The Hike(33)

Bye, bye, Tristan.

He just had to hope he didn’t slip.





Twenty-Seven

SATURDAY EVENING

‘Cat, please. You need to talk to me.’ Paul tried to prise Cat’s arms away from where they were tightly gripped around her knees, but she was not budging. She had retreated inside her shell, and she was staying there. He walked to the edge and crouched down, keeping his weight back on his heels as he peered over. It was getting harder to see much now, in the twilight. The rock where Tristan had wedged his climbing equipment was just below, and Paul could see the rope snaking down until it disappeared from sight. He watched as it rippled. Heard the shearing sound of rope on metal as Tristan unravelled another length. He watched the section of rope as it hung loose for a moment, then tightened once more.

Somewhere far beneath, way out of sight, Tristan was gripping on to the rock face with his fingertips, searching for his wife. His wife. Paul’s sister-in-law. Who was more than likely dead.

Paul shook his head. How could this trip have gone so badly wrong? He peered over a bit more, hoping to see a ledge somewhere below, somewhere not too far, where Ginny might be lying – hurt, badly injured, but alive. Hopefully alive.

What was that saying – ‘hope is the last thing to die’, something like that?

‘Paul?’ Cat’s voice was quiet behind him. He turned to her, and saw that she had finally unfurled. Her face was puffy and blotchy from crying. ‘Paul, I’m scared.’

He went over to her and sat down beside her, taking her hand and squeezing it tight. ‘Shh. It’s going to be OK. Tristan will find her. She’ll be OK.’ It was a stupid lie, as most lies tended to be. But he couldn’t think of anything better to say at this point.

‘I’ve killed her, Paul.’

Paul felt a chill run down his back, right between the shoulder blades, where sweat from their earlier exertions now lay, damp and sticky. Cold. They were all going to get cold now. They were never meant to be up here in the dark. The mountain weather was perfect during the day, as the sun shone, but at night, at this height, they would soon start to struggle. Had any of them even packed anything warm? He hadn’t. Like Ginny, he’d actually expected to be back in that bloody hot tub before sunset.

He squeezed Cat’s hand harder, but said nothing else. There was no point in platitudes now. And the revelations that had kicked this all off could be dealt with later. Besides, she hadn’t admitted to an affair. And they didn’t even know yet if she was pregnant.

They sat together, as the sky darkened above. There was barely a sound, except the occasional screech and whirr of Tristan’s rope sliding through the metal loop that was attached to the ridiculously small peg that was stopping him from plummeting down into the valley after his wife.

Somewhere in the distance, a bird squawked.

Cat started sobbing again, and he put his arm around her.

There was no way to know how they were all going to deal with the fallout from this. They’d have to wait for Tristan to return so they could work out a plan. Hopefully, someone from the restaurant might’ve seen him descending. Maybe he’d tried shouting to them. Paul hadn’t heard anything, but from the amount of time he’d been gone, Paul thought Tristan must be far down the mountain.

There was a faint clink of metal as more rope rattled through the loop. It was nearly dark now. If he didn’t find Ginny soon . . . Paul shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought. He wasn’t ready to accept the fact that Ginny was most probably dead.

And Cat – his wife, Ginny’s sister – had caused her death. It had been an accident. She was upset. She hadn’t meant to push Ginny. Things had all just got stupidly out of hand. He wished he could turn back time – not just to before this horrible thing happened, but to months before . . . when he’d acted like an absolute idiot at work and lost Cat’s trust for ever. Sure, she’d stood by him. So he would stand by her now, too. No matter what happened.

‘I just want to see if I can spot Tristan,’ he said, moving away from his wife. She’d stopped sobbing and was sitting eerily still. There was a rustling sound from the trees behind them, and he turned, but of course there was nothing to see. The densely packed pines were impenetrable in this fading twilight. That sound again: small, light, fast. A rabbit, probably. Or a fox.

He knelt down at the edge of the path. ‘Tristan? Are you there?’ He was whispering. He almost laughed to himself. Why did people start to whisper when it got dark?

He could barely see anything past the first rocky slope. The rope whirred. Tristan had been very brave to head down there like that, in the dying light. Very brave, but very foolish. Did he even have a torch? Paul shuffled back and opened the side pocket of his rucksack. No torch. Not on his packing list. He’d packed exactly what Cat had told him to – she’d said everyone had a list and the point was that they would all share in carrying all the things they needed, instead of everyone bringing the same thing. A good idea, sure. But he’d have liked having a torch right now.

The only thing in his rucksack not on the list was his classic red Huntsman Swiss Army knife – a present from his dad for his twenty-first birthday, and something he never travelled without. It had everything on there to saw wood, strip wire, open bottles and tins, and, of course, cut pretty much anything – but it didn’t have a bloody torch. He’d bought one of those tiny lights that help you find your keys in the dark and clipped it on to the keyring. He’d hoped that maybe one day the company would update the tools to add a torch – he’d rather that than them spending time making the casings wooden or camo instead of the classic red. He did like things to look traditional, but tradition wasn’t helping him much right now. He took the knife out and slipped it into his pocket. Then he went back to the edge. ‘Tristan?’ He shouted it now, and his voice echoed in the empty darkness. Something in the bushes scurried away.