Her fear for Tor was a big stone at the pit of her stomach, but so was her anger at the sheer selfishness Vivienne was displaying. Right now, Tor was just a symbol of a man Vivienne had loved, whom she had used mercilessly. She had taken Arnvald from his wife like a toy she wanted to play with, then thrown him back when she got bored of the game.
Perhaps it was naive to expect empathetic behaviour from an actress who had been on a pedestal for the vast majority of her life, worshipped and venerated, rarely contradicted, almost always getting her own way. But this latest revelation of Vivienne’s true nature meant that Skyping Angel would give Christine a break from comforting a woman who seemed much more concerned with her own past loss than the fact that Tor was in severe danger.
It was with a racing pulse that she listened to the phone ring, and when the call was answered and Angel’s face appeared on screen, she let out a breath of relief. Turning the screen around, hoicking the base of the computer clumsily on the leather top of the desk, she manoeuvred it to an angle that would allow Vivienne to see him from where she sat.
‘Christine?’ Angel was saying. ‘Christine, are you there?’
‘Yes, hold on . . . Vivienne’s here too . . .’
She returned to Vivienne’s side, perching awkwardly on one wide arm of the chair, ducking her head so that Angel could see her beside his grandmother.
‘I had to come and be with someone,’ Vivienne said to Angel. ‘I couldn’t just sit there on my own, all shaken up with worry.’
Angel was unfastening the mask from his hood so they could see his face. There was a light sprinkling of snow on the fur trim of the hood, a few flakes falling softly around him; the rising sun was bright behind him, making it hard to read his expression, but his voice was as hoarse as would be expected considering that he must have been out searching all night, calling Tor’s name.
‘There’s no news yet,’ he said. ‘We’ve been out since sunset last night with torches and flares. The air force is sending two helicopters – they should be here any minute. The snow hasn’t helped, but it seems to be slowing down now that dawn’s broken.’
‘What could have happened?’ Christine asked, leaning forward. ‘Where could he be?’
Angel threw his gloved hands wide. Looking at the view around him, Christine could tell that he was at the base of a gorge; a sheer sheet of rock rose to his left, and behind him a valley stretched out, outcroppings of grass alternating with stony patches.
‘We’re spread out and searching as widely as we can,’ he said. ‘But it’s a complete mystery. Tor went off by himself, instead of supervising a climb, and no one knows why, although he did sometimes go out to recce areas by himself for future climbs. There aren’t rock falls here or avalanches, and he’s incredibly careful – nothing should have happened to him. I saw him on his way out of camp when I was up higher on a bit of a walk myself, so I knew where he was heading – that’s helped a lot, because we were able to pretty much rule out some areas for searching—’
‘He must have fallen and knocked himself out,’ Vivienne said. ‘Or maybe a stray rock hit him. It can’t be that serious, can it? He’ll come round, he’ll hear you all calling . . . he’ll find his way back to camp . . .’
Angel nodded confidently. He was walking, the phone in his hand jigging as he picked his way over the stony ground.
‘We’ve thought he might have miscalculated somehow, fallen some distance, which is why we couldn’t originally find him,’ he said. ‘His team are sure he’d have never actually tried a tricky climb on his own – he was very safety-conscious. But it’s possible he was recceing, going along a ledge, and a bit of stone gave way beneath his feet, so we’ve climbed down to lower ground to see if he’s here. He was wearing padded clothes, which could have helped to break a fall and keep him warm overnight. It’s just that the longer it goes on, the more we really need to find him . . .’
Vivienne let out a heartfelt sob.
‘I’m sure you will!’ Christine said bravely. ‘He’s so tough! He’s probably heading back to camp now while you’re out searching for him.’
‘Absolutely,’ Angel said breezily. ‘We’ll tear him a new one for giving us the scare of a lifetime, and we’ll have forgotten about it by this time tomorrow! God, we’ll tie one on tonight! Major hangovers all round! Oops—’ He stopped dead. The screen flickered wildly as if Angel were waving the hand that was holding it around, flapping it back and forth.
