But today the route seemed dangerous. They walked briskly, not talking, both straining their ears for the sounds of the mountain. Because there were warning sounds. A distant crump, way up high, like a single round of gunfire. A creaking. A kind of groan, like a great weight shifting on the mountain itself. A breeze that became a sigh through the snow itself. All could be premonitions of sliding snow.
They said nothing to each other, but Zoe took Jake’s hand, and they quickened their pace. The crunch and squeak of their snow boots was no comfort. Even those small sounds seemed like an affront to the mountain, the squeak of a mouse to an elephant. A challenge.
‘Can you feel the pressure?’ Zoe said. ‘In the air? It’s like I can feel the weight of the snow on the mountain.’
‘You’re imagining it. Just keep walking.’
‘I’m not imagining it. The air is thick. Like something is going to happen.’
‘Nothing is going to happen.’
‘So why have they evacuated the hotel, arsehole?’
‘Precaution. It would be bloody bad luck, wouldn’t it, to survive one avalanche and then get caught in another?’
‘Yeah. Bloody bad luck happens.’
‘Not today it won’t.’
‘You’re going to protect me, Jake?’
‘With my bare hands.’
Then from above them came the unmistakable groan, the sound of snow sliding, like a folding of great sheets of metal.
Zoe stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh God!’
‘It’s okay. Come on, keep moving. It’s just the snow shifting.’
‘Oh really? That’s what I’m afraid of—the snow damn well shifting! Snow shifting is called an avalanche, isn’t it?’
‘Shh! Talk quietly. What I mean is that the snow does it all the time. That’s why they have snowploughs on the pistes. Because the snow shifts and banks. It doesn’t mean it’s coming down right now.’
‘Yeah? You know about these things? You’re a veterinary surgeon. How come you’re an expert in shifting snow? You’re just bullshitting.’
‘That’s right, I’m bullshitting.’
‘Why? Why are you bullshitting?’
He stopped and turned to her. ‘It’s what I do when I get frightened, okay? I bullshit. It’s an effective way of making things seem better. There, are you happy now you’ve seen through me? Can we carry on walking now that my failure as a human being has been exposed? Well?’
The snow on the mountain slope groaned again overhead. There was a further inexplicable sound like great fishing nets cast into the sea. She slipped her arm inside his and they hiked on into the village under the soft orange glow of the lamps.
There was no one on the streets. A number of cars were parked near the centre of the village, but they were all topped with a flat cake-like layer of snow from the day’s precipitation. The village was spooky-quiet. They came upon another small hotel, called the Petit la Creu. Snow had drifted against the foot of the entrance door.
They pushed their way in, the heavy draught excluders on the bottom of the door dragging against the floor. The reception was warm, almost stifling. Lights were blazing everywhere but the reception was deserted. Exactly like their own hotel.
‘Do you think the whole village has been evacuated?’ asked Zoe.
‘Have you got that girl’s number?’
‘What girl?’
‘That dozy girl.’ ‘What dozy girl?’
‘The rep. The company rep. The one who was on the bus from the airport. The one who couldn’t stop smiling. Didn’t she flip you a card with her number?’
Zoe unzipped her handbag and took out her purse. She sorted through her plastic credit cards and club cards to find the rep’s business card. ‘I don’t have it. You must have it.’
‘I don’t have it. She gave it you.’
‘She didn’t give it me. I haven’t got it. I remember at the time she had a twinkle in her eye when she handed it to you. So you must have it.’
‘What twinkle?’
‘You had it!’
‘All right! Keep your hair on!’ Jake unbuttoned his jacket, unzipped his inner breast pocket and took out his wallet. There among his credit cards he found the holiday company business card with the rep’s mobile phone number.
‘I told you you had it. You fancy her.’
‘Yep, I like a woman who smiles. They’re rare in these parts.’
‘Give it me.’
ELFINDA CARTER, SENIOR TOUR REPRESENTATIVE
WINTERTOURS HOLIDAYS
TEL: 07797 551737
‘Anyway, what kind of a name is Elfinda?’ she said.
‘Maybe she’s an elf.’
‘Elfinda the twinkling elf, apparently.’
‘You embarrassed us.’
When Elfinda the rep had offered her card she had asked for Jake’s number in return. It was routine, should the company need to contact them about trips and events. Zoe, tired of all the twinkling in the air,had leaned across and shoved, instead, her own card into the startled rep’s hands.
‘Embarrassed us? I should have kicked her skinny arse.’
Zoe reached across the reception desk and picked up the telephone. There was a strong dialling tone. She tapped out the numbers printed on the card. The phone rang and she crossed her legs as she waited for someone to pick up.
The phone rang for a long time before it finally rang off.
‘No one there?’
‘No one there. Elf or otherwise.’
‘There’s a police station in the village, behind the supermarket. We should go there anyway. See what’s happening.’
They left the Petit la Creu and trudged through the village, past the pretty church with its slender tower, taking a right-hand turn down a side street towards the supermarket and the police station. They passed no one. Neither was there any activity in any of the shops. Some of the stores were illuminated, some were not. The lights were all on in the supermarket, but there were no people, neither customers nor staff, to be seen through the windows.
A four-wheel-drive police vehicle with snow chains on its tyres was parked in the yard. The police station itself was a small, unprepossessing concrete building almost hiding behind the supermarket. They pushed open the heavy glass and steel door, and then opened a second door onto a small space furnished with a white melamine reception desk and three moulded plastic chairs.
Jake shouted loudly. This time he didn’t call Shop!
Zoe stepped behind the melamine counter, to a door behind it plastered with posters and notices. She tapped on the door, and when no one answered she pushed it open. There was a cramped office equipped with a couple of desks, PCs, a printer, a bank of filing cabinets, a coffee machine. The red light on the coffee machine was switched on, and half a pot of coffee was still warming. There was an anteroom visible with a coat rack and a police coat hanging on a peg.
‘Hello!’
They sat at the police desks for half an hour, hands dug into their coat pockets, trying to figure out what to do.
‘Okay,’ Jake said. ‘The entire village has been evacuated. Why? Avalanche risk. That’s the explanation. Sometimes these avalanches—big avalanches, not the kind we got caught in this morning—can take out an entire village like this. Happened near Chamonix a few years ago and pushed over twenty chalets. And all this snow falling has increased the risk. So everyone’s gone.’
‘How come they just left us?’
‘Maybe they thought we were killed in the avalanche this morning.’
‘Wouldn’t there be rescue teams?’
‘Look, I don’t know. All I know is the place has been evacuated, and we need to get out of here and pretty quick.’
‘Right. How?’ Zoe said.
‘That’s the… that’s just it. We can walk. We could get some skis from a store and try to make it further down the mountain. But I don’t much fancy that, given what we know, and given what happened this morning.’