The Lonely Skier

CHAPTER NINE COL DA VARDA IN FLAMES

Having seen Aldo come out of the room in which Carla was imprisoned, I half expected her to emerge at any moment But the corridor remained empty. It seemed a long time that I remained there with my eye to the crack through which a cold draught came. But it was only three minutes by my watch before the second door from the end was suddenly thrown open and Keramikos rushed out. He was fully clothed even to ski boots which clattered noisily on the boards as he dived down the stairs.

As soon as he was out of sight, I went into Joe's room. The noise had not wakened him. He was snoring peacefully, his face to the wall and his mouth open. I flung open the window and leaned out with the water jug in my hand. The facade of the hut was brilliantly lit in the moonlight. I swung the jug with my arm straight and pitched it just beyond the machine-room so that Engles could not fail to see it from the doorway.

He appeared at once. He had his skis on, but he did not leave at once. He came round to the front of the concrete housing and slipped his right ski along the wall, for all the world as though he were measuring the frontage as Valdini had done. Then he turned quickly and, with a flick of his sticks, he was off down the slalom run. A shot rang out from beneath the hut. I stayed at the window, keeping an eye on my watch, the second-hand of which was quite visible in the moonlight. Just eighty-five seconds after Engles had disappeared into the dark band of the trees, Keramikos started down the slalom run after him. And from the speed at which he took the first slope and the way he handled his sticks, I guessed him to be a pretty good skier.

I closed the window then. Joe hadn't stirred. I opened his door and glanced quickly out to see whether the corridor was clear. And at that moment Carla's head appeared — not out of the door of Valdini's room, but up the stairs. She was carrying a heavy can. I pulled my head back then and listened, waiting for her to go back into Valdini's room.

A board creaked. There was silence for a moment.

Then I heard the burble of liquid being poured out of a can. It was the sound a petrol can makes whilst being emptied. I took a chance on her seeing me and looked out. She was bent low, pouring liquid from the can on to the floor outside Mayne's door. It was petrol. I could smell it, even though I was at the opposite end of the corridor. And as I realised this, I knew what she was going to do.

I stepped out into the corridor then. She looked up at the sound of my slippers on the boards, but she did not stop pouring. The liquid was streaming under the door of Mayne's room. 'Don't be a fool!' I said. 'You can't do that.'

She laid the can on its side and straightened herself. She had a box of matches in her hand. Her face looked white and strained and there were dark bruises on either side of her mouth where a gag had been. She didn't seem very steady, for she leaned against the wall for support. Her eyes stared at me wildly down the length of the corridor, 'I cannot — no?' She fumbled for a match and backed to the stairs. Then she struck it viciously and held it up. 'Then you watch,' she said. And she tossed the burning match lightly into the pool of petrol. It went up with a roar. In an instant the whole far end of the corridor was a sheet of flame.

Carla had disappeared down the stairs. I dived back into Joe's room and dragged him from his bed. 'Go away,' he grunted as he hit the floor. 'Not the time for damn-fool tricks. Oh, my head!'

I slapped him across the face. 'Wake up!' I shouted at him. 'The place is on fire.'

'Uh?' He opened his eyes and shook his head so that his cheeks quivered. 'Wadidyousay?'

'Fire!' I yelled at him.

'Eh? What?' He sat up and regarded me with bleary eyes. 'Aren't trying to be funny by any chance, old man?'

'For God's sake!' I said. 'Can't you hear it?'

'There's a sort of roaring in my ears. Blood pressure. Always get it after drinking too much.' Then he began sniffing. 'By God! You're right. There is a fire."

He lumbered awkwardly to his feet, shaking himself like a bear coming out of hibernation. 'Bad thing, drink,' he muttered. 'Perhaps it's all a dream?'

'It isn't a dream,' I said. 'Go and look for yourself.' I began gathering up his clothes.

As soon as he opened the door a blast of hot air hit us in the face. There was not much smoke. The wood had caught now and the flames were roaring and crackling along the match-boarding. 'Good God!' Joe said. 'Place'll burn like tinder.'

'Come through into my room,' I said. 'The drop on to the belvedere isn't so great there.'

He followed me, trailing a bundle of hastily gathered clothes in his arms. He had slung his small camera round his neck. We pitched everything out of the window. I tossed my typewriter out and saw it landed safely in soft snow. Then I helped Joe through the window. It was a close thing. His heavy bulk could only just squeeze through. When he was half-way through, he suddenly looked at me. 'Where's Engles?' he asked. He had sobered up a lot.

'He's all right,' I said. 'He's gone off with Keramikos.'

'And the others?'

'I think Mayne is trapped,' I said. 'But he should be able to make it through the window.'

'Uh. Reminds me of the things they used to make us do on Sports Day — you know, under the tarpaulin, through the wire and along the sewage piping. Thank God I haven't got to eat an apple on the end of a string at the finish.'

