by steve higgs
Just then there was a knock at the door, which opened inwards when Hubert called out, ‘Come.’ The person on the other side was a man dressed like a business man in a tailored suit, his eyes wide behind round glasses.
Big Ben huffed out his breath and made a disgruntled sound; Michel was a man’s name in France.
The hotel manager was perhaps forty years old, but his hands were bereft of a ring which I took to mean he was either unmarried or long divorced but he looked young, his complexion near perfect like a schoolboy’s. Only his hair, which had a few wisps of grey provided a hint at his true age. ‘Ah, Michel.’ He turned his attention to me, ‘Michel will be able to furnish you with all the information you may need.’ Then he swung his gaze back to his hotel manager as he said, ‘These are the two gentlemen I told you about. Please give them everything they want.’
We were about to leave, so I turned to shake the client’s hand as was my custom. ‘Monsieur Caron I cannot promise a swift conclusion; however, I can assure you this will have my undivided attention until I am able to identify your daughter’s killer.’
His meaty hand closed around mine again as he pumped my arm. ‘I wish you luck. This is damaging my business more even than the unwarranted attempts of that fool across the road. I hope for a speedy conclusion.’
The police chief took that as his cue to leave, Michel backing out of the door to make room for him. Big Ben and I followed him out to find Michel waiting for us. We followed him back to reception, the two dogs sniffing along happily at my feet. There we all stopped again as he came to a halt and turned to face us.
He hit me with a professionally warm smile. ‘Your friend Jajj… Jaggit?’
‘Jagjit,’ I supplied.
‘Oui, Jagjit. He told me about a man who has no fear. A man who faces down evil creatures with a steel rod where his spine ought to be. He didn’t mention you were so handsome though.’ I considered blushing and struggled to come up with an appropriate response. I didn’t need to though because now he was looking at Big Ben. ‘And he said no harm could ever come to the man because he has a friend who is indestructible.’ His French accent was forming the words in the most sensuously sultry voice he could muster, and he was staring up at Big Ben in a way that made me think he wanted to cover him in toffee sauce and eat him with a spoon. He was gay and clearly hoped we were too.
He cocked a hip to one side as he ran his eyes up and down him. ‘Tell me, how much can you bench press? I bet it is an impressive number.’
‘It’s about four of you,’ Big Ben replied, his voice as neutral as he could manage. Like me, Big Ben was on a strictly no sausage diet when it came to relationships but though neither of us was even remotely homophobic, we were also not about to experiment either.
Michel was all but panting as he said, ‘I know you have work to do, but when you are done catching the Yeti, I may have a few tasks for you to perform.’ He wasn’t picking up on the obvious cues Big Ben was putting out. Then he stepped inside Big Ben’s personal space, clasping his arms behind his back as he did which made him look more vulnerable. ‘Don’t worry,’ he smouldered up at him, ‘I don’t bite. It’s not like I have a safety word.’ He leaned in closer to whisper loudly enough for me to hear, ‘It’s tangerine.’
Wowza. This guy was a bit full-on. There certainly wasn’t much grey area about his intentions. I took a step back from him. ‘Look, I’ll, ah. I’ll sort the dogs out and unpack. I need a Ski-Doo if you can arrange one and a map and I need a number where I can reach Priscille Peran, the lady that was injured in the attack on Monday.’ I gave Big Ben a slap on the shoulder, ‘Catch up later?’ I said with a wink.
‘Where are you going?’ Michel asked. ‘I want both of you. Per’aps you would be so kind as to Eiffel Tower me later.’
I couldn’t help my eyes brows shooting to the top of my forehead. If they had gone any faster, they might have kept going and fallen to the floor behind me. ‘Eiffel Tower you? What’s that?’ I asked genuinely mystified.
Big Ben said, ‘It’s…ah. I’ll draw you a picture later, okay?’
‘Yeah sure,’ I replied, not altogether sure I wanted to see the picture.
