Snowfall Read online

  Well, there was a solution; I could join up with the other passengers who were making for the village. They were a group of holidaymakers, speaking a language that I couldn’t recognize, but at least I’d be safe with them. I pushed my way in among them, and then realized that not only were they all men, but they had been out drinking. For a moment my appearance in their midst took them by surprise, and then they guffawed a welcome. Hands grabbed for me, beery faces were thrust into mine.

  Safety is relative. Better the unknown than those detestably slobbering mouths and groping hands. I pushed, ducked, wriggled, stumbled free. The men laughed and called after me, but were too unsteady to come in pursuit. I recognized the footpath that Stephen had shown me earlier in the evening, the short cut that ran across the fields behind the houses on the main street, and fled up it.

  But I’d forgotten my smooth-soled boots. Half a dozen running strides and I took off. Mercifully the path was narrow, with a wall of snow on either side, and I had a soft landing.

  I sat up cautiously, brushing snow from my coat. The drunken men had disappeared up the main road; I was hidden behind the houses. It was very quiet now, with only their distant voices and the barking of a dog to stir the icy-still night air. The snow glittered under the moon, and the footpath lay ahead of me, a blue-shadowed slash through the frosted white.

  Only a couple of hundred yards, and I should be safely back in the annexe of the Gasthof Alte Post. I got cautiously to my feet.

  And saw him. At the bottom of the path, where it joined the main road, standing and watching.

  There was nothing for it but to go on. I tried to make a break by leaving the path and cutting across to the houses, but the snow was too deep. I floundered in up to my knees, half-fell, found myself trying to dig a way through with my hands, gave up. The man was advancing, very slowly. I waded back to the path and tried again to run.

  It was very like the nightmare I had had the night before, except that this was for real. My panic was identical: same hammering heart, same dried-up mouth, same lead-lined limbs. I seemed to be moving in slow motion on the icy path, one step forward, one slide back; as with Alice in the looking glass world, it seemed that it was taking all the running I could do to stay in the same place. And every now and again in my skidding progress I glanced over my shoulder to confirm that the dark man was still there, keeping his distance but undoubtedly following me.

  By the time I reached the Alte Post I was sick with fear and exhaustion. But at least there were lights in the square, and people. I collected my key from the Hammerl daughter, who happened to be carrying beer through the hall and was far too busy to notice my condition, and stumbled down the alley to the annexe in the wake of two other hotel guests. In a few moments I was safely back in my room, with the key turned in the lock.

  I dragged off my snow-caked coat and skirt, kicked off my boots and flopped down on the bed. It was a long time before my pounding heart slowed, my stomach muscles relaxed and my breathing returned to normal. Eventually, though, I hauled myself off the bed, went to the window, cautiously made a gap in the curtains and peered out.

  The man wasn’t there.

  I began to feel almost embarrassed with relief. I was weary now, and bruised from my various falls, and my hand was aching, but I felt that there was nothing wrong with me that a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure. As for the man … he hadn’t spoken to me, hadn’t come within ten feet of me. My fear had been entirely self-induced; too much imagination, that was my trouble … For goodness’ sake why should anyone want to watch or follow me?

  I picked my discarded outdoor clothes off Frau Hammerl’s polished wooden floor, used the best part of a box of tissues in a guilty attempt to mop up the puddles made by the melted snow I’d brought in, and eased my aches under a hot shower. Then I got ready for bed. My face had caught the sun, and I opened the top right-hand drawer of the dressing chest to find my tube of sun-salve.

  It wasn’t there. Strange. I knew that I’d put it there, along with various other cosmetic odds and ends – which, stranger still, weren’t there either. Instead, they were all in the second drawer, along with a stack of clean tights. And that was ridiculous, I’d never dream of putting cosmetics and tights in the same drawer, even though the tights were in an opaque plastic bag, just as I’d packed them in my suitcase.

  I smoothed down the bag. It looked and felt strangely lumpy. I opened it. Instead of being neatly folded, my tights were entwined like brown spaghetti. It looked exactly as though someone had emptied them out of the bag and shovelled them carelessly back.

