Charlotte Pass

by Lee Christine

  ‘So, these were the hoods?’ he said, lifting back the metal cover. ‘Geez, there’s some weight in that.’

  ‘You can sit in it,’ urged Chloe.

  Ryder ducked his head and climbed into the metal seat, bringing his feet up to rest on the thin metal footrest. Despite the central heating in the museum, the cold steel seeped through the layers of his clothing until he could feel it chilling his spine. ‘It must have been freezing on these things.’

  Chloe nodded. ‘Very uncomfortable.’

  ‘I’ll put the cover down,’ said Flowers. ‘Watch your head.’

  The space was so confined, Ryder needed to hunch over. ‘I feel like I’m taking a ride in one of those kids’ Ferris wheels,’ he said, looking at Chloe and Flowers through the rectangular gap. ‘The wind must have been ferocious that year, to blow these things into the pylons.’ He grabbed a metal handle that was welded to the inside of the hood and raised the cover. ‘I wouldn’t like to be trying to push that up in a blizzard.’ He straightened up. ‘It’s heavy enough as it is.’

  Chloe watched as he carefully lowered the cover. ‘Well, now you’ve seen the infamous chairlift, detectives, what do you think?’

  ‘I think when it went down, it took many secrets with it,’ said Ryder.

  ‘The story of the old chairlift is a fascinating one,’ Chloe said as Flowers took photos of the red cab. ‘Not many people know about it, even those who come to ski in the mountains year after year. Some locals think the entire thing should be erased from the landscape. Others feel the ruins should remain part of our history, the way silos and water reservoirs are preserved.’

  Ryder nodded. ‘It seems this chairlift has always been contentious.’

  ‘Oh, there’s no doubt about that.’

  At the front desk, Chloe wrote her contact details on a white card, the silver ring she wore on her thumb gleaming in the light of the fluorescents. Ryder pocketed the card without looking at it.

  ‘Do you live in the village?’ Flowers asked as they walked back to the entrance.

  ‘No, in Jindabyne. I have two dogs. They aren’t allowed in the National Park.’

  ‘French bulldogs?’ asked Ryder.

  ‘Yes. How did you know?’

  Ryder merely smiled and raised a hand in farewell.

  Nine

  ‘Nigel Miller told me Celia refused to get on that lift,’ Ryder said from where they sat in the back row of the oversnow. This late in the afternoon, the vehicle was empty. It trundled along the winding road, flicking snow into the air from beneath its caterpillar treads.

  ‘Was Celia afraid of heights?’ asked Flowers.

  ‘Not according to her husband. He said she didn’t trust the lift not to break down. She wouldn’t even get on it to go up to the restaurant.’

  ‘Smart girl,’ said Flowers. ‘So, if she wouldn’t get on it in fine weather, why would she get on it during a snowstorm?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering about that, too.’ Ryder could understand why the chairlift hadn’t figured prominently in Lew’s investigation. The chairlift was supposed to have been closed at 4.30 pm. Celia was heard arguing with Nigel right before his 5 pm set. And Lew had been searching for a missing person. With the chairlift closed before Celia had even left the inn, any copper would have discounted it and concentrated the search along the road between Charlotte Pass and Perisher Valley. The road they were travelling along now.

  ‘Okay,’ Ryder went on, ‘who had the most to lose when everything started going wrong with the chairlift?’

  ‘Well, Charlotte Pass, obviously.’

  ‘That’s Henry and Di Gordon. I’m assuming they were the “interested parties” Chloe spoke of. They’re the holders of the ninety-nine–year lease.’

  Flowers’ eyebrows shot up. ‘Is that the set-up at Charlotte’s?’

  ‘Yep. It’s Crown land.’

  ‘Well, people get desperate when their livelihoods are threatened,’ Flowers mused. ‘Maybe they tried to hush up the problems with the chairlift. If Celia knew there was a risk to the public, she could have threatened to blow the whistle.’

  Ryder shook his head. ‘The ski community’s small. News spreads fast, especially bad news. The operational problems would have been all over the newspapers. Celia wouldn’t have been telling them anything they didn’t already know.’ He told Flowers about the ongoing affair between Nigel and Di Gordon.

