by Peter James
She had already decided what she would wear that night. A pair of cobalt-blue suede Manolo Blahniks, and a totally stunning handbag to match, with a Stella McCartney A-line cocktail dress that stopped a couple of inches too high above her knees. Naughty, she knew, but it showed off her legs, by far her best asset – although for knocking on thirty and having had two sprogs, she didn’t reckon the rest of her was too bad either. Tits still firm, stomach reasonably flat. So far, so good . . .
Out of curiosity, Nigel went online and checked the easyJet flight they would have been on. It had landed ten minutes early, shortly after midday. He told Annie.
‘But the thing is, darling, as I said to you. Even if we’d got here safely, I would have spent the entire holiday fretting about the flight home. I didn’t have the dream last night. We did the right thing.’
Nigel told her that if she felt they had done the right thing, then they had.
*
The first two days of their stay were blissful. Tired from the journey, they spent much of Sunday chilling, relaxing on loungers beside the hotel’s infinity pool and reading. On Monday they went hiking up in the mountains and, later, Annie had a massage. On their third day, Tuesday, in the personal organizer section of Nigel’s phone was, Picnic lunch on boat. Dep. 11 a.m., return 4 p.m.
‘Couldn’t be more perfect weather for a day on the water, could it?’ Nigel said, pulling on his Dyke Golf Club baseball cap to cover his balding dome. He cast off the mooring rope of the brown-varnished, clinker-built dinghy they had rented. There was an outboard, if they wanted to use it, but Nigel was keen to row. He patted his stomach, which Annie had noticed was definitely in an expansionist mode these past few years, although he was a long way from what one could call fat. ‘Promised myself I’d lose this by the end of the week,’ he said.
‘Let me know when you get tired and I’ll have a go on the oars too,’ she said.
‘You can take over when we get to France, and row back!’ he said with a grin, and pointed at the craggy peaks of the Alps on the far shore. Deeper into the mountain range, some of the peaks were still snow-capped, but the visibility was not good enough to see them today.
‘How far is it across?’ she asked.
‘About fourteen kilometers – nine miles,’ he said.
‘Quite a row!’
‘Could do it in a couple of hours – shall we try? We can use the outboard to motor back.’
‘Do we have to pay extra if we get back after 4 p.m.?’
‘There’s an hourly charge, but it’s not exorbitant.’
‘Let’s go for it. Splice the main brace, Sir Francis!’
It was a baking hot morning, with a faint breeze, the blue sky smudged with just a few wispy cirrus clouds high above them. Annie sat back, watching Nigel in his pink shorts, white polo shirt and trainers steadily rowing, keeping up a good speed. She breathed in the smells of boat varnish and rope and the fresh, faintly reedy tang of the water, and listened to the steady splash of the oars. In the distance, she saw a ferry crossing, and a large pleasure boat heading along the lake in front of them.
Suddenly, her phone pinged with a text. She pulled it out of her bag and looked at the display. ‘From Mummy,’ she said, opening it.
All fine here. Zak good as gold. Taking them to Drusilla’s Park today. Hope you’re having a nice time!
She sent a reply that they were – they were having a really lovely time. Then as she put her phone away she said to Nigel, ‘Zak, good as gold!’
‘Respect to your parents, I’d say!’
*
An hour later the mountains of the French Alps ahead of them grew steadily larger and higher as they rowed nearer, but the far shore was still a long way off. Nigel had pulled off his top and, moving carefully in the boat, making sure not to rock it too much and capsize, he made his way over to Annie so she could rub sun cream onto his back and chest.
‘Want me to take over yet?’ she asked.
He was sweating heavily but looking relaxed and cheery. ‘No, thanks, I’m fine.’ He took his hands from the oars to pat the big roll of flesh that was his stomach. ‘Is it looking any smaller?’
‘Definitely, darling!’