‘Did you find him? Do you see him?’ Christine almost shrieked, the tension unbearably high.
‘No, it’s just some bloody sheep! I’m shooing them away from the bottom of the cliff . . . we’ve got sheep herders out looking for him too. You wouldn’t believe how high up they graze them here . . . massive great flock, too, like a carpet . . .’
Angel tilted the phone so that Christine, Vivienne, and Gregory behind them could see a scrubby flock of large sheep, dirty yellow-brown rather than white, milling around in a dense pack almost at waist height to Angel. They had obviously found a thickly grassed area in the stony terrain and didn’t want to move: Christine could hear the bleating as Angel tried to make his way through them.
‘Go on,’ he was saying to the animals, ‘go and have a drink – look, there’s a stream right there . . . It’s weird,’ he said, lifting the phone back to his face. ‘So many extremes here. Cold at the camp, still snowing, but running water down in the valley and sunshine coming through the clouds. That’s giving us hope – if Tor’s down here somewhere, knocked out, he won’t have frozen overnight. It must be a good fifteen degrees warmer down here. Bloody cold at night, though. I’m only just warming up.’
‘Oh, yes! He must be down there, having a sleep – well, almost like a sleep . . .’ Vivienne said in prayerful tones.
The screen showed Angel’s torso now, his bulky bright red jacket with the expedition logo on the right breast; he had tipped back his head, looking up into the sky. There was a loud buzzing, which Christine realized must be the arriving Bolivian air force helicopters.
‘The helicopters are coming!’ she said, doing everything she could to keep her voice calm. ‘That’s great! Vivienne, can you hear that?’
‘Two of them, right above us,’ Angel confirmed, bringing the phone back to his face. ‘I have to go. I’ll get in touch as soon as we’ve found him, I swear. And don’t turn on the news! They’ll get wind of this and start speculating and there’ll be all sorts of reports that may not be true – they might get your hopes up, or worry you . . .’
Shouts in the distance got Christine sitting up straighter, hoping that they meant Tor had been spotted. Angel disabused her immediately.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘They’re yelling at me to walk faster – we’re trying to cover as much ground as possible, steer over to areas where the helicopters might not get a clear view.’
‘Of course, of course –’ Vivienne’s hands fluttered as she waved Angel goodbye. Christine mouthed a goodbye as the image faded.
‘Now the helicopters are there, it’s going to be all right,’ she said firmly, in an attempt to convince herself. ‘That’s really great. It’s good news, Vivienne. They’re bound to find him now.’
Someone was knocking at the office door. Gregory glanced from Vivienne to Christine and, at her nod, went to answer it.
‘Christine, I’m so sorry,’ her assistant said nervously, putting her head round the door, torn between the demands of one celebrity inside with Christine, and another who had just arrived. ‘I know you’re having a meeting with Ms Winter. But the Countess of Rutland is here for her appointment . . .’
‘Yes, of course!’ Christine said, standing up, relieved that she wouldn’t have to spend any more time with Vivienne. She couldn’t have stood any more talk about Vivienne’s affair with Tor’s grandfather and how sad it was making her that Tor might be lying dead at the bottom of a Bolivian mountain, because of his resemblance to Arnvald. ‘Please show her in. Vivienne, I’m so sorry, but t
here’s nothing we can do – I have to take this meeting.’
Gregory was helping Vivienne up, a tactful hand under one elbow. She hadn’t even taken her coat off; she came to her feet ready to leave, as it were, her expression dazed.
‘They’ll find him,’ she said, looking at Christine, her great purple eyes like headlights. ‘They’ll find him, won’t they?’
‘Hey,’ the Countess could be heard saying as she and the assistant approached Christine’s office, her accent now, after a few years of living in the UK, a transatlantic blend of her native American and her husband’s upper-class English drawl, ‘if this isn’t a great time I can go get a coffee, you know? I would just love to meet Vivienne Winter, I’m her biggest fan – but if there’s some sort of crisis going down . . .’
