Christmas at Snowflake Lodge

by CP Ward

  At a service area an hour north, a couple of paracetamol helped her back as well as her head. Kirsten wandered off to the loo, so Jessica headed into a newsagent to browse the magazine rack. Trying to keep her mind off work, she ignored the working magazines section which she usually enjoyed, instead trying to find an interest in the countryside and nature section. She had just picked up a copy of Horse & Hound when a hat emerging from a car outside the window caught her eye.

  ‘You’ve got to be having a laugh….’

  Dirk Burd, looking suspiciously like he was searching for someone, walked across the plaza from the car park, hands stuffed into the pockets of his trench coat, eyes darting about. He had parked almost directly behind their motorcycle, as though he had trailed them all the way from Bristol.

  He entered through a main door leading to an open promenade between the shops, passing almost directly in front of her. She ducked down, just as Kirsten appeared through the door.

  ‘Miss Lemond—I mean, um, Jessica—what are you doing?’ Kirsten said, in a voice which seemed traitorously loud, considering the circumstances. Jessica flapped a hand, indicating to Kirsten to crouch down alongside.

  ‘Did you see the man in the hat?’

  ‘The man in the yellow hat?’ Kirsten said in another bad attempt at a joke as she glanced at a rack of children’s DVDs. ‘Perhaps he was monkeying about?’

  Jessica winced. ‘No, the hat was more of a dark grey-brown. He went into the cafeteria.’

  ‘Was he a bit of alright?’

  Jessica felt a growing urge to scream. The next time they had a moment alone, she needed to explain to Kirsten what decade they currently resided in.

  ‘No, far from it,’ she said. ‘I think he’s following me.’

  She explained about the visit from Dick Burd to her parents’ house. ‘I thought I gave him the slip, but he must have somehow figured out where we were going.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? Perhaps he’s a travelling salesman by day and only a private investigator by night.’

  ‘Maybe, but I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s all a little fishy, isn’t it?’ Kirsten said, then immediately burst into raucous laughter which sounded even worse when she abruptly cut it off.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Jessica said.

  They headed for the exit. They had just climbed back on to the bike when a sudden shout came from across the plaza.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Kirsten said, as Dick Burd appeared, holding something up in his hands. Jessica, who managed to drop the key on the ground, could only look up helplessly as Dick Burd hurried across the outside courtyard towards them. Then, just as she was wondering whether to play innocent or accuse him of stalking, he hailed an old lady standing at the car beside his own.

  ‘Excuse me, madam, but you dropped your car key,’ he said, holding up the set of keys and giving them an emphatic little jingle.

  ‘Oh, deary me,’ the old lady said. ‘What a kind young man you are. I was looking everywhere for those. I thought we might have been marooned here all afternoon.’

  As she reached up and gave Dick Burd’s cheek an affectionate pinch and tug, Jessica retrieved the bike’s key and started the engine. As she pulled away, it was telling that Dick Burd didn’t look in their direction. Perhaps that was just a ploy, though. He was a wily character after all.

  A couple of hours later, as they pulled into another service area in order to give Jessica’s aching rear end a break, Kirsten climbed out of the sidecar and said, ‘Are you sure you weren’t driving just a little fast back there?’

  Jessica grimaced. She had definitely worked the throttle, that was for sure. Both her aching bum and the fear that Dick Burd might be following them had urged her to go a little quicker than she might have liked.

  ‘I mean, it might have just been the sun’s reflection, but I was sure a couple of speed cameras flashed.’

  Jessica shrugged. ‘I wasn’t going that fast.’ But if I was, Dad will have to foot the bill. Maybe he’ll just report the bike as stolen, since he was in London at the time, and maybe I’ll get arrested and lose my business and end up in the slammer and become a lifelong criminal and Doreen will never move out of my flat—

  ‘Probably just a reflection,’ Kirsten said. ‘Is it teatime yet? Shall we get some grubber?’

  ‘Some … oh, food.’

