Presumed Dead, page 4
‘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.
He also told them he was leaving first thing in the morning to go and help look for her himself.
Chapter 4
Alice woke early on Tuesday morning as the first hints of watery dawn light filtered through the high window into the hut. At first, she was surprised to see Philippe back in his own bed, but then, as she lay thinking about him, she smiled and understood. He’s so completely opposite to Ross, she thought. Ross poses as a gentleman when he’s anything but, whereas Philippe is quietly strong, gentle and kind, and totally without pretension.
As if he’d read her mind, Philippe quietly got out of bed and came over to check on her. Seeing her awake, he crouched down beside her and smiled, saying, ‘Good morning, how are you feeling today?’
‘Much better thank you, still a little battered, but ready to start fighting back.’
‘That is good. Would you like a nice cup of coffee?’
‘I’d love one, but please, let me make it,’ she said, sitting up. ‘You’ve done so much for me, I’d like to do something for you.’
‘If you want to, but you must let me get the snow.’
By the time Philippe got back with the small kettle full of snow, Alice was out of bed and had put instant coffee granules into two tin mugs. It would take a while for the snow to melt, then eventually boil over the small Primus stove. While they were waiting they sat outside the hut in the early morning silence, watching the sunrise.
‘I wish I could stay here forever,’ Alice said dreamily, ‘far away from the rest of the world.’
‘You know, ever since you arrived the other night, I have been wishing the same thing,’ Philippe said, without taking his eyes from the snow-capped peaks, which were being set ablaze by the rising sun.
She looked up at him as he gazed sadly into the distance and was just about to reply when the shrill whistle of the kettle suddenly broke the mood. ‘Coffee’s up,’ she said, getting up stiffly and going back into the hut.
Philippe didn’t move, so Alice brought their coffee out and they went back to watching the sunrise, warming their hands on the steaming mugs. Finally, his distant mood seemed to pass and he said, ‘As soon as we have finished this, I think we should get started, that is if you are feeling up to it.’
‘I’m feeling fine,’ she said, ‘ready to leave whenever you are.’
.
The Peloton de Gendarmerie de Haute-Montagne, or the Platoon of High Mountain Police in Chamonix was buzzing with activity. Jean-Paul, the manager of the Jardin du Mont Blanc Hotel, had telephoned the PGHM on their twenty-four hour emergency hotline shortly after midnight, as instructed by Ross, and reported Alice missing. They had sent an officer to the hotel within half an hour and Jean-Paul had let him into Alice’s room.
Everything in the room had looked perfectly normal to the two men. Alex had done an excellent job of hanging up clothes and laying out toiletries. They had found Alice’s yellow handbag tucked under some clothes in a drawer. In it were her cell phone and her passport, which they took away in order to copy the photograph.
Now, at just after eight a.m., the duty platoon of eight men was fully kited up and assembled in the drill hall at the PGHM headquarters for a briefing. The duty officer, Captain Jacques Batard, had distributed black and white copies of Alice’s passport photograph, which he’d blown up on the office photocopier, and was now calling for order.
‘Good morning gentlemen. Today we have a missing American woman, Madame Alice Webley, last seen at seven thirty yesterday morning leaving the Jardin du Mont Blanc Hotel dressed for walking. She did not leave word at the hotel of her intended route, but her husband has informed us that she had spoken of walking to the base of the Charpoua Glacier, so that is where we will concentrate our search today.
‘She is described as thirty-six years old, one hundred and sixty-eight centimeters tall, sixty kilos, with, as you can see from the photograph, distinctive long hair which is described as blond although it looks much darker in the picture. She was last seen wearing a white shirt, red fleece jacket, cream colored shorts and brown walking boots. She was also wearing a small rucksack, so could possibly have been carrying long trousers and a coat.
‘The helicopter is due to start making a search as soon as it is serviceable, which should be in about two or three hours when they have fixed a problem with the radio. Before then, I want every possible route from Chamonix up to the Charpoua covered on foot. I have also organized a local radio appeal for anyone who may have seen the lady in the past twenty-four hours. Any questions? No? Good, let’s get going then.’
The team split into four pairs and agreed the routes to be covered. Two pairs were assigned to walk the two steep paths, which zigzagged from the valley up to the Montenvers rack railway terminus at the Mer de Glace, frequently crossing the mountain-railway track. The other two teams were detailed to ride up the rack-railway to the Montenvers terminus and then to cover the paths leading away from there across the glacier. They checked each other’s kit before setting off at a quick march across Chamonix to the rack-railway station, where they would split-up and go their separate ways.
.
Down in Monaco, Ross was making a big show out of bidding his host and the other guests goodbye. He wanted to be absolutely certain that no one would forget where he’d been for the past thirty-six hours, and when he’d left. The women were all full of tearful admiration for him and the men were slapping him on the back, telling him not to worry. All the guests waved him off as he left in the launch to be transferred to the shore, where Bonatti’s chauffeur was waiting to drive him to Nice airport.
Ross had telephoned ahead with his flight plan and a request for his aircraft, a sleek, twin engine, Cessna Golden Eagle, to be refueled. When he arrived at the airport it was only a matter of minutes before he was airborne and heading for Geneva.
During the flight, Ross let his mind wander back to the time when he’d first heard about Alice through the social grapevine. Someone had mentioned that there was a beautiful, young, American heiress up at Cambridge, who’d been seen at the weekends around some of the more fashionable spots in London. He’d done his homework and had managed to find out that her name was Alice Sanderson, she was twenty-one years old and already had an annual income of several million dollars from various stocks and bonds that her multimillionaire father had given her.
He’d also found out that she was an only child and that her old man’s health wasn’t good. When he went, young Alice would become a millionairess many times over. All in all, Alice Sanderson and her old man had seemed like a very nice package indeed.
With that firmly in mind, and the fact that at his age he should really be thinking about producing an heir to the baronetcy, family duty and all that, he engineered a chance meeting with her at a country house party, then set about winning her hand in marriage. He really hadn’t had much of a problem either. By the time her course at Cambridge had finished and she was due to go back to the United States, she was putty in his hands. She flew home to talk it over with her father, then returned two weeks later with his blessing. They were married a short time afterwards.
Who’d have thought the old man was going to hang on for another fourteen years? Ross thought, shaking his head. If he’d died while Alice was still young, he’d have had no trouble parting her from her father’s money. But now she was older, wiser, and harder. He’d known for some time that the only way he’d ever get his hands on that money would be over her dead body.
.
Alice and Philippe, in the meantime, had been on the trail for over an hour. Philippe had found her some spare crampons and had fixed them to her boots. He’d also found her some spare trousers, a hooded jacket and some gloves, which she was glad of because although the sun was bright, a freezing wind had sprung up and as they walked over the ice, she felt cold.
The total distance from the Charpoua Hut to the Montenvers terminus on the Mer de Glace glacier was a little under three miles, but the trail was hard going and Alice was still suffering some pain and stiffness. Most of the trail was over sheer, hard ice.
First they had to make their way from the hut, down the steep, torturous slopes at the bottom end of the Charpoua glacier, then the trail was a little easier as they crossed diagonally the much flatter surface of the Mer de Glace.
Now they were nearly off the ice and could see the Montenvers terminus, with its observation terrace, far above them at the top of a steep winding path. So far, it had been all downhill, and although the going had been slippery, Alice had managed without too many problems. They stopped as soon as they left the ice to take their crampons off. Alice sat on a rock whilst Philippe knelt in front of her and unhooked the metal spikes from her boots. She was tired and cold and her spirits had been gradually falling as each step took her closer to the real world and to facing her problems.
