The Hike(36)

‘Yes, yes.’ Thierry waves a hand in front of his face. ‘Albert, then. Maybe I don’t know him?’

Séb pulls on his small, neat beard. ‘I think maybe you don’t. He’s quite new to the area, actually. He moved here from Lyon. I met him in the supermarket one morning and we got chatting . . .’

Thierry laughs. ‘You weren’t in the supermarket in the morning. Unless I give you an early shift, you don’t get out of bed until midday.’

‘OK, maybe it wasn’t the morning. Anyway. He says yes, there were some Brits in yesterday. Two men, two women. They had a late lunch.’

‘Ah. So anything unusual? What time was this?’

‘Maybe 3 p.m. Albert says he saw them come in – one of the women looked like she was about to faint, but the others were fine.’

‘OK . . . this is not very interesting, Sébastien. Did anything interesting happen? Anything unusual? Were they fighting? What did they look like?’

Séb shrugs. ‘Albert says he went out the back after that. He was sorting out the beer. Doing a stocktake.’

Thierry slaps his hand on the desk. The noise of the TV is driving him insane. He glances at the monitor; the man and the woman are sitting on opposite couches, not speaking.

‘Did anyone else see anything? Who served them? Can Albert talk to the other staff?’ He sighs. ‘We’re really not getting much of a picture here.’

‘Maybe we should send out a couple of searchers, just in case . . .’

Thierry feels himself getting ready to explode. Takes some calming breaths to counteract it. Sandrine has warned him about his stress levels and his blood pressure. She won’t even let him have salt anymore. The witch. Thierry gently punches his fists together, five times. It helps calm him. He looks at Séb. He talks slowly and calmly. ‘I can’t authorise any searchers when we don’t know who we are searching for. Or where.’

‘OK. Yes.’ Séb looks at his phone, as if it might give him more answers. ‘Oh . . . Albert says he is trying to call the staff who were on yesterday, to see if anyone remembers the four Brits. Problem is, they are not picking up their phones. There were three of them. A woman and two men.’ He raises an eyebrow at Thierry. ‘Albert thinks the three of them went off to party somewhere. They’re probably passed out . . .’

Thierry wants to scream now, but he doesn’t. Instead, he closes his eyes tightly for three seconds, then opens them. Repeats that three times. Another of his little tricks. He doesn’t even know when he started getting so easily wound up. He used to be a calm man, until Sandrine took up all those new activities and he was never entirely sure where she was or what she was doing. He sighs. ‘Let’s start on the hotels, then. See if anyone can tell us who didn’t come back to their rooms yet.’

‘Good idea.’ Séb picks up his phone and sits down in front of another computer, where he clicks a couple of folders then opens a file. The header is clear, in large font and caps: HOTELS-CONTACTS. He starts tapping a number into his phone.

Thierry swivels back around to the CCTV monitor and watches. They are still on separate couches. She has her arms crossed tightly, looking out towards the street. The man is staring at her. His expression is not friendly. Thierry nods his head. Interesting, he thinks. Very interesting indeed.





Thirty

SATURDAY EVENING

They sat there for what seemed like forever. Cat, with her knees to her chest, locked in position. Tristan, one arm around her, his head leaning on her shoulder. She listened to his breathing as it slowed back to something resembling normal. She knew she was in shock. Knew that there were things that would need to be said later on, once this was over. If it was ever over. She was alone now. No parents, no sister, no husband. Just Tristan, and a brutal side that she hadn’t seen before and wasn’t sure she liked. She was worried about herself a little, too. She had almost enjoyed what had just happened. The sky was fully dark now, the only sounds the occasional scurry of something in the woods, the odd squawk or whoop of a bird. Eventually, she found her voice.

‘So this is a fucking disaster.’

He lifted his head from her shoulder. ‘I know. Here we are, stuck up a mountain in the pitch-black, and I don’t even have a torch.’ He turned to her, stroking her face. ‘I guess we’re too late for the hot tub now?’

Cat shook her head. ‘It’s not funny. None of this is fucking funny, Tristan.’ She pulled away from him. ‘It was all meant to be simple, you said. It’ll look like a tragic accident—’

‘I think you might’ve buggered that one up when you decided to shove your sister off the edge.’

Cat felt tears prick at her eyes again. One minute she was crying, the next she was laughing. Of all the things they’d discussed, they’d never talked about how it might feel when it was done. Not that it was an issue for Tristan, who seemed ridiculously cool about it all. Terrifyingly cool, in fact. She hadn’t expected that. And she hadn’t expected to feel so lost, with the two people she was closest to in the world now gone.

Even if it had been what she wanted.

How the hell were they going to get down now? She could barely see her hand in front of her face. Then she remembered . . . Oh, thank god for corporate clients.

‘We do have a torch,’ she said, pulling her rucksack on to her lap. She opened one of the long side pockets, took out waterproofs and some other small bits and pieces that she could barely see in the dark. Finally, her fingers found a small plastic box and she lifted it out of the bag and flipped open the lid. Inside was a silver mini-Maglite, branded with a company name: Epic Solutions. ‘I know the proper torch went in Ginny’s bag – which, by the way, was a very stupid decision in hindsight—’