Suddenly, she felt a sudden swirl of cold air; it was so fleeting that for an instant she thought she had imagined it. Then from the faint frown that crossed Nigel’s face, she knew he’d felt it too. But it was gone, as suddenly as it had come. A couple at the next-door table on the terrace last night, who told them they came to Montreux every year for their holiday, said to be careful out on the lake – there were strange eddies and currents, and treacherous mists could descend quickly and with little warning.
But of course Nigel had checked the weather forecast carefully this morning with the concierge. It was going to be a fine day on the lake as well as on the shore. No mists were forecast. A perfect day for boating!
But, almost imperceptibly, the water seemed to be getting choppier; although not unpleasantly rough, it was definitely no longer as calm as it had been. She commented on it to Nigel.
‘It’s because the breeze is coming from the Montreux side – the lee shore,’ he explained. ‘We’re heading towards the windward shore, so the further out we get, the choppier it will become.’
As he spoke, a wave, from the wake of some bigger craft, broke over the bow, sprinkling a few droplets over Nigel’s back – and she felt a few of them on her face; nice and refreshing, but at the same time, staring at the darkening water, she felt a faint tinge of apprehension. They were a long way out now, in a very small craft. She turned her head and looked back at Montreux, so far in the distance it took her a moment to identify their hotel.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t go any further,’ she said.
Nigel looked at his watch. ‘Twelve thirty. Hmm, it is taking longer than I thought.’ He looked over his shoulder at the French shore. ‘It will take a good hour more at least to get there.’
‘Longer, I’d say,’ she replied dubiously.
‘We could go up the lake a little way instead, and then drift and have lunch in around half an hour. How does that sound?’
She nodded. ‘OK. Or we could row back a little towards the lee shore – it would be nicer to eat not rocking around so much.’ She suddenly had to grip the gunwales as the boat was rocked harshly by another, much bigger wave; the wash from a powerboat heading into the distance at high speed.
Nigel did not seem to need much persuading to turn the boat around. Annie offered to take over rowing, but he was fine, he said, and she could do some after lunch. But as he pulled on the oars he was looking less happy than when they had started out this morning, and the water was looking distinctly less happy too. Instead of getting calmer it was definitely getting a tad rougher all across the lake.
Above them the clouds were building up. Annie delved into the picnic hamper prepared by the hotel and brought out some bottled water. She took a long swig then offered some to Nigel. He shook his head. ‘When we stop, thanks, darling.’
After another ten minutes, to Annie’s relief, the water seemed a little calmer again. At 1 p.m. precisely, Nigel shipped his oars. ‘Lunch?’
‘Good plan,’ she said. ‘I’m ravenous!’
For several minutes, she knelt, keeping her head down, focused on the contents of the hamper. She pulled out a beer, which she opened and handed to Nigel, then peeled two hardboiled eggs, and carefully buttered two rolls. There were plates, knives and forks beautifully wrapped in linen napkins, wine glasses and a bottle of a local white wine, Dole, in a cooler bag. There was pâté in one container, slices of ham in another, tomato salad in a third, as well as an assortment of cheeses and fruits, and two miniature bars of Lindt chocolate.
‘I don’t think we’re going to starve!’ she said, carefully preparing a platter for Nigel. But to her surprise he did not comment. When she looked up to hand it to him, she could see why. Tendrils of mist were drifting by them like ghosts. She turned and the mist was everywhere, thin
and hazy and wispy in places. It took her some moments to even spot the shore, and Montreux through it. ‘I thought the weather forecast was meant to be good, Nigel?’
‘That’s what it said on both the ones I checked online, and the concierge assured me of the same. This is probably just some kind of midday heat haze.’
‘More like a sea mist,’ she said.
‘This is a lake, not the sea, darling.’
‘That couple last night said something about sudden mists descending. Maybe we should head back while we can still see the shore – what do you think?’
He dipped his egg into the small pile of salt and pepper Annie had poured onto his plate, then bit into it, and chewed thoughtfully. ‘Maybe that would be wise. Might be best to use the outboard – get a bit closer to the shore and we’ll probably find it’s completely clear there.’
