by Hanna Allen
She became animated. ‘Harry had brought those skiing catalogues. When I saw the Icehotel, I knew it would be the perfect location. It was the bit about sleeping in rooms without doors. Remember? I realised then how awfully easy it would be to kill someone. Someone who was drugged.’
Yes, Wilson had been drugged. But what did that have to do with Harry?
‘The Icehotel’s Web site had the details. That jolly reception in the Ice Bar, the Activities Room. There was even a picture of the snowsuits.’
I slurred out the words. ‘How did you get the drug into Wilson’s food?’
She laughed lightly. ‘I didn’t just drug Wilson, you little idiot, I drugged everybody.’ She was enjoying the expression on my face. ‘Remember Purple Kiss? Well the Web site lists the Icehotel’s cocktails and all their ingredients. On that first night, only Purple Kiss is served at the reception. As it happens, crème de violette is the main ingredient.’ Her eyes were gleaming. ‘But this is the point, Mags, crème de violette is only in Purple Kiss. None of the other cocktails has it. My plan was to drug Harry, then roll him out of his sleeping bag, but I had to do it with the minimum of risk. So I introduced Phenonal into all the bottles of crème de violette. That way, it would get into the pitchers of Purple Kiss and everyone, including Harry, would take it.’
It was devastatingly simple. I had to admire her. Who was the chess player now?
‘There was always a teensy risk that Harry wouldn’t drink Purple Kiss, but he has a sweet tooth, so I thought it worth a try. And Phenonal has a sweetish after-taste, you see, so Purple Kiss was ideal.’
‘When did you get it into the bottles?’ I said slowly.
‘It was that first afternoon, after the tour of the Icehotel. We went our separate ways. You wandered off to look at the Ice Theatre, I think. I went exploring. You know, for a hotel, the Excelsior is remarkably insecure. Absolutely no-one saw me slip into the storeroom. The purple liqueur bottles were all lined up, ready to be taken to the Icehotel. It took only a minute to unscrew them and add the powder. Easy peasy.’
‘How did you get the stuff into the country?’ I hadn’t seen airport dogs but they must have been there.
‘It was in a hermetically sealed packet, actually, which I stuffed inside a tin of strong-smelling talcum powder for good measure. I flushed what was left down the loo in the Locker Room.’
It was a plan worthy of a super-spy. No wonder she looked smug.
‘I planned it down to the last little detail, Mags,’ she said with a wide smile. ‘Everyone would have a jolly good night’s sleep. Phenonal is a commonly used sedative which metabolises rapidly, so after a few hours it’s completely out of the bloodstream. When a man’s freezing to death, the metabolic rate slows but, even then, I thought the drug would be out before hypothermia kicked in.’ Her smile faded into a frown. ‘I was wrong about that, though.’
‘What if Harry hadn’t drunk Purple Kiss?’
‘I’d have found another way.’
‘But you drank it, too.’
She smiled again. ‘Only a tiny amount. That drunken fool Jonas was spilling it everywhere so it was easy to spill mine. What I didn’t realise, though, was that you weren’t drinking it either.’ The smile vanished. ‘That was rather a pity.’
Blood was pounding in my ears. I placed my hands against the sofa and tried to push myself up. My arms buckled and I sank back, sweating heavily.
‘I wouldn’t, Mags. Adrenaline reacts badly with that drug. You’ll be dreadfully sick.’ She ran a hand over her hair. ‘Where everything began to unravel was when Harry’s and Wilson’s rooms were swapped. I didn’t know, I really didn’t. And, as if that weren’t bad enough, you saw me coming out of Wilson’s room.’
‘But I saw a man,’ I said, stunned. ‘A big man.’
She lit a cigarette, inhaling slowly. ‘You know, it was the Web site that gave me the idea. There was a detailed description of the snowsuits. It occurred to me as I read about the different sizes that I could put one on over the other. I’d look much bigger, and being tall helps. When I tried it, I realised I could easily be mistaken for a man.’
The room was spinning. All these years, and how little I knew her.
