“I have a couple of calls to make,” he finally said. “But let’s get together with Alexi for an hour first. Then I’ll be away for a few days.”
The first call he made was to Pierre Lacoste, the guide who had taught him to ski and climb. Pierre was one of the old school, of piton and hammer, and he and Quayle had argued many an evening over the merits of the new techniques, the wedges and cramming devices. Pierre, his black curly hair framing almost black Gaelic eyes over a proud hooked nose, would jab his finger to make his point, incessantly smoking crumpled Gauloise from his back pocket. He felt as if the Alps had lost something in fast light ascents and saw it as the end of an era.
Pierre was nearing sixty now and had officially retired, but was delighted to get Quayle’s call. They had last seen each other four years before and done a fast ascent of one of the Augilles on a Saturday, Quayle using the new clean style. Even he, Pierre Lacoste, guide and mountain man, had to admit that it worked well.
On the evening Quayle called, Pierre had guests – his daughter and her children were staying, so he couldn’t begin preparations straight away. But, in the morning, he would bundle them off to the town and begin. A noisy game had developed between the girls and, with Quayle’s request on his mind, he walked to the open windows and looked up at the darkening sky. The weather had been unpredictable recently. It had snowed this early in the valley before but he had never known it quite so cold so early in the season. They could use snow this year, he thought. Three bad seasons in a row and the talk was now about everyone going to America to ski. He pulled the windows shut. It would be good to prepare a trip again, to sharpen crampons, choose rope and wax the randonee skis, even if he wouldn’t be going and he wasn’t to talk of it to anyone.
*
The flight into Melbourne, Australia, touched down early in the morning.
Quayle had asked Kirov for a pair of eyes and a fast hand to keep an eye on Holly, and the young Soviet trailed her as he had been trained. A man had flown down from the Soviet Embassy in Canberra and handed over a firearm in the toilets without seeing Quayle and Holly, and within an hour they were driving towards Geelong and the school where Teddy Morton had spent his last days.
Holly was quiet as they drove, seemingly uncomfortable with the prospect of visiting the place where her father died. The windows were down and the dry warm air was blowing her hair back. Quayle’s one concession to security was allowing her to sit in the front while her bodyguard sat in the back.
The school was built facing the bay at Corio, the main facility built of red brick with creepers growing up the walls and a quadrangle that was surrounded in as much history as the young country could offer. On either side, buildings stretched along a clean swept road that separated the main school from the sports fields. The grounds sprawled with contempt for land values along the shoreline and back into what was once farm land, with wide streets of staff housing, annexes, old halls and a sanatorium. Quayle stopped at a crossroads to get his bearings before turning left, slowing down to let a group of boys lugging bags of books cross the road in front of them.
“Why here, Ti?” Holly asked. “I mean, of all the places he could have put it?”
A short fat boy bounced across after the main group and, as someone shouted at him to hurry up, he gleefully extended two fingers at the group. Then, suddenly realizing that perhaps the car contained somebody’s parents, he grinned at Quayle, hoping that he was eminently forgettable.
“He was still working on it. When he began the file he probably knew he was coming here, and he knew he would finish it here. That’s why he chose to take the name from Vitae Lampada. Broken Square. The school. Play up and all that. He left a teaser with Gabriella Kreski. Drake’s Drum. He knew.”
“What now?” she asked softly.
“The house,” he said. “But… you don’t have to come.”
“No,” she said softly. “I’ll come.”
Quayle wound down the window and hooked a finger at the boy. Realising he was caught, the lad trudged miserably across as his friends guffawed from the pavement.
“What’s your name?” Quayle asked.
“Phillips, sir. John Phillips, sir. Sir, I didn’t mean it. I just..”
“Relax, John Phillips Sir,” Quayle said. “I just need directions.”
“Oh!” He brightened up immediately, pushing his glasses up his nose and dropping his books to pull up his socks. “Where to, sir?”
“The administrators’ office.”
“Back down the road to the first left, past the Head’s house and round to the left again. Then you’ll have the main field on your right. Scroggy’s’s office...” He grinned again and, when Holly did too, he thought he may have gotten away with it. “Sorry, I mean Mr Mortimer’s office is in the main Quadrangle. You’ll know it by the clock tower. Cars aren’t usually allowed. Well, except for parents...” he trailed off seriously.
