Collected Short Stories

by Jeffrey Archer

  We first met Patrick Travers on our annual winter holiday to Verbier. We were waiting at the ski lift that first Saturday morning, when a man who must have been in his early forties stood aside to allow Caroline to take his place so that we could travel up together. He explained that he had already completed two runs that morning and didn’t mind waiting. I thanked him and thought nothing more of it.

  As soon as we reach the top my wife and I always go our separate ways, she to the A-slope to join Marcel, who only instructs advanced skiers—she has been skiing since the age of seven—I to the B-slope and any instructor who is available—I took up skiing at the age of forty-one, and frankly the B-slope is still too advanced for me though I don’t dare admit as much, especially to Caroline. We always meet up again at the ski lift after completing our different runs.

  That evening we bumped into Travers at the hotel bar. Since he seemed to be on his own we invited him to join us for dinner. He proved to be an amusing companion, and we passed a pleasant enough evening together. He flirted politely with my wife without ever overstepping the mark, and she appeared to be flattered by his attentions. Over the years I have become used to men being attracted to Caroline, and I never need reminding how lucky I am. During dinner we learned that Travers was a merchant banker with an office in the City and a flat in Eaton Square. He had come to Verbier every year since he had been taken on a school trip in the late fifties, he told us. He still prided himself on being the first on the ski lift every morning, almost always beating the local blades up and down.

  Travers appeared to be genuinely interested in the fact that I ran a small West End art gallery; as it turned out, he was something of a collector himself, specializing in minor Impressionists. He promised he would drop by and see my next exhibition when he was back in London.

  I assured him that he would be most welcome but never gave it a second thought In fact I only saw Travers a couple of times over the rest of the vacation, once talking to the wife of a friend of mine who owned a gallery that specializes in Oriental rugs, and later I noticed him following Caroline expertly down the treacherous A-slope.

  It was six weeks later, and some minutes before I could place him that night at my gallery. I had to rack that part of one’s memory that recalls names, a skill politicians rely on every day.

  “Good to see you, Edward,” he said. “I saw the write-up you got in The Independent and remembered your kind invitation to the private view.”

  “Glad you could make it, Patrick,” I replied, remembering just in time.

  “I’m not a champagne man myself,” he told me, “but I’ll travel a long way to see a Vuillard.”

  “You think highly of him?”

  “Oh yes. I would compare him favorably with Pissarro and Bonnard, and he still remains one of the most underrated of the Impressionists.”

  “I agree,” I replied. “But my gallery has felt that way about Vuillard for some considerable time.”

  “How much is The Lady at the Window?” he asked.

  “Eighty thousand pounds,” I said quietly.

  “It reminds me of a picture of his in the Metropolitan,” he said, as he studied the reproduction in the catalog.

  I was impressed, and told Travers that the Vuillard in New York had been painted within a month of the one he so admired.

  He nodded. “And the small nude?”

  “Forty-seven thousand,” I told him.

  “Mrs. Hensell, the wife of his dealer and Vuillard’s second mistress, if I’m not mistaken. The French are always so much more civilized about these things than we are. But my favorite painting in this exhibition,” he continued, “compares surely with the finest of his work.” He turned to face the large oil of a young girl playing a piano, her mother bending to turn a page of the score.

  “Magnificent,” he said. “Dare I ask how much?”

  “Three hundred and seventy thousand pounds,” I said, wondering if such a price tag put it out of Travers’s bracket.

  “What a super party, Edward,” said a voice from behind my shoulder.

  “Percy!” I cried, turning round. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be able to make it.”

  “Yes, I did, old fellow, but I decided I couldn’t sit at home alone all the time, so I’ve come to drown my sorrows in champagne.”

  “Quite right too,” I said. “Sorry to hear about Diana,” I added as Percy moved on. When I turned back to continue my conversation with Patrick Travers, he was nowhere to be seen. I searched around the room and spotted him standing in the far corner of the gallery chatting to my wife, a glass of champagne in his hand. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder green dress that I considered a little too modern. Travers’s eyes seemed to be glued to a spot a few inches below the shoulders. I would have thought nothing of it had he spoken to anyone else that evening.

  The next occasion on which I saw Travers was about a week later on returning from the bank with some petty cash. Once again he was standing in front of the Vuillard oil of mother and daughter at the piano.

  “Good morning, Patrick,” I said as I joined him.

  “I can’t seem to get that picture out of my mind,” he declared, as he continued to stare at the two figures.

  “Understandably.”

  “I don’t suppose you would allow me to live with them for a week or two until I can finally make up my mind? Naturally I would be quite happy to leave a deposit.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I would require a bank reference as well, and the deposit would be twenty-five thousand pounds.”

  He agreed to both requests without hesitation, so I asked him where he would like the picture delivered. He handed me a card that revealed his address in Eaton Square. The following morning his bankers confirmed that £370,000 would not be a problem for their client.

  Within twenty-four hours the Vuillard had been taken to his home and hung in the dining room on the ground floor. He phoned in the afternoon to thank me, and asked if Caroline and I would care to join him for dinner; he wanted, he said, a second opinion on how the painting looked.

