Silent Witness (Dr. Patrick Grant)

by Margaret Yorke

  It would be safe to sit here for a while, where it was more comfortable than in his cell-like room. Bernard would not allow himself the thought that it was a relief not to be sitting in a blizzard on a chair-lift, swinging through the blinding snowfall, or straining all the muscles in his legs twisting his way down the mountain side. He crossed to a shelf which held a row of tattered paperbacks in several languages, studied the titles, and selected one. Then, hanging his anorak over the back of his chair, he settled himself in a corner behind a potted palm and began to read.

  II

  Sue Carter, too, was reading, but upstairs, stretched out on her bed, and her book was about Renaissance Italy, for she perpetually struggled to repair gaps in her cultural knowledge. Her friend, Liz Morris, with whom she shared a double room in the old timbered part of the Gentiana, was finishing the crossword in the previous weekend’s Sunday Times. She looked up from time to time to see how Sue was making out with Michelangelo; soon, heavy breathing indicated that the diet was too much after a large lunch : Sue slept.

  Liz gave up the puzzle, wrote on a piece of paper in big capitals GONE FOR WALK. MAY CALL AT FERDY’S, and put it under Sue’s hairbrush on their shared dressing-table; then she collected her purse, her bright blue anorak and her gloves, and went quietly from the room.

  Before going out of the building she looked into the hotel lounge and saw Bernard by his potted palm, deep in Sons and Lovers. Near the window was the bridge four: Barbara Whittaker was, as usual, dressed like someone pictured in a glossy magazine, today in a gold sweater and pants, with her hair newly rinsed to match. She alone of the guests staying in the Gentiana was unperturbed by the constant bad weather, for she did not ski; she liked, though, to acquire a becoming tan from sitting in the sun or strolling along the mountain paths, and she had done none of that so far. Her husband Francis, a grey-haired, sturdy man who spoke good German, was partnering Frau Hiller, pear-shaped and genial with immense powers of concentration; the fourth member of the table was Sam Irwin, a lean, dark man whom Sue, ever optimistic, had been delighted to find travelling out to Greutz among the band of Hickson’s holidaymakers the weekend before.

  ‘Two unattached men! What luck!’ she’d said to Liz, seeing Sam and Bernard still left with them and the Whittakers in the bus after its other passengers had all been dropped at different places on the way to Greutz.

  ‘Don’t count your chickens,’ Liz advised, dryly. ‘They’re both professional bachelors, you mark my words.’

  ‘You, Elizabeth Morris, are an embittered, twisted old has-been,’ Sue retorted. ‘Maybe they are a trifle shy, but that means nothing. I shall have a go at the dark one, he’s prettier.’

  So far her efforts had met with no success. Sam Irwin was civil but not chatty; he disappeared after breakfast each day, presumably to ski, was seldom in to lunch, and in the evenings joined the Whittakers, with whom he was soon on friendly terms.

  ‘I’m right, you see,’ said Liz. ‘He doesn’t go for dames. Barbara, being married, makes him feel safe. If he really understood women, he’d know she’s much more dangerous than we are.’

  ‘You’re too cynical by half. I pity you,’ Sue sighed.

  ‘You never will learn from past experiences,’ said Liz.

  She remembered this conversation now as she set off down the road, leaving the bridge players and Bernard, solitary with his book, behind her. There was something about Sam Irwin that puzzled her; he seemed familiar.

  The snow eddied round her as she trudged along the lane, the thick flakes swirling. After weeks spent looking forward to blue skies and champagne air, this weather was most depressing, but the only thing to do was to make the best of it; at least the hotel was comfortable and the food good, though the company was not exactly scintillating. Perhaps among today’s expected guests there would be some lively character or other who would cheer things up. As things were, the skiing prospects were poor; Liz did not enjoy groping her way down the sides of mountains in blinding blizzards. She had skied for part of every day until today, but this morning she had rebelled against another two-hour stint with her ski-class, coming snail-like down the White Run pausing on the way to do boring exercises every hundred yards or so. She was a moderate skier, but she did not go fast and she hated the regimentation of the ski-school; Sue had less experience and lacked the courage to leave the sheltering wing of the ski-lehrer, so that Liz, for want of a companion to ski with, was forced to join a class.