  It was just after three o’clock. They were an hour past Edinburgh and by Jessica’s reckoning should be at Snowflake Lodge by six. According to the map she had gotten from the internet, they had another couple of hours on decent roads, then it was into the hills. With a machine like the Tomahawk, it ought to be exhilarating.

  They had just collected their food and sat down in the window of a Tasty Chef, when a familiar figure walked past on the concourse outside. With a hat pulled down over his eyes Jessica couldn’t see his face, but the trench coat and the way he walked were a dead giveaway.

  ‘He’s following me,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, does that mean we’re on the run?’ Kirsten said with a giggle.

  ‘Are you enjoying this?’

  ‘Well, it is quite exciting, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ve ever been a fugitive before.’

  ‘We’re not fugitives. He’s a private investigator. He’s not even a proper policeman.’

  ‘But he’s probably busted loads of crims.’

  Jessica sighed. ‘I doubt he’s busted any crims,’ she said. ‘Look. I’ve had enough of this. I’m going to confront him and tell him to stop following us.’

  Before Kirsten could say anything, Jessica stood up and marched out of the restaurant, feeling a sense of power she wished she could have drummed up in the battle against Doreen. Perhaps it was being on the road, or having the Tomahawk instead of her old transit van, or that she was back in her role as Kirsten’s boss. Whatever it was, she was ready to open up a massive can of whoop-ass as she pushed through the door onto the concourse, her fists already bunched, her jaw set, eyes glaring like lasers—

  ‘Come on, dear, hold on to my arm.’

  Jessica stopped. Just a couple of steps in front of her, Dick Burd was helping an old lady with a walker to cross the concourse from the restaurant to a bookshop on the other side. Jessica glowered at the back of his hat, wanting it to explode, but her anger felt doused by a large bucket of icy water.

  ‘Oh, what a kind young man you are,’ said the old lady. ‘In my day, everyone was brought up right, but these days they’re all hooligans. Your mother did a good job with you, young man. If I could give you a kiss, I would.’

  ‘That’s quite all right,’ Dick Burd said, not a hint of disrespect or repulsion in his voice. In fact, had he not been a private investigator, he would have looked like a perfect care worker. ‘We’re nearly there. With everyone rushing about, you have to be so careful.’

  ‘You’re such a kind young man. I want to buy a souvenir for my grandson. Do you have time to spare a minute?’

  ‘Of course I do. What does he like?’

  ‘He’s into his trains, is my little Jimmy.’

  ‘Well, I see they sell a few model railways, so why don’t we call an assistant and ask what’s popular?’

  ‘Oh, what a thoughtful young man you are. Are you married? I have a niece who’s still single. She’s getting a little long in the tooth, but she still brushes up all right when she does her make-up.’

  ‘No, I’m still single,’ Dick Burd said.

  ‘Well, some lucky lady is missing out,’ the old lady said. ‘If I were sixty-five years younger….’

  Jessica had heard enough. She ran back into the restaurant to where Kirsten was just finishing off her salad.

  ‘We have to go. He’s buying train sets. Let’s move.’

  ‘Don’t you want to finish your lunch?’

  Jessica looked at her untouched heap of greasy eggs and bacon and shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s time I started eating a little healthier,’ she said. ‘I’ll grab a chocolate bar on t
he way out.’

  ‘I noticed they were stocking a new brand of soy bars in the newsagent,’ Kirsten said. ‘They’re a little dry unless you drink something with them, but you soon adjust to the taste. And it is for the environment, after all.’

  Jessica figured she would mull over how a soy bar would help the environment once she was back in the Tomahawk’s saddle.

  ‘Quick,’ she said. ‘While he’s distracted.’

  They headed back out to the motorcycle and hit the road. After an hour of cruising only a little above the speed limit in order to appease Kirsten, Jessica began to relax. Surely it was just a coincidence? Perhaps Dick Burd had family who lived up in Scotland. Christmas was coming, after all, and she imagined private investigators worked on a pretty flexible schedule.

