The next morning he ate a big breakfast and then set off towards the Laponesalm Hut, whose manager (the son of the Bremer Hut manager) also saw him. There he made a call to Augsburg, Germany from the pay phone, spoke to someone in English, and produced a large wad of schillings to pay for it. He then set off again, but because it was foggy, he quickly vanished from sight. From the Laponesalm he could have taken a path down to the Gschnitz Valley or an unmarked smugglers’ trail into Italy.
Lynda was astonished to hear the story, and wondered why the hut manager hadn’t reported it earlier. A disoriented, English-speaking foreigner appeared at the same time the largest manhunt in the history of the Stubai Alps was underway for a missing Canadian. The gendarmerie had called the huts on September 21, and by September 25, everyone in the valley knew about the search for Duncan. That the hut managers were unaware of him until October 10 seemed incredible. Are these people trying to drive me insane? Lynda wondered.
That the young man had seemed disoriented reminded her of the theory that Duncan was suffering from the aftereffects of Lyme disease. He’d never been forgetful, so it wasn’t like him to have left his leather jacket at Roger Kortko’s house and his clothing in Walter Hinterhoelzl’s office. Could he have been the foreigner who’d wandered off from the Laponesalm and vanished into the fog?
The hut manager’s story indicated that the young man had been improperly equipped, inexperienced, and confused, which put him at high risk for a mountain accident. The implication was that he’d either died in the Stubai Alps or wandered into Italy. Lynda didn’t know what to do with the story other than report it to External Affairs and request that it be forwarded to the police, though she doubted they would investigate it. Judging by their silence, they had already closed Duncan’s case.
Chapter 9: “The snowboard and boots have been returned.”
Finally, in February 1990, they received two documents from the Canadian Embassy in Vienna. The first was a copy of a letter written by District Gendarmerie Commander Hofer to Consul Thomson, dated October 18, 1989. Why had External Affairs taken four months to translate and forward it?
Though Hofer stated that “all circumstances of the case indicate that McPherson (sic) became the victim of an alpine accident on 09 August 1989 on the Stubai Glacier,” he did not record the circumstances—not even Duncan’s last known location. The “Stubai Glacier,” is, after all, the trade name of a large ski area encompassing five different glaciers. Hofer didn’t mention that only one of them (the Schaufelferner) was open on August 9, and that Duncan was last seen on its slope at 2:30 P.M.
In spite of his vague conclusion, Hofer told Thomson that the police had nevertheless accomplished the following:
As a result of various search measures, the private car (license number N-EH 204 (D) which was last used by McPherson was located on 20 September 1989.
Investigations conducted by the local gendarmerie office in charge gave rise to the assumption that the missing person visited the Stubai Glacier on 09 August 1989.
Innsbruck Federal Police Directorate had established that McPherson had spent a night in an Innsbruck Youth Hostel.
Based on new information, a search notice was broadcast by the ORF (Austrian Television) in their show “Tirol Heute” (Tyrol Today) on 20 September 1989.
In reality, Lynda and Bob had searched for his car. They established the fact (not the assumption) that Duncan had visited the Stubai Glacier on August 9, 1989, and that he’d spent a night in an Innsbruck Youth Hostel. They and the Innsbruck Hockey Club organized the missing person broadcast on Tyrol Heute; the police tried to obstruct it by invoking privacy laws. Altogether, Commander Hofer’s letter was highly misleading, for by asserting that his officers had diligently investigated Duncan’s disappearance, he gave the Canadian government the impression that nothing was left to be done.
Accompanying Hofer’s letter was a document titled “Final Report of the Security Directorate for Tyrol for the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” Though mostly just a list of searches, noting the number of men, dogs, and equipment used, it did contain one passage that seemed to leap off the page:
It should furthermore be mentioned that the snowboard and boots, which Duncan MacPherson rented on 09 August 1989, have been returned. Exactly who and when the items were returned cannot be determined.
Lynda was stunned. When had they determined this, how had they determined this, and why had no one in External Affairs told her directly, given her request that it be clarified? It was by far the most important piece of information they obtained since finding Duncan’s car. That his equipment had been returned meant that he had certainly come off the slope. This indicated that he’d gone back down to the valley on the afternoon of August 9.
What happened to him after that?
The American journalist John Dornberg found the amnesia theory compelling. He’d met the MacPhersons through his friend Felicity Lamb, and then kept abreast of their search. When he learned about the foreigner wandering from hut to hut, it reminded him of stories he’d heard about amnesiacs showing up in towns where they were strangers, a mystery to themselves and to everyone else. Dornberg theorized that after Duncan called Ron Dixon on August 10, he went for a hike, fell, and hit his head. The resulting concussion caused him forget who he was, so he wandered the Stubai Alps, spending nights in huts, perhaps descending to a village to stay in a boarding house.
Lynda didn’t know what to make of Dornberg’s hypothesis. She thought it unlikely that Duncan could go for long in the Stubai Alps without being recognized as the missing Canadian. Then again, the hut manager said he hadn’t known about Duncan until he saw the missing person notice in Innsbruck on October 10.
No one in this nightmare makes sense, Lynda thought. It had started with Ron Dixon, who never called to tell her that Duncan hadn’t showed up for the meeting in Scotland. After Sean Simpson broke the news to her, she called the team manager, who confirmed that Duncan hadn’t arrived. As for Dixon, he’d apparently had little to say about it, and had simply flown back to Vancouver. And yet, in a subsequent press interview, he stated that Duncan was obviously a responsible young man who’d bought his ticket to Glasgow well in advance and called four times from Germany to confirm their meeting. If Dixon believed that, why hadn’t it occurred to him that his coach’s failure to show up was cause for concern? It was as if he hadn’t really needed his coach, and therefore didn’t care. But if that were the case, why had he offered Duncan the job in the first place?
Lynda inquired about Dixon and learned that no one seemed to know much about him, though many had heard rumors. People said that “Ron Dixon” wasn’t his real name, but an alias; that he’d served time in prison for manslaughter; that he was a master of double-dealing in his real estate projects. Most disturbing was Lynda’s perception that people were afraid of him. All of her sources insisted on remaining anonymous, as if frightened of retaliation. Could Dixon have had something to do with Duncan’s disappearance?