A Winter Grave

Chapter Fourteen

Brodie sat alone in the dark at the table where he and Sita had exchanged confidences in the bar the night before. To occupy his mind and stop himself from thinking, he had spent five minutes crouched before the hearth, setting and lighting a fire that now sent flickering shadows around the barroom. The crackle of it created the illusion of life beyond the sense of his own faltering existence. But nothing could dispel the deep, deep depression that had settled on him like snow.

Sita’s body had been locked in rigor mortis, lying on her back, knees drawn up to her chest, arms folded with her fists at her face, like some bizarre female pugilist. Her killer had clearly experienced difficulty getting her into the cabinet, manhandling her into this strangely unnatural position in order to get the lid shut. It would be hours before rigor wore off and Brodie could remove her from it, to lay her out with dignity.

But perhaps even more bizarrely, the body that hers had replaced was gone. Charles Younger’s autopsied corpse in its black body bag had vanished.

Peering in at the dead pathologist, Brodie had seen petechial haemorrhaging around her once beautiful eyes, and a slightly protruding blue-black tongue. There was bruising around her neck. So she had been strangled. It was impossible to tell what other injuries she might have suffered.

Robbie had pulled a chair up to the table in the kitchen and sat with his head in his hands. Face chalk-white. ‘I should have stayed with her,’ he had said. ‘And none of this would have happened.’

But Brodie just shook his head and told him, ‘You had no reason to stay, Robbie. No reason to believe she was in danger.’

The young policeman had wanted to remain with him at the hotel, at least until Brannan returned. But Brodie insisted that he go. Robbie’s first responsibility was to the safety and well-being of his family. There was nothing more to be done here until communications were restored and they could call for back-up.

It was snowing heavily outside, big wet flakes crushing against the black of the window, blocking any possibility of a view out to the loch, where the lights of the village would be reflected in dark water. He had raided the bar, ripping an almost empty bottle of Glenlivet single malt from an optic to fill his glass. He had been shaking, unable to hold his hands steady in front of him. And the whisky only made him feel nauseous.

For some reason, he couldn’t rid himself of the image of the pathologist sitting across from him last night. Her smile, her laughter, her tears. Those dark eyes, and her crinkled black hair drawn back from a handsome face. How unfair it was. After all, he was the one who was dying. The one without a future. Sita had two children who relied on her. And she was still young, with her life lying, in large part, ahead of her. And yet she was the one who lay dead in the kitchen. Crammed unceremoniously into a chill cabinet for cakes and desserts, while he had escaped death just hours earlier in an avalanche. And he couldn’t help but feel guilty. Not, for once, as the result of something he had done, or said. But just for being. For surviving.

He should never have come here. Addie had created a life for herself. A family. He had no right to come barging in to ruin yet more lives. He was just a selfish bastard. He was the one who deserved to die. Not poor Sita, leaving her children to the fate of orphans. Tears filled his eyes, and he blinked furiously as they left shiny tracks down his cheeks.

He took a deep breath and screwed his eyes shut, and felt the silence of the International Hotel weigh down on him like a reproach. A log shifted in the fire and sent sparks spiralling up the chimney. A slight blowback produced a small puff of smoke that rose to the ceiling. He could smell it above the damp and the perfume of stale alcohol.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw Addie in his reflection in the glass. He’d had the chance to break his silence when they were on the mountain this afternoon. But he had flunked it, knowing she wasn’t ready to listen. Not yet. And even if one day she was, he wondered if he would ever have the courage to tell her the truth.

He closed his eyes again to shut her out, and remember...