“I suspect we shall be alright,” Quayle said equally seriously. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” the boy said. He bent to pick up his books as Quayle edged round and drove back the way they had come.
Three minutes later, they were parked in front of the main quadrangle.
“Not here please,” the young Soviet said in German. “The wall is too close. I want a clear area.”
You want a killing field, Quayle thought, but that’s what you’re here for. So he moved the car to the playing field side of the road.
As he clambered out, he looked back at the man and caught his eye. He had a light coat over his lap. Quayle knew that beneath it was his firearm and, as he stepped clear of the car, the soldier nodded just once. Go and do what you have to do, he seemed to be saying. She is safe.
The office was down one of the long airy edges of the quad, and Quayle pushed back the old heavy door. As it swung back noiselessly, a woman looked up over her horn rimmed glasses from her desk.
“I’d like to see Scroggy,” Quayle said, unable to remember the name the boy had given him.
The woman laughed delightedly and pointed to a second door. “Mr Mortimer is in, please go through.”
Inside, a tall owlish individual stood behind a desk that was covered in neat stacks of papers, with a personal computer dead centre.
“Come in, come in. I’m Mortimer. Welcome. Are you a parent?”
Reaching for a pipe in amongst the clutter, he began patting his pockets, looking for his tobacco. “Damn and blast, where is the wretched thing? Ah there, yes, jolly good!”
He began filling the pipe and looked up again smiling. “What can we do for you?”
Quayle smiled too. Teddy would have loved it here. Tousled academia, bright minds unconcerned with trivia, classrooms filled with chalk dust and hope, history and heritage.
“My name is Arnold,” he lied. “Have you been here long?”
“Fifteen years. Seems like yesterday that I arrived.” He lit a match, held it to the pipe and began to draw the flame in, great gouts of smoke puffing up.
“I knew Edward Morton rather well,” Quayle said. Mortimer looked up then, his eyes serious for a second or two, and Quayle continued, “I’m travelling with his daughter, in fact. We were wondering if we could see the house and wander round a bit.”
“Yes, of course,” Mortimer replied, shaking the match out, the pipe clenched firmly in his teeth. “I rather liked Teddy myself. Wasn’t with us long, but made an indelible stamp on everyone he came across, even the little tikes we’re trying to turn into ladies and gentlemen. It isn’t far away. I’ll walk over with you. Need a breath of air anyway.”
Mortimer greeted Holly warmly and, after Quayle introduced the soldier as a friend, they walked past the chapel towards the lines of trees that gave the staff houses some privacy from the main school.
“Not much left, of course, after the blaze. Tell you the truth, we haven’t got round to rebuilding yet, so the site is pretty bare.”
It was. The only evidence of a fire were scorche
d branches in the upper levels of the big tree that stood sentinel on the plot. Mortimer stopped on the edge of the site, as if unwilling to cross onto the ground where Edward Morton had died. Only Holly moved forward, stepping slowly over the rough ground, fighting the tears that were welling up inside her.
“We packed up what bits were about,” Mortimer said gruffly. “Things in his desk and what have you. They were returned to England. Not much else, I’m afraid.”
“Did he ever watch the boys play cricket?” Quayle asked.
“He did, as a matter of fact. Used to sit beneath the trees over by the scoreboards –” He turned and pointed past the trees towards the main field “– and if the weather turned he would stay and move into the old pavilion. Had a spot there he rather liked. Became his, sort of. Gone now of course.”
“Sorry?” Quayle asked
“It’s gone. We took it down last year. We broke ground with the new one only last month. The old boys have been very generous, and this new one will be just the job. Of course, as you know, the real money came from Teddy. It was a very handsome endowment.”
“I didn’t know that,” Quayle said, “but it doesn’t surprise me.”
“Even so, we’re a little bit short. But I dare say we’ll muddle through.”
Quayle felt the first fingers of concern. The house was all gone, the pavilion gone. Anywhere that Teddy spent time and may have left something was reduced to rubble and memories.
“Do you have a chess club for the boys?”
