Vince May - Presumed Dead

Alice sighed deeply and opened her eyes, still no nearer to knowing the reason behind Ross’s murderous actions. Outside, the shadows had lengthened and the snowy peaks had taken on an exquisite pink hue. She carefully inched herself out of bed and joined Philippe just outside the hut, where he was sitting on a slab of granite staring at the starkly beautiful mountains.

‘This is always my favorite time of day,’ she said, easing herself down next to him.

‘And mine,’ he replied.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching as the pink peaks gradually turned a deeper red, then Alice asked, ‘Philippe, who is Luba?’

‘Why do you ask?’ he said softly.

‘During the night, when you were looking after me, trying to make me warm, I remember, you kept whispering that name.’

His gaze dropped from the mountain peaks, down onto the cold, icy glacier that stretched away before them. ‘Louisa, or Luba as I called her, was my wife,’ he said very gently. ‘She died on the ridge up there at the beginning of the summer when we were climbing the Aiguille Verte together.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Alice said, reaching out and squeezing his hand with her bandaged fingers.

Seeming not to notice, he continued, ‘We had reached the summit and were resting, enjoying the view. We had unhitched ourselves from our climbing rope and Luba said she wanted to take a photograph of me. She was a fine photographer. She put her rucksack down near the edge and it started to topple. She reached out to save it, but lost her balance and fell. They searched for three whole days but never found her. I searched for two weeks more after that, and I have come back here every weekend since and searched for her, dreaming of somehow, by some miracle, finding her alive. When the winter comes I will have to stop, but I will returned next year in the spring to search for her again.

‘She looked very much like you,’ he said, turning to look at Alice, ‘except she had darker hair. When I opened the door last night and saw you there in the shadows, for one crazy moment I thought she had come back to me. Then later when it was dark and I was close to you, I allowed myself to believe it for a while.’

Alice’s heart went out to him, but all she could think of saying was, ‘I really am very sorry.’ They sat in silence for another few minutes, then as the sun finally left the peaks and the shadows started to creep up from the valley leaving them in chilly darkness, they went inside.

The hut was really nothing more than a wooden shed about twelve feet wide by eight feet deep with a small window set high up in the rear wall. The only furniture was a table in the center and a pair of wooden bunk beds built against each of the two side walls. There was no heating and very few creature comforts. Philippe lit his gas lantern then prepared some dinner for them both on his Primus stove, which they ate in silence before retiring for the night, this time in separate beds.

Back down on the yacht off Monaco, Ross was enjoying dinner. He’d spent the day conspicuously on deck, in the swimming pool or in the salon playing cards, making sure that there would be plenty of witnesses to swear to his whereabouts during the day if the need arose. During the afternoon, he’d received a text message on his cell phone from Alex, which simply read ALL OK. That was their agreed signal, which meant he’d managed to lay the false trail into the mountains as planned, so that when Alice was reported missing, the rescue services would know where to start looking for her body.

Just as the main course was being cleared, Ross excused himself saying he’d promised to telephone his wife in Chamonix during the evening. He moved away from the table but stayed in the dining room. Taking out his phone, he sat at a small corner table and dialed Alice’s cell phone. After getting transferred immediately to voicemail, he dialed the hotel’s main number. When the call was answered, he said, ‘Madame Webley s'il vous plaît?’

The hotel operator connected the call to suite thirty-two and let it ring for half a minute before coming back on the line. ‘Madame does not answer, Monsieur.’

‘That’s very strange,’ Ross said, just loud enough for the others to hear. ‘Is she in the restaurant, do you know?’

‘One moment please, I will find the manager for you.’ Within seconds, the manager came on the line.

‘Monsieur Webley here,’ Ross said. ‘I am trying to reach my wife, is she in the restaurant do you know?’

‘I am sorry, Monsieur, but Madame is not in the hotel.’

‘Not in the hotel?’ Ross asked incredulously. ‘Has she gone out for the evening?’

‘No Monsieur, she went out early this morning dressed for walking, and has not returned.’

‘I see. Oh well, not to worry, probably met up with friends and is eating out. Get her to call me when she comes in, will you? She has the number.’

‘Yes Monsieur, I will put a message with her key.’

Ross thanked him, rang off, and then wandered slowly back to the dining table seemingly deep in thought. By this time, most of the guests had picked up on the conversation he’d been having and were bursting with curiosity. One of the women at the table asked, ‘Is everything all right Ross? You look worried.’

Ross looked up absently, ‘What… oh yes, fine. It’s just that my wife went out early this morning to do some walking in the mountains and hasn’t returned to the hotel yet. I’m a little concerned about her.’

‘I’m sure she’s perfectly all right,’ the woman said.

‘You’re probably right. She’s bound to be back soon.’ Ross said smiling. ‘I’ll give her another try later.’

With that, the conversation returned to more general and trivial things and Ross joined in, being careful to maintain a slightly worried look although inside he was elated. He’d achieved exactly what he wanted. A one hundred percent watertight alibi that covered him from the time his ‘wife’ was seen alive and well setting off on her walk, up until the time she was overdue back at the hotel. Just one more call to make, he thought, then it’s mission accomplished.

Up in the hut, Alice was having trouble sleeping. Her mind was a turmoil of thoughts about the way she’d survived the fall down the same mountainside that had killed poor Philippe’s wife. Somehow, the two events were inextricably linked and she felt a strange bond with the man on the other side of the small wooden cabin who had saved her life.

All day, while she’d been dozing on and off, she’d been thinking about Ross, going over and over their life together in her mind, trying to come to terms with what had happened. As the day had worn on, her white-hot rage had gradually cooled to an overwhelming desire for revenge, sweet revenge, served up cold and hard.

One thing she knew for sure, Ross would be certain she was dead. He couldn’t possibly think anything else after what he’d done to her, and that was going to buy her the time she needed to think very carefully about what she was going to do to him. She could, of course, just go to the police, but they would never believe her story, it was too incredible. And besides, Ross would easily bluff his way out of trouble, he’d been doing that all his life. No, she’d decided, she was going to have to handle his retribution personally.

She desperately wanted to talk about it, and instinctively felt that Philippe would understand. Finally making up her mind, she turned to face him across the dark cabin and whispered, ‘Philippe, are you awake?’

Philippe was immediately out of his sleeping bag and by her side with a flashlight in his hand. ‘What is wrong?’ he asked with concern. ‘Are you feeling pain again?’