  I pulled open the other drawers. Anything of value – cash, passport, traveller’s cheques – I’d kept with me. As far as I could see, nothing was missing, though one or two things appeared in unexpected places.

  But every single bag or container looked as though it had been emptied and hurriedly refilled.

  Someone had searched my room while I was away.

  Chapter Eight

  Next morning, I went straight to the reception desk to complain. Since this was a family-run hotel, no one was there on duty; the Hammerl womenfolk were, I imagined, in the kitchen. I paced about the hall in a great state of indignation, which wasn’t improved when old Otto Hammerl waddled into view. As soon as he saw me he beamed with delight and bumbled forward.

  I backed in alarm, protesting and putting out my unbandaged hand to fend him off, but this time he made no attempt to embrace me. Instead he shook me warmly by my outstretched hand, looked over his shoulder, then leaned forward to growl something unintelligible. From his conspiratorial winks and sly nose-tapping, it was evident that he imagined that we shared a secret.

  ‘Please, Herr Hammerl!’ I protested, trying to wrest my hand free. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but I have a strong complaint –’

  ‘What complaint?’ Frau Hammerl had been entirely hidden by the bulk of her husband as she came up behind him, but she brushed him aside as easily as if he were made of well-upholstered fibreglass. Her hackles were up, her blue eyes icy: ‘Otto, there is wood to be brought in! What is your complaint, Fräulein?’

  It would, I thought, take a brave guest to venture a complaint about Frau Hammerl’s cooking, or the running of her hotel. My own complaint was of a far more serious nature, but even so I felt slightly unnerved. ‘Oh, well, the thing is –’ I drew myself up, recalling my indignation: ‘Frau Hammerl, while I was out yesterday evening, my room was searched.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Something was stolen?’

  ‘Er – no. No, as far as I can see everything is there. But that’s not the point, is it? My room was searched, and all my possessions were rummaged through. It’s not that anything is missing or damaged, it’s the principle of the thing –’

  I was speaking too quickly for her limited comprehension of English. Frau Hammerl frowned, looked round and called loudly for Toni; he appeared from the kitchen quarters, and I repeated my story. He translated into German for his mother’s benefit. From her frowns and shrugs, it was clear that my complaint was going to get me nowhere.

  Toni smiled at me pleasantly. ‘My mother wishes to tell you that she is deeply grieved,’ he said, lying in his teeth, ‘that such a thing should have happened to one of our guests. However, she asks you to remember that we cannot accept any liability for any losses or mishaps on our premises. As innkeepers, our liabilities are limited – you will find that this is stated in a notice in your bedroom. The inn is a public place, and we have no control over those who enter it.’

  ‘But the annexe isn’t a public place,’ I argued. ‘The rooms there are exclusively for the use of the hotel guests.’

  He smiled again. ‘True. But even so, we have no liability. The annexe has balconies, just as the inn has. I am afraid that there is no way of keeping a determined thief out. I will of course report the matter to the local police and ask them to keep an eye on the annexe in future, but as nothing was actually stolen I imagine that you will not want t
o pursue your complaint?’

  I retreated, baffled, to the Gäststube, and breakfasted thoughtfully off warm rolls and apricot jam. There were half a dozen other guests whose rooms were, I knew, in the annexe; when they came down to breakfast I asked them whether their rooms had been disturbed the previous evening. The answer every time was an unhesitating ‘No’.

  Both Sloans appeared this morning. We smiled. As soon as Phil had finished his meal he left the room, and after a moment’s hesitation I went to Rosemary’s table. I badly needed someone to talk to.

  ‘How’s the cold?’

  ‘Much better, thanks. I don’t feel up to ski-ing, but I’ve sent Phil off to make the most of it.’ She glanced at my grubby bandage. ‘What ever have you done to your hand?’

  ‘Would you believe that I fell off a toboggan? Someone kindly bandaged my hand for me after I gashed it on a pine branch as I fell, but I haven’t anything to replace the bandage with.’

  Rosemary was full of friendly concern. ‘Oh, I can help there – I’ll be glad to. Phil doesn’t believe in coming abroad without being prepared with a good supply of sticking plaster and aspirin and stomach powder. It’s what comes of having been a boy scout, I expect! Come upstairs and I’ll see what I can do.’

