“They belong to the Women’s North Wales Adventure Team,” said Bryant, “but they’re pretty big lasses, so we could probably fit them, although the flies do up on the wrong side.”
In minutes, the pair had zipped themselves into ungainly but practical outfits, although they had been forced to roll up the legs and stuff spare socks into the toes of the boots. They clambered from the truck like spacemen, and stopped to examine the road. Snow was still falling, but now the flurries were light and manageable. The exact number of stranded vehicles was hard to determine, but the jewelled spine of traffic snaked around the next bend in the valley like the bones of a great dinosaur.
“Let’s start with the cars nearest the spot where we found the dead Bentick’s driver,” said May, hauling his floundering partner out of a deep drift. They reached the abandoned truck, but were unable to open the frozen door. Scraping ice from the window, May saw that the body had frozen solid. “At least the temperature will preserve it until we can get it to a morgue,” he said. “I think our murderer must have gone back. I haven’t seen anyone pass us. No sign of the witness either, and we’ll need his statement. Let’s start with the cars behind.”
They approached a blue Nissan and scraped at the window. “Empty,” said Bryant. “Next one.”
A black BMW and a red Fiat were both abandoned, but in a silver Mercedes saloon they found a young couple fast asleep, warm and safe beneath all-weather jackets. A straggle-haired businessman still dressed in a tightly knotted tie mouthed at them through the window of his Vauxhall Signum, indicating that he could not open the door. May ran the edge of his penknife around the edges, but it made no difference. Ice had frozen the wet seals as firmly as if they had been welded shut.
“What’s he saying?” asked May, trying to read the driver’s lips.
“He’s from Kettering,” said Bryant.
“I’m in catering,” said the driver, opening the window an inch before it stuck. “I’ve got plenty of food to last, so don’t worry about me. The same thing happened two years ago. To be honest, it made a nice break from the wife. You might take an Eccles cake back to the lady behind me. It’s all I can pass through the window.” He slid the cake through the gap. “She looks very upset.”
The detectives trudged farther back. A grey-faced woman in a green Barbour jacket watched them anxiously. The door of her Volvo saloon was iced shut, but she could open one of the rear passenger windows. “We’re police officers,” Bryant explained, tapping the glass. “Don’t open this to anyone else. Have an Eccles cake. Do you need anything else?”
She shook her head miserably. “I’ve been listening to the radio. There are people much worse off than me. I manage a farm outside Holbeton. My husband knows I’m here. There was a man outside a while ago, just after dawn. He tried to get in, but couldn’t open the door.”
“What did he look like?”
“I’m sorry, it was dark and snowing, I really didn’t see.”
“At least the ice is preventing him from entering other cars,” said Bryant as they made slow progress up the hill.
“He’ll be able to get into trucks, though. Their cabins are built to withstand extreme weather.”
“If this fellow knows there was a witness, that Chinese chap will be at risk. I wish he’d stayed with us. Any one of these stranded motorists could be the person we’re looking for.”
“Given the circumstances, he’ll be hiding in plain sight. My concern is over our situation here. There’s no backup, no threat of legal retribution we can invoke. The man we seek will probably be younger and fitter than us.”
“My dear chap,” said Bryant, ‘everyone is younger and fitter than us. What have we got on our side? Decrepitude, mid-afternoon narcoleptic attacks and ill-timed lapses of memory. Although being the oldest, I am of course less afraid of dying and therefore liable to do anything, no matter how uncalled-for and dangerous.“
May eyed him warily. “Thanks for the warning.”
“Now, we need to enlist some aid and organise a search. There are plenty of others trapped out here. It’s no use just waiting for the authorities to turn up. Let’s do what we’ve always done at the PCU, and get some civilians to help us.”
A quarter of a mile from the detectives, in the half-buried Vauxhall van, Madeline’s thoughts were also turning to her nemesis. He took me to the huntsman’s villa in the hills, she remembered, standing watch over Ryan while he peed circular traces in the snowdrift beside the car. He knew its owner was lying dead on the floor. Why would he have taken such a risk? ‘Finished?“ she asked aloud. ”Let’s get back inside.“
“Can’t I play for a while?” Ryan peered up at her over the folds of his scarf.
“No, it’s not safe. In you go.”
“All this snow and I can’t build a snowman-what else is it good for, anyway?”
It keeps us trapped here, she thought. He’s from a village in the mountains; he knows how to get around in weather like this.
“I’m hungry,” said Ryan. “How much longer are we going to be here?”
“It won’t be long now.” The van and its engine were frozen into a single solid, but their combined body heat, together with the warmth from an extra blanket they had discovered under the rear passenger seat, had guaranteed their survival. There were patches of brilliant blue in the sky, and although the wind still seemed high it felt milder than the previous day. She could hear trees creaking and dripping. Perhaps Johann had decided to leave them alone, and had struck out in the direction of the nearest town. Perhaps the worst was over.
The envelope with the passport and the photographs lay on the floor of the van, behind her legs. This time, she knew, she would do the right thing, and have him stopped before he could hurt anyone else. She laid her head back against the seat rest and closed her eyes, just for a moment, not meaning to fall asleep.
Johann’s leg still hurt, and the icy wind bit deeply into his chest and thighs, numbing them further. He had slept the night in an abandoned carpenter’s van which had, at least, supplied him with some useful tools, but he needed to find weatherproof clothes. This, he felt, was to be his greatest test, a battle fought with the demons that had pursued him all his life, the same demons that pursue all lonely men. If I can’t convince her to see the truth, I have nothing left, he thought. / know no-one else in this terrible country. She has to be here somewhere. All these cars look the same now. She even has nature working on her side.
He could see drivers hunched across their seats, vague organic shapes huddled down in positions of protection, barely recognisable as human beings. They had been reduced to rudimentary life-forms with the most basic requirements: shelter, food, warmth. The adverse conditions could work in his favour, he decided. He was free to rise above them, to prove his fitness and strength, against them all.
He knew that Madeline would never come back to him; that was no longer the issue. Part of her had retreated too far to be reached. He had behaved stupidly, impulsively, and saw nothing but uncomprehending hatred and the madness of maternal protection in her eyes. He would make her understand, then take back the packet and go on his way, lose himself in the empty coastal towns, never returning to the fierce light of Southern France, where he would be forced to exist as a failure beneath God’s ever-watchful gaze.
He seated the carpenter’s tools more firmly in his back pocket and trudged on, searching each of the vehicles in turn. He felt he was close; the corridor of snow had locked them in at either end of the stretch of road. He could escape across the moor, hoping that the break in the weather held. In the mountains of his childhood, storms could arrive within seconds, trapping unwary climbers. He had watched clouds roll over the cliffs like the fallout from some great explosion. Was it the same here, in these deceptive woodlands? And the people; he had always considered the residents of the Alpes-Maritimes to be a suspicious, private people, but they were nothing compared to these faceless shapes sealed in their cars. What would it take to prise Madeline from her hiding place?