Wildfire at Midnight

by Mary Stewart

  In a very few minutes more all three climbers had foregathered on the ledge, and seemed to be holding some sort of a conference. The people on our side of the gully, Alma Corrigan, Dougal Macrae, myself, and the handful of men who had not gone to search the scree slopes, watched in stony silence, frozen into a dismal set-piece of foreboding. I sat there with my forgotten cigarette burning one-sidedly between wet fingers, stupidly straining eyes and ears to interpret the distant sounds and gestures of the men’s conversation.

  Dougal said suddenly: ‘I think they must have seen something in the gully.’

  ‘No,’ I said, and then again, foolishly, as if I could somehow push the truth further away from me, ‘no.’

  ‘Rhodri MacDowell is pointing. I thought he had seen something when he was on the cliff.’

  I blinked against the wet wind, and saw that one of the men was, indeed, gesturing back towards the gully. The three of them had disengaged themselves from the rope, and now began to make a rapid way down the scree towards the far side of the gully. There was about them a purposeful air that gave Dougal’s guess the dismal ring of truth.

  Then Alma Corrigan turned abruptly from the little group near by, and strode across to us.

  ‘They’re down there,’ she announced baldly.

  I just stared at her, unable to speak, but I got stiffly to my feet. Behind her the hotel proprietor, Bill Persimmon, said quickly: ‘We don’t know for certain, but it does seem as if they’ve seen something.’

  ‘Ye’ll be going down the gully then,’ said Dougal Macrae.

  ‘I suppose so.’ Bill Persimmon turned back to watch the climbers’ approach.

  Behind us we heard the rasp and slither of boots on wet heather. Nicholas came down the slope, with Roderick not far in the rear. Nicholas’ eyes, narrowed against the wind, were intent on Beagle as he approached the opposite side of the gully.

  ‘It’s time someone else took a turn,’ he said abruptly. ‘If they’ve been seen in the gully, I’ll go down. What about you, Bill?’

  ‘I think,’ began Major Persimmon, ‘that perhaps we ought—’

  ‘Did they see anything down there?’ Roderick’s voice cut anxiously across his. ‘We came back because it looked as if – we thought—’ He saw my face, and stopped; then he came over quickly to stand beside me, giving me a little smile of reassurance.

  But I shook my head at it. ‘I’m afraid they did,’ I said under my breath. ‘Dougal says one of the men saw something.’

  ‘Yes. Rhodri. We saw him pointing. I’m very much afraid—’ He stopped again, and bit his underlip. ‘Why don’t you go back to the hotel, Janet?’

  ‘Good Lord,’ I said, almost savagely, ‘don’t worry about me. I’m all right.’

  And now the three climbers were at the edge of the gully. Beagle’s voice came gustily across the fitful noises of wind and water.

  ‘. . . Below the pool . . . couldn’t really see . . . might be . . . a leg . . . going down now . . .’

  I sat down again, rather suddenly, on my stone. I think I was surprised that, now it had happened, I felt no horror, only numbness. The small things – the sluggish misery of wet shoes, the chilly drizzle, my handkerchief sodden in my coat pocket – each petty detail of discomfort seemed in turn to nag at my attention, to fix it, dazedly, upon myself. I suppose it is one kind of automatic defence; it may be a variety of shock; at any rate I just sat there, dumbly working my fingers into my damp gloves, while all round me preparations were made for the final horror of discovery.

  Beagle and Rhodri MacDowell went down after all. To me, watching them with that same detached, almost childish interest, it seemed an amazing operation. They were so incredibly quick. Beagle was still shouting his information across the gully when Rhodri and the lad Iain had thrown the rope over a little pylon of rock that jutted up beside them. The ends of the doubled rope snaked down into the depths, touched bottom, and hung there. Rhodri said something to Iain, heaved the rope somehow between his legs and over his shoulder, and then simply walked backwards over the cliff. He backed down it rapidly, leaning out, as it were, against the rope that acted as a sliding cradle. It looked simple – and crazy. I must have made some kind of exclamation, because, beside me, Roderick gave a little laugh.

  ‘It’s called abseiling . . .’ He himself was busy with a rope. ‘Quite a normal method of descent, and much the quickest . . . No, Bill, I’ll go. We’ll shout up fast enough if we want reinforcements.’