  On the stairs we met Phil, coming down in his ski gear. Rosemary told him about my hand and he immediately offered to stay and help – understandably less, I felt, out of consideration for me than for his wife. She laughed and shooed him off, and I stared glumly at the mounted skeletal heads of ibex and chamois that decorated the hall of the Alte Post, while the Sloans put a good deal of fervour into their parting kiss. Rosemary emerged in a daze, but by the time we reached their room she had recovered sufficiently to give her entire attention to my hand.

  ‘Does it hurt much?’ she asked, gently removing the bandage.

  ‘It’s sore – but then, what with one thing and another I’m sore all over.’ It was very pleasant to be able to talk to another woman. For the moment, I felt that I’d had enough of men; so many of them seemed to be devious, and some of them behaved in a way that was downright frightening. I hadn’t meant to tell Rosemary everything, but in the end I did. About Matt’s death, about the way Toni Hammerl and Jon Becker had choked off my enquiries, about the skier who caused the toboggan to crash, about the man who had followed me home from Innsbruck, about the way my room had been searched.

  Rosemary stared at me pop-eyed. ‘Good heavens – how awful for you, Kate! I did know about your boy-friend, Phil told me when he came back from ski-ing yesterday. I’m so sorry. As if that wasn’t dreadful enough for you, without all these other things happening!’

  ‘I expect I’m a bit over-wrought,’ I admitted. ‘I’ve been trying to tell myself that it’s all imagination, but my room had definitely been searched. And that only makes sense if I really am being watched.’

  ‘Well –’ Rosemary spoke apologetically, as she smoothed a plaster over the clean but ragged edges of skin on the fleshy side of my hand. ‘I wouldn’t have said this to you if you hadn’t raised the subject, but Phil was very puzzled when he came back yesterday. He said that something seemed to be going on between the other three men you were talking to up on the mountain. There was rather an unpleasant atmosphere, he said, and he felt that some of the unpleasantness was directed at you. It was as though you were being … warned off.’

  ‘That’s how I felt, exactly! And I don’t mind telling you that I’ve taken the warning – I did feel at first that I had to find out exactly what had happened to Matt, but now I’ve decided to let it go. After all, nothing will bring him back … Thank you for putting on the plaster, Rosemary, that’s much more comfortable. And thank you for listening so patiently.’

  Rosemary pressed my arm sympathetically. ‘It’s the least I can do. I seem to have so much, and it’s a pity if I can’t spare a little friendship. But I am glad that you’ve got that nice Stephen to look after you while you’re here. That’s what Phil said yesterday. He’d have felt quite embarrassed on your behalf, he said, if it wasn’t for the fact that Stephen was obviously on your side. At least you can be sure that nothing unpleasant can happen while you’re with him!’

  It was a comforting thought. But a few minutes later, while I was putting on my ski boots ready to go out with Stephen, I realized that it was the opposite of the truth. Stephen’s presence hadn’t stopped the man in dark clothes and snow goggles from making his dangerous leap over the toboggan; Stephen’s presence hadn’t stopped the monkey-faced man from following me out of Innsbruck last night.

  Far from keeping me safe, that nice Stephen seemed to have led me into nothing but trouble.

  My package deal included seven days’ ski hire. Toni Hammerl was at the reception desk, affable as ever, and when I enquired about skis he insisted on taking me to the sports shop. Like many of the other businesses in the village, it was owned by one of the Hammerl clan. Toni introduced me to one of his cousins, and the two men made such a fuss over helping me to choose the right type and length of ski that I was half afraid that they imagined I was a potential buyer.

  ‘Are you joining the ski school?’ Toni enquired. ‘The instruction is included in your holiday, I believe. Also,’ he smiled at me charmingly, ‘I am one of the instructors.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m not a serious skier, I’m afraid. I had some lessons in Scotland last year, but I wasn’t very good. I’m just going to have some quiet practice this morning with Stephen Marsh.’

