‘Afraid of heights?’
‘No, she was afraid of that chairlift. It was a lemon. There’d been reports of chairs falling off and stranded riders having to be rescued.’
Ryder nodded slowly. ‘Did you realise Celia was missing later that night?’
‘No. I didn’t go back to our room after she’d chewed me out. I stayed with Di.’
‘When did you raise the alarm?’
‘The next day—sometime during the afternoon. The power was out. The village was in chaos. The inn was buried up to its roof in snow. We had to dig our way outside from the front door. The road was totally inaccessible, and they couldn’t groom it because the snowploughs were all buried. The guests had to help dig them out.’ Miller shook his head, a faraway expression in his eyes as though he’d travelled back through time. ‘In all the years I’ve been coming here, I’ve never seen weather like that, before or since. There was so much snow, people were skiing off the roof of the inn. It was something else.’
According to the reports Ryder had read from back then, the blizzard blew on and off for thirty days. ‘So, you don’t mind coming back here, to the place where your wife disappeared?’
‘To Charlotte’s? No, I dig this place. I never did a thing to harm Celia.’
‘Someone harmed her. Your wife was murdered, Mr Miller, we’re certain of that now. We know she was hit with a blunt object and thrown from a height. Then someone buried her up on that mountain to conceal their crime.’
Miller’s complexion turned a sickly shade of grey as he absorbed Ryder’s words. ‘Murdered?’ he whispered, his voice hitching.
‘You look shocked, and yet you were interviewed rigorously back then over her disappearance.’
‘It wasn’t me. I swear to God! Why would someone want to murder Celia?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. Tell me, does this arrangement with Di Gordon still exist?’
‘Of course not! Christ, man, we’re in our seventies. Most of us are lucky to get it up. But I still play the two-week gig.’
‘But you’re still friends?’
Miller swallowed hard then nodded. ‘We’re still friends.’
Ryder leaned back in his chair and let the musician sweat for a minute. When he spoke again, he adopted a conversational tone. ‘Did you ever remarry, Mr Miller?’
‘No. I got close once, but … When women find out my first wife disappeared—well, you can imagine.’
Ryder nodded slowly. ‘How did Celia get along with Di? I mean, you were happy with your arrangement, you were kicking goals everywhere. Maybe Di wanted more from you.’
Miller shook his head. ‘She didn’t.’
‘What about her husband?’
‘Henry’s a man of few words. Keeps to himself, mostly.’
Ryder wondered if Lewicki had known about this unconventional arrangement between the Gordons and the Millers. There was definitely nothing in the file about it. ‘Okay, Mr Miller. That’ll be all for now.’ He switched off the machine and stood up. ‘We would appreciate it if you didn’t leave the village,’ he said as he opened the door for the musician to leave.
Satisfied with the progress he’d made, Ryder wandered over to the window looking towards Charlotte’s front slope and immediately saw a flash of red zigzagging down the mountain. Ryder squinted against the brilliant sunlight reflecting off the snow as his gaze followed the skier as they bypassed the queue, the lift operator beckoning them forward and giving them priority up the mountain. It was then Ryder realised that the ski patroller was too tall and broad to be Vanessa. It was Johan.
He scooped up his room key and left the suite, irritated at himself for seeking out every red jacket with a white cross. He’d had zero sleep, and he hadn’t eaten since he’d stopped at the servo near Goulburn around midnight. No wonder his thinking was skewed, he was running on empty. He grabbed his coat and headed for the cafe downstairs; a couple of takeaway sandwiches and a strong coffee was what he needed. He wanted to be sharp when Flowers came back so they could work on their strategy for interrogating Henry and Di Gordon later today.
Ryder spotted the red jacket the instant he stepped inside the cafe. Vanessa was sitting at a table with Terry. Her long hair was windswept, her cheeks pink from fresh air and exercise. The two of them were hunched over a table devouring their lunch. Vanessa was dipping a sweet-potato fry in aioli when she looked up and snagged his gaze. She stilled as he passed the table, a ghost of a smile on her lips, the chip caught between her thumb and forefinger.
