by Peter James
‘Maybe they should put me away,’ she said.
‘Maybe you should just forget your dreams, Bugs.’
42
They’d had to stop and put chains on the Mercedes for the last ten miles. Richard had straggled and cursed for the best part of an hour, whilst she’d hovered around in the freezing cold and tried to help, and not been much use. But it had been better than just sitting, waiting. Anything was better than that.
Maybe Ken was right.
‘You’ve got yourself into a state, and you’ve got to let yourself come down out of it . . . Try to forget about it all.
Yes.
Take a hard look at everything and see if it still looks the same afterwards – I think you’ll find it won’t.
Yes. Yes, boss. Oh absolutely, sir.
Christ, I wish you were right.
Täsch was where the road ended. Richard lifted the cases out of the boot of the Mercedes and put them onto a luggage trolley. Sam stood in the snow and watched him drive off into the vast car park, the exhaust smoke trailing behind, thick and heavy in the bitterly cold afternoon air, the chains clattering and the tyres squeaking on the hard-packed snow.
The snow smelled good, smelled fresh and clean and lay everywhere. It was still falling, and tickled her face and made everything look like a Christmas card, made her think of snug log fires and roasting food, and wine, and laughter.
They were here. They’d got here. Got here because? Because the dreams had told her how? Because the plane would have crashed if they’d been on it? Because if she hadn’t made Richard row like hell they would have been run down in the boat?
Because two juggernauts would have come round the bend if she hadn’t made Richard pull off the road?
Sure they would have, Sam. By magic?
It was because we stopped that we survived.
Bullshit.
You know why you refuse to believe it, Richard? Because you’re scared, that’s why.
I’m not nuts, oh no. Slider’s playing this game with me. ‘Now you see me, now you don’t.’ ‘He’s standing right behind you . . . oh no he isn’t.’ ‘Some dreams come true and some dreams don’t.’ It’s a game, that’s all; a game you have to win.
Because if you lose you die.
She stamped her feet to warm them up and dug her gloved hands deep inside her pockets. Richard hurried back towards her in his red anorak and his white moon boots, and they pushed the trolley together up the ramp to the funicular train to Zermatt.
The porter put their bags into the back of the electric buggy, then held the door open for them. They moved off from the station with a jerk, heading up the narrow Bahnhofstrasse, the buggy making a high-pitched whine. A stream of horse-drawn sleighs trotted past them the other way, bells jangling.
Money, she thought. You could smell it in the thick coats, in the fat chocolates and expensive watches that sparkled in the windows; you could smell it in the cigar smoke and coffee and chocolat chaud that hung in the frosty air along with the dung and the smell of horses; in the bustle, jostle, in the signs, Confiserie, Burgener, Chaussures, Seiler, Patek Philippe, Longines, in the smart skis rattling on smart shoulders, pink, green, Racing, Slalom, Géant and the clunking and crunching of unclipped boots. The Matterhorn rose like a monolith above the roofs of the hotels, the sun sinking down beside it, thin and dull, like a tarnished bauble in need of a polish.
Whymperstübe. Hotel Whymper. Named after the first Englishman to climb the Matterhorn. The graveyard under the bridge was full of them. So full they had run out of space. She shivered. Stone slabs sticking crookedly out of the snow like old men’s teeth. Young Englishmen along with the local traders and local heroes, all just as dead as each other, all with their epitaphs. ‘I chose to climb’, she remembered on one, and she wondered what would be on her own.
‘Hasn’t changed much,’ said Richard.
Nine years. It had been magical then. Like coming to a fairy tale. Snow and hot chocolate and soft pillows and laughter. Free. Taking the baker’s sled and tobogganing through the streets at three in the morning. She had felt so free then. Free and silly and mad.
The buggy turned up the alleyway, braked to avoid two elderly women, then pulled up outside the Alex. They went to the reception desk and Richard filled out the forms, and the porter took their bags up to their room. It was simple and comfy with modern wooden furniture, plump pillows and a great thick duvet soft as snow. ‘We ought to call Nicky,’ she said.