‘After I’d spiked the bottles, I hid a large suit in my locker. Then, at night, when everyone was semi-comatose, I slipped out of my room. It was near that side entrance so it only took a minute to get to the Locker Room. I pulled on the outer suit, then crept into Harry’s room. It was too dark to see his face, and I was in a hurry, so I didn’t look terribly closely. All I saw was tousled hair that looked like Harry’s.’ There was bitterness in her voice. ‘When I discovered it was Wilson I’d killed, I really couldn’t understand it. There was that frightful statue of Pan in there. To cap it all, I heard your voice as I was walking away. But as long as I didn’t turn round, I knew you couldn’t identify me.’
‘The blue suit and the woollen hat,’ I breathed. ‘I thought it was Harry.’
‘Well, the blue suits were the largest. As for the hat, I considered putting my hood up, but it might have come down. The bobble hat really was perfect. I took the first that came to hand and tucked my hair under it. I didn’t intend to look like Harry – it was sheer co-incidence it was blue. And I wore a ski mask. But you wouldn’t have known that.’
I saw it all now, how easily I’d got it wrong. How easily everyone had got it wrong.
‘I didn’t return the clothes to the Locker Room. I mean, why take the risk? I stuffed the outer suit behind the linen basket in the washroom. No-one would think it strange finding a snowsuit there.’ She sat back, staring straight ahead. ‘I was stunned when I discovered I’d killed the wrong man. I’d done my homework so thoroughly, you know, I could have found Harry’s room blindfold. All that careful planning gone to waste. I had to think quickly after that.’
I knew what she was going to say. She was going to tell me how she’d killed Harry. Through the ceiling, I heard muffled laughter from the girls’ bedroom.
‘It wasn’t planned,’ she said. ‘Not the way I had to do it. It was two days after the police interviews. You were off somewhere, and Mike had gone on that husky trip.’ She paused, the cigarette halfway to her lips. ‘Harry said he’d stay in the hotel and work on his book, he was behind with some chapter or other. I saw a chance so I stayed too.’
A thud came from upstairs, followed by squabbling which eventually died down.
‘I really wasn’t prepared to risk anything in the Excelsior. I’m not stupid. So I sat in the lounge, hoping coffee would give me inspiration. After a while, Harry came down. He told me he needed fresh air, and was going to take a look inside the Chapel, and did I want to come. I was so excited, Mags, you wouldn’t believe. The problem was, how to do it exactly.’
She leant forward, her arms over her stomach as though nursing an acute pain. ‘I said no, I didn’t want to go out. He went into the Activities Room. I waited ages, my eyes glued to the door. Then I saw him at the reception. His hat was still in his hand, I would have missed him otherwise. Hundreds of people were coming into the foyer from one of those ice-climbing trips. When I saw what they were holding, I knew what to do. I ran to the Activities Room. There were only a couple of people there. No-one saw me put on a ski mask and two suits. I made sure they were both red.’
‘No, Liz,’ I whispered. ‘Please, no.’
‘I took an ice-axe, one of those big ones. I had to push through the crowd to get to the front door. It was deserted outside. I slipped into the Chapel.’ She was rocking back and forth. ‘He was there, at the back, looking up at the big window. I crept over. He turned and saw me. We stared at one another. My hood was up and he didn’t recognise me under the mask.’
‘Liz, I’m begging you – ’
She was staring into space, oblivious. ‘I thought I should speak to him. Let him know who I was, you see, and why I was going to kill him. But I couldn’t. Then he saw the axe in my hand, and I knew I’d have to do it. I swung as hard as
I could – God knows where I found the strength – but I missed his head and the axe ripped through his shoulder. He screamed, and threw his arms in front of his face. I swung again and the axe went into his chest. He fell back, dragging me with him. And then I just kept going till he went down. After a while, he stopped thrashing.’
My breath was coming in short gasps. With a sudden wrench, my stomach convulsed.
She turned her head slowly, and looked at me. Her face was flushed, her lips wet. ‘You know, when I saw Harry lying there, his body twitching and his blood spraying onto the walls, God forgive me, Mags, it felt better than sex.’
I threw up then, over Liz’s living room carpet.
Chapter 31
I continued to retch, leaning over the floor, spewing up the contents of my stomach till there was nothing left.
