She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. I guess she’s had enough of having to wait on her guests hand and foot for several days solid since the lifts closed. Having to put me up as well has probably only added to her load.
‘No, this looks great, thank you. I hope having me here isn’t putting you to any extra trouble?’
‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ she says, diplomatically ignoring my question. ‘See you in an hour for dinner?’
‘Looking forward to it,’ I lie.
47
January 2020, La Madière, France
Ria
‘What were you thinking?’ I hiss when Cameron plonks himself down at my table, snow falling off his jacket and on to my already-soaked jeans. ‘Why are you inviting that guy to our chalet? He’s going to recognize us, you know. We were lucky to get away with not going to prison all those years ago, and now you’re …’
Cameron holds his hand up in that awful patronizing way he does, always has done. ‘Stop it. None of this was my idea. The resort’s head honcho is apparently fretting about a dead body turning up here, and thinks we all need to be seen as caring and sharing. And as I have the best properties, he asked if I would host. I could hardly say no, could I? How is that going to look? I’ve got a business to run here and I need to keep key resort people onside.’
I can’t believe his tone. Or his expression. How can he be so calm?
‘But he doesn’t have to stay with us, does he?’ I counter, trying to keep my voice low – which is no easy feat when I feel like screaming. ‘It’s all right for you, you can stay out of the way, but me? “Oh hi, yeah, it was my fault your brother died. Mine and my colleague’s. Sorry about that. Hope your short stay in this luxurious chalet while you identify his body makes it all better.” Brilliant. That’s not going to make for awkward dinner time conversation at all.’
Cameron puts his face up so close to mine I can smell his coffee breath. ‘Firstly – he wasn’t meant to be in your place, but there’s a problem with the only spare chalet I have at the moment so I can’t put him there. With some punters unable to leave the resort when they planned to and others miraculously getting through despite the roads being closed – seemingly just to piss me off – everything’s full to bursting point apart from your chalet. Which, as an aside, I seem to remember you are staying in this week free of charge while Hugo checks out if it’s good enough for his precious company. So, I’m terribly sorry if it’s inconveniencing you, the dead man’s brother turning up and bunking in with you, but you’ll have to put up with it.’
I flinch as flecks of Cameron’s spit land on my face as he speaks.
‘Secondly, we spent about ten minutes with this man, two decades ago. Do you remember what the weather was like that day? It was almost as bad as it is now. We were wearing goggles and hats, as was he. We were all twenty years younger. He was in a coma for days afterwards, and apparently remembered nothing about the accident. Do you think you would recognize him now? I certainly wouldn’t. So why would you think that he’d recognize us?
‘Besides, our names were in the press at the time, as I recall,’ Cam continues. ‘If the dead man’s brother had any interest in pursuing us, he could have done so back then. But he didn’t. So why do you think he’d a) recognize us or b) want to do anything about it even if he did? It was a tragic accident that happened a long time ago. He lost his brother. Boo hoo. End of story.’
‘Don’t you feel any remorse for what we did?’ I ask hoarsely.
Cameron sits back. ‘No. We didn’t do anything. Those boys shouldn’t have asked to ski that kind of slope in those conditions. They over-estimated their skiing ability. Or, to be more accurate, they lied about their skiing ability. They shouldn’t have been there at all. If they had been honest about their level or, to give them the benefit of the doubt, hadn’t over-rated themselves, we wouldn’t have taken them off-piste that afternoon and there wouldn’t have been an issue. It was their behaviour that was unsafe, not ours.’
‘Simple as that?’ I counter. ‘Our behaviour was hardly gold standard. And,’ I lower my voice, ‘we lied too. It wasn’t only them. We lied to rescue, to resort staff, to the police, by extension to the dead man’s family, to everybody. If we’d alerted rescue as quickly as we said we did, or even stayed closer to the men so they hadn’t got lost instead of us trying to out-ski each other, the brother who died might have been saved. That’s way worse than someone making out they’re a better skier than they are.’
Cameron snorts. ‘We hardly lied. We adjusted a few timings in our statements. It doesn’t amount to murdering someone. It was an accident. The investigation said so. And I’m happy to go with that.’ We sit in silence for a few moments.
‘Is that it, then?’ Cameron asks.
There is a pause. Around us people are laughing, chatting, eating, drinking. Everything carrying on as normal while I feel as though my whole world is falling apart.
‘Why did you stay here?’ I ask.
Cam shrugs. ‘It’s my home. It’s where I’m happy. I went away for a few years because the tour ops were all steering their clients away from Skitastic and I had to wind it up, but by the time I came back, no one remembered who I was. It was already old news even a few years on. Almost everyone who had been in the resort when we were here had moved on to other places, other lives. No one has been here as long as me now. A lot of people come to the mountains, and once in a while, someone dies. It quickly becomes old news. No one wants to think about it. People come here on holiday or for a season or two, forget about their normal lives, have fun, ski, drink too much, shag a ski instructor maybe. No one wants to think about death. Hardly any of the people here today know about what happened all those years ago, nor would they care, if the body hadn’t resurfaced.’
There’s another pause.
‘Why didn’t you stay here?’ Cam asks.
‘You know why,’ I hiss. ‘I couldn’t bear it after what happened. I only came back this week because – well – because you made me.’
He smirks. ‘Yeah, handy you working in events like that, sending that mailshot out to all the chalet companies – including mine – when you set up your little enterprise. Been useful for us both over the years, hasn’t it? To give you credit where it’s due, you’ve sent some good clients my way.’
‘Not out of choice,’ I whisper. ‘As you know. You blackmailed me. I’d never have contacted Snow Snow if I’d known it was your company.’
Cameron responds with that awful bark of a laugh. ‘Ha! Should have done your research then, shouldn’t you? It’s especially convenient now you’re married to Mister big-shot Hugo,’ he continues. ‘You were always so scared about people finding out about the accident. I’d have been stupid not to use that to my advantage, wouldn’t I? You can see that, surely?’
I shake my head. My face feels hot but I’m determined not to let him see me cry.
‘But I’ve been a good boy this week, haven’t I?’ he continues. ‘I’ve kept to our agreement and haven’t let on about your past. Or even that we know each other – that it’s down to you and me and our friendship that you’re all here, enjoying my lovely chalet.’