  Flowers gave a disgusted snort. ‘Miller sounds like a real standup kinda guy. No wonder she was going to leave him.’

  ‘So, who had motive?’

  ‘Well, Di Gordon for one.’

  Ryder nodded. ‘With Celia out of the way, Di could have ditched her husband and had Nigel for herself. If she wanted him, that is.’

  ‘But why murder Celia and go to the trouble of burying her up on Mount Stillwell? Would Di be physically capable of doing that, even back then? If they wanted to be together, why not just get a divorce?’

  ‘It was the sixties, Flowers. No-fault divorce didn’t become law until 1975. In most cases, the party who could prove the marriage breakdown was the fault of their spouse got awarded more money from the property settlement. And there were two marriages at stake here. We know Celia and Nigel argued, and she told him she was going to get a divorce. These things don’t happen overnight. Back then, she would have needed proof of his infidelity. Maybe she’d been waiting for an opportunity to get a photograph of the two of them in bed together.’

  ‘Nigel could have killed her after she revealed she was leaving him,’ Flowers suggested.

  ‘Lewicki always suspected he did, and he didn’t know Miller was having an affair with Di at the time. It’s not in the file.’

  ‘So, why do you think Miller’s admitted to it now? It shows motive.’

  Ryder shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe because the affair’s been over for decades. Perhaps he’s trying to cast suspicion onto Di Gordon and away from himself. I suspect his relationship with her husband isn’t good. When I asked about that, he was pretty tight-lipped.’

  The oversnow ground to a halt, giving way to a sister vehicle rumbling past in the other direction. In the glow from its interior light, Ryder could see it was packed with day trippers returning home, as well as the media contingent who had been reporting on Winterfest. The Gordons might be saddled with providing lodging to the police, but the media had no choice but to base themselves in Perisher. Charlotte’s signal was too weak to upload the news footage they had taken during the day.

  ‘Okay, let’s keep going,’ said Ryder, as the oversnow set off again.

  Flowers reached for the grab handle, steadying himself against the vehicle’s body roll.

  ‘Henry would have had motive, too. All he needed for proof of infidelity was a photo of his wife and Nigel Miller in bed.’

  ‘And with that, he could have got the lion’s share of the property settlement, which included the lease on Charlotte Pass.’

  Flowers snorted. ‘That would be the lion’s share of nothing, Sarge, if they were going to end up bankrupt.’

  ‘Or the lion’s share of a fortune, Flowers, if it all worked out.’

  ‘Lewicki always suspected that relationship issues were at the centre of the investigation,’ Ryder said when they were back at the inn. ‘Damn. I wish we had a whiteboard.’ He made a circuit of the desk, trying to pull the threads together in his mind. He glanced at Flowers, who was perched on the side of the desk. ‘So … Celia decides her marriage is over—she tells Nigel. That brings things to a head and she wants to get away. Leave aside for a minute the time the chairlift was supposed to have been shut down. Celia is so upset and desperate to get out of the village that she puts her fear aside and somehow manages to get on that lift. The rest is simple. The chair slams into a tower fracturing her skull. A pylon is blown over. She goes down with the chair, coming to a sudden stop when she hits the ground. There’s the deceleration injuries Harriet told us about.’ Ryder stopped pacing and looked at Flowers, wh
o’d slumped into the dining room chair. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Impossible, Sarge.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Ryder, surprised at Flowers’ quick comeback.

  ‘She was too light to travel in that cab on her own.’ Flowers leaned across the desk and dragged the Delaney file towards him. ‘That safety report I read … ’ he said, turning over the pages on the spike. ‘Here it is, it’s from the Department of Labour and Industry. It states that every cab needed to carry a certain weight to stabilise it. They needed two people to do that. Celia weighed seven stone six pounds back then, that’s about forty-eight kilos. There’s no way the liftie would have let her get on that lift on her own, not if he wanted to keep his job. If he did, he’s culpable.’

  Ryder stared at Flowers for a moment before nodding slowly. ‘Bruno Lombardi. Good work, Flowers. Could she have slipped past the liftie without him seeing her?’

  ‘She could have. Passengers were able to self-load onto that chairlift. But if she’d done that, then who the hell buried her?’