With a faint nod in her direction, Ryder stepped up to the counter.
‘What can I get you?’ the young woman asked in a sing-song voice.
‘Two cheese salad sandwiches and a strong flat white, thanks.’
Ryder glanced around the cafe as he absorbed the rich aroma of espresso coffee. Jackets were hung over the chairs, while goggles, gloves and beanies were shoved inside helmets rocking precariously on the Formica tables. Laughter reverberated off the walls, drowning out the hiss of the coffee machine. A flat screen mounted high in one corner was showing a Warren Miller film.
Ryder reached into his pocket for his wallet as the woman calculated his order.
‘Have here or take away?’
He tapped his card on the machine and waited for the beep. ‘I’ll have it here.’
Eight
Ryder looked up as Flowers came into the office, a half-eaten pie clutched in one hand, a white paper bag in the other.
‘What happened to your healthy diet?’ Ryder asked.
‘It’s a bit hard down here. Too cold. I’ll pick it up again when I get back to Sydney.’
‘Right. How’d you go at the alpine club?’ Ryder asked.
Flowers sprawled in the chair like he’d completed a marathon. ‘For someone with little information, that bloke certainly can talk. He couldn’t tell me much about the chairlift, but he did give me some info about the people on Vanessa’s list. There are four of them.’
Ryder frowned and put down his pen. ‘Vanessa said there were others.’
‘Yeah, but there aren’t many who stay here year-round. There are Henry and Di Gordon, Burt Crofts and Bruno Lombardi. The Gordons keep the inn open—it’s busy in the off season with people hiking up to Kosciuszko, and mountain biking’s growing bigger, too. The bushwalkers and bikers have to use the triple chair to get up the mountain, so Lombardi and Crofts look after the maintenance over summer. They take their holidays then, too. Crofts especially is a highly experienced lift mechanic. Lombardi’s a jack of all trades. Crofts was here until a week ago. He got called back to Sydney for something urgent, apparently.’
‘Lombardi—I recognise that name.’ Ryder opened the file and flicked through the documents until he found the statement Lewicki had taken. ‘Here it is. Bruno Lombardi. He might be the groomer now, but he was the lift operator back then. He told Lewicki he was on duty at bottom station around four-thirty when a ski patroller told him the weather was too bad for the lift to keep operating. He was told to put the chain across and go inside. He did that, and by quarter to five he had a beer in his hand back at his lodgings.’ Ryder mulled over the information for a minute. ‘Nigel Miller told me Celia broke the news that she wanted a divorce just before the band were due to play their set at five pm.’
‘Which means if Lombardi shut the lift at four-thirty, Sarge, she couldn’t have been on it.’
Ryder cocked an eyebrow. ‘If the times are correct, and if everyone’s telling the truth.’
‘Which they aren’t. You think Lombardi lied?’
‘I don’t know. If he did, he must have convinced Lewicki, and that’s not easy. Go through the file, Flowers. See if you can find the name of the ski patroller who gave Lombardi the order. Anything else?’
‘I couldn’t find out much about the chairlift. But—’ Flowers took a huge bite of his pie, concentrated on chewing it for a few moments, swallowed, then licked the tomato sauce from his lips ‘—I did get the name
of a lady in Thredbo. She belongs to the historical society up there. Apparently, there’s a museum in the village that has a heap of information on the old chairlift.’
‘Well, give her a ring and set up an appointment.’
‘Already done.’ Flowers screwed up the paper bag. ‘It’s open today between one and five.’ Speaking with his mouth half-full, he lobbed his rubbish into Ryder’s bin. ‘We can drop in any time. Want me to go?’
Ryder pushed back his chair. ‘I’ll come. I’m getting more and more curious about this chairlift.’
An hour and a half later, they turned off the Alpine Way and began the winding descent into Thredbo.
‘It’s somewhere in the Village Square,’ Flowers said to the highway patrol officer who’d picked them up from the Bullocks Flat ski tube station.
The officer nodded. ‘I know where it is.’
A short while later they were standing in front the museum. ‘Well, that was bad timing,’ Flowers said, staring at the ‘Back in 10 mins’ note pinned to the front door.