‘Yah.’
She went over to the window and stared out at a school opposite, the desks abandoned for the night. She could see a display of crayoned drawings pinned to a notice board. She tried to concentrate her mind. To think.
There were so many possibilities. Maybe that’s why people ignored their premonitions: because once you started looking, trying to cover all the options, you would become a hermit, or go mad. Perhaps you couldn’t escape. All you could do was delay, buy a few hours or days or weeks, a time of terror and confusion; a bonus not worth having.
The snow was falling more heavily, and she felt the warm air from the radiator on her face.
‘How’re you feeling, Bugs?’
She raised her eyebrows.
I’d feel a lot better if—
If you believed me; but you won’t. Ken doesn’t either; not really. Only two people do. One’s dead; the other doesn’t want to know.
Laszlo. Driving away from the station as fast as he could.
But you’re not going to win, Slider. I’m not going to let you. She smiled wryly. I’m going to beat you. Doing OK so far, eh? I’m going to win. I promise.
Richard rolled over on the bed and pulled his cigarettes out of his anorak pocket. ‘What are you smiling at?’
‘How does that limerick go?’ she said.
‘“There was a young lady of Riga
Who rode with a smile on a tiger. . .
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside
And the smile on the face of the tiger.”’
‘Is that how you feel?’
‘Life’s a tiger,’ she said. ‘That’s how I feel.’
‘Cheers!’
‘Cheers,’ she said.
They clinked glasses. Richard swirled his wine around and took a large gulp. ‘It’s good being away on our own, don’t you think?’
‘Yes.’
‘We never seem to talk when we’re at home, do we?’
She sipped some wine. ‘What would you like to talk about?’
He shrugged and yawned. ‘Us, I suppose. We seem to have been through a bit of a thin patch—’ He inhaled deeply on his cigarette and focused on something past her. She turned her head. There was a glitzy blonde sitting at a table with a portly man a good thirty years her senior.
‘She’s not that great,’ Sam said.
‘She’s got good tits.’
‘It’s very flattering to sit here watching you ogle other women.’
He drank some more wine, then his face suddenly became animated and he leapt up. ‘Andreas! We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow!’
She saw the banker walking stiffly towards them in a long fur-collared coat sprinkled with snow, his gloved hands by his side. She sensed a sudden chilly draught, as if he had left the outside door open, and felt goose-pimples breaking out on her flesh.
He nodded at her as he reached the table, a faint smirk on his lips; the same smirk she had seen through the slats of the blinds on the boat. She was certain.
‘How are you!’ Richard said effusively.
‘Not much changed since this morning.’ Andreas smiled coldly back at him, shook his hand, then fixed his eyes on Sam. ‘Good evening, Mrs Curtis.’
‘Good evening,’ she said, as courteously as she could, staring back into his icy cold eyes that seemed to be laughing at her.
‘So nice to see you again. I enjoyed meeting you at dinner very much. Such a pleasant evening.’
‘Thank you. I�
�m glad you enjoyed yourself.’
‘Sit down, join us,’ Richard said, urgently signalling to a waiter for another chair.
‘You have eaten, I think,’ said Andreas. ‘I have something then I join you.’
‘No, absolutely not, you join us now,’ Richard insisted. ‘It doesn’t matter. We’re happy to sit while you eat. I’ll get you a glass. Would you like some wine?’
‘Thank you.’ The banker pulled off his coat, and Richard scurried around, taking it from him then passing it on like a rugger ball to the waiter who brought the chair; he grabbed a glass from the empty table next to them, poured out some wine and put the glass down in front of Andreas. ‘Just a local one, I’m afraid. Dole, nothing grand.’
‘The local ones are the best to drink here,’ Andreas said, sitting down and locking his eyes onto Sam’s again.