‘You are sweet, Tempest Michaels,’ Michel reached up to trace a finger along my collar bone and I took a step back to avoid being touched as I was getting a little weirded out by his overt intentions. He said, ‘Sweet and innocent. I will enjoy… educating you.’ His pupils were dilated to saucers as he stared into mine.
‘I think I’ll pass, but my big friend here ought to be able to satisfy your needs.’
Big Ben punched me on the shoulder. Hard.
‘Sorry, old boy,’ he said to Michel, ‘I’m strictly girls only.’
Michel looked surprised but replied with, ‘You gentlemen will not be the first to change their minds. We shall ‘ave such fun together.’
‘O-okay,’ was all I could manage in response. ‘Michel, our things were taken to our rooms, but we were not given room keys or even numbers.’
He gathered himself, recovering quickly from Big Ben’s snubbing, ‘Please come with me, gentlemen.’ At the reception desk, he spoke in French to the lady behind the counter who produced two keys and then instructed us on where to find our rooms. ‘I will have a pair of Ski-Doos at your disposal throughout your stay and will make contact with Mademoiselle Peran. She is a member of staff at the Imperial but will not be working I am certain. Will there be anything else?’
‘I need to speak with Mrs Caron.’ The hotel manager sucked in his breath. I continued, ‘Mrs Caron identified her daughter’s body, it is unfortunate, but I will need to speak with her if I am to investigate this case.’
‘Very well, Monsieur. I will pass the message. Anything else.’
One final question occurred, ‘My friend Jagjit and his wife, where can I find them?’
He turned slightly to speak again with the lady behind reception. The answer came in French and though my ability stopped at school and was quite limited, I understood the answer: They were in the Honeymoon suite. Good for them.
To Big Ben I said, ‘Time to go to work.’
I had a stack of questions for him but as we walked away it was he that asked the first one, ‘Did you notice that the client is more concerned about the prosperity of his hotel than the death of his daughter?’
I nodded grimly, ‘He barely seems upset at all.’
‘So, what’s the plan? See if we can get to the injured woman this morning and if not arrange to meet her later and set off to see the scene of the attack?’
‘That is exactly the plan,’ I replied. ‘With a brief hiatus where we get a shower and some food and a change of clothes. I need to feed the dogs and make sure they do their business before we head out too. Are you not tired?’
‘Not desperately. It’s day time now so I will probably do better to push through and get an early night,’ he replied. I had to acknowledge that he didn’t look tired. He needed a shave, we both did but in such a frigid atmosphere, I would be letting my whiskers grow instead.
His mention of an early night prompted another question though, ‘Ben, I have to ask what just went on with the hotel manager. Are we throwing off gay vibes today? Do I need to change my aftershave?’
He turned to me with a quizzical expression. ‘Really? You couldn’t tell? He’s involved mate. That little display was to throw us both off guard and distract us from what he is up to.’
I thought about that for a second. Big Ben might be onto something. We had made it upstairs to our floor, the dogs pulling hard at their leads to get to wherever it was we were going, so I was reading off room numbers as I looked for the one that matched the key in my hand. ‘Ah, here we are,’ I said. Our doors were side by side in a wide corridor tastefully fitted out with wood panelling on the walls and wooden floor boards beneath our feet. On the walls in the corridor were large black and white photographs of skiers across the decades, many of them sporting what would have been early equipment that must ha
ve been heavy and cumbersome to wear and use. The pioneers; how people fail to appreciate them.
Big Ben’s voice brought me back to the now. ‘Obviously I am used to men throwing themselves at me. It is a daily occurrence, and a consequence of being this damned handsome.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘There is an ulterior motive though. He was trying to distract us, and he might not even be gay. We will have to watch him and find out what his connection to the daughter was.’
I could present no argument and had not yet formed the same conclusion he had. I tapped my watch. ‘Rendezvous for breakfast in thirty?’
‘Roger.’ We both pushed our doors open and went inside.
Breakfast. Wednesday, November 30th 0920hrs
My suitcase and other belongings had been stacked in my room. My skis were in a compartment for them by the door along with my poles and helmet. The room itself was bigger than I had expected, commanding a view over the ski slopes and mountains of Val-d'Isère beyond. The rooms had been arranged by Hubert as part of my expenses, but I had to wonder what the standard peak season price was.
