Table of Contents
Copyright & Information
About the Author
Dedication
PART ONE
PART TWO
I
II
III
PART THREE
I
II
PART FOUR
I
II
III
PART FIVE
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
PART SIX
I
II
III
IV
PART SEVEN
I
II
'Dr. Patrick Grant' Titles
Other Margaret Yorke Novels
Synopses of 'Grant' Titles
Copyright & Information
Silent Witness
First published in 1972
© Margaret Yorke; House of Stratus 1972-2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The right of Margaret Yorke to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of
Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,
Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.
Typeset by House of Stratus.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.
EAN ISBN Edition
075513012X 9780755130122 Print
0755134761 9780755134762 Kindle
0755134877 9780755134878 Epub
This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author's imagination.
Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.
www.houseofstratus.com
About the Author
Born in Surrey, England, to John and Alison Larminie in 1924, Margaret Yorke (Margaret Beda Nicholson) grew up in Dublin before moving back to England in 1937, where the family settled in Hampshire, although she now lives in a small village in Buckinghamshire.
During World War II she saw service in the Women's Royal Naval Service as a driver. In 1945, she married, but it was only to last some ten years, although there were two children; a son and daughter. Her childhood interest in literature was re-enforced by five years living close to Stratford-upon-Avon and she also worked variously as a bookseller and as a librarian in two Oxford Colleges, being the first woman ever to work in that of Christ Church.
She is widely travelled and has a particular interest in both Greece and Russia.
Margaret Yorke's first novel was published in 1957, but it was not until 1970 that she turned her hand to crime writing. There followed a series of five novels featuring Dr. Patrick Grant, an Oxford don and amateur sleuth, who shares her own love of Shakespeare. More crime and mystery was to follow, and she has written some forty three books in all, but the Grant novels were limited to five as, in her own words, 'authors using a series detective are trapped by their series. It stops some of them from expanding as writers'.
She is proud of the fact that many of her novels are essentially about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations which may threatening, or simply horrific. It is this facet of her writing that ensures a loyal following amongst readers who inevitably identify with some of the characters and recognise conflicts that may occur in everyday life. Indeed, she states that characters are far more important to her than intricate plots and that when writing 'I don't manipulate the characters, they manipulate me'.
Critics have noted that she has a 'marvellous use of language' and she has frequently been cited as an equal to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. She is a past chairman of the Crime Writers' Association and in 1999 was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger, having already been honoured with the Martin Beck Award from the Swedish Academy of Detection.
Dedication
To the Dorothies, affectionately
PART ONE
Morning
Through the softly-falling snow, it came down to the valley, descending the mountain propped like a doll, frozen stiff in its seat. First to see it were the lehrers, riding up early on the chair-lift to open the runs, and grizzled Hans Schulz, whose days were now spent helping skiers off the lift at Obergreutz. It passed above each of them as they rose. The head lolled against the pole on which the chair hung from its wire hawser; the feet, with skis on, were neatly together on the rail; and one arm was hooked over the bar across the knees. A thick layer of snow covered it, so that it seemed dressed in white. As the men travelling upwards saw it, their shouts shocked those below into some sort of preparation for the end of the macabre journey. Slowly the chair swung down wards: the loaded seat with its rigid burden swinging across the black, shining river until it came to rest on the plank platform of the terminus. The machinery stopped.
There were few to greet the body: the snowcat driver who had not yet mounted the chair; the men who worked the lift; a few visitors out early; and the burgomeister, hastily summoned from his nearby house while at his breakfast, who stood with crumbs still around his whiskers, summoning the concentration to direct what must now be done.
From the balcony of a chalet on the other side of the valley, Dr. Patrick Grant, Fellow of St. Mark’s College, Oxford, watched the scene through a pair of binoculars as a small crowd began to gather at the bottom of the chair-lift.
PART TWO
Saturday
I
Snow had fallen every day for three weeks, and the atmosphere in the village of Greutz, high in the Austrian Alps, had become charged with foreboding. Increasing masses on the mountain peaks constantly threatened skiers with restrictions because of avalanche risk; frequent closures of the road over the pass, at first lightly thought of by recently-arrived holidaymakers, now brought a sense of claustrophobia: one could be cut off, imprisoned in the village, miss one’s connection home, and be badly inconvenienced. But no thought of anything worse entered the heads of the visitors who had come to Greutz, until one of them disappeared.
The village was long and straggling, a line of shops and chalets that bordered the road leading down from the high mountain pass. Most of the chalets in the main street were hotels or pensions, but a track past the church, with its onion dome and spiky spire, continued to a few private dwellings used at weekends by people who came from as far away as Munich. By the side of the road ran the river, normally black and fast-flowing but torpid now, the boulders that studded it wearing tall white hats of snow. A roofed wooden bridge crossed it, and here, in an open space where the tennis courts were in summer, the ski-school met, behind the clinic and the bank.