'No, but you've got to put your clothes on out there in the snow,' I said. 'That should be funny enough for you.'

'My God!' he said. 'My cameras!'

'Where are they?'

'Out the back. I should be able to get to them all right.' But the thought seemed to spur him on and a moment later, puffing and blowing, he disappeared from sight. I leaned out of the window and saw the huge blue bulk of his pyjamas shamble off through the snow in search of his clothes. Then I, too, got my legs through that window. Though the door was shut, the room was getting very hot and smoke was coiling in around the edges of the door in grey wisps.

I landed quite softly and, as I scrambled to my feet, the report of a gun nearly deafened me. I spun round. Carla was standing on the belvedere, leaning over the wooden rail so that she could see along the front of the hut. She had a sporting piece in her hands — about a twelve bore — and smoke was curling up from one of the twin barrels. Her scarlet ski suit stood out like a smear of blood against the white background. She broke the piece and reloaded with a cartridge from her pocket. As she snapped back the breech, she noticed me. 'You Stay away,' she said. 'This is not your business.' The gun was pointed at me for a moment. She was like a jungle cat defending her young. Her eyes still had that wild look. She was beyond reason — in the grip of a kind of madness.

Her eyes quickly strayed from me back along the front of the building. She turned suddenly and waded through the snow to the steps. Then she disappeared from view.

I crossed to the rail and leaned over. She was making her way slowly along the front of the building towards the top of the slittovia, her head back so that she looked up to where the glow of the flames showed red in the farthest bedroom window.

Mayne's head appeared at the window. There was a stab of flame as he fired. The scarlet ski suit was jerked back suddenly like a puppet on a string. It turned slightly and sagged. But it fetched up in a sitting position in the snow, and raised the gun. There was a blast of red-and-yellow fire, the crash of a shot and Mayne's head was withdrawn. He fired at her twice after that as she sat huddled in the snow. The second time Carla did not reply.

A moment later Mayne's legs appeared through the window. They were picked out quite plainly in the glow of the flames. Carla slowly raised her gun and fired both barrels. The distance was only a matter of some forty feet. There was a horrible scream of agony. The legs writhed convulsively and were withdrawn. Carla slowly broke the piece and reloaded. The flames brightened suddenly inside the bedroom and then burned red. The glow seemed to sweep right up to the glass of the window and then a great tongue of flame licked up out of the casement, hissing as it turned the snow that hung from the roof to steam. The white icing of snow that covered the roof seemed to draw back from the flames. It wilted visibly. A piece of the gabling fell in. A great column of steam rose hissing towards the cold curtain of the stars. A gout of flame followed it through the gaping rent in the roof. The trees glowed warmly and the snow all round the hut was coloured pink.

Mayne's head suddenly appeared again amidst the flames at the window. He fired three times at Car la. The little stabbing flames of his gun were hardly visible in the glare. Carla fired one barrel. That was all. Then she rolled over and buried her face in the snow.

Mayne dropped his gun. He was pulling at the window frame, trying to drag himself out. He appeared to be wounded. When he was half-out, his stomach supporting him on the window sill, he began to scream. It was a horrible sound — very animal and very high pitched. A draught had been created by the hole in the gable roofing and a great wave of flame rolled over him and roared up out of the window. I saw his hair catch fire. It burned like a piece of furze. The skin of his face blackened.

He gave a convulsive, agonised heave with his hands and fell headfirst from the window, a human torch, his whole body blazing furiously. He hit a drift of snow beyond the slittovia platform. A cloud of steam rose from the spot. The flames were instantly extinguished. A great black hole was burned in the snow.

'The poor devil!' Joe said. He was standing beside me, half-dressed. 'Is that damned contessa of yours mad?'

'I think she's dead,' I said. 'Finish putting on your clothes. I'll go and see if there's anything we can do.'

Another piece of the roofing went as I made my way to the head of the slittovia. Sparks and steam rose high into the night and were whipped away by the wind. Carla's body was huddled in the snow close to the platform at the top of the sleigh track. It was quite still. The scarlet of her ski suit glowed brightly in the lurid light. I turned her over. Her eyes stared wide out of a face covered in wet snow. There was a patch of blood in the hollow her body had made in the snow. A bullet had shattered her shoulder. Two more had struck her in the chest. The stains were a darker red than her ski suit. She was dead.

I crossed the platform then and made for the dark hole where Mayne had fallen. His body lay right below the spot where the fire was fiercest. Great gouts of flame were licking through the broken gabling. The wind was driving the fire through the wooden building, fanning the flames so that they looked like the exotic petals of some fearful jungle flower, writhing in horrid carnivorous ecstasy. One glance at Mayne told me that there was nothing to be done for him. His body was a charred and blackened mass, lying in a pool of melted snow. It was twisted and unnatural. And where the clothing had fallen away from one arm, the unburned flesh was pock-marked with shot. His had been an unpleasant death.