The dogs were hovering around my feet, waiting for me to unpack their bed. I wanted a shower and to clean my teeth, but their needs had to come first and the one thing I wanted to ensure I covered was their bathroom needs. Let me tell you though, my dogs aren’t as dumb as one might think. I took out their onesies again and they both hid under the bed.
I couldn’t tell whether they disapproved of the fashion or correlated putting the garment on with going back out in the cold, but they wanted none of it. Having learned long ago that positive reinforcement worked better than negative chastisement, I took out the box of gravy bones I had brought with me.
‘I’ll bet you’ll do it for a scooby snack,’ I coaxed, laying on my front to peer under the bed.
Had they been able to articulate a response it might have been, ‘No thanks. We’ll just pick a corner to pee in.’
‘Come out, boys, come on. It won’t take long if you just get on with it.’
As you might imagine, five minutes later they were outside turning the snow yellow around the corner from the hotel, but not until my coaxing had become impatient demands and eventually a frustrated use of a ski to lever them from their hiding place.
Bull especially was eyeing me with an expression that might need to be bleeped out if it could be translated. I supplied them with another gravy bone for their efforts when we got back to the room and arranged their bed beneath a radiator so they could burrow and sleep and be ridiculously hot the way Dachshunds prefer.
Finally, with their needs attended to, I was able to strip off and deal with my own scuzziness. I was hoping to find Jagjit and Alice at breakfast but hadn’t called their room as, well, they are newlyweds and might be awake but still in bed. I’m sure you can join the dots. In the shower, I ran through what I already knew.
A woman had been killed on the slopes and another woman injured. This meant I had an eyewitness that could tell me more about what she had seen. That she had reported being attacked by a Yeti made her testimony dubious at best but I didn’t want to judge too quickly, maybe she had been attacked from behind. The client came across as more upset by the potential impact to his business than the loss of his daughter and I needed to meet his wife, the dead woman’s mother, and speak with her since she had identified the body. That might be a tricky and unpleasant conversation. Back in the army, it had fallen to me on a few occasions to deliver the terrible news of a soldier’s death to a mother or a wife. Witnessing the distress, disbelief and subsequent inability to process the news had stayed with me as much as witnessing the deaths first hand myself. I wondered what Mrs Caron’s emotional state would be like. Finally, the client had accused his rival hotel owner across the street of his daughter’s murder so at least he wasn’t buying the idea that there was a real Yeti though the police chief seemed to prefer the less rational explanation.
As I dried my skin and dug out the long socks and other clothing bought specifically for skiing, I felt the familiar pull of the mystery beckoning.
The dogs came with me to the restaurant for breakfast. Unlike in England, dogs are welcome almost everywhere in many European countries and can be found under tables in restaurants all the time. I would feed them a few morsels as a peace offering for forcing them out in the cold.
Looking around for Big Ben as I came into the room, I spotted instead, a very familiar Indian chap and his lovely wife. They were across the room at a table set for four, holding hands and drinking coffee. I paused for a minute, questioning whether I was invading a private moment.
Then from behind me, I heard, ‘Oi, shagfesters. Come up for air, have you?’ Big Ben didn’t come loaded with the same sensitivity as other humans. Every head in the place turned to look at him, at which point he indicated to the staring faces that the shout had come from me. I refused to let my face colour as a hundred or more eyes questioned why I felt the need to be so loud.
Alice had seen us, of course, and waved as Jagjit, with his back to us, had to turn around to do the same. He let go his wife’s hand and stood up as we approached. ‘Hey, guys. That didn’t take you long. When did you arrive?’
Big Ben didn’t pause long at Jagjit’s table though, he was hungry and heading for the huge breakfast buffet of food on offer. ‘Mmmm, coffee,’ he said as he went by me. I echoed his sentiment, saying that I would be back once I had visited the coffee pot and followed Big Ben. By the time I got there, he had a pain au chocolat in his mouth and two more on a plate plus a mug of coffee in his right hand. Quite how he managed to stay lean when he ate so much garbage I would never fathom.