At the end of the main street, where the road wound along the side of the valley to Kramms, past the Sportshop Winkler and the chair-lift terminus, a lane branched off up a slope to the Hotel Gentiana. Its position, tucked away from the centre of the village, was much boosted by travel agents because of its seclusion, the benefits of which were sometimes a matter of doubt to weary skiers trudging homewards up the hill at the end of the day with their skis weighing down their shoulders. Only the Red Run ended near the Gentiana, and it was a difficult one; because of the dividing river, no other runs connected with its final stages, and only the experienced were advised to tackle the narrow, often icy
piste, which dropped steeply down the side of the mountain through the trees and over a hanging bridge across the river. Sometimes, walkers took the trail through the woods, but they seldom climbed far, preferring to follow the easier path on the other side of the river.
The Hotel Gentiana had been owned by the Scholler family for three generations. The original inn, catering mainly for climbers, had panelled walls and ceilings, ornately carved, and creaky floors that sloped at odd angles. A new wing had been added at one side, incorporating a restaurant with huge windows looking up to Obergreutz and beyond to the peak of the Schneiderhorn, which had been hidden for days now behind dense, snow-laden clouds. Above the restaurant, there were bedrooms, and below, in the cellar, was the Gentiana nightclub with its discotheque. Behind the building was a modern chalet used as an annexe, where the rooms were smaller, barer, and cheaper than those in the main hotel.
At lunch-time the lifts, and even the cable-car from Kramms to Obergreutz, had stopped, for the snow that had been falling steadily all the morning was coming down in a dense white curtain through which all vision was obscured. Only the two short drags on the nursery slopes were working, and a few hardy spirits, hooded and wearing goggles, rode up them to career blindly down at speed, scattering this year’s learners who floundered about for a time and then gave up, soaked and depressed, to take themselves off to Ferdy’s for hot chocolate or a grog.
In his room on the first floor of the Gentiana annexe, Bernard Walker gazed moodily out at the descending snow. His direct view was of the wall of the main hotel, but by opening the window and putting his head out, he could look towards the village and see if the lifts were working; now, however, the snow was falling so heavily that even if they were running, they would be invisible. He knew by the silence that they had stopped. That morning, despite the conditions, he had done the Red Run three times. Knees flexed, eyes screwed up behind the double barrier of spectacles and goggles, blue wool cap pulled well over brow and ears, he had side-slipped down the sheer drop from the shoulder of the mountain and then turned to run straight as the piste curved in gentle undulations for some two hundred yards before widening into a plateau where the runs divided. Here the piste to Kramms led off to the left, and there was a choice of three routes back to Greutz. He had been with his ski-class on the first two trips; they had gone up in the chair-lift to Obergreutz, and there connected with the long anchor drag that hoisted skiers in pairs to the top of the Schneiderhorn and the network of lifts and runs that laced its summit and joined it with other villages on the farther slopes. Coming down, the snow had found its way inside hoods, collars and gloves. Bernard’s glasses had steamed up; despite his thick socks and two pairs of gloves, his feet and hands were numb, and his legs felt stiff after the long haul on the drag. By the time the class had travelled up for the second time, the high anchor lift had been stopped because of the worsening weather; the rest of his group swooped off down the mountain aiming for the friendly fug of Ferdy’s bar; only Bernard had returned to the chair-lift for the third time.
At the junction where the runs divided, he had paused, tempted to take an easier way down now that he was alone, but his morning’s target had been three descents of the Red Run. He did a quick jump turn and took the narrow track, running fast along the twisting piste, trusting to luck to find the bumps on which to turn, for he could not see them. It was eerily silent coming through the trees; because of their shelter the snow fell less heavily, and as he had the path to himself, he could set his own pace without fear of collision. He had been the last person up on the chair-lift, and those in front had taken the easier runs down. It was, he thought, a pity that there was no audience to admire his swinging Christies as he came fast out of the wood, went straight over the hanging bridge that crossed the river at this point, and down the final slope, ending with a skidding turn on the steep bank of snow above the lane outside the hotel. The only soul in sight was an old, bent man pulling a sledge along the lane towards the village.
Bernard undid his skis, stood them on end and knocked off the loose snow with his glove. Then he strapped them together, hoisted them on to his shoulder, clambered down the bank and walked round the side of the hotel to the ski-room, where he stacked his skis and sticks in a corner position in the rack.
This done, he debated for a moment his next move. It was twelve o’clock, peak hour in the village bars. Bernard unclipped his boots at the ankles and walked off down the road to Ferdy’s. There, the members of his ski-class were grouped round a table with tall glasses before them and an array of empty bottles; it was an advanced class, all men, for at this level, few women had the stamina, even if they had the skill, to keep up the pace set by the men; but at the table, several girls had joined them, including Fiona Spilman, a tall, pale, wand-like girl with auburn hair who operated the discotheque in the Gentiana nightclub. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the gently rising steam from damp garments.
