Vince May - Presumed Dead

‘I want as many men as possible… and dogs, we must have lots of dogs. Let’s say ten thousand Euros. Do you think that would be enough?’

‘Ten thousand Euros?’ the officer spluttered. ‘For that kind of money Monsieur, you will have every person in the valley volunteering!’

‘Maybe so, but we need to cover every inch of that glacier in the shortest possible time, so I want at least a hundred good men,’ Ross commanded, the old military training beginning to show. ‘I’ll leave it up to you to choose the ones you want, just make sure they’re the best.’

‘Leave it to me, Monsieur. I will start making calls right away.’

‘Right, I’m going to check into my hotel, then I’m going to the bank to get the money transferred, then I’ll be back.’

Batard was picking up his phone as Ross left to make the short drive through pouring rain to the Jardin du Mont Blanc Hotel, where he was welcomed by the grief-stricken manager and handed the key to Madame’s room.

The call for help and the mention of a reward had been made on CHUT FM during the traditional French two-hour lunch break, and the response had been phenomenal. By three in the afternoon all the roads leading to the PGHM headquarters on the north side of Chamonix were gridlocked, with the local gendarmes running back and forth, blowing their whistles.

Fortunately, Ross had decided to walk up there after he’d left the bank, but still had to fight his way past hundreds of young men who were milling around the building, pushing and shoving in the closest Frenchmen could get to an orderly queue.

Many of them had brought their dogs; Labradors, Huskies, St Bernards, who were adding to the mayhem by barking, howling and whenever the opportunity arose, snapping at each other. He finally managed to find Batard, who was looking very harassed. ‘How are we doing?’ Ross asked.

‘As you can see,’ he said, raising his hands in typical Gallic fashion, ‘we have far more people than we can use. The problem is that many of those I am rejecting say they are going to search anyway. Everyone wants that money.’

‘The more men we have on the job, the better chance we have of finding her,’ Ross said cheerfully. ‘What’s the weather doing up there now? How soon can we get going?’

‘The wind has dropped a little but it is still snowing hard higher up. The first team will be leaving in about an hour. We are just trying to get enough lanterns organized, so we can carry on after dark. I plan to set up a forward command post at the Montenvers Hotel as soon as I am finished here.’

‘Very good,’ Ross said. ‘I’ll make my way up there later and join you. I want to be there when they find her.’ With that, he fought his way out of the building and walked back to the hotel. Better have a bite to eat before I go, he thought. Can’t feign grief on an empty stomach.

Meanwhile, up near the summit of the Aiguille Verte, the soft snow coating the near vertical face that had broken Alice’s fall was becoming dangerously unstable with the added weight of the fresh snowfall. Here and there, huge areas, which had been clinging precariously to the rocks all summer, finally lost their battle with gravity and came crashing down the mountainside in spectacular avalanches, depositing tons of snow, ice and all manner of other detritus onto the Charpoua Glacier.

It was nearly three hundred miles from Chamonix to the village just outside Nîmes, in the south of France, where Philippe lived. He’d been taking it easy on the autoroutes, letting the big BMW coast smoothly along under cruise control, a little below the speed limit. As they had come down out of the mountains and started heading south, they had left the bad weather behind and Philippe now had the air-conditioning on to keep them comfortable.

Alice had slept from the moment they left Chamonix, and sitting back with his feet off the pedals, holding the steering wheel between finger and thumb, Philippe had had plenty of time to relax and think during the long drive. He kept looking down at Alice, reclined in the seat beside him, thinking over and over again that she was the most, vulnerable creature he’d ever met. For some reason, he felt incredibly protective towards her. Every time he thought of her husband, his anger flared and he wanted to kill him with his bare hands.

He could vaguely remember a story he’d heard years before, something about an ancient belief that if you saved a person’s life, you then owned that person and were responsible for them forever. That first night, when she’d fallen through the cabin door at his feet and he’d bathed her wounds and cradled her in his arms, he’d allowed himself to believe that the gods of the mountain were somehow making recompense for Luba. The mountain taketh away, and the mountain giveth. Blessed be the name of the mountain. Looking down on her again he wished it were true, but he knew that in reality, as soon as she was physically fit and psychologically ready to face her husband, she would be gone from his life forever.

The late afternoon sun swept across Alice’s face as they turned off the autoroute at the Nîmes-East junction, stirring her from her slumber. At first she didn’t know where she was, then she looked up at Philippe and remembered.

‘Hello,’ he said, smiling. ‘Did you sleep well?’

Alice put her hands above her head and stretched like a cat. ‘Wonderfully,’ she said, with a dreamy smile. ‘Where are we?’

‘Nearly home, just another five minutes.’

Alice straightened her seat back and looked around as they followed a narrow road for about a mile before coming to the small village, which was nothing more than a church, a few houses, a general store, a boulangerie and a bar tabac. Carrying on out the other side, they were soon in an arid scrubland where the road carved a swathe through brown, sun-parched bushes and stunted trees. After another mile and a half, Philippe turned right into a driveway and pulled up at a set of iron gates, which were just swinging open under remote control, activated from the car. Once through the gates, they followed the driveway up hill slightly, around a curve to the left, then parked outside a single story, white stucco house with a red tile roof.

‘Here we are,’ he said, ‘home sweet home.’

‘It’s very pretty,’ Alice said, craning her neck to look around.

‘It used to be a hunting lodge,’ Philippe explained. ‘When I bought it, it had no electricity or heating, and the only water was from a hand pump outside the kitchen door. But now you will find all the comforts of home.’

Philippe jumped out of the car and went around to the passenger side to help Alice out. They were still wearing their thick jackets and the heat hit Alice like a hammer blow as he opened the car door.

‘Whew! It’s a bit warmer here than Chamonix,’ she exclaimed.

‘Come on inside, it will be much cooler there.’ Philippe opened the front door and they went in. All the shutters were closed and the inside of the house was cool and dark, lit only by thin shafts of sunlight penetrating the louvres. He led the way through a large kitchen and living room towards the back of the house, where there were two bedrooms, a bathroom and a toilet. He showed Alice into the back bedroom then opened the window and threw open the shutters. The room was fairly small and had two single beds, a small dressing table with a stool, and a chest of drawers. The window looked out onto a large back garden planted with pine trees, which cast patches of dappled shade onto the parched earth.

Turning back to Alice, Philippe said nervously, ‘This is my guestroom. It is yours for as long as you wish to stay. You are very welcome.’