  That morning she had walked with Sue to the ski-school meeting place and seen her set off for the nursery slopes committed to a rigorous session of stem turns. Then she had wandered away through the village again, looking at the shops and dawdling along to while away the time; finally she had arrived at the bottom of the chair-lift and spent some time watching the hardy ones start out on their expeditions up to Obergreutz. There was a queue as the ski-classes, jostling to keep together, waited impatiently for their turns. Liz saw Bernard amid his group take his seat and be borne aloft. She noticed no one exhibiting any form of dread as they boarded their chairs. If she were to enjoy the rest of this and any future skiing holiday she must somehow conquer her fear of this mode of transport. It had taken all her self-control to endure the ride up with her class the previous day. Twin chairs were not so bad; at least then you had a companion as you glided upwards among the trees, suspended by a fragile wire. But this chair-lift was a single-seater and you rode alone. The only good thing about it was that you were not required to wear your skis, for you disembarked at a station with a platform, not on a mountain slope off which you had at once to ski out of the way of the person travelling behind. Here, old Hans helped you to alight, clasping your skis, and you walked away.

  She saw that today people were wrapping themselves in tarpaulins for protection against the weather. If she were to ride up, unhampered by the burden of her skis, with nothing to worry about except her actual person, perhaps next time she went carrying her skis she would manage better. Liz found ascending mountains far more of a problem than coming down. There was a restaurant at Obergreutz, above the chair-lift; she could fortify herself with a grog or two and then ride back again; the footpath down would be impassable after such a heavy snowfall.

  She stepped into line.

  Her turn came all too soon. She accepted a tarpaulin sheet from the attendant, wrapped it skirtwise round her hips, and went forward to the spot from which the chair would scoop her up. It came clanking round, she swung herself on it, seizing the pole by which it was suspended, and was whisked up and out, over the river and the roofs of the buildings below. She shut her eyes, groping for the bar to fasten herself in. Once that was safely closed in front of her she wriggled back, opened her eyes, and exhaled the breath she had held since take-off.

  Fool, relax, she told herself. Small children travelled like this with neither qualms nor accident. She looked upwards, but the swirling snow blinded her and she could only just see the back of the person in the chair ahead. By no stretch of imagination could the scenery be admired in such conditions; survival was all.

  The journey ended rather suddenly, for it was impossible to see the landing-stage from any great distance. Clumsily Liz unfastened the bar of her seat and got stiffly off on to the platform, shuffling in her tarpaulin skirt out of the way of the next alighting passenger. Everyone was going straight from the lift up into the restaurant above, which was brightly lit and very warm. Soon she was sipping a hot grog and beginning to thaw.

  There was a constant bustle as people came and went; the intrepid ones would make the round trip several times in the morning. Liz could see through the window beside her some of these dedicated folk mounting higher still to take their turn on the twin anchor drag up which she had ridden herself yesterday in only light snow. She had gone up partnered by Jan van Hutter, a big, jolly Dutchman in her ski-class, whose height and weight had tilted the hook alarmingly.

  Liz had just ordered her second grog when Francis Whittaker entered the restau
rant. He pulled his black wool cap off as he came in and ran a hand over his greying hair, looking round the room to see who was there. Recognising Liz, he came over.

  ‘Hullo! May I join you?’ he asked, and sat down facing her.

  ‘Depressing, isn’t it, day after day? It’s such damp snow, this stuff, gets in everywhere.’ As he spoke he mopped his face with a large silk handkerchief; melted snow had trickled from his hair and eyebrows over his cheeks.

  ‘It’s not improving,’ Liz said, peering through the window.

  ‘No,’ Francis agreed. ‘It’s getting worse,’ he said. ‘And it’s so mild. They’ll be closing the runs soon. Look, they’re going to stop the anchor.’