‘Yes,’ Richard said. ‘Yes, of course, I’m sure you’re right. We had some excellent wines last time we were here . . . Perhaps we should have a toast. To today! Let’s have some champagne – bottle of Poo – we’ll have some Bollers if they’ve got any. I’ll get the wine list.’ He grinned. ‘Got to toast the – dematerialisation – of Richard Curtis.’ He looked at Andreas for approval, and the banker looked away dismissively, like a dog bored with a puppy.
‘They don’t find anything wrong with your car.’
‘What do you mean?’ Richard waved at the waiter again. ‘Could we have a menu – un menu, et la carte des vins, s’il vous plaît.’ He turned back to Andreas. ‘Nothing wrong?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe it is something – how you call it? – loose in the wiring or something. It’s fine, now. Drives very nicely.’
Nothing wrong.
Sam felt the goosepimples crawling up her neck. Nothing wrong. Like the Jaguar in Hampstead. She shook, as if she had had an electric shock. Both Richard and Andreas looked at her.
‘You all right, Bugs?’
‘Fine. Just a bit cold.’ She caught Andreas’s eyes again, the cold blue eyes in that flat featureless face that appeared so unassuming until you looked closer; neat, dull, fair hair, but lost most of it on top, almost bald except for the light fuzz; he’d probably been quite handsome when he was in his twenties, in a rather stiff sort of way. He looked a fit man now, fit and athletic, and flashily dressed in his pink cashmere sweater, cream silk shirt, and the small silver medallion on his chest.
‘Extraordinary,’ Richard said. ‘I suppose that’s the problem with these electronics. Get little glitches in them which come and go. Almost impossible to find.’
Then she saw it.
Saw it and realised.
Saw it as Andreas curled his gloved fingers around the bowl of his wine glass, the quick almost imperceptible flick of the thumb and the little finger, which she would have missed if she hadn’t been looking hard, the click he had devised to make the middle three fingers move, to make them curl around the bowl.
To make them look as if they were real.
43
She thrashed violently, trying to free herself from the bedclothes that were over her head, heavy as sandbags, smothering her, trying to free herself and escape from the blades of the fan that were coming down towards her and the ceiling that was cracking like eggshell. She heaved the bedclothes away frantically, but they fell back, crushing her body, crushing her face, blocking her mouth, her nose. She was gulping, gasping for air, twisting, helplessly.
Trapped.
She tried to scream but the sheet came into her mouth.
Too late, she realised the sheets were holding her.
Preventing her from falling.
She was slipping free of them now, slipping out into the swirling vortex below her. She grabbed the corner of one, desperately, but it held her weight only for a fraction of a second, and then tore.
‘Help!’ Her voice echoed around her as if she was in a cave. Then she plummeted downwards, hurtled through the freezing cold air, bouncing, falling, spinning towards a tiny hole of darkness. She put her hands up, trying to ward it off, trying somehow to swim away from it.
‘No!’
She hurtled into the hole, trying to grip the walls, but they were covered in smooth ice and her hands slid down them, burning from the cold, from the friction. There was whiteness below, and she could see the blades of the fan scything through the air, clattering louder as she tumbled down towards them, waiting for the impact, waiting to be cut into a thousand pieces.
‘Fifty-five and a half seven. OK, hit that fucking bid. Sally, that’s Mitsubishi Heavy five hundred at fifty-five and a half I sell. OK, now buy back the bloody stock!’
Richard’s voice in the darkness.
‘I’m talking big noughts, Harry. Big noughts. No. Serious. He’s a major player, a triple-A client. We should hedge with futures. Five hundred contracts. Could be a squeeze on the market. I’m seven and a half bid for as many as they’ve got. Shit. It’s moving away from us. Take the offer. For Christ’s sake take the offer!’
His voice rambled on. She had never heard him talk in his sleep before. Never heard him talk in such a faltering, nervous voice.
The she heard children chanting.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
The children laughed, and she heard the laughter echoing, as if it was echoing around an empty classroom. It continued, getting louder. She slipped out of bed and immediately it stopped.