‘Let’s hope she’s not too long.’ Ryder turned up his collar and gazed at the towering peaks of Thredbo Mountain. ‘When you look at this, you can see how they thought the chairlift was a good idea. It’s probably twenty minutes as the crow flies.’
‘Oh, I do apologise.’
Ryder swung around at the French accent. A woman was hurrying down the steps, keys in one hand, a coffee cup in the other. ‘I’m usually never more than five minutes, but I put ten on the sign in case there’s a queue at the cafe.’ She smiled at Ryder as she slid past him and went to open the door.
‘Don’t hurry. We’ve only just arrived,’ he said.
They followed her into the museum, where she switched on the lights and dumped her keys and coffee on a small desk. She was dressed in a long black jumper and black leggings tucked inside fur-lined boots. A black, military-style cap with a shiny gold brim was perched at a jaunty angle on her head, and covered most of her lolly-pink hair. ‘I’m Chloe Cambron,’ she said, peeling off a fur-lined glove and thrusting her hand at Ryder. ‘You must be Detective Flowers.’
‘Actually, I’m Detective Ryder. This is Detective Flowers.’
‘Oh. Pleased to meet you,’ she said, shaking Ryder’s hand before turning to Flowers. ‘We spoke on the phone earlier,’ she said warmly.
‘Yes.’ Flowers shook Chloe’s hand, his face blushing a beetroot red. ‘Pleased to meet you. I noticed your French accent.’
Ryder looked away, feigning a sudden interest in a pair of old-fashioned, wooden skis propped against the counter.
‘Well, I came out with my husband. He went back to Toulouse after two years. I stayed.’ Chloe took off her other glove and laid them beside the rest of her things. ‘Just so you’re clear about the situation here, Dorothy Reynolds is the museum’s main volunteer. She knows more about the history of this area than anyone else. I’ve been filling in for her for a couple of years now while I’m doing my PhD, so … I should be able to help you.’
‘I’m sure you can,’ said Ryder.
‘Good, then if you’ll just come over here.’ She led them to where three large display folders, the size of art portfolios, sat side by side on top of a glass display cabinet.
‘Some of the old photographs and newspaper articles are printed on A5 paper.’ She slid several pages out of the plastic sleeves and put them side by side on top of the cabinet. ‘Copying them can be problematic because the print is so faint.’
‘I imagine it would be,’ said Flowers.
‘Let’s start with this one.’ She pointed to a cartoon-like advertisement from the sixties with a call-to-action heading inviting the reader to ‘Take this Cab to Australia’s Highest Restaurant—Up Kosciuszko Way’. ‘This chairlift was marketed as the longest in the world because it ran for over three miles, but that wasn’t quite true. It was really made up of two separate lifts, so in a way it was a false claim to fame.’
Chloe pointed an orange-painted fingernail at the second picture. ‘The first chairlift started at the Alpine Way in Thredbo and ran to the top of the Ramshead Range. In this photograph you can see the chairlift towers built across a series of shallow bowls. You’ll notice that the chairlift was fairly standard except for these covers, which came down over the passengers. They were sometimes called “cabs”. They were to protect the passengers from the wind. Each chair had a brightly coloured cover, or canopy, and there was a small window at face level, so passengers could look out.’
‘It’s an unusual-looking chairlift,’ observed Ryder.
‘Oh, this chairlift was unique in more ways than one.’ She tapped a nail on the next image. ‘This is the Stillwell Restaurant.’
Ryder studied the picture of the restaurant, a substantial structure of wood and stone. The photograph showed skiers from the 1960s, dressed in Fair Isle jumpers, enjoying drinks and lunch on a sunny verandah.
‘Some of the ruins are still up there,’ said Chloe. ‘Years ago, the army used parts of the structure for target practice, so unfortunately they’re riddled with bullet holes.’
Ryder looked up. ‘I bet that pleased the National Parks and Wildlife?’
‘Oh, yes. For many people, it’s still a bit of a sore point.’