‘I’ll pack the picnic away.’
The boat rocked wildly as Nigel slid off his seat and edged his way, balancing with difficulty, to the stern. The mist was thickening by the second now. The temperature felt as if it had dropped twenty degrees. And suddenly, for a brief moment, Annie could see nothing at all – she was totally engulfed in the mist; she felt disoriented and giddy.
It cleared a fraction, and she could just make out Nigel, barely ten feet away; he was merely a shadow. But she could not see the shore, any shore in any direction. ‘I don’t like this,’ she said.
The temperature was dropping even further. Then, in the distance, she heard a steady, rhythmic thump, thump, thump.
It was getting louder by the second.
Thump, thump, thump.
Cold air suddenly swirled around her.
She could hear the roar of an engine. The thrashing of water.
‘Nigel!’ she called out, panicky. ‘Nigel, start the outboard, please, quickly.’
‘I’m trying – not sure which way I’m meant to turn this ruddy knob.’
She heard the clatter, clatter, clatter as he pulled the starting handle, but no sound of the motor firing. He pulled again.
The thump, thump, thump grew louder, closer. The thrashing sound was louder, closer. The roar of the engine was rising to a crescendo.
Icy air engulfed them. The boat was rocking wildly; strands of her hair whipped her face. The water erupted around them into foaming bubbles, as if some monster beneath them was rising from the deep. Then a shadow, tall as a house, bore down on them out of the mist.
‘NIGEL!’ she screamed.
An instant later she was in the water, spinning around and around in a crazed, choking vortex that was pulling her backwards and under.
*
An Englishman in a dark suit and a sombre club tie, accompanied by a uniformed police officer, greeted the grief-stricken sixty-year-old man as he stepped off the plane at Geneva airport.
‘Mr Donaldson?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Gavin Pearson, the British Consul, and this is Inspector Didier Motte of the Geneva Cantonal Police. I’m very sorry about your daughter, sir.’
Michael Donaldson thanked him, blinking away tears, and shook both their hands.
‘A terrible tragedy, and on their holiday,’ Inspector Motte said, sympathetically.
‘Would you like to have anything to eat or drink, or a rest, before we head off, Mr Donaldson?’ the Consul asked.
‘No, let’s go straight to the mortuary, get it over with, please,’ he replied.
They exchanged few words in the police car for several minutes. Michael Donaldson sat on the back seat, oblivious to the passing surroundings. Then he asked, ‘My son-in-law, Nigel. Presumably you’ve not found . . . not . . . recovered . . . his body yet?’
Inspector Motte, who was driving, responded in his broken English. ‘We are diving on the lake since the unfortunate accident happened, but there are a number of – how you say – courants, and the lake is deep in this part. It may take some time. And we are searching the lake all over, by air and water.’
They drove on in silence. Annie’s father caught a glimpse of the lake to his right, a cluster of vessels way out towards the middle, and the small black dot of a helicopter hovering low over the water, and hastily averted his gaze. He did not even notice them pulling up outside the mortuary building. The rear door of the car was opened by one of the men – he barely registered which – and he stepped out as if in a trance. He was here to identify his daughter’s body. He could not get his head around this.
As if sensing him faltering, as they entered the building, the Consul put his hand on his arm. ‘Mr Donaldson, are you absolutely certain you want to see her body? We could do this another way – identify her from her wedding ring, or items of her clothing, or even dental records or DNA, if you’d prefer?’
‘I want to see her,’ he said. ‘I want to see my baby one last time.’
‘Of course.’
‘Just tell me – I’m still not totally clear about how the accident happened. The English police who gave me and my wife the news only had very sketchy details. They were in a rowboat, quite far out on the lake, in bad weather? It doesn’t sound like my son-in-law – he was a very cautious man. Was . . . I’m saying was . . . he might still be alive, mightn’t he?’
‘I think by now, two days, we would have found him if he was alive,’ the Inspector said.