I loaded my plate with fruit and natural yoghurt, filled a mug with dark, unctuous coffee and followed Big Ben back to the table and our friends. There was a brief bout of handshaking and air kissing in Alice’s case as we settled down.
‘Hilary and Anthea will be along in a minute,’ said Jagjit. I thought I had misheard him for a moment. ‘They arrived last night,’ Jagjit explained to my confused expression. ‘They flew in. Didn’t you know they were coming?’
I shook my head and swallowed my mouthful of breakfast. ‘Hilary never mentioned it. Are their kids here?’
‘They dropped them off with Anthea’s parents,’ supplied Alice. ‘I think it was a spur of the moment thing.’
Big Ben looked up from the plate of food he was devouring, to point across the room. ‘Here they come now.’
I turned to see where he was pointing, then stood as yet another friend was joining us. Hilary was a top chap and had recently saved my life, so I felt a general warmth towards him. However, his wife Anthea and I had a difficult relationship which was entirely because she had decided at some point in the past that she didn’t like me. She had cooled a little, but only a little, though I wasn’t going to let that spoil the mood.
‘Hi, guys,’ I greeted them as they wove their way across the room. ‘I had no idea you had decided to come as well. Are you just here for a vacation?’
Hilary shook my hand and slapped me on the shoulder. ‘It was a spontaneous thing. We haven’t been skiing since the kids came along and it seemed like a perfect opportunity.’
‘I said you would just get killed without my Brian here to help,’ supplied Anthea in a less than pleasant tone. ‘That witch would have done the job if it hadn’t been for him.’
‘She most certainly would have,’ I agreed. I was quite certain she didn’t need to keep pointing out my debt to him, but I smiled and turned my attention back to her husband. ‘How’s the shoulder?’ During the battle with the witch, when he came to my rescue just as she was about to electrocute me, he had turned the weapon on her but had dislocated his arm in the process.
‘Much better,’ he said. ‘Now, I need some breakfast. I’m starving.’
Over breakfast we discussed everyone’s plan for the day. My plan was to go to the Imperial hotel to visit Priscille. I didn’t have an appointment but I did have time so I was going to as
k to see her and wait until she appeared. Big Ben would get a couple of hours sleep. The other four were going skiing, the threat of a Yeti insufficient to worry them. It hadn’t been seen on the pistes after all. However, when I mentioned that Big Ben and I intended to take Ski-Doos to the attack site, Jagjit and Hilary both wanted to come along. The ladies had no such interest so would be found in the spa they said.
With breakfast finished and feeling suitably full, we split up and went our separate ways. Big Ben was going to check with the police chief as we needed him to show us the attack site and make sure the hotel could provide another two Ski-Doos for Jagjit and Hilary. The loose plan was to head up the mountain after lunch. It was later than I intended but gave the two couples a morning on the slopes. I could busy myself snooping around in the resort until it was time to go.
As the others departed, I ran through a mental checklist, decided I had all I needed and took the dogs to find the injured Priscille.
Priscille Peran. Wednesday, November 30th 1017hrs
I had to wait in the reception of the Imperial Hotel while Priscille was located. I was expected, the man at the reception desk said, and she would be with me shortly. Michel had done as promised and passed a message that I wished to speak with her. Sitting in a large leather chair, I scanned around the area I was in. The Imperial Hotel was larger and more expensively decorated than my client’s. To my untrained eye, it appeared as if no expense had been spared when they decorated the place. Perhaps, the superior nature of the hotel was one of the reasons my client was so opposed to it. Hubert claimed his business was negatively affected but there had been a crowd at breakfast this morning, so I had to question by what percentage his revenue was down.
I had waited just long enough to begin getting bored, when a tall, well-dressed man that had been speaking with the chap on the reception desk came my way. It was clear he was coming to speak with me as there was no one else near me. I rose to greet him, but Dozer and Bull took a dislike to the man and began barking.