‘So, the chairlift from Thredbo terminated at this restaurant, Chloe?’ asked Ryder. The restaurant Celia refused to visit, according to Nigel Miller.
‘There were a series of stations along the way but, essentially, yes.’ And now look at this final photograph.’ She slid another image from the folder and put it on top of the others. ‘This one shows the second chairlift. It ran from the restaurant down into Charlotte Pass. This photograph is taken looking back down into the village.’
Ryder peered at the photograph. Sure enough, there was the line of cabs swinging their way down to Charlotte Pass and terminating in the building now known as Long Bay. In this photograph, the inn and ticket office were surrounded by a cluster of buildings, one octagonal in shape that now served as the kids’ club. The lodges that presently dotted the surrounding landscape hadn’t been built yet.
Ryder traced an index finger across the grainy image. Taken from such a height, it was impossible to pick out the spot where Celia’s body had been found. The trees were too dense, and the large boulders like the one beside Celia’s grave couldn’t be seen. ‘So, there were two chairlifts and they both terminated at the restaurant at the top,’ he mused aloud.
‘That’s right.’
‘Who built the chairlift?’ asked Flowers.
‘It was one of those public/private arrangements between banks, companies and the government. Oh, and interested individuals. Thredbo and Perisher were being developed at the time, and both those resorts could be reached by road. It was feared the competition would send Charlotte Pass bankrupt.’
Ryder nodded. ‘So, this ambitious piece of infrastructure was thought to be the answer to Charlotte’s isolation problem?’
‘Yes, and the engineers were full of confidence back then. They were riding high on the success of building the Snowy Hydro Electric Scheme. This chairlift even had special luggage containers so people could leave their cars at Thredbo. When the wind was bad, which was a lot of the time, luggage ended up strewn all over the mountains. The entire thing was a disaster. One of the banks pulled out, and then the engineering firm handed it over to another company, but no one could make it work. They were still running safety checks the day before the 1964 ski season opened.’
Ryder shook his head. ‘How could a team of structural engineers get it so wrong?’
‘By building it at the wrong angle to the cross-winds. It was a wonderful idea, Detective Ryder, but it didn’t work. The cabs would swing like crazy and slam into the towers. Some fell right off the cable. It was a miracle no one was killed.’
Celia was killed. And then someone put her in the ground.
Flowers cleared his throat. ‘I read a report that said people were at risk of death from exposure. The
defenders of the chairlift say it was bad timing. It was built in 1963, and 1964 holds the record for being one of the wildest weather seasons ever.’
Chloe gave a dramatic sigh. ‘The thing was plagued with problems from the beginning. In the end, they dismantled it. The longest chairlift in the world existed for only two years.’
‘I bet the investors weren’t happy,’ Flowers said with a shake of his head. ‘All that money down the gurgler.’
‘I feel sorry for the workers,’ said Chloe. ‘A lot of blood, sweat and tears were spent on its construction.’
While Flowers took shots of the photographs on his phone, Ryder looked around the museum. A male mannequin stood in one corner, dressed in 1970s ski apparels, while nearby a wooden rack held a display of old lace-up ski boots. One wall was entirely covered with skis and poles dating back almost a century.
‘And now, I have something special to show you,’ Chloe said when Flowers had finished. She beckoned them towards the back of the room, where it doglegged to the right. ‘I think you’re going to love this,’ she said to Ryder, her eyes flashing with excitement.
He saw it the moment he stepped through the archway. Bright red in colour, the Number 94 cab from the doomed Kosciuszko chairlift, complete with its intact framework and small viewing window, sat resplendent in the back corner of the room.
Ryder gave a low whistle and moved towards the cab, trying to imagine the people who’d ridden it and repaired it over half a century ago. Had Di and Henry Gordon sat side by side in this very chair? What about Nigel Miller and the other band members? Ryder laid a hand on the shiny metal paintwork, the steel hard and cold under his palm. He could imagine the band lunching together at the restaurant while Celia entertained herself back at the Charlotte Mountain Inn. And what of the revered Aidan Smythe? How many times had he taken advantage of the vast terrain on the other side of the mountain while training for his events?
Charlotte Pass Page 8