Joe joined me then. 'Dead?' he asked.

I nodded. 'Nothing we can do. Better go and get your cameras. I'll give you a hand.'

Joe did not move. He was staring up at the flaming building. There was a crash. The whole gable that had roofed Mayne's room seemed to crumple. We scrambled back through the snow just in time. It collapsed with a roar. The flames licked round this fresh wound with increasing fury. Sparks flew and were driven into the night. A set of beams, charred and eaten by the fire and still blazing, fell across Mayne's body. They stood for a second, up-ended in the snow. Then they keeled over against the side of the building, their bases hissing and blackened, the upper ends still flaming. The wood of the hut flooring caught and began to burn. 'Better hurry, Joe,' I said.

But all he said was, 'Christ! What a film shot!'

'What about Aldo and his wife, and Anna?' I said, shaking his arm.

'Eh? Oh, they live downstairs. They'll be all right.'

found them round the back, dragging their belongings out into the snow. At least, the two women were. Aldo was wandering about helplessly, wringing his hands and muttering, 'Mamma mia! Mamma mia!' I imagine he felt pretty sick at having helped Carla to escape.

We got Joe's gear out and dumped it in the snow. It was whilst I was doing this that I suddenly remem bered the skis. Without them it would take me hours to get down to Tre Croci. I stumbled round to the front of the building. My heart sank at the sight of it. The whole front was ablaze now. Half the roof was gone and where the staircase had been the upper storey was nothing more than gaunt, blackened beams pointing flaming fingers at the moon. The door of the machine-room stood open as Engles and Keramikos had left it. It was already blackened with the heat and beginning to smoulder. The flooring above the concrete room was alight and the supports all round it flaming. At any moment the whole structure might collapse on top of it.

I rolled quickly in the heat-thawed snow till my clothes were sodden. Then, with a wet handkerchief tied round my face, I sloshed through the melting snow and in through the black, gaping doorway. The inside of that concrete room was like an oven. It was full of smoke. I couldn't see a thing. I stumbled over the pick Engles had used to batter in the door and felt my way to the corner where we had put the skis. Several fell as I touched them. But the clatter they made was scarcely audible above the roar of the flames overhead. I felt along the warm concrete wall with my hands and found a bundle still tied together. With these over my shoulder, I stumbled through the red gap of the doorway, out through the blazing pine supports and into the cold, sodden snow.

I set the skis down, points upwards, in a drift and looked back at the blaze. As I did so, one of the pine supports near the entrance to the machine-room splintered and flared. The blazing floor above it sagged dangerously. A moment later several supports gave with loud cracks and a burst of flame. The flooring, which they supported, slowly buckled, and then the whole blazing facade above folded inwards and sank with a roar of flame and broken wood. A myriad sparks rushed into the night and the flames roared up through the gap in a solid sheet.

Joe came round the end of the building then. I beckoned to him and began to unfasten the skis. When he came up, he said, 'How did this fire start, Neil?'

'Petrol,' I said, fastening on a pair of skis. 'Carla set light to it.'

'Good Lord! Whatever for?'

'Revenge,' I told him. 'Mayne had double-crossed her and jilted her. He'd also planned to murder her.'

He stared at me. 'Are you making this up?' he asked. 'Where's Valdini?'

'Mayne shot him.' I had finished putting on the skis. I straightened up then and found Joe's face a picture of incredulity in the ruddy glare. 'I've got to get down to Tre Croci,' I told him. 'I must get to a phone. I'll take the slalom run. Will you follow me? I'll tell you all about it down at the hotel.' I did not wait for his reply. I put my hands through the leather thongs of the sticks and started off across the snow.

The slalom wasn't an easy run. It was very steep, following pretty much the line of the slittovia, snaking down almost parallel to it. I took it as slowly as possible, but the fresh snow was deep and I was only able to break my speed by snow-ploughing in places. Stem turns were difficult and I often had to brake by running into the soft snow at the side of the run or by falling.

After the lurid light and the roar of the flames at the hut, it was strangely dark and silent going down through the woods. Moonlight filtered through the feathery web of the pine branches and the only sounds were the wind whipping the topmost branches and the hiss of my skis through the snow.

I suppose it took me about half an hour to get down that run. It seemed much longer, for my ski suit was wet through and it was very cold. But my watch showed the time to be only one forty-five as I passed the hut where Emilio lived at the bottom of the slittovia. I looked up the long white avenue of the cable track gleaming brightly in the moonlight. At the top, the white of the snow seemed to blossom into a great, violent mushroom of fire. It was no longer possible to discern the shape of the hut. It was just a flaming mass, white at the centre, fading to a dull orange at the edges and throwing out a great trailer of sparks and smoke, so that it looked like a meteor rushing through the night.