  With £370,000 at stake I didn’t feel it was an invitation I could reasonably turn down, and in any case Caroline seemed eager to accept, explaining that she was interested to see what his house was like.

  We dined with Travers the following Thursday. We turned out to be the only guests, and I remember being surprised that there wasn’t a Mrs. Travers or at least a resident girlfriend. He was a thoughtful host and the meal he had arranged was superb. However, I considered at the time that he seemed a little too solicitous toward Caroline, although she certainly gave the impression of enjoying his undivided attention. At one point I began to wonder if either of them would have noticed if I had disappeared into thin air.

  When we left Eaton Square that night Travers told me that he had almost made up his mind about the picture, which made me feel the evening had served at least some purpose.

  Six days later the painting was returned to the gallery with a note attached explaining that he no longer cared for it. Travers did not elaborate on his reasons, but simply ended by saying that he hoped to drop by some time and reconsider the other Vuillards. Disappointed, I returned his deposit, but realized that customers often do come back, sometimes months, even years later.

  But Travers never did.

  It was about a month later that I learned why he would never return. I was lunching at the large center table at my club, as in most all-male establishments the table reserved for members who drift in on their own. Percy Fellows was the next to enter the dining room, and he took a seat opposite me. I hadn’t seen him to talk to since the private view of the Vuillard exhibition, and we hadn’t really had much of a conversation then. Percy was one of the most respected antique dealers in England, and I had once even done a successful barter with him, a Charles II writing desk in exchange for a Dutch landscape by Utrillo.

  I repeated how sorry I was to learn about Diana.

  “It was always going t
o end in divorce,” he explained. “She was in and out of every bedroom in London. I was beginning to look a complete cuckold, and that bloody man Travers was the last straw.”

  “Travers?” I said, not understanding.

  “Patrick Travers, the man named in my divorce petition. Ever come across him?”

  “I know the name,” I said hesitantly, wanting to hear more before I admitted to our slight acquaintance.

  “Funny,” he said. “Could have sworn I saw him at the private view.”

  “But what do you mean, he was the last straw?” I asked, trying to take his mind off the opening.

  “Met the bloody fellow at Ascot, didn’t we? Joined us for lunch, happily drank my champagne, ate my strawberries and cream, and then before the week was out had bedded my wife. But that’s not the half of it.”

  “The half of it?”

  “The man had the nerve to come round to my shop and put down a large deposit on a Georgian table. Then he invites the two of us round to dinner to see how it looks. After he’s had enough time to make love to Diana, he returns them both slightly soiled. You don’t look too well, old fellow,” said Percy suddenly. “Something wrong with the food? Never been the same since Harry left for the Carlton. I’ve written to the wine committee about it several times, but—”

  “No, I’m fine,” I said. “I just need a little fresh air. Please excuse me, Percy.”

  It was on the walk back from my club that I decided I would have to do something about Mr. Travers.

  The next morning I waited for the mail to arrive and checked any envelopes addressed to Caroline. Nothing seemed untoward, but then I decided that Travers wouldn’t have been foolish enough to commit anything to paper. I also began to eavesdrop on her telephone conversations, but he was not among the callers, at least not while I was at home. I even checked the mileometer on her Mini to see if she had driven any long distances, but then Eaton Square isn’t all that far. It’s often what you don’t do that gives the game away, I decided: We didn’t make love for a fortnight, and she didn’t comment.

  I continued to watch Caroline more carefully over the next few weeks, but it became obvious to me that Travers must have tired of her about the same time as he had returned the Vuillard. This only made me more angry.

  I then formed a plan of revenge that seemed quite extraordinary to me at the time, and I assumed that in a matter of days I would get over it, even forget it. But I didn’t. If anything, the idea grew into an obsession. I began to convince myself that it was my bounden duty to do away with Travers before he besmirched any more of my friends.

  I have never in my life knowingly broken the law. Parking fines annoy me, dropped litter offends me, and I pay my VAT on the same day the frightful buff envelope drops through the mail slot.

  Nevertheless, once I’d decided what had to be done I set about my task meticulously. At first I considered shooting Travers, until I discovered how hard it is to get a gun license, and that if I did the job properly he would end up feeling very little pain, which wasn’t what I had planned for him. Then poisoning crossed my mind—but that requires a witnessed prescription, and I still wouldn’t be able to watch the long slow death I desired. Then strangling, which I decided would necessitate too much courage—and in any case he was a bigger man than me so I might end up being the one who was strangled. Then drowning, which could take years to get the man near any water, and then I might not be able to hang around to make sure he went under for the third time. I even gave some thought to running over the damned man, but dropped that idea when I realized that opportunity would be almost nil and besides, I wouldn’t be left any time to check if he was dead. I was quickly becoming aware just how hard it is to kill someone—and get away with it.