The phone rang. After six rings, the answer-machine whirred into life with a loud click and Liz’s recorded message came on. The caller rang off before it had finished.
I lifted my head in a daze. My stomach felt as though it had been tied in knots. My ears were buzzing and objects in my field of view were ringed with dark bands. Gasping with the effort, I drew my legs up slowly and curled into a ball.
The smell of vomit pricked my nostrils. With a rapid movement, Liz tore the blanket from the clotheshorse and flung it over the pizza-like splash.
‘There’s more to tell, Mags,’ she said softly.
I knew what had happened next, I was there. ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ I groaned. ‘Please, Liz, please.’
‘I had to get out of the Chapel quickly. The screams could have carried. And anyone could have walked in. I stripped off the mask and the suit, trying not to get blood over myself. I was less concerned about the inner suit because it was red.’
A part of me had to hear it. I struggled to a sitting position.
‘I ran into you outside, when I least expected it.’ She smiled crookedly. ‘Sorry and all that, Mags, but I had to have an alibi, and you provided the perfect one. It wasn’t difficult to get you into the Chapel, and have you be the one to discover Harry’s body. I told Hallengren I was napping, then got up and saw you outside the Excelsior.’ She paused. ‘And, in case you’re wondering, it’s awfully easy to induce vomiting when adrenaline is pumping through your body. It just needed a couple of fingers down my throat.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘And that smell – ’
The memory returned and I started to gag. She watched me, sympathy on her face.
‘I saw someone in the Chapel, Liz, behind a column,’ I gasped, wiping my mouth. ‘I assumed it was the person who’d killed Harry.’
She played with her hands. ‘You know, that really was the worst possible luck. I’d tried to avoid the reporters by keeping to my room, but it wasn’t always possible. I was afraid one of them might have covered Dick’s trial, you see. None of them would have heard of Liz Hallam, but Harry was with us, and he’s such a flamboyant character that anyone at that trial would remember him.’ She looked away. ‘It was a one in a million chance, but Denny Hinckley had seen my photograph in the papers. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was spying on me and Harry. He watched Harry go into the Chapel and followed him. He saw everything. Including my face as I removed the mask.’
Denny had witnessed a murder and said nothing? What had he been playing at? ‘Why didn’t he go to Hallengren?’ I said.
‘He made a fatal mistake in not doing so,’ she said quietly. ‘But I’ll come to Denny later.’ She was watching me thoughtfully. ‘Your big mistake, Mags, was that you tried to work everything out. Starting with the snowmobiles. You were way off track there, though. You thought it was Mike, or Jonas, who’d loosened those brakes. Well, it wasn’t.’
‘You?’ I said, my voice faltering.
‘I went to join Mike, do you remember? He and Jonas were so busy arguing about whether the Danes or the Belgians made better beer, that they didn’t see me sidle past the machines. It needed a mere flick of the finger under each handle.’ She smiled. ‘That funny snowmobile guide had even shown me how to do it.’
‘What were you thinking, Liz?’ I said, confused. ‘Harry was nowhere near those machines.’
‘Ah, but I’d intended to entice him onto that path. The promise of the stupendous vista would have done it – you know what he’s like when it comes to views – but the deer provided a brilliant excuse.’
‘You thought Harry would stand still while the machines fell towards him?’
‘His reactions are slower than you might imagine. And he’d drunk more than his share of beer. But I agree, it was always going to be a long shot. I wasn’t even sure the machines would slip. Or at the right time.’
‘I don’t know why you bothered. Your Plan A was perfect.’
‘Things can go wrong, you know, even with a perfect plan. It did – I killed the wrong man. I’d be a fool not to take any opportunity that presented itself. But I hadn’t expected the guide to examine his machines so closely. It’s really just as well Hallengren didn’t take his story terribly seriously.’
After a silence, she continued, ‘The morning after Harry’s death, Mike and I came to see you, do you remember? You told us there was something wrong and you’d eventually work it out. I saw that you couldn’t let it go, you kept trying, I suppose chess players do that. So, in the end, I really couldn’t take the risk.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said faintly, my fear returning in a rush.
