Swiss Vendetta (Agnes Luthi Mysteries #1)(24)

“An ice storm?” Agnes said. “I grew up near Lausanne and don’t remember anything like this.”

“There’s never been an ice storm like this but we’ve had wind. I’m a good deal older than you and I remember a time when I was a girl. Was a proper kitchen maid here, then under cook and finally head cook. One spring the Foehn knocked out the power and enough trees to trap us for a day or two.”

Agnes had lived through the strong warm African winds that blew through Switzerland periodically, but she couldn’t remember one doing that kind of damage.

The cook set a pan of hot madeleines on the table and nudged them forward. Agnes took a small sample, tasting butter and lemon.

“Can’t remember the exact year but the electric lights were already here, and the phone line.” The cook shot Agnes a glance. “They didn’t put electric power in the chateau until late, just before the boys were born. I remember early on when the lines would get blown down in a storm, and it would be a few hours until everything was working again.”

Agnes knew the rich were different but this was remarkable. Why not have modern conveniences if you could afford them?

The cook ran her hand across her face. “The radio. I’d forgotten. It’s not having a butler that does it. When the old Monsieur died our butler retired and Madame didn’t care to replace him. He kept the radio ready in case of emergency. We gave him grief about it, especially after everyone had a mobile phone, but he was old-fashioned and never took to having one himself.”

She motioned for Agnes to follow and led the way out of the kitchen and down the main corridor away from the stairs. There she pulled out a set of keys and opened a door. “Habit, keeping it locked. Only room in the whole place I need a key for. Keep the account books here for the food and such. The silver room is through here as well, although it’s only for the special banquet silver. The everyday is kept near the family dining room.” She fussed through a cabinet. “It is here somewhere. Yes.”

She turned with a flourish, a heavy two-way radio clasped in her fist. Agnes took it, trying not to laugh. It had the look and feel of World War II. “You’re sure it works?”

“He tested it regular as clockwork on the first Monday of the new year.”

“Then the last test was two years ago?”

The cook frowned. “It always worked. You press this button, don’t touch the dial, it’s set to the right channel. The gendarmerie will hear you. They’ll be listening for us in an emergency.”

Agnes looked from woman to radio and back again. “It’s been a while.”

“We’ve only missed two years testing the radio out of fifty.” The cook crossed her arms over her broad chest as if fending off an attack on the integrity of the household and its practices.

Agnes pressed the button as instructed, thinking that this was a heavy-duty version of the small walkie-talkies her sons played with on the farm, calling each other from distant fields in an extended, technologically enhanced game of hide-and-seek. She spoke, feeling like an idiot, and released the button.

“Do it again. They don’t sit around and wait for us. You need to give them a minute to realize you’re calling and they’ll get back to you. That’s why we did it at the same time every year, to skip the waiting.”

Agnes didn’t comment. Not exactly an emergency test. The officers at the gendarmerie probably turned on the equipment once a year rather than argue with the Vallottons, then forgot about it the other 364 days.

“’Allo? You are coming in,” a voice echoed through the small speaker, the sound broken by static.

Agnes keyed the microphone with a level of excitement she didn’t know possible. Contact with the outside world. She could reach Bardy and her boys.

The next response was so full of static that she couldn’t make out the words at all. The cook pushed her out the door. “Sometimes you have to go outside,” she hissed. “The stone walls are too thick for reception.”

Agnes yelled this into the microphone, hoping they would hear her and wait. She ducked into the hall and raced down the stairs to the outside, ignoring the blast of frigid air, thankful she had not taken her coat off. Once outside she held the button and spoke, then waited. The transmission was still unclear, like a modern-day mobile phone in a weak service area. Quickly she moved toward the corner of the chateau, aiming for closer proximity to the station up the cliff.

“Yes, we are all well,” she said in response to what she thought the officer asked. “We have the deceased in a controlled location,” she added in case he had forgotten why she was at the base of the hill in the first place. “Otherwise we are fine.”

Rounding the corner she nearly ran into Petit. She waved him off and focused on the voice coming through the radio speaker.

“You’re lucky,” the man said, finally clear, his excitement evident. “The village is stacked with people. Couple of busloads of tourists were stranded and it was market day for the locals. We are the epicenter. Government’s sending us into the hills to check on households one at a time and make sure they have supplies to see them through.”

Agnes let the man talk for a moment, realizing that in their isolation there was a need to share experiences. She watched Petit join Doctor Blanchard. Together they entered a door set in a small building dug halfway into the ground: the disused ice house where they had stored the body. She’d noted the roof from the height of the chateau’s walls. Glancing past it toward the grove where they had discovered Felicity Cowell, she glimpsed a figure standing behind the bench where the body was found. She recognized Frédéric Estanguet by the distinctive color of his scarf. He was probably pondering how one good deed had resulted in his being trapped here.