  Ryder smiled and clapped his partner on the shoulder. ‘Well done. You might have ambitions of becoming a police prosecutor but you’re beginning to think like a detective. Okay, so we’ve established that the Gordons had motive and so did Nigel Miller—’

  A rustling sound coming from the sitting room had Ryder turning around. ‘What was that?’

  In the other room, they found a large, white envelope lying on the carpet just in front of the door. Ryder picked it up and turned it over in his hands. Blank, and sealed. He opened the door and looked down the corridor towards the top of the staircase.

  ‘Is anyone out there?’ asked Flowers from behind.

  Ryder shook his head. ‘No.’ He tore open the envelope and took out a large black-and-white photograph framed by a white border. A ‘With Compliments’ slip pinned to the corner showed the photograph had been left by Flowers’ contact at the alpine club.

  Ryder studied the photograph. A young Aidan Smythe was seated on a lounge with a woman perched on his knee. Di Gordon flanked one side of the group, Henry the other. Nigel Miller and his bandmates stood, holding their instruments and laughing—except the drummer, who held his drumsticks and poked out his tongue. Celia stood next to Nigel, a wooden smile on her face. Ryder recognised the fireplace and the arched windows in the background. ‘This was taken here at the inn. Downstairs.’

  ‘Who’s the woman sitting on Aidan Smythe’s knee?’ Flowers asked, leaning in for a closer look.

  ‘I’m guessing it’s his wife, Carmel. She was his fiancée back then.’ Ryder turned the photograph over. Sure enough, the names and date were written on the back. ‘This photo was taken a couple of days before Celia’s death and, yes, it says here the woman is Carmel, and apparently the band was called “Trippin” back then.’

  ‘That’s so weird, Sarge. Every person in that photo is here for Winterfest, except for Celia. It’s like some reunion in an Agatha Christie novel.’ Flowers glanced at him, excitement flashing in his eyes. ‘You know, where all the people who were here back then have returned to the scene of the crime years later.’

  ‘That makes for good fiction, Flowers, but let’s try to stick to the facts.’ Ryder slid the photograph back into the envelope. ‘The groomer asked for snow fences to be built close to the grave site. That put people up in that area. They discovered the bones, which led to us finding the grave. And we know that grave had been interfered with. Someone’s been leaving flowers up there, among the trees and away from the groomed runs where most people ski. So, how and when did this all start? When the groomer asked for the snow fences to be built. The odds are decreasing by the minute, don’t you think?’

  ‘So, you believe Lombardi’s the key to all this?’

  Ryder nodded. ‘Bring him in after I’ve interviewed the Gordons. And I want to talk to Aidan Smythe as well. The timing of this can’t be a coincidence.’

  ‘Do you think Lombardi did it so the body would be discovered during Winterfest, when the place is crawling with media?’

  Ryder walked towards the windows and gazed out at the darkening mountain. ‘I think whoever’s been leaving posies on Celia’s grave thinks she should be here, at the reunion.’

  Ten

  Day 4

  The former ski champion had kept himself in good shape, the only sign of his prosperous lifestyle a small paunch visible when he sat down.

  ‘Thanks for agreeing to talk to us, Mr Smythe,’ said Ryder.

  ‘I’m happy to help in any way I can.’

  Ryder held up the portable recording device. ‘I’m going to record our conversation because my handwriting is really crappy,’ he said ruefully. ‘Sometimes when I go back, I can’t read it.’

  Smythe gave a brief nod. ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘I’ll start by noting a few details. Where is your place of residence?’

  ‘I live in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada.’

  ‘When did you move to Whistler?’

  ‘In 1970.’

  ‘And prior to that?’

  ‘Prior to that I lived in Jindabyne, and then in the Dolomites in Italy for five years.’

  ‘You lived there while you were skiing professionally?’

  ‘Yes. Back then, Europe was the grail. Now it’s the US.’

  ‘Why Italy?’

  ‘My wife preferred it to France, and I preferred the food. Races are held all over Europe—Switzerland, Italy, France. The choice was ours to make.’

  ‘What prompted the move to Whistler?’