  Sure enough, higher up the slope people were being turned away from the double drag; it would be stopped when the last pair on it had reached the top.

  ‘Are you going down alone?’ Francis inquired.

  ‘By chair. I’m a fraud, I’m not skiing,’ Liz answered. ‘I just came up for the ride and now I’m stoking up with some Dutch courage before risking my neck again.’

  ‘Don’t you like the chair? What on earth made you come up on a day like this, then?’ Francis asked. ‘You should have waited for the sunshine.’

  ‘Then I might have waited till next year,’ said Liz. ‘I wanted familiarity to breed contempt.’

  ‘And has it?’

  ‘No. I doubt if it ever will.’

  ‘It’s perfectly safe.’

  ‘Oh, I know that. But I don’t like the disembodied feeling. I should understand absolutely if someone went berserk when travelling on it and flung themselves off.’

  ‘What a gruesome idea,’ said Francis.

  ‘Why didn’t Sue and I plump for somewhere where you go up the mountains by cable-car?’ lamented Liz. From where she sat, she could see the red cabin about to start down the valley to Kramms. ‘I suppose it would be rather a long way to walk to Greutz from Kramms if I went back by cable car.’

  ‘You could get a taxi, perhaps. But the road might be blocked,’ Francis said. ‘What about flying? Do you hate that too?’

  ‘No, oddly enough I don’t. Inconsistent, isn’t it? Of course, one’s cocooned in a plane, it’s not like being exposed to the elements, held back just by a metal bar one could easily slip under.’

  ‘I suppose you could,’ he conceded. ‘I’m rather a snug fit myself in those chairs, once I’m fastened in. I enjoy them, I admit. It’s always so peacefully quiet, and in fine weather it’s glorious, with the mountains and the sky all around you and no human nearer than the chair in front.’

  ‘If we had some good weather I might get braver,’ Liz said. Her second grog came, and Francis ordered one for himself.

  ‘A grog is a good idea, however one means to get down,’ he remarked, watching while she stirred sugar into her steaming drink. ‘This place must be doing well today; no one’s going straight down.’

  ‘Does it belong to the Scholler family? They seem to own most of Greutz.’

  ‘No, it’s run by people from Kramms,’ Francis said.

  ‘It must be a bit eerie, marooned up here when none of the lifts are running and it’s snowing hard.’

  ‘Horrible. I believe they go down to Kramms most nights, in fact, and only sleep up here if they do get stuck because of the weather.’

  ‘I should think that must be quite often,’ Liz observed, grimly.

  Various people spoke to Francis as they sat over their drinks, and she gathered that he had been to Greutz many times before. He talked to his various acquaintances in rapid German; Liz could not follow it at all.

  ‘Sorry, how rude. You don’t speak German?’ he apologised.

  ‘No. Only a few words for shopping,’ Liz replied. ‘You seem to be fluent.’

  ‘I picked it up during the war,’ Francis told her.

  ‘You were in Germany?’

  ‘I was a prisoner,’ Francis said. ‘But I managed to escape after a couple of years.’

  ‘You must have had a few adventures!’

  ‘I did. But I spent ages lying up, in hiding. That was frustrating more than anything.’

  ‘In France?’

  ‘No, in Austria. Quite near here,’ he said. ‘That was when I learned to ski.’

  ‘You got into Switzerland eventually?’

  ‘Yes, in the end.’ Francis finished his drink. ‘It was all a long time ago. Look, there’s that fellow, what’s-his-name, who sits at your table,’ he added, looking over towards the doorway.

  He seemed to want to change the subject. Liz would have liked to listen to an account of his war-time exploits, but she turned to see whom he meant, and recognised Bernard Walker coming into the restaurant at the tail of a group of men; he stood blinking behind his spectacles, which were all steamed up.

  ‘Is he really with you?’ Francis asked.

  ‘No. We just travelled out together and were put at the same table for meals,’ Liz said. ‘Sue and I are on our own.’

