I swallow hard. ‘Right. Um, I met the two men at three. The weather wasn’t great even at that point, but they were – are – only here for a week, so like most punters they wanted to ski even so.’
He nods. ‘OK. And had you met the men before? Had they filled in any paperwork?’
The paperwork! There’s a disclaimer! They’ll have ticked the disclaimer! Suddenly I feel a lot lighter. Thank Christ for the French love of paperwork.
‘Of course,’ I say, though this hadn’t occurred to me until that very second. ‘They’d come by the office earlier to fill in our standard form – you know: name, address, level of skiing, the standard disclaimer about skiing at their own risk, contact details …’ I drop in the disclaimer as if it’s unimportant, but I see the officer make a note. While remaining poker-faced on the outside, inwardly I smile.
‘I see. And was there anything unusual about that?’
‘No, nothing unusual, except that they’d both marked themselves as expert skiers when it turned out that wasn’t really the case.’
‘I see. So at what point did it become clear they weren’t expert skiers?’
‘Almost as soon as we set off.’
‘Right. So what did you do then?’
‘Well, they said they wanted to go into the back country, but I could see they wouldn’t be capable – well, more that it wasn’t the best idea, given their level of experience and the conditions.’ I add this to make out I was erring on the side of caution when the truth is I couldn’t be bothered to try to coax them down something they were going to be incredibly slow on in blizzard conditions.
‘So instead I took them down Couloir Noir – you know the one?’ He nods. ‘Officially it’s off-piste, but it starts and ends at the lift and isn’t too hairy, so I figured it was a compromise between keeping the clients safe and giving them what they want.’
Argh, I shouldn’t have said that. Because I didn’t keep them safe, did I? Not my fault. Not my fault.
‘I understand. So at what point did you realize the men had gone missing?’
‘They started going down the track quite slowly with me leading at first – off-piste, I generally think that’s safer, especially in bad weather. There was a bit of an issue because one of them turned out to be a speed merchant and kept overtaking me, with his brother racing behind him too so as not to be outdone.’
Good one. Put some blame on the clients. Not my fault.
‘To begin with it was OK though. The weather was getting worse, but they seemed to be getting more confident, turning better, stopping less, definitely going faster though, however much I urged them to slow down and follow me. Then we came to that bend – you know the one? They’d gone ahead again, and by the time I got round it, a few seconds behind them, I couldn’t see them.’
I wipe my palms again. I wish I knew where the man had been found. I’m not sure exactly what happened and when, who was in front and behind and at what point – I can’t remember any of that now. But I can’t say that.
‘So I knew they’d been in front of me, and I figured the best thing would be to ski down and catch up with them. Most people wait for you after a while. But the clients were – are – brothers and they seemed a bit competitive as I said, so they might have been trying to race to the bottom, something like that, I don’t know. My colleague Andy was also there, assisting me, even though they’d only booked one guide.’ I don’t mention about Andy tearing off ahead, obviously, or about me trying to overtake so as not to lose face. I’ll have to hope that the guy in the hospital bed doesn’t remember too many details about who was where and when – I certainly don’t. Assuming the poor sap wakes up, that is. I take a sip of water from the plastic cup in front of me and notice my hands are shaking. Calm down. Calm down.
The officer nods. ‘I see. Did you do anything else?’
Anything else? Like what? What else was I meant to do? I swallow the panic down. What is he looking for me to say?
‘Well, obviously we called out, stuff like that.’
‘And when did you decide to call the emergency services?’
‘Once I got to the bottom, given the bad weather, I asked my colleague to go to the office to call their chalet, see if anyone knew where they were. They hadn’t noted which chalet they were staying in on the forms, so we had to call the tour company rep first, which meant we lost some time doing that.’ The clients’ fault that time was lost. Not ours. ‘Meanwhile, I went back up to check the track again, see if I could spot them, in spite of the worsening weather.’
Making myself out to be a bit of a hero there.
The officer nods again. ‘I see. And how long did all this take?’
‘Um – for my colleague to get back to the office? Twenty minutes?’ Way longer than that by the time we’d dithered about what to do. ‘It’s hard to say,’ I continue, ‘I was more focused on finding the men than on what time it was. Besides, with the weather so bad it would have been difficult to look at my watch anyway …’ Stupid thing to say. Think. Calm down.
‘Richard from Powder Puff said he couldn’t be exact, but he thinks he received a call from you at around five.’
I swallow hard. ‘Yes, that sounds about right. The men were a few minutes late for our meeting, we had to get up the mountain, then they spent ages at the top fiddling with their goggles and boot buckles – you know how punters do – and then they were very slow at the top of the slope so … yes, that would make sense.’
Big risk. If the guy in hospital wakes up, he’ll know that they weren’t late – if anything, we left a little early – they weren’t that slow and Andy and I spent a good forty-five minutes faffing around before I alerted rescue. Quite possibly longer. Forty-five minutes to an hour when the pisteurs and snowcats could have been out searching for these two missing men. Before the weather worsened. Vital minutes which could have made all the difference. Life-or-death minutes, literally. I swallow hard.
The officer puts his pen down and leans back in his chair. ‘OK. Obviously, we will need to see the paperwork and we will be checking the phone records when they arrive.’
‘That’s fine. Of course. I’m happy to help in any way I can.’
Thank Christ for the disclaimer.
19
January 2020, La Madière, France
Ria
I am feeling so refreshed and relaxed after another hot tub session that I let Hugo have sex with me before dinner without even trying to come up with an excuse to get out of it.
‘I hope this is the one,’ he sighs as he rolls off me.
‘The one what?’
‘The one where it works. You know, the one where you get pregnant.’
He props himself up on his elbow and gestures towards the window. ‘Look at that – snow falling outside, here in this beautiful room, what an amazing place it would be to conceive a child! What a lovely story to be able to tell her. We could call her Snowy.’
‘Ewww. No child wants to hear about their conception. And Snowy?’ I laugh. ‘That’s a kitten’s name.’