  Toni frowned, and I remembered the contemptuously angry look he had given Stephen when we were up on the Alm the previous day. But all he said was, ‘I see that you have hurt your hand.’

  ‘Yes …’ This morning, Toni was wearing a heavy white sweater and blue ski pants; but yesterday, I remembered, he had been wearing a black ski suit. Could it have been Toni, rather than the monkey-faced man, who had come swooping low over our toboggan? And if so, was it Stephen he was trying to frighten off, rather than me?

  ‘Stephen and I crashed our toboggan yesterday. Some crazy skier,’ I said pointedly, ‘nearly cut us up.’

  Toni Hammerl didn’t so much as twitch an eyelid. ‘Winter sports,’ he commented, lightly but distinctly, ‘can be very dangerous. And the mountains – even something so relatively insignificant as the Kirchwalder Alm – should always be treated with the greatest respect. If I were you I would join the ski school, and stay on the practice slopes below the village. If you keep off the mountain you will come to no more harm.’

  Was that a friendly suggestion, I wondered, or something more like a threat? His lips were smiling, but his eyes were a very cold blue, and I didn’t feel brave enough to pursue the subject.

  Stephen was waiting for me at the Alte Post, sitting in the sun on one of the benches outside the front door, for all the world as though it were the height of summer instead of the middle of February. He was chatting to Rosemary, who was very warmly wrapped and sensibly making the most of the sun. I thought it a little hard for her to have to spend the second morning of her honeymoon sitting alone and knitting, but she seemed as cheerful as her cold would allow.

  Stephen enquired solicitously after my hand. I had decided against telling him about the man who had followed me, because I didn’t want him to reproach himself for having let me make the journey alone, but I told him about my room being searched.

  ‘And the thing is,’ I added, ‘that I’ve just remembered that it’s not the first time it’s happened to me. My London flat was turned over, just after I heard that Matt had been killed.’

  It was something I had forgotten completely, but now the unpleasant incident came back to me vividly. Matt’s colleague had looked after me like a father when he came to break the news, and had taken me to my friend’s house so that I needn’t stay alone in the flat that night. The next day, when I went back, I found that there had been a break-in.

  ‘It was an actual burglary that time, though. Not that there was anything of great value, but the burglar
stole some trinkets of mine and Matt’s camera and tape recorder. He made an awful mess, too, turning the whole place upside down. But he was obviously a professional – he broke into several other flats in the block the same evening. It’s a horrible sensation, to know that your possessions have been searched. It makes you feel – unclean.’

  ‘I should just think it does!’ said Rosemary. ‘Poor Kate, what with one thing and another …’

  ‘Yes. You’ve had a bad time, Kate,’ said Stephen slowly, ‘and I’m beginning to wonder whether it’s wise for you to stay here on your own.’

  ‘I’ve got no option,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t afford to go anywhere else.’

  ‘You could have my room in Innsbruck,’ he offered. ‘I’d clean it up for you, and one of my friends would give me enough floor space for my sleeping bag.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, but I couldn’t possibly turn you out. Besides –’

  ‘Besides,’ Rosemary intervened generously, seeing my reluctance to put myself so completely into Stephen’s care, ‘Kate isn’t alone here. Now that we know about all the harassment she’s had, Phil and I will keep an eye on her.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t let you take that upon yourselves,’ I protested. ‘After all, you’re on your honeymoon!’

  Rosemary laughed and displayed her knitting. ‘It looks like it, doesn’t it! But Phil and I have known each other for years – he owns a small business, and I’ve been with him from the start as his secretary. So you see, we’re not exactly starry-eyed youngsters. Oh, we’re thrilled about being married now, of course, but we’re past the stage of finding it unbearable to be parted. Phil did so much look forward to ski-ing again, and as long as I’m nursing this wretched cold I might as well make myself useful where I can. So don’t keep your worries to yourself, Kate, share them with me. That’s what friends are for.’

  I thanked her warmly, and Stephen and I shouldered our skis and tramped off along the snowbound street that smelled of cows as well as coffee. My cut hand had stiffened, but I found that I could hold a ski stick without too much discomfort. Presently we went through a gateway that led to a snowfield which sloped gently away from the village.