  Just in case, however, she decided to pull off the motorway a couple of exits early. With the sun just setting, the light was poor on the motorway anyway, so she put the headlights on full beam and cruised through some quiet villages as the hills began to steepen, the road to narrow and meander more. As the last twilight illuminated the looming peaks of distant mountains, Jessica wondered whether it might have been better to stop somewhere for the night and experience the Scottish scenery in the morning. It was getting colder, and in the sidecar beside her Kirsten had pulled down the rain cover and was dozing with her head on the inflatable pillow. Suddenly, with the headlight illuminating nothing but roads and stone walls, Jessica began to feel lonely.

  At six o’clock she stopped in a tiny village which was little more than a couple of houses and a phone box. Underneath a street light she pulled out her phone, found she had no reception, so instead unfolded the printout of the map she had got from the internet.

  Where it had seemed so clear at the time of printing, now it was a featureless spider web of unlabeled lines with the lodge in the middle. Jessica couldn’t even be sure if they had made it on to the map or not.

  With the bike idling, Kirsten woke up and looked around them, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

  ‘Oh, is this it? I was expecting something a little more grandiose, but it has a certain charm.’

  ‘This is definitely not it,’ Jessica said, looking around at the cluster of stone-walled houses. ‘I’m not sure where we are, but this is definitely not Snowflake Lodge.’

  ‘Just have a look inside the phone box,’ Kirsten said. ‘It’ll have a sign somewhere to say which locality it is.’

  At such a practical suggestion, Jessica wondered if she was losing her mind. She nodded thanks, then wandered into the phone box to check it out.

  Locfaer.

  She wasn’t sure if that was a village or a county, but there was definitely a Locfaer labeled on her map. She looked at the two intersecting roads that converged just past the phone box and made an educated guess at which one led to the lodge, located in the map’s centre.

  ‘Got it,’ she said. ‘Let’s go. Not far now.’

  But it was far. An hour later, with the last of the day long behind them, and a freezing Scottish wind whistling down the country lanes, they pulled up at another village that looked remarkably like the one they had just passed.

  ‘Are we there yet?’ Kirsten said. ‘It’s getting a little chilly, isn’t it? Do you want me to break out the coffee?’

  Wondering whether her long-dead grandma had somehow possessed Kirsten’s body, Jessica shook her head. ‘Let’s keep it for a celebration when we finally arrive. Wait here a minute. I’ll go and check in that phone box.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure this is—’

  Jessica opened the phone box door and groaned.

  ‘—the same place we were in before.’

  Locfaer.

  ‘I think we should have taken the other fork,’ Jessica said.

  ‘Oh dear. Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to get out the coffee? Then we can put our thinking hats on and solve this mystery.’

  Jessica closed her eyes for a long moment, taking a couple of deep breaths. I survived Doreen. I can survive this. Actually, I didn’t really survive Doreen. I fled like a coward in a lion’s den. Life sucks.

  ‘We’ll just take the other fork,’ Jessica said. ‘It was a small mistake. We got to see a little of the countryside, though didn’t we?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Kirsten said, with more enthusiasm than was necessary, considering that all they had seen for the last hour was a circle of road twenty feet in front of them.

  They got back onto the bike and headed off. They had only gone a couple of miles when something began to flash on the dashboard. Jessica looked down, a feeling of terrible dread coming over her.

  They were running out of petrol.

  The last petrol station they had seen had been on the motorway. The light was just a warning, though; there would be a little left in the tank. And they weren’t far, surely? Snowflake Lodge had to be just around the corner.

  Half an hour of worried riding later, however, the engine wheezed and died. With no power, they freewheeled to the bottom of the hill and came to a stop on a little stone bridge crossing a trickling stream. No road signs, no buildings, and over the stone walls bordering the road there wasn’t even proper pasture land to suggest they were near a settlement, just lumpy, rocky moor.

  ‘I think we have a problem,’ Jessica said.

  ‘Have we run out of petrol? Oh dear.’

  ‘That just about sums it up,’ Jessica said.

  ‘You’d better turn off the lights, otherwise we’ll use up the battery too,’ Kirsten said. ‘Never mind. I packed a torch, and we have the coffee. If we snuggle up next to each other in the sidecar we can probably keep warm.’