‘Apparently your daughter, Annie, and son-in-law, Nigel, rented a small day boat, with an outboard, and took a picnic lunch prepared by the hotel,’ the Consul said. ‘The weather forecast was good, but unfortunately, where you have a large mass of water surrounded by mountains, it will always be susceptible to sudden changes. A mist came down that no one predicted – very fast, apparently, and it was a tragic accident. The little boat was run down by a ferry. The captain has been arrested.’
‘That’s not going to bring them back,’ Annie’s father said grimly.
‘I’m sorry,’ the Consul said. ‘I’m truly sorry. I wish there was something I could do. Anything.’
‘There is one thing,’ Michael Donaldson said. ‘How much do you think my daughter suffered? I can’t imagine what it’s like to drown—’
‘Let me set your mind at rest,’ the Consul said, interrupting him. ‘I spoke to the pathologist. Your daughter didn’t drown – her death would have been instant.’
‘How can you be so certain?’ Donaldson asked with suspicion.
‘Well – I was hoping to spare you the details.’
‘I would like to know. I’d like to be able to at least tell my wife that our beloved daughter didn’t suffer.’
The Consul looked at him, hesitantly, then turned to the police officer as if for help. But Motte just stood in polite silence.
‘She didn’t drown, you say,’ Annie’s father prompted. ‘Was she struck on the head?’
‘No, she didn’t – she didn’t have a head injury. I’m afraid, in the collision with the ferry, your daughter was cut in half by the propeller.’
A CHRISTMAS TRADITION
Susan took the black lace-trimmed teddy from the bottom drawer of her pine chest, where it had lain carefully washed and neatly folded for twelve months. The satin trickled through her fingers as she held it to her body and she was shocked how rough her hands felt in contrast to its softness, and by how drawn and tired her face looked in the mirror against its sheen.
She was frightened that Tony would not come back tonight, and she could not bear the thought of spending Christmas without him. They had never spent Christmas apart before, but she had a feeling this year was going to bring some break with tradition, and she was uneasy.
Thirty-three and growing old. Growing old and frightened, she thought as she parted the curtains and stared into the darkness, watching the fairy lights on her neighbour’s tree through the ghost of her own face at the window. A mist of fine rain clung like a swarm of midges to the glow of the street lamp, and tears clung to her eyelashes.
She looked up, wondering if he was up there now beyond the canopy of c
louds. There were times on clear nights when she had seen navigation lights winking beneath the stars and had wondered if it was him, returning. The clouds frightened her, made her think back . . . but she suppressed the memory. It was Christmas Eve and he always managed to make it back, somehow.
She had had no message from him, although that was not unusual, and she understood how the wives and girlfriends of hostages must feel, never knowing, never hearing; except Tony wasn’t being held captive, unless it was by temptation. He was one of those mercurial and unpredictable men, with an aura of the untamed adventurer about him and an appetite for life that women found attractive. She had noticed his eyes roving at parties.
And yet he swore he had never been unfaithful. Until recently, Susan had believed him. Her friends had tried to tell her to forget him, to move on, and his long silence and her feeling about the break with tradition were beginning to convince her also. The stewardesses on the small private airline were chosen for their looks. Tony flew the world with them. It was hard to believe he could have always resisted.
Even so, she kept her hope and prepared the bed, let her long brown hair down because he liked it that way, put on his favourite perfume, moisturized her hands and ran them down her slender, freshly waxed legs, savouring their smoothness. She slipped out of her clothes, shivering from the cold air on her naked skin, and put on the teddy, which he had bought her for Christmas five years ago, and which it had become a tradition for her to wear in bed on Christmas Eve.
The first time they had made love was on Christmas Eve, up in her attic bedroom at her parents’ home in Wembley whilst they were out at a party. Afterwards they had lain in silence, the windowpanes drenched in the darkness of the night, wrapping paper rustling at the end of the bed when they moved their feet. She could still remember vividly how they had held each other tightly, urgently, pressing against each other for warmth and reassurance, and they had made one of those vows that young people in love make, and in time can so easily forget.