‘I was supposed to be in Kiruna, you see, dealing with the paperwork over Harry’s death – you wouldn’t believe how complicated it is when someone dies abroad – but I persuaded Mike to go instead. He’d been telling me how concerned he was about you. I was awfully glad to get him out of my hair.’ She ran her hands over her knees. ‘I overheard the receptionist talking to you about the rehearsal. I put on two suits, I don’t know why, I had no plan.’ Her eyes refused to meet mine. ‘I arrived at the Ice Theatre and saw you climb to the back. I waited till the play was over and everyone had gone. Except there was a group who rather didn’t seem to want to. And neither did you. In the end, I gave up and left.’
And I thought it had been Jonas. And then Mike, Mike who’d been so worried about me. Dear God, I’d been such a fool.
‘You didn’t have a clue, you know,’ she was saying, ‘even though that brain of yours was working overtime. But it didn’t weaken my resolve. You see, I was so close, Mags, so close, and I couldn’t take any chances.’ Her eyes were steady. ‘There was really only one loose end left to tie up.’
A loose end which was still dangling, I realised in horror. I flexed my muscles experimentally. Life was returning. But I’d never make it to the door.
‘I had another chance after dinner,’ she was saying. ‘You’d gone to bed early. A decent interval later, I excused myself and crept upstairs. I saw you leave your room.’
Saturday night: the night Denny had gone to the Icehotel.
‘I followed you to the Activities Room. I thought of killing you there, you know, the way I’d killed Harry. Although it was dark, I knew where you were. But it was really too dangerous. You’d have screamed like Harry.’
I swung my legs painfully over the side. Dizziness overcame me, and I sank back into the sofa.
Her voice reached me over the ringing in my ears. ‘I heard the door swing, but I knew I was still in with a chance if I moved quickly.’
‘So you followed me out,’ I said dully.
‘The Activities Room has a back door, Mags, a fire door. I’d taken a good look at it when I conducted my little exploration of the Excelsior. You can get out that way, but there’s no outside handle. I left it propped open. And I took an ice-axe.’
I felt a deathly chill in the room. Upstairs, all was silent apart from the faint sound of the television.
‘I ran round the side and saw you disappear into the Locker Room. You know, a minute later and I’d have lost you. It simply never occurred to me that you were going to the Icehotel, I thoug
ht you were off to watch the aurora. You’d take the path beside the Chapel. And that’s where I was going to do it. But, gosh, when I realised you were going back to the Icehotel. Which was deserted – ’ She left the consequences unspoken.
‘You were the figure in the black suit,’ I said half to myself.
‘The police thought it was a man, too.’ Her voice throbbed with excitement. ‘It was just brilliant. After all, who would believe a woman would kill with an ice-axe?’
Would she have split my skull? I looked into her eyes, unable to read the answer. But surely our friendship went too deep. No, she’d have come to her senses.
‘At first, I couldn’t see you,’ she went on. ‘I came to the conclusion you must have gone to your room for something. I mean, why else would you be there? I’d memorised the layout so I could find Harry’s room easily. That’s how I was able to get to your room so quickly in the dark.’
I lay back, staring at the ceiling. Why had I followed Denny? I could no longer remember.
‘You know the rest, Mags, you were there. I wouldn’t have thought you could outrun me, though. But then, it is rather difficult to run with two suits on.’ There was a new respect in her voice. ‘And you were running as though your life depended on it.’ She paused. ‘When I realised I couldn’t catch you up, I hung back and dropped the axe. I heard a shout, then an almighty crash. It was terribly dark, I didn’t see anyone else, and I thought you’d either drown or freeze to death in the water. I crept back in through the fire door.’
Anger bubbled up inside me and boiled over. ‘You murdering bitch. You would have killed me in cold blood.’
‘You know, I’ve never understood that expression. Blood isn’t cold, Mags.’ She looked away. ‘Harry’s was surprisingly warm.’
I pictured the scene in the Chapel: Harry, butchered, lying before the altar like a sacrificial animal, his blood melting the snow. In an instant, my anger drained away, leaving an overwhelming sadness.