  Jessica let out a long sigh. She killed the lights, waited for her eyes to adjust, and then looked around. The sky was thankfully clear, and a half moon illuminated a desolate moorland valley stretching away in one direction, rising into mountains in the other, with the stream cutting down the middle. It would have been beautiful if they weren’t faced with a cold night huddling in the sidecar. She still had no phone reception, and they hadn’t seen a single other vehicle since leaving the motorway. They were well and truly lost.

  ‘It’ll be like camping,’ Kirsten said, sounding far more excited than Jessica felt. ‘I think I have some marshmallows in my bag. And my phone’s fully charged. I downloaded a few Christmas movies before we set off. It’ll be like a girls’ night in.’

  Jessica couldn’t help but smile. Despite the dread she felt, Kirsten’s excitement was catching.

  ‘I wonder what marshmallows taste like dipped in coffee,’ she said.

  ‘I have a pack of coffee-flavoured,’ Kirsten said with a shy smile, as though they were a pet love. ‘And strawberry. Tesco had a two-for-one on.’

  ‘Well, at least we won’t starve,’ Jessica said, at almost the exact moment a sudden snort came out of the darkness from the other side of the stone wall where they had stopped.

  For a terrifying moment the two looked at each other, neither daring to breathe. ‘Something else won’t either,’ Kirsten said in a hollow voice.

  A second snort—closer than the first—threw Jessica into action. ‘Quick, into the sidecar,’ she said, pushing Kirsten ahead of her.

  The sidecar only had one seat, but by squeezing in sideways they could both just about fit inside. Getting as comfortable as she could, Jessica pulled the cover over the top of them.

  ‘What do you think it is?’ Kirsten said. ‘Don’t they have bears in Scotland?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but they definitely have mountain lions.’

  ‘What about wolves?’

  ‘Wolves howl, don’t they? It didn’t sound like a wolf.’

  ‘Perhaps it was a cow.’

  ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere. It’s far more likely from some illegal zoo hidden out here on the moor.’

  ‘Like a grizzly bear?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘It sounded like a walrus. I saw one once in a zoo.’

  Despite expecting to
be eaten alive within the next few minutes, Jessica found this incredibly funny. She coughed a wild laugh just as something pressed against the rain cover and snorted, covering the plastic with steam.

  Both girls screamed.

  The creature didn’t seem to care, whatever it was. It nosed at the cover as though trying to open it.

  ‘Don’t eat us!’ Kirsten shouted. ‘We’re too young to die!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ came a man’s voice from behind the motorbike. ‘She won’t eat you. She just wants to be your friend.’

  11

  James

  ‘It’s a man,’ Kirsten said, rather stating the obvious. ‘Have you ever seen Wrong Turn? I think we made one.’

  ‘Let’s not panic,’ Jessica whispered. Then, raising her voice, she said, ‘What do you want? You can take the bike, but leave us alone.’

  The man, sounding right outside, laughed. ‘I appreciate your offer on such a fine vehicle, but it’s out of petrol by the look of things, and within an hour or so you’ll be out of heat unless you’re all wrapped up warm.’

  ‘Does this cover have a lock?’ Kirsten asked.

  ‘It’s light Perspex,’ Jessica said. ‘You could cut it open with a butter knife.’

  ‘Better just to use the zip, rather than damage it,’ the man said, one hand tapping on the plastic, making the two women jump. ‘Don’t worry, neither me nor the reindeer bite.’

  ‘Reindeer?’

  ‘Come on out and meet Belinda. Then we’ll get you somewhere warm where you can rest overnight.’

  ‘We will not go easily to your love dungeon,’ Kirsten said, pulling a wrench out of Jessica’s tool bag. ‘You’ll have to beat us into submission.’

  ‘My what? Have you been breathing too many petrol fumes?’

  Jessica took the wrench out of Kirsten’s hands and put it back into the bag. ‘Let me deal with this,’ she said, unzipping the cover and folding it back.