Vivienne visibly transformed herself on hearing these words, standing up straight, pushing strands of her wig back from her face, arranging it as expertly as if she were looking in the mirror. She breathed in deeply, and when she exhaled she had assumed the public face of Vivienne Winter, international film star, about to accept accolades from a titled businesswoman who was a staple of Tatler and Vanity Fair’s social columns. Seeing that she had fully collected herself, Gregory stepped back, which was the signal for Christine to nod at her assistant to show the Countess in.
‘Oh, Ms Winter!’ the Countess exclaimed, sailing in with pageant-competitor grace, all rose-gold hair and magnificent bosom, her beautiful face enhanced by every possible treatment and make-up artifice available to millionairesses. Her level of grooming was American, not English, and in the years she had spent on this side of the Atlantic, she had not made the slightest concession to the more casual way that British women tended to present themselves. She might have been a television presenter just walked off set, her mane of hair bouncing, her make-up blended and perfected to a professional standard.
‘I’m your biggest fan!’ she assured Vivienne with superb charm and delivery. ‘I know everyone says that, but I truly am! I’m so excited about the opportunity to become part of your legacy. You simply are the greatest movie star who’s ever lived.’
This was perfectly judged. Vivienne immediately blossomed, extending a hand to the Countess, who took it and pressed it with a bow of her head that indicated vast quantities of humility and respect. Christine watched them exchange pleasantries while Gregory and Christine’s assistant hovered behind them like attendant servants from a Restoration comedy; Vivienne graciously complimented the Countess on her enormous pink diamond engagement ring.
Christine felt as if she had taken huge amounts of tranquillizers. She might have been viewing the scene through a thick sheet of glass. Nathan appeared at the door, unable to resist this opportunity to witness an encounter between two such glorious and unashamed divas. His expression was ecstatic as he took in the sight of Vivienne and the Countess earnestly discussing the four aspects of precious stones – carat, cut, clarity and colour – while Vivienne tilted the Countess’s left hand from side to side to see the faceted depths of the central diamond.
And far across the world, Christine thought, Tor is lying unconscious – at best – after spending a night in the open, urgently needing medical attention. Would the searchers find him fast enough? What if he had seriously injured himself, and was bleeding out? What if he had a catastrophic head trauma, and would never recover from a coma – or had broken his back and would never walk again? Tor, so active, so alive, walking out of the cold grey Baltic sea two months ago the picture of health and vitality – the image of him handicapped, crippled, comatose even, brought such a lump to Christine’s throat that it was hard to breathe.
If he got gangrene, if he had to lose a limb, Tor would be fine. She knew that instinctively, could picture him as an inspiration to everyone in the same circumstances – competing in the Paralympic Games, finishing triathlons triumphantly on a prosthesis, letting nothing hold him back. But what if he were paralysed? What if he never regained consciousness and stayed alive, but in a coma?
She realized that she was clasping her hands together, praying with everything she had that neither of those terrible fates was in store for him.
Please, don’t let that happen to Tor. Please don’t let him be a vegetable. I couldn’t bear that for him.
She pictured Tor in a hospital bed, tubes feeding into his comatose body; Tor in a wheelchair, a shell of himself like the actor Christopher Reeve, once so strong and beautiful and healthy playing Superman; then, after a riding accident, a quadriplegic, only able to drink through a straw and to talk with visible effort.
Let them find him soon, let them find him alive. With some bones broken, maybe, but no more than that. Let them find him very, very soon . . .
She had no memory, afterwards, of her meeting with the Countess. For the rest of the day, every time her phone rang she jumped as if she had been given an electric shock. Ironically, considering that it was a call from Angel she was awaiting, she collected a series of bruises on her upper thighs from tearing across her room, bumping into the corner of her desk if she were away from it, racing to see if it was Angel with good news.
The updates that did come through were inconclusive. The search area was widening, including the side of the mountain that had originally been ruled out, as Angel had told everyone he had seen Tor heading in the opposite direction. But Tor was not found that day, nor that night.