  ‘They offered me a job,’ he said with a smile. ‘Very important because we were about to start a family. We jumped at it. We loved living in Europe, but the language barrier was difficult in those days. It’s much easier now.’

  ‘Did you need a job?’

  ‘Sure, I did.’ Smythe’s accent was a pleasant fusion of Canadian and Australian. ‘Professional racing was a lifestyle—it didn’t really pay. When I see what the racers earn today, I think I was born too early.’

  ‘Your wife’s family are wealthy?’

  Smythe’s smile died. ‘I don’t see how that has any bearing on anything.’

  ‘It’s true though, isn’t it?’ Ryder pushed. ‘Your father-in-law built a lot of the infrastructure around here, including the ski tube?’

  ‘Yes, the company he started are involved in a lot of projects. They bore out tunnels for underground motorways and things.’

  ‘You never considered joining the family business?’

  Smythe hesitated for a few moments, as though he resented the further probing into his in-law’s affairs. ‘Carmel was keen for me to join the company,’ he said reluctantly, ‘but it meant coming back to Australia permanently, and … skiing’s my thing, you know. The terrain in the northern hemisphere is so much more expansive, and the mountains a hell of a lot steeper. Our children were born in Canada, too. It’s home to them.’

  ‘Do you get back here often?’

  ‘To Australia? Not as often as I’d like.’

  ‘Rarely?’

  ‘We’ve been back a few times over the years, for special birthdays and family weddings and the like. My parents died long ago but Carmel’s parents are still alive. They’re in aged care and very frail, so we’ll be coming back more often.’

  ‘You’ve never been back here, to Charlotte Pass?’

  ‘No. A visit is long overdue.’

  ‘I want to ask you about the weekend in July 1964. You were here, weren’t you, when the old chairlift that went up Mount Stillwell was buried?’

  ‘I was.’ Smythe leaned forward, at ease again now the emphasis was off his family. ‘It was one of those natural disasters you never forget.’

  ‘Tell me about that weekend.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell. It was a simple matter of survival.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘For a start, the weather was a threat to everyone’s physical survival. The power was out. People were freezing. Emergency sup
plies couldn’t get through. I’ll never forget that morning when we woke up. The chairlift was torn apart and buried by huge snowdrifts. There was this awful feeling that the place was doomed. It was very sad.’

  ‘When did you learn that Celia Delaney was missing?’

  Smythe frowned. ‘Nigel’s Celia? Celia Miller?’

  ‘Yes, though she went by her maiden name.’ According to Lew’s file notes, Celia had grown tired of her husband’s fans, and their insatiable appetite to know everything about him.

  Ryder took out the photograph of the group taken in the bar. ‘That’s her, standing behind you in the photo.’

  ‘Yes, I know who she is. I’m just trying to think back to when I heard she was missing. That was your question, wasn’t it? You’ll have to forgive me, Detective, it’s been a long time. Mostly what I remember is working until we dropped. Everyone was bone weary.’

  ‘How well did you know Celia?’

  He hesitated. ‘Not well. I knew her as Nigel’s wife.’

  ‘The four of you didn’t socialise together, away from Charlotte Pass?’

  Smythe shook his head. ‘No. Charlotte’s was a bit like that. People met up here every year for a week or two, and then left and went about their lives until the following year.’

  Ryder nodded. ‘Do you remember a lift operator who worked here back then—Bruno Lombardi?’

  Smythe hesitated. ‘No. I don’t remember anyone by that name.’

  ‘What about Burt Crofts, a lift mechanic?’

  Smythe shook his head. ‘I don’t remember him either. I’m sorry.’

  ‘The afternoon before the storm—the storm that hit with ferocity that night …’

  ‘Hmm.’ Smythe’s gaze was direct as he concentrated on the question.

  ‘The chairlift was shut down around four-thirty that afternoon. Do you remember where you were at the time?’

  ‘Not specifically, but I would have been out on the hill. That was a bumper season, Sergeant, and I was just about to leave for Europe. I was taking advantage of the conditions every single minute, I know that.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ said Ryder, switching off the recorder and pushing back his chair. ‘Well, I guess that’s all I need for now. It’s a shame this had to happen during your week of celebrations.’