  Rhodri had vanished. The boy Iain stayed by the spike of rock that anchored the rope, and Beagle was already on his way down. Nicholas turned back from the edge.

  ‘I’m coming down,’ he said briefly.

  Roderick, bending to anchor his own rope, shot him a swift upward look and hesitated. ‘You? I didn’t know you climbed?’

  ‘No?’ said Nicholas, not very pleasantly. Roderick’s eyes flickered, but he merely said, mildly enough: ‘I’d better go first, perhaps.’

  And as quickly as Rhodri – and rather more smoothly – he was gone. Nicholas watched him down, with his back squarely turned to me where I sat huddled on my wet stone. Then, at a shout from below, he, too, laid hold of the ropes, and carefully lowered himself over the edge.

  The little group of waiting men had moved forward to the brink of the gully, and once more there was about them, peering down into the echoing depths, that air of foreboding that gradually freezes through dread to certainty. I got up and moved to join them.

  And almost at once a shout came from below – a wordless sound whose message was nevertheless hideously clear. I started forward, and felt Dougal Macrae’s big hand close on my arm.

  ‘Steady now!’

  ‘He’s found them!’ I cried.

  ‘Aye, I think so.’

  Major Persimmon was kneeling at the gully’s edge; there were further exchanges of shouting, which the wind swept into nothingness: then the group of men broke from its immobility into rapid and practised activity, two more of the local rescue team preparing to descend, while the main party made off at some speed down the scree.

  ‘Where are they going?’

  ‘For the stretchers,’ said Dougal.

  I suppose hope dies hard. My passionate hope, and my ignorance, between them, made me blind to his tone, and to the expressions of the other men. I pulled myself eagerly out of his grip, starting forward to the edge of the gully.

  ‘Stretchers? They’re alive? Can they possibly be still alive?’

  Then I saw what was at the bottom of the gully. Beagle and Nicholas were carrying it between them, slowly making their awkward way across the slabs that funnelled the rush of water. And there was no possible misapprehension about the burden that they were hauling from the fringes of the cascade . . . I had forgotten that a dead body would be stiff, locked like some grotesque woodcarving in the last pathetic posture of death. Navy trousers, blue jacket smeared and soaked almost to black, filthy yellow mittens on horror-splayed fingers . . . Marion Bradford. But it was no longer Marion Bradford; it was a hideous wooden doll that the men held between them, a doll whose head dangled loosely from a lolling neck . . .

  I went very quietly back to my stone, and sat down, staring at my feet.

  Even when the stretchers came, I did not move. There was nothing I could do, but I somehow shrank from going back to the hotel now, alone – and Alma Corrigan showed no disposition to leave the place. So I stayed where I was, smoking too hard and looking away from the gully, along the grey flank of the mountain, while from behind me came the sounds of the rescue that was a rescue no longer. The creak and scrape of rope; a soft rush of Gaelic; grunts of effort; a call from Roderick, strained and distant; Beagle’s voice, lifted in a sharp shout; Major Persimmon’s, near by, saying ‘What? My God!’ then another splutter of Gaelic close beside me – this time so excited that I stirred uneasily and then looked round.

  It was Dougal who had exclaimed. He and Major Persimmon were on their knees side by side, peering down into the gully
. I heard Persimmon say again: ‘My God!’, and then the two men got slowly to their feet, eyeing one another.

  ‘He’s right, Dougal.’

  Dougal said nothing. His face was like granite.

  ‘What is it? What are they yelling about down there?’ Alma Corrigan’s voice rose sharply.

  Bill Persimmon said: ‘She fell from the slab all right. The rope is still on her body. And it’s been cut.’

  Her face was sallow under the bright scarf. ‘What – what d’you mean?’

  He lifted a shoulder, and said wearily: ‘Just what I say. Someone cut the rope, and she fell.’

  Alma Corrigan said, in a dry little whisper: ‘Murder . . .’

  I said, ‘And Roberta Symes?’

  His gaze flicked me absently as he turned back to the cliff’s edge. ‘They haven’t found her yet.’

  And they did not find her, though they searched that dreadful gully from end to end, and though for the rest of the day they toiled once more up and down the endless scree.