Puzzled, she walked across the room. Richard stirred and grunted behind her. She lifted the curtain and stared out. The whiteness of the snow on the ground filled the night with a strange translucence. A church bell chimed three o’clock. The school opposite was dark, silent, empty. She turned and went back to bed, pulled the duvet up around her and lay staring into the darkness.
A cold breath blew into her ear, and she heard a voice, soft, whispering, taunting. Slider’s voice. Just one word.
‘Aroleid.’
Then silence.
44
It was snowing hard as they trudged up the hill towards the Furi lift station with their skis over their shoulders. They passed a cowshed then a row of old chalet-style buildings, PENSION GARNI said the sign on each one.
‘I thought you’d always been keen on Japanese warrants?’ Richard said.
‘Swiss franc ones only,’ Andreas replied.
It was another language. As foreign as the languages of the country they were now in. French. German. Switzer-deutsch. Snatches of foreign languages all around. Two lanky men strode in front of them, one wearing a fluorescent yellow ski suit and bright yellow boots, the other in white, with bright pink boots. They talked loudly, their feet clumping, skis slung over their shoulders. They roared with laughter. Normal people. Out for a day’s skiing. Going for it.
Going for it. Living in the fast lane. Flying at the sharp end. Style.
Death. Lying in a cellophane bag on a mortuary slab. Floating in the void. In the void where you could shout and no one could hear you. For ever.
For a moment, she did not care. She was tired of walking up the hill, tired of the snow tickling her face. Tired of being scared. She wanted to sit down. To sit down and sleep and not dream.
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay there’s the rub. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come?
Did you go on dreaming after you were dead? In the void?
‘You’re quiet this morning, Bugs,’ said Richard.
She blinked away the snow and trudged on, saying nothing, and looked again at Andreas’s padded green skiing gloves.
I think it is possible that he’s someone in the present, now, who is bothering you, worrying you – someone that you are associating with this Slider.
He’s a banker, that’s all. A banker with a bad hand. He’s dry and arrogant; so are most bankers. What are you afraid he’s going to do? Eat you? Turn you into a frog? Jump
on you when Richard’s not looking and rape you and slit your throat? Just because you imagine you saw him on that boat? He’s doing you both a favour, be nice to him.
They crossed the wooden bridge over the river and then climbed up the steep steps to join the jostling queue into the ski-lift station. She shuffled slowly forwards behind Andreas and Richard in the air that was thick with garlic and suntan lotion and lip salve and perfume.
‘Sony,’ Richard said. ‘Their seven-year warrants are a fucking good buy at the moment. Five times geared and a four percent premium.’
‘I prefer Fujitsu,’ said Andreas.
She could hear the machinery now, the whirring of the motors driving the massive cable, the scraping, sliding sound of the six-man gondolas unhooking, slowing, the metallic thump of their doors opening, the clatter of skiers pushing their skis into the racks then clambering in, the clunk of the doors shutting and the sudden roar of acceleration as the tiny cabins, like eggs, slid down the cable, gaining momentum, and through the gantry that locked them to the cable. She felt afraid of the gondolas, suddenly, afraid of the mountain, wanted to go back to the hotel.
Something hit her hard in the small of her back, and she spun round.
‘Entschuldigung.’ A woman was leaning forward, trying to push her skis back together, smiling apologetically, a flustered, messy-looking woman with two small girls in matching pink outfits.
She felt her skis being lifted out of her hand. She turned and saw Andreas placing them in the rack at the back of the gondola. He took her arm and propelled her in.
She looked around. ‘Richard? Where’s Richard?’
‘He is going in front.’
There were four little Japanese boys in the gondola, watching them wide-eyed. Someone shouted outside, urgently, a torrent of Japanese, and the boys scampered out seconds before the door closed.
The gondola accelerated, unbalancing her, and she sat down hard on the plastic bench. Andreas sat down opposite her, holding his ski poles, fingers neatly curled around the handles, as they swung suspended on the cable just outside the mouth of the station, then began to glide upwards.