Every member of the expedition – as well as every sheep herder for miles around the plateau, drafted in with money upfront, plus a rich reward offered for finding Tor – worked tirelessly, moving in wider and wider circles, recharging their torches in relays all through the night. The next day dawned and the Bolivian air force’s helicopters returned, flying until the last rays of sunlight had drained from the plateau. For forty-eight more hours, the search continued, the exhausted expedition members now sleeping in shifts, Tor’s second-in-command organizing them with grim efficiency. The Bolivian army sent a division to help find Tor, as the government was increasingly concerned about the bad publicity that would result from such an experienced mountaineer going missing in such mysterious circumstances.
But not even the army could help. After five days, the second-in-command called off the search, declaring that Tor could not have survived without food and water for this amount of time under the climactic conditions high in the steppes of the Andes. In silence broken only by the wind whipping their jackets, the expedition members dismantled the tents, packed up their gear, broke camp and started the trek back to the village, where a phalanx of ancient Land Rovers waited to take them back to La Paz.
They flew straight back to London. A paparazzo who had bribed a worker at the private airfield managed to capture a few grainy pictures of Prince Toby, Angel and Missy Jackson, grey-faced, thin, drained with stress and fatigue – a far cry from the happy, laughing images of them that had been uploaded to multiple social media sites just a few days before.
If Tor had been found with a broken back, permanently paralysed, that would have been horrific, but at least it would have been conclusive for everyone who cared about him. No matter how much they tried to tell themselves that he had probably had a fast death – falling into a narrow, inaccessible gorge, perhaps, and dying on impact – the lack of certainty was a burden the expedition members felt they would carry for the rest of their lives. Prince Toby and Missy genuinely looked as if they would never recover from the horror of the last few days.
And although Angel had pulled off a successful murder, Tor had turned out to be his nemesis. With his coke destroyed, and the mule train unable to make contact with him to give him the rest of the bricks because of the search for Tor, Angel was returning home to real danger. There was no satisfaction in having killed Tor, not when Angel still had to face the music as soon as he landed. On his way back from the airport he had been supposed to stop by the private casino in Paddington, drop off the coke-stuffed canvas duffle bags and take the bounty off his head. Now he would face the toughe
st negotiation of his life.
If anything, his expression in those paparazzo photographs was even more stressed than Toby’s and Missy’s. They were dealing with the death of someone who had been very close to them; Angel was confronting the imminent possibility of his own.
Chapter Seventeen
London – one week later
‘Nothing will ever relieve our feelings of guilt and sorrow. Those of us who were there and failed to find him will always feel that we let him down by not bringing his body home. To his parents, we tender our most profound apologies and our regrets, our humble contrition, that we were unable to find their son.’
Sobs were heard in the right front pew, Tor’s mother and father clinging to each other, unashamedly crying. Both were solidly built, with the weatherbeaten skin of people who spent a great deal of time outdoors. Tor might have inherited his clear blue eyes from either one of them, but his red hair had clearly come from his father, whose crop was thickly greying now, a copper coin under silver water. Christine, seated beside Vivienne in the opposite front pew, snatched glances at the two of them. The resemblance they bore to their son was so compelling, and it was the closest she would ever come to seeing him once more.
Angel’s voice was soft yet carrying, his light tenor perfectly pitched as he continued:
‘Tor was a bright, shining star. He was a tireless leader who always lifted us up when we were down. He gave us energy when we were tired, convinced us we had strength we didn’t know we had. We managed to complete feats of endurance we never thought we could accomplish, and that was down to Tor pushing us, telling us not to give up, reminding us that the charities we were supporting needed us to give everything we had. He was wise and careful. He kept us safe, never forcing us beyond our limits. If any injuries happened, it wasn’t on Tor’s watch. It was because one of us was careless with a cooking stove –’ he tilted his head at Prince Toby, seated beside Missy, his arm around her – ‘or wasn’t looking where she was going at camp, and stumbled over a guy rope . . .’ Now his gaze moved to Missy. Both she and Toby let out strangled gulps that were a mix of laughter and sobs.
Killer Diamonds Page 30