  11

  An’t Sròn

  The search went on all day. Towards late afternoon the wind dropped, only wakening from time to time in fitful gusts. The rain held off, but great slate-coloured clouds hung low, blotting out the Cuillin and crowding sullenly over the crest of Blaven. Marsco, away to the north, was invisible, and, a long way below us, Loch na Creitheach lay dull and pewter-grey.

  They finally got Marion Bradford’s body down to the mouth of the gully at about four o’clock. From high up on the scree, I watched the sombre little procession bumping its difficult way over the wet heather, with the sad clouds sagging overhead. It reached the lower spur of An’t Sròn and wound drearily along its crest, past the pathetic irony of the celebration bonfire, and out of sight over the end of the hill.

  Dispiritedly I turned back to the grey scree, fishing for another cigarette. The Coronation bonfire . . . and tomorrow, in London, the bells would be ringing and the bands playing, while here – there would be no celebration here, tomorrow. The lonely bubbling call of the curlew, the infinitely sad pipe of the golden plover, the distant drone of the sea, these were the sounds that would hold Camasunary glen tomorrow, as they did now. And if Roberta were still missing . . .

  I heard the scrape of boot on rock above me, and looked up to see Roderick Grant edging his way down one of the innumerable ledges that ran up to the cliff above the Sputan Dhu. His head was bare, and the fair hair was dark with the rain. He looked indescribably weary and depressed, and one of his hands was bleeding. I remembered what Marcia had told me, and wondered suddenly if he had known of Marion Bradford’s penchant for him, and was feeling now some odd sort of self-reproach.

  His expression lightened a little when he saw me, then the mask of strain dropped over it again. His eyes looked slate-blue in the uncertain light.

  ‘You should have gone back to the hotel,’ he said abruptly. ‘You look done in.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said wearily. My hands were wet and cold, and I was fumbling ineptly with matches. He took me gently by the shoulders and pushed me down to a seat on a boulder. I sat thankfully, while he flicked his lighter into flame and lit my cigarette, then he pulled open his haversack and produced a package.

  ‘What have you had to eat?’

  ‘Oh, sandwiches. I forget.’

  ‘Because it was far too long ago,’ said he. ‘Here – I got a double chukker. Help me eat these. Did you have some coffee?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He held out a flat silver flask. ‘Have a drop of this; it’ll do the trick.’

  It did. It was neat Scotch, and it kicked me back to consciousness in five seconds flat. I sat up on my rock, took another sandwich, and felt fine.

  He was eyeing me. ‘That’s better. But all the same, I think you’d better go back to the hotel.’

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t. Not yet. I’d never be able to settle down and wait, not now. We’ve got to find Roberta. Another night on the hill—’

  His voice was gentle. ‘I doubt if another night will make much difference to Roberta, Janet.’

  ‘She must be alive,’ I said stubbornly. ‘If she’d fallen into the gully with Marion Bradford, she’d have been found. Dougal Macrae said she could have been stopped higher up, by a ledge or something. There must be places near the top of the gully—’

  ‘I’ve raked the whole of the upper gully twice over,’ he said wearily. ‘Drury and I and Corrigan have been there all day. There’s no sign of her.’

  ‘She must be somewhere.’ My voice sounded dogged and stupid. ‘She must have been hurt, or she’d have answered you; and if she was hurt, she can’t have gone far. Unless—’

  I felt my muscles tightening nervously as, perhaps for the first time, the possible significance of that severed rope-end fully presented itself. I turned scared eyes to him.

  ‘Roderick’ – I used his name without thinking – ‘you were down in the gully. You saw Marion’s climbing-rope. That cut rope can only mean one thing, can’t it?’

  He dragged hard on his cigarette, and expelled a cloud of smoke like a great sigh. ‘Yes. Murder – again . . .’

  I said slowly: ‘And Dougal swears there was a third climber, but whether it was a man or woman he can’t say.’

  He made a slight impatient gesture. ‘If he’s to be believed.’

  ‘Oh, I think he is. If anyone in this world’s dependable, I’d say it was Dougal Macrae. If there wasn’t a third climber, then we’ve got to believe that it was Roberta who cut the rope, and that’s fantastic.’

  ‘But is it?’