When I reached the hotel I found everybody up and bustling to form a party to go up and fight the flames. I was immediately surrounded by an excited crowd, all dressed in ski clothes. I asked for the manager. He came fussing through the group round me, a stout, important-looking little man with a sallow, worried face and lank, oily hair. 'You all right, signore? Are there any hurt?'

I told him the fire had hurt no one, that it was quite beyond control and would soon burn itself out. Then I asked if I could use his office and his telephone. 'But of course, signore. Anything I can do, you have but to command.' He put two electric fires on for me, had a waiter bring me a drink and a change of clothing and had a hot meal conjured up for me out of the kitchen, all in an instant. It was a big moment for him. He was showing his guests how good and generous a host he was. He nearly drove me frantic with his constant enquiries after my health. And all the while I had the telephone pressed to my ear. I spoke to Bologna, Mestre, Milan. Once a line was crossed and it was Rome talking to me. But Trieste or Udine — no.

Joe came puffing in just as I was talking to Bologna for the third time. He looked as though he had had a lot of falls. He was wet with snow and flopped exhaustedly into an arm-chair. He had his baby camera still slung round his neck. He gave the little manager fresh scope. Brandy was rushed to the scene. He was stripped of his ski suit and swathed in a monstrosity of a dressing-gown decked with purple-and-orange stripes. More food was brought. And whilst all this was going on and in the intervals of my telephonic tour of the main exchanges of Italy, I tried to give him some idea of what had been happening up at Col da Varda. I did not mention the gold, and this omission left loopholes in the story, so that I do not think he really believed it all.

But in the midst of his questions, Trieste suddenly asked me why I did not answer. I asked for the military exchange and got through to Major Musgrave at his hotel. His voice barked at me sleepily down the line. But annoyance changed to interest as I mentioned Engles' name and told him what I wanted. 'Right-ho,' was the reply, thin and faint as though at a great distance. 'I'll ring Udine and have 'em move off at once. The carabinieri post at Cortina, you say? Okay. Tell Derek they ought to be there about nine-ish, unless the road is blocked.' It was all settled in a matter of a few minutes, and I put the phone down with a sigh of relief.

The little manager had exhausted himself by then. Everyone had gone back to bed. I looked out into the hall. The hotel was quiet again. The porter slept, curled up in a chair by the stove. A big clock ticked solemnly below the staircase. It was ten past four. I went back into the office. Joe was asleep in the arm-chair, snoring gently. I pulled the heavy curtains aside and peered out. The moon was setting in a great yellow ball behind the shoulder of Monte Cristallo. The stars were brighter, the sky darker. Only the faintest glow showed at the top of the slittovia. The fire was burning itself out. I pulled a chair up to one of the electric heaters and settled myself down to await Engles' phone call.

I suppose I must have dozed off, for I don't remember the passage of time and it must have been after six when I was woken by the sound of voices in the hall. Then the door of the room was thrown open and Engles staggered in.

I remember I started to my feet. I hadn't expected him. His face was white and haggard. His ski suit was torn. There was blood on the front of his wind-breaker, and a great red stain just above the left groin. 'Get through to Trieste?' he asked. His voice sounded thin and exhausted.

'Yes,' I said. They'll be at the carabinieri post about nine.'

Engles gave a wry smile. 'Won't be necessary.' He stumbled over to the desk and collapsed into the leather-padded swivel-chair. 'Keramikos is dead,' he added.

'What happened?' I asked.

He stared vacantly at the typewriter that stood on the polished mahogany. He lurched slowly forward and removed the cover. Then he pulled the typewriter close to him and inserted a sheet of paper. 'Give me a cigarette,' he said. I put one in his mouth and lit it for him. He didn't speak for a moment. He just sat there with the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and his eyes fixed on the blank sheet of paper in the typewriter. 'My God!' he said slowly. 'What a story! It'll make film history. A thriller that really hap pened. It's never been done before — not like this.' His eyes were alight with the old enthusiasm. His fingers strayed to the keys and he began to type.

'Joe woke with a grunt at the sound of the typewriter and stared at Engles with his mouth open, as though he had seen a ghost.

I watched over Engles' shoulder. He wrote:

The click of the keys slowed and faltered.The cigarette dropped from his lips and lay on his lap, burning a brown mark on the white of his ski suit. His teeth were grinding together and beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. He raised his fingers to the keyboard again and added another line:

by Neil Blair He stopped then and stared at it with a little smile. A froth of blood bubbled at his lips. His wrists went slack so that the fingers raised a jumble of type arms. Then he gently keeled over and slipped to the floor before I could catch him.

When we picked him up, he was dead.