  I sat awake at night reading the biographies of murderers, but since they had all been caught and found guilty, that didn’t fill me with much confidence. I turned to detective novels, which always seemed to allow for a degree of coincidence, luck, and surprise that I was unwilling to risk, until I came across a rewarding line from Conan Doyle: “Any intended victim who has a regular routine immediately makes himself more vulnerable.” And then I recalled one routine of which Travers was particularly proud. It required a further six-month wait on my part, but that gave me more time to perfect my plan. I used the enforced wait well because whenever Caroline was away for more than twenty-four hours, I booked a skiing lesson on the dry slope at Harrow.

  I found it surprisingly easy to discover when Travers would be returning to Verbier, and I was able to organize the winter vacation so that our paths would cross for only three days, a period of time quite sufficient for me to commit my first crime.

  Caroline and I arrived in Verbier on the second Friday in January. She had commented on the state of my nerves more than once over the Christmas period, and hoped the vacation would help me relax. I could hardly explain to her that it was the thought of the vacation that was making me so tense. It didn’t help when she asked me on the plane to Switzerland if I thought Travers might be there this year.

  On the first morning after our arrival, we took the ski lift up at about ten-thirty, and once we had reached the top, Caroline duly reported to Marcel. As she departed with him for the A-slope, I returned to the B-slope to work on my own. As always we agreed to meet back at the ski lift or, if we missed each other, at least for lunch.

  During the days that followed I went over and over the plan I had perfected in my mind and practiced so diligently at Harrow until I felt sure it was foolproof. By the end of the first week I had convinced myself I was ready.

  The night before Travers was due to arrive, I was the last to leave the slopes. Even Caroline commented on how much my skiing had improved, and she suggested to Marcel that I was ready for the A-slope with its sharper bends and steeper inclines.

  “Next year, perhaps,” I told her, trying to make light of it, and returned to the B-slope.

  During the final morning I skied over the first mile of the course again and again, and became so preoccupied with my work that I quite forgot to join Caroline for lunch.

  In the afternoon I checked and rechecked the placing of every red flag marking the run, and once I was convinced the last skier had left the slope for the evening I collected about thirty of the flags and replaced them at intervals I had carefully worked out. My final task was to check the prepared patch before building a large mound of snow some twenty paces above the chosen spot. Once my preparations were complete I skied slowly down the mountain in the fading light.

  “Are you trying to win an Olympic gold medal or something?” Caroline asked me when I eventually got back to our room. I closed the bathroom door so she couldn’t expect a reply.

  Travers checked in to the hotel an hour later.

  I waited until the early evening before I joined him at the bar for a drink. He seemed a little nervous when he first saw me, but I quickly put him at ease. His old self-confidence soon returned, which only made me more determined to carry out my plan. I left him at the bar a few minutes before Caroline came down for dinner so that she wouldn’t see the two of us together. Innocent surprise would be necessary once the deed had been done.

  “Unlike you to eat so little, especially as you missed your lunch,” Caroline remarked as we left the dining room that night.

  I made no comment as we passed Travers seated at the bar, his hand on the knee of another innocent middle-aged woman.

  I did not sleep for one second that night, and I crept out of bed just before six the next morning, careful not to wake Caroline. Everything was laid out on the bathroom floor just as I had left it the night before. A few moments later I was dressed and ready. I walked down the back stairs of the hotel, avoiding the elevator, and crept out by the fire exit, realizing for the first time what a thief must feel like. I had a woolen cap pulled well down over my ears and a pair of snow goggles covering my eyes: Not even Caroline would have recognized me.

  I arrived at the bottom of the ski
lift forty minutes before it was due to open. As I stood alone behind the little shed that housed the electrical machinery to work the lift, I realized that everything now depended on Travers’s sticking to his routine. I wasn’t sure I could go through with it if my plan had to be moved to the following day. As I waited, I stamped my feet in the freshly fallen snow and slapped my arms around my chest to keep warm. Every few moments I kept peering round the corner of the building in the hope that I would see him striding toward me. At last a speck appeared at the bottom of the hill by the side of the road, a pair of skis resting on the man’s shoulders. But what if it turned out not to be Travers?

  I stepped out from behind the shed a few moments later to join the warmly wrapped man. It was Travers, and he could not hide his surprise at seeing me standing there. I started up a casual conversation about being unable to sleep, and how I thought I might as well put in a few runs before the rush began. Now all I needed was the ski lift to start up on time. A few minutes after seven an engineer arrived, and the vast oily mechanism cranked into action.

  We were the first two to take our places on those little seats before heading up and over the deep ravine. I kept turning back to check there was still no one else in sight.

  “I usually manage to complete a full run even before the second person arrives,” Travers told me when the lift had reached its highest point. I looked back again to be sure we were now well out of sight of the engineer working the lift, then peered down some two hundred feet, and wondered what it would be like to land head first in the ravine. I began to feel dizzy and wished I hadn’t looked down.

  The ski lift jerked slowly on up the icy wire until we finally reached the landing point.

  “Damn,” I said, as we jumped off our little seats. “Marcel isn’t here.”

  “Never is at this time,” said Travers, making off toward the advanced slope. “Far too early for him.”

  “I don’t suppose you would come down with me?” I said, calling after Travers.