  My eyes widened. ‘You can’t believe that Roberta—’

  ‘She was a beginner. If Marion fell, and was pulling her loose from her hold, she might panic, and—’

  ‘I don’t believe it! And what’s more, neither do you!’

  He gave a wry little smile. ‘No.’

  ‘So there was a third climber,’ I said, ‘and he cut the rope, so he’s a murderer. He was there when Marion fell. And Roberta – whether she fell or not – can’t be found. It doesn’t add up to anything very pretty, does it?’

  ‘You think the murderer removed Roberta?’

  ‘What else can we think? We can’t find her. If she was dead, he could safely have left her. If she was only injured, he’d have to silence her. He may have killed her and hidden her, hoping that the delay in finding the bodies would help him in some way or other.’ I fetched a sigh. ‘I don’t know. I’m just in a dreary sort of whirl, praying she’s all right and – oh God, yes, knowing all the time she can’t be . . .’

  I got to my feet.

  ‘Let’s get on with this,’ I said.

  The dark drew down, and all along the mountain slopes, indefatigably, the searchers toiled. Beagle and Rhodri MacDowell, who had been down with the stretcher, returned bringing food, soup, coffee, and torches from the hotel. We ate and drank, standing round in the gathering darkness. There was not much said; the men’s faces were drawn and strained, their movements heavy. What little conversation there was related simply to accounts of areas searched and suggestions for further reconnaissance.

  I found myself beside Ronald Beagle, who, despite the exacting rôle he had played in the rescue, was showing very little sign of strain. He was draining his mug of hot coffee as Alastair came up, seeming to loom over the smaller man in the darkness.

  ‘That gully below the Sputan Dhu,’ he said abruptly. ‘What’s the bottom like?’

  Beagle glanced up at him. There was mild surprise in his voice. ‘Pretty rough. All devil’s pot-holes and fallen boulders. The stream drops down a series of cascades to the foot of the scree. Why? I assure you we couldn’t have missed her.’

  ‘Any caves or fissures in the sides of the gully?’

  ‘Plenty.’ Ronald Beagle bent to put his coffee mug in the hotel’s basket. ‘But there were four of us, and I assure you—’

  ‘Can you assure me,’ said Alastair evenly, ‘that at least two of you searc
hed each of these fissures?’

  There was silence for a moment; I saw the rapid glow and fade, glow and fade, of Alastair’s cigarette. Then another cigarette glowed beside it. Roderick’s voice spoke from behind it.

  ‘Why? What are you suggesting?’

  ‘I’m suggesting that one of us here is a murderer,’ said Alastair brutally.

  Hartley Corrigan’s voice broke in. ‘That’s a filthy thing to say! It’s tantamount to accusing Beagle or Grant or Drury—’

  ‘He’s quite right, you know,’ said Beagle mildly. ‘It could quite easily be one of us. But why should it be in the murderer’s interest to conceal the second body, once the first was found? It would certainly be to his interest to be the first to find her if she were still alive, so that he could silence her.’ He looked up at Alastair again. ‘But he didn’t. I imagine every crevice in that gully was searched, solo and chorus, by every one of us.’

  ‘And that’s a fact.’ Rhodri MacDowell spoke unexpectedly out of the darkness.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Alastair. He looked at Beagle: ‘You know how it is . . .’

  ‘I know. It’s quite all right.’

  The group was moving now, breaking and reforming its knots of shadow-shapes, as men gathered once more into their parties for the search. I found Nicholas beside me.

  He said shortly, his voice rough with fatigue: ‘This is absurd, Gianetta. Get back to the hotel at once.’

  I was too tired to resent his tone. ‘I can’t give up yet,’ I said dully. ‘I couldn’t stand sitting about waiting, listening with the Cowdray-Simpsons for the Everest news, and just wondering and wondering what was happening on the hill.’

  ‘There’s no sense in your staying here,’ said Ronald Beagle. ‘You want to get back and rest, and find some way of taking your mind off this business. And talking of Everest—’ He gave a jerk to his haversack, and raised his voice. I saw his teeth gleam in an unexpected grin. ‘I forgot to tell you,’ he said to the dim groups scattered round him, ‘that the news came through on the A.F.N. a short while ago. They’ve done it. By God they have. They’ve climbed Everest.’