“Certainly do. Teddy was a stalwart there. It’s over above the tuck shop, opposite the middle school dining hall. Nine o’clock from my office outside the quad. Now, that hasn’t changed since he was last there. Even the furniture is the same.” He gave a short brittle laugh.
Holly was moving back towards them, head down and arms crossed, lost in her thoughts.
“Thanks for your help,” Quayle said. “We’ll just have a bit of a wander around, if you don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” Mortimer said. “If there’s anything I can do, let me know.” And, with that, he smiled a goodbye at Holly and strode off towards his office. his tweed sports coat flapping as he took long ungainly strides.
Half an hour later they were walking through a set of cloisters that ran between the chapel and the main quadrangle, groups of boys and girls parting to allow them through.
“Daddy would have loved it here,” Holly said. “It’s like Eton moved somewhere warm and friendly.”
Quayle smiled across at her. He was directing them towards the chess club. He had to begin somewhere and it seemed as good a place as any.
The building was wood, one side of which had once been the science labs, its exterior made up of white clapboard walls and heavy sash windows. The door was open and, inside, a flight of worn stairs climbed past a notice board full of upcoming events for the members. At the top, windows overlooked a grassy square and the modern low slung building that was the middle school dining hall. Beyond that, four desks took up the central floor area of the small room and two boys sat at a chessboard, arguing heatedly about the legality of a move that the black player had completed.
“That’s absolute bull crap! You took your hand off the bloody piece and that’s the move over! You can’t just move the fucking thing again!”
“Says who? Anyway, my hand was still on it shithead! Checkmate!”
The other boy shook his head, as if he was forever committed to playing with morons.
“Hi,” Quayle said.
They both turned to see the figures in the door. They hadn’t heard a thing. Usually the stairs creaked signalling arrivals, particularly masters. But not this time.
Quayle walked over and took a quick look at the board. “Not over yet. King to knight four will also put him into trouble.”
The boy grinned and pounced. “Thanks, sir!” Then looked round to sneak a frank and appraising look at Holly.
“Mind if I have a look around?” Quayle asked them. He had seen it already. Up on the wall. A photograph. A group of boys, six or seven smiling faces, and in the middle of them, holding the trophy, was Teddy Morton. The likeness was good; the camera had caught the twinkle in his eyes, the proud smile. His boys had cleaned up.
“Please do, sir.” Then he turned to Holly. “Would you like a game?”
She smiled, shaking her head – and, as Quayle pointed to the picture, she moved across to join him. The silence was palpable as she ran her fingers gently over the image.
The boys stood uncomfortably now, not understanding what was happening. She felt it and turned to them.
“My dad,” she said.
One of the boys understood instantly. He had played in this room as in his eighth year and remembered Mr Morton well. He also remembered the fire.
“We better be going,” he said, and shot a look at the other that said ‘let’s leave her to it.’ Then, they quickly reset the pieces on their board and took the stairs three at a time.
After they were gone, Quayle stepped up beside Holly and studied the picture. It was mounted on a piece of yellow card and pinned up on the board with copper drawing pins. Taking a coin from his pocket, he levered the pins out, slipped out the picture and took it to the desk the boys had used. Talk to me, Teddy. I’m here now. Tell me where to look. The background was unclear. The boys along the back stood proudly over the seated row in front, Teddy in the middle holding the trophy. Quayle looked for anything in the way the hands held the statuette, anything unnatural. But, at first glance, there was nothing.
Be difficult to contrive on the spot, he thought. Easier to come back to.
With this thought in mind, he turned the card over. A message was there to an individual called Robby. ‘One on the board for the blues!’ it read, with a familiar neat signature underneath. There had obviously been a print for each boy and Teddy had signed each. Beneath that, two other signatures had been haphazardly scrawled. Robby obviously hadn’t gotten round to collecting the entire team’s autographs.
Talk to me, Teddy!
It was Holly, looking over the front of the print, who saw the faint oblique slash through the ‘o’ on the word ‘board’. Quayle had missed a clue that was there, plain for the eye to see. The letter ‘o’ was an upside down ‘Q’.