‘You got down all right, then,’ said one of the men, as Bernard hovered by their table. No one attempted to make a space for him to join them.
‘Rather. I had a splendid run,’ Bernard replied in a keen voice. ‘Hi there, Fiona.’
Fiona did not answer, and no one else spoke to him. Bernard peered about, looking to see who else was in the bar. A woman in a scarlet sweater sitting alone at a corner table waved to him, and he crossed the room towards her.
‘Hullo, Bernard. Sit here, won’t you?’ Sue Carter invited. She was large and fair, in her early thirties, with blue eyes and the clear complexion of someone who spent much of her time out of doors.
‘Sorry, I can’t stop, I’m meeting someone,’ Bernard said, abruptly, and he swung away from her, out of the bar, his cap still on his head.
From Ferdy’s, he crossed to the Silvretta. In the tea-room, he walked among the tables as if seeking somebody. There were several people from the Gentiana sitting there with drinks, and he paused long enough to greet those he recognised, but with an urgent air. Then he hurried out and went up the road to the self-service store, where he bought a packet of crisps and a bottle of lemonade.
Carrying his purchases in a paper bag, he walked back the way he had so lately come, along the road to the end of the village, up the track again past the main building of the Gentiana into the annexe, and so to his own small room, where he sat on his bed eating his crisps and drinking his lemonade in solitude until it was time for lunch.
And now Bernard stood at his bedroom window wondering how to occupy the rest of the day. After staring gloomily at the snow for a while, he picked up his anorak, put it on and went out on to the landing. On the floor above lived Penny Croft, the courier for Hickson’s Holidays who had annual block bookings at the Silvretta and the Gentiana. As it was Saturday, she was now in Zurich, supervising the departure of today’s outgoing guests and collecting the new arrivals. The bus bringing them was due back in Greutz at nine o’clock, but if the snow continued to fall at this rate, the road over the pass would soon be blocked again.
Also on the second floor of the annexe was Fiona’s room. Every night, or rather, early every morning, Bernard heard her overhead when she came in after her session at the discotheque. Now, pausing at the head of the stairs, he heard a sudden blare of pop music from above and then a peal of female laughter followed by the rumble of a man’s voice. He clattered quickly down the stairs in his heavy ski boots, blundered over the short distance separating the annexe from the main hotel, and pushed his way through the glass swing door. Frau Scholler, busy behind the reception desk checking her accounts, saw him pass; he did not look at her. Most of her guests were in the lounge, reading, writing postcards, or playing bridge; there would be a steady and profitable demand for tea, coffee, and later grogs and gluwein throughout the afternoon, but if the weather did not soon improve, the visitors would grow irritable. Frau Scholler had seen it happen many times before. She sighed, and went on adding up schillings upon schillings with practised accuracy.
In t
he lounge, Bernard glanced anxiously round. There might be someone present who would speak to him, demanding the sort of response he could rarely, if ever, give. Bernard had never risen to any occasion, however minor, except when skiing. When he was younger, an acquaintance at work had persuaded him, because someone else had dropped out at the last minute, to join a ski-ing party. Bernard, who never knew how to spend his holiday and who at this stage in his life still hoped he might one day achieve human contact of some kind, had gone along. Surprising himself as much as his companions, he had made rapid progress and become the star pupil of his ski-class; taking the sport so seriously gave him an excuse to opt out of late nights, and to build an image for himself. He skied, but he did not dance. His fame on the slopes followed him back to England, and he cultivated it. Each year after that, he went to a different resort, alone, so that no one he knew could report upon his social life. At the office, he could boast of feats upon the mountain that were genuine, and obscurely hint at subtler personal adventures which were not.
But if bad weather stopped one skiing, what else could one do? One must seem busy, or people would expect one to join in their activities. There were all these women about, too many of them unattached and possibly predatory. Bernard shuddered at the thought of them. All that flesh, soft and yielding, even demanding: certainly mysterious. He would not admit that the idea of it fascinated him, even as it repelled.
The lounge, now, seemed safe from female menace. There was no sign of Sue Carter and her friend, Liz Morris who had travelled out in the same party the previous weekend. The only fellow Britons to be seen were three other clients of Hickson’s Holidays – Francis and Barbara Whittaker and Sam Irwin. Barbara was a smart, striking-looking woman, but she was safely married; Bernard did not see the covert glance she gave him, over her cards, as he entered; it was a swift assessment and dismissal. Sam Irwin had the next room to Bernard’s in the annexe; he seemed a quiet man, not given to getting drunk and crashing into bed with groans, or worse, with women, habits which Bernard had encountered in his neighbours in the past, forcing him to stuff his fingers in his ears and hide, child-like, with the bedclothes over his head, shutting out the frightening sounds. Their fourth at the bridge table was Frau Hiller, a widow from Frankfurt, who had come here for the curling but had thus far been frustrated, for no amount of snow-blowing could keep the rink clear.
Silent Witness (Dr. Patrick Grant) Page 1