David Gilman - Ice Claw

Max, Sayid and Sophie sat around the big table in the main room eating bread and cheese. Max reached out and tore a chunk from a baguette, shoving a wedge of cheese into it.

“We have to leave here, Max. Those men found me in Biarritz and I do not know how they found me. And now Sayid has told me what happened at the chateau.”

Max felt a twinge of panic. What else had he told her?

“Was there nothing at all there? No clues?” she said.

Sayid looked innocent, filled his mouth with food and turned to Max. A sense of relief. Sayid hadn’t said anything important other than they had been attacked.

“No, there was nothing. I think this whole thing is a wild-goose chase. Sayid and I are going back to England.”

“Great!” Sayid said, a little too enthusiastically. The buzz of the earlier encounter at the chateau had already left him. England was a refuge from all the crazy people in the world.

Sophie did not react. Max had secretly hoped she would. He told himself that her reaction might have given him a chance to see if she was involved more deeply in all this mess than she had told him.

“I’ll phone the airport for you,” she volunteered.

“No. The comtesse can do that,” he said a little too quickly, realizing that he was still uncertain of her motives. That instinctive sense of survival overrode all other emotions.

Before Sophie could say anything the comtesse scuttled into the room, waving the kitchen knife. “Turn it on! Turn it on!” she cried, gesturing towards the television set.

Sayid was the nearest.

A moment later Max’s face filled the screen.

No one spoke. The French news station showed an old picture of Zabala and Max’s passport photograph. Then scenes intercut between the avalanche area behind Mont la Croix, a body being stretchered away and Zabala’s mountain hut. The newscaster’s voice was hurried but clear enough to understand.

The body of Brother Zabala, a Basque monk, had been found buried beneath a recent avalanche. The postmortem showed he had been shot before the avalanche claimed him, but that he had also suffered a knife wound. An English boy-Max’s passport photograph zoomed up on the screen-Max Gordon, was believed to be involved in the monk’s death. As with all foreign visitors staying in French guesthouses, his passport had been photocopied. The boy had been identified hiking in the mountain passes, approximately three weeks before the man’s death, in the area where the recluse lived. In the Pau hospital the boy had learned the whereabouts of Zabala and was seen by a local farmer running from the monk’s reclusive home on Montagne Noire and-a closeup of Max’s watch filled the screen-this watch was found clasped in the dead man’s hand. The inscription on the back of the watch identified its owner: Max Gordon. Upon further investigation at the mountain hut-more images of police taking out boxes of material from Zabala’s home, police crime scene officers, taped areas, sniffer dogs-evidence that blood found in the hut belonged to the dead man. Samples of skin taken from beneath the dead man’s fingernails indicated a struggle and DNA analysis matched the blood in Zabala’s hut to the English boy.

The motive for the monk’s murder was unclear at this stage, the voice went on, but police were now hunting for this boy to help with their inquiries. Gordon, described as 1.75 meters tall, athletic build, untidily cut fair hair, blue-gray eyes, weighing approximately sixty kilograms, was considered dangerous. The public was warned not to approach him.

Suddenly a reporter, someone called Laurent Messier, appeared on-screen with a microphone. Max immediately recognized the building behind him as the hospital in Pau.

“I am here at the hospital in Pau, where the boy, Max Gordon, was brought following the avalanche at Mont la Croix and where he was examined by neurologist Dr. Fabian Vagnier.”

The microphone moved a few centimeters towards the consultant’s mouth. He appeared appropriately somber, his own desire for recognition bending the truth as he rattled off words too fast and technical for Max to catch, but when the reporter spoke to the camera again, he emphasized words Max did understand: assassin et un sociopath .

Everyone stood in shock. The comtesse killed the sound, then stared at Max. It was Sayid who broke the silence.

“I didn’t get all that. What was that bit at the end?”

Still no one moved.

“A French doctor said he did a brain scan on Max after the avalanche and that he found brain activity which was usually associated with violent behavior,” Sophie said quietly. “A killer’s behavior.”

“Bloody hell,” Sayid said under his breath.

Everyone was looking at Max. He rolled up his sleeve, showing the comtesse and Sophie the faded scratch marks. “I tried to save Zabala. He fell, he scratched my arm and grabbed my father’s watch. I didn’t kill him. But I did see the killer.”

“You recognized him?” Sophie said quickly, barely able to keep the alarm out of her voice.

Max hesitated but kept his eyes locked on hers. “No, they were too far away.”

She nodded and looked down.

Max turned to the comtesse. “I promise you, Comtesse, I did not kill him.”

She had not moved, but the knife in her hand was slightly higher than before, held in a defensive gesture. Then, after a moment, she lowered it and nodded.

“Of course you did not. I believe you. But now you are in very serious trouble.” She looked at the silent screen, and they followed her gaze.

A picture of Max filled the frame and emblazoned below it were the words Recherche pour meurtre .

Max Gordon: Wanted for Murder.

Max had, as always, very little to pack-travel light, travel fast. He weighed his options as he rolled his trousers and T-shirts and stuffed them into the backpack. How best to escape the police hunt and the attacks of whoever wanted him dead? He was beginning to feel like a fish caught in a net. Squirming to breathe, he knew panic was just waiting to smother him, and that was when big mistakes were made. Well, he wouldn’t panic. He’d make a plan.

“You have to tell the police everything, Max,” Sayid said, interrupting his thoughts.

“No. I turn myself in now and we’ll never find the secret. Listen, Sayid, Zabala was murdered for something so important that I can’t let it die with him. The police have got enough evidence to put me away until there’s a trial. This is a setup.”

“What do you mean?” Sophie asked.

Still unable to read her intention, Max held her gaze.

“How did they find Zabala’s body?” Max said.

“There must have been a melt,” she said.

“But there hasn’t been. You saw the news; they went straight to the spot where he fell.”

“Someone told them!” Sayid said.

“That’s right. And who knew?”

“The killer,” Sophie said calmly.

It wasn’t a guess, it was stating the obvious, but why did such a bare fact feel like a challenge? Max wondered. Was it the way she said it-so coolly?

He nodded. “Whoever’s been chasing me needs me in a place where they can get whatever information I have. Setting the French police force onto me is a hell of a way of getting me pinned down, wouldn’t you say?”

“You lied to me. You went to Zabala’s hut to look for something. What?”

“I wanted to find out more about him,” Max told her, still unwilling to let her know too much until he determined how involved she was.

“And that’s why you went to the chateau?”

“Because I discovered that’s where he once worked.”

“And isn’t it all obvious to you now?” Sophie could barely keep the irritation out of her voice. “It’s the animal smugglers. They’re the ones responsible. You should have told me. You should have trusted me.”