me and sped on down the mountain while I returned in ignominy via the lift. When I reached the bottom I glanced toward the engineer, but he didn't give me a second look. I hobbled over to the first-aid post and checked in. Caroline joined me a few minutes later.

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