  ‘Oh, I see. It’s sometimes difficult to make out the relationships within a group, when you’re only on the fringe of it,’ said Francis.

  ‘It’s sometimes difficult when you’re right in the middle of it,’ Liz remarked, and he laughed.

  Alone of those who had travelled to Greutz under the auspices of Hickson’s Holidays the previous weekend, and clearly at their own insistence, the Whittakers ate at a table apart; everyone else was placed at one big table.

  ‘Bernard’s an odd creature,’ Liz went on. ‘He’s a real loner. He doesn’t seem able to pause anywhere long enough to have a conversation.’

  ‘He’s certainly a glutton for punishment on the mountain,’ Francis said. ‘He seems to be with a class now, but I’ve noticed he goes up for an extra run at the end of every morning or afternoon, when everyone else is packing it in.’

  ‘That’s just the way to break a leg,’ Liz said. ‘Having another run when you’re tired. It’s a classic recipe for disaster.’

  ‘What a pessimist you are,’ said Francis. ‘But you’re right. That and running off the piste into deep snow.’ He finished his drink and looked out of the window. ‘We’d better be off,’ he said. ‘They’ll stop the chair soon if it goes on snowing like this and then we’ll have a problem.’

  ‘Oh heavens!’ Liz began pulling on her anorak, looking apprehensively out of the window. ‘How horrible it looks. I must have been mad to come up.’

  ‘You’ll soon be safely back in beleagured, snowbound Greutz. Think of something nice while you’re in your chair,’ he advised.

  ‘Like what?’ asked Liz, with a smile. ‘A Mozart concerto?’

  ‘Well, I had in mind something less exalted, more on the lines of another hot grog,’ Francis answered.

  Liz thought of this encounter now as she walked down the village street. It had been a pleasant interlude in the dull day. What a pity Francis had brought his wife to Greutz, she reflected idly; many men left their non-skiing partners at home. A mild affaire would liven up the snowy siege they seemed to be in for, but the trouble was such things could seldom be kept within bounds, in her experience. It simply wasn’t worth getting all steamed up over something that must finish in a fortnight; like Bernard, but for different reasons, she shrank from risk. It was Sue who always got involved, and now she was beginning to despair because no chance had come her way after a whole week in Greutz.

  ‘Your charms are waning,’ Liz had said, dryly.

  ‘There isn’t any talent,’ Sue had answered.

  Liz sometimes wondered why they went on holiday together. They had been friends at college, and after Liz’s marriage had crashed, she had been glad of Sue, who was dependably kind and cheerful. But now she had carved for herself a settled life which did not expose her to emotional hazards. Only rarely did she admit her underlying loneliness. She disapproved when Sue became entangled; and Sue grew irritated at what she called Liz’s ‘stuffed shirt attitude’. But friendships formed in youth endure, despite the opposing views whic
h may develop later.

  If the snow went on falling like this it would be dreadful. There was nothing to do in a ski-resort but ski. Walking was limited to the few cleared paths in the village; you could not strike off up the mountain side. The Grand Hotel had a swimming pool, and that might occupy an hour, but some stimulating company would be quite a help. Apart from Francis Whittaker, whom Liz knew she would like to get to know, she had met no one remotely interesting. Penny, the courier, was merely a pleasant girl, intent on her own social life once the interests of her clients had been dealt with; Fiona, the disc jockey, was the sort of young woman Liz hoped never to find working in her office. Barbara Whittaker doubtless had the successfully married woman’s contempt for her failed sister. Frau Hiller looked rather nice; she had a rich, warm laugh which Liz had heard once or twice. Liz knew she spoke some English, but had never had a chance to talk to her for unless she was with the Whittakers, she seemed to spend most of her time in her room. The other people in the hotel were mostly German speaking, though whether they were in fact German, Austrian or Swiss Liz did not know, and they seemed to be in groups of four or six, all self-sufficient. Liz almost shared Sue’s disappointment over Bernard and Sam, but she had met lone spinster men before and thought that this described the pair of them.