She pointed it out to him and, turning the card over, he saw it himself and grinned. “Right. Let’s start,” he said, standing.
“Start what?” she asked.
“Searching. It must be in here somewhere.”
Quayle took the walk-in book room and Holly started on the shelves along the far wall.
“What am I looking for?” she asked.
“A file. A sheaf of papers, wrapped in something dustproof. Possibly a key to a safe deposit box, possibly another lead. You knew him better than me…”
Pierre Lacoste sat at his kitchen table with Alexi Kirov, going over the list of equipment they were going to need. The foray over the wire into the chalet complex had given them little and nearly compromised their mission. The security, once inside, was formidable – and, although the team could have destroyed the compound with firepower any day of the week, it would not have met the objective, that of taking Girard and the two or three senior men quickly and quietly and having a little chat. A snatch was also out of the question as they had yet to travel together. Time was becoming critical and they could no longer wait for a new option. Kirov had been assured by General Borshin that the Warsaw Pact meeting would be postponed at the last second if necessary, but he would deem that a failure. Perestroika would not be held back by fanatics, and the effective re-unification of Germany was top of the agenda.
Eicheman, meanwhile, had returned to Bonn to re-brief his people and would be back that night. Quayle didn’t really seem to care one way or the other. Something else was driving him.
They were down to four days now and that meant that they would need to take the men up in the snow, up on the Glacier de Leschaux or on the awesome north wall of the
Grand Jorrasses itself.
“So you will all have randonee boots, oui?” Pierre asked.
“Yes. They will be ours. We will also have smocks and personal clothing. We’ll need skis, poles and rope, all prepared. The usual stuff for touring. One of my men will come with you to choose extra gear.” He paused. “We’ll need a workshop as well.”
“If the boots are good then it will be easy,” Pierre said.
The boots are good, Alexi thought. American. There would be other gear coming for the Spetznatz team, winter bivouacs and survival kit, but Soviet skis were shit and he wanted them bought here.
“They will be. Titus is due back in tomorrow night. His gear is ready?”
“Of course.” Pierre had spent a whole day on that alone. He had found an excellent pair of K2 205 touring skis and had mounted the race bindings himself. Quayle’s Scott boots would fit like a glove. The rest of the gear was loaded into a new pack and the parapente Quayle had asked for had been unrolled and checked three times. There was a lot of gear, too much for one man to carry in or out. But that was what he had asked for.
“Have you seen the weather report?” Pierre asked.
“Yes,” Alexi replied, looking up from the list.
“It will snow tonight.”
“Didn’t say that…”
The Frenchman shrugged. “It will snow tonight,” he said confidently.
That would be bad, Kirov knew. Without a base to settle on, and some nice cold weather to keep it stable, it would be like marbles on a billiard table.
Kirov left, and soon Lacoste went back down to the basement to finish packing Quayle’s gear. Much had only been collected an hour before from the Patagonia shop in the village. There was expedition thermal underwear and the familiar alpine synchilla snap t-neck sweaters and pants. He had also bought a guide jacket with the American manufacturer’s version of Gore-Tex lining, and a goose down jacket and pants. Even with a sleeping bag it was cold at altitude and, without a tent or cover, the wind chill factor would kill in hours.
But, if the clothing was American, the climbing equipment was as French as could be, all of it made down the valley at the Simond works in Les Houche. It was arguably the finest climbing gear in the world and had supported every major expedition since Hillary had conquered Everest. A small gunny bag was filled with a selection of stoppers, cramming devices, pitons and pegs – in case Quayle’s clean climbing style gave way to safety – ice screws, figure eights, three ice axes and a multi-purpose thigh harness. Lacoste had selected good Chouinard eleven millimetre guide rope. Other Chouinard gear he selected included the skins for the skis, probe poles with self-arresting grips for the entire team, and headlamps rather like those used by miners. He hoped they simply planned a night ski and not Titus thinking he could climb the Macintyre route on his own after dark. That would be madness. Tomorrow he would pick up the ice axes. Old-fashioned, with long handles, they were ideal for ski touring and the Glacier de Leschaux was no place to be after early snow without sensible equipment. Fashionable with cute pink handles, they weren’t. Save lives, they would.
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