Read Online Old Enemies by Michael Dobbs - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Dobbs
Tags: Fiction & Literature
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the valley in Aigle, while at the college it was the end of term, the Christmas party, an evening full of distractions. In any event Casey’s closest confidantes thought they knew the reason for her absence only too well. The college declared its brief to be ‘experiences beyond the classroom’, and Casey had whispered her intention to follow it to the full.
Even when it became clear the following morning that neither Casey nor Ruari had slept in their beds their friends covered for them, and when the college house-parents eventually discovered their absence it was at first met with little more than mutterings about teenagers and distracted musings about appropriate punishments. It was only as the day wore on and Ruari failed to turn out for the last ice-hockey match of the term that the first shoots of real concern began to emerge. A conversation took place between the college bursar and his friend the police inspector in his office further down the Avenue Centrale, a quiet word, strictly informal, nothing made official, no black mark recorded against the college. But enquiries began to be made and by mid-afternoon a picture began to appear that placed matters on a far more serious footing. None of those involved in the heli-skiing could be traced, and the helicopter was missing, no radio traffic, no radar contact. It should have been noticed earlier, but even inside Swiss clocks sometimes the cuckoos go off song. Inevitably fears of a tragedy began to take hold but by that time it was too late, and too dark, for anything but a perfunctory search. The serious stuff would start at first light the following day, Sunday – except a warm front came over and the weather closed in, leaving fog clinging stubbornly to the sides of the valleys and making flying impossible.
It was Monday before the search got underway. That was also when the college principal, after a desperate and utterly sleepless night, picked up a telephone that was growing heavier with every hour and made calls to the two families. He said only ‘something has happened’. He didn’t want to give vent to his inner fears, to leave the families without hope. It was entirely possible, he reassured them, that Ruari and Casey were cold and hungry, sitting in a disabled helicopter and complaining how long it was taking to rescue them.
Monday was also the day that Pieter de Vries had it confirmed that the second tranche of his fee had been deposited.
Ruari woke in the bedroom at the back of the farmhouse that had become his cell. He had nothing but an old mattress on a metal-framed bed, which had neither sheets nor cover, not even a pillow. They had taken his bloodstained ski suit from him, but at least the place was well heated. The pain from his nose was still ferocious, but it was as nothing compared to the agonies he felt inside. Fear, anger, self-loathing, nausea, frustration, grief, resentment; they were like demons leaping out from every shadow to pierce him and snatch away any last shred of resistance. Every time he closed his eyes, every time he tried to escape within himself, the images of what had happened came floating back on a floodtide of guilt. There was Mattias, his face staring quizzically at Ruari, his lips twisted in indictment, demanding an explanation for what he had done. Why had he done this? Got him killed? His fault! The face was drained and ghostly, the cheeks sunken, the eyes large and burning with the injustice of it all, then slowly they fell to the hole in his chest, which seemed to be growing like a spider’s web until it had all but eaten the rest of Mattias away. Ruari tried to drag his own gaze away to another corner, but there was no escape. Mattias was everywhere, lurking in every corner, waiting to accuse him.
So Ruari closed his eyes, screwed them firmly shut, looking for comfort, and there was Casey. Beautiful, wonderful Casey, the girl he loved so much and lusted after still more, who had led him to the brink of
Even when it became clear the following morning that neither Casey nor Ruari had slept in their beds their friends covered for them, and when the college house-parents eventually discovered their absence it was at first met with little more than mutterings about teenagers and distracted musings about appropriate punishments. It was only as the day wore on and Ruari failed to turn out for the last ice-hockey match of the term that the first shoots of real concern began to emerge. A conversation took place between the college bursar and his friend the police inspector in his office further down the Avenue Centrale, a quiet word, strictly informal, nothing made official, no black mark recorded against the college. But enquiries began to be made and by mid-afternoon a picture began to appear that placed matters on a far more serious footing. None of those involved in the heli-skiing could be traced, and the helicopter was missing, no radio traffic, no radar contact. It should have been noticed earlier, but even inside Swiss clocks sometimes the cuckoos go off song. Inevitably fears of a tragedy began to take hold but by that time it was too late, and too dark, for anything but a perfunctory search. The serious stuff would start at first light the following day, Sunday – except a warm front came over and the weather closed in, leaving fog clinging stubbornly to the sides of the valleys and making flying impossible.
It was Monday before the search got underway. That was also when the college principal, after a desperate and utterly sleepless night, picked up a telephone that was growing heavier with every hour and made calls to the two families. He said only ‘something has happened’. He didn’t want to give vent to his inner fears, to leave the families without hope. It was entirely possible, he reassured them, that Ruari and Casey were cold and hungry, sitting in a disabled helicopter and complaining how long it was taking to rescue them.
Monday was also the day that Pieter de Vries had it confirmed that the second tranche of his fee had been deposited.
Ruari woke in the bedroom at the back of the farmhouse that had become his cell. He had nothing but an old mattress on a metal-framed bed, which had neither sheets nor cover, not even a pillow. They had taken his bloodstained ski suit from him, but at least the place was well heated. The pain from his nose was still ferocious, but it was as nothing compared to the agonies he felt inside. Fear, anger, self-loathing, nausea, frustration, grief, resentment; they were like demons leaping out from every shadow to pierce him and snatch away any last shred of resistance. Every time he closed his eyes, every time he tried to escape within himself, the images of what had happened came floating back on a floodtide of guilt. There was Mattias, his face staring quizzically at Ruari, his lips twisted in indictment, demanding an explanation for what he had done. Why had he done this? Got him killed? His fault! The face was drained and ghostly, the cheeks sunken, the eyes large and burning with the injustice of it all, then slowly they fell to the hole in his chest, which seemed to be growing like a spider’s web until it had all but eaten the rest of Mattias away. Ruari tried to drag his own gaze away to another corner, but there was no escape. Mattias was everywhere, lurking in every corner, waiting to accuse him.
So Ruari closed his eyes, screwed them firmly shut, looking for comfort, and there was Casey. Beautiful, wonderful Casey, the girl he loved so much and lusted after still more, who had led him to the brink of
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