Chapter 9
9
Idiotes . That was what these two were. Another couple of tourists here for the quaint Christmas village atmosphere and the skiing that was substantially more affordable than Aspen. In this current cold snap they would be lucky to even make it to the slopes without a blistering wind chill destroying their skin and going to town on the inside of their lungs. And Delphine knew they were coming? She hadn’t mentioned she had visitors arriving and she knew how he felt about strangers, how he tried to avoid the tourist elements of Saint-Chambéry, kept a low profile. And where was Milo with the rescue car? They were in the village now, but someone needed to go back to Gerard. Jacques scanned the crowds, hoisting the girl on his back a little higher to keep his grip. Would Delphine still be in the store? Or had she already begun to man the stall where she would be selling the cookies?
‘Wow, there’s a fire!’ the girl on his back remarked.
‘Yes,’ Jacques replied. ‘It is where we put the tourists with bad coats close to to thaw out. Then, if that does not work, we destroy the evidence that they were ever here.’
He felt the girl shudder and was struck with a little remorse for his tone and his words. When had he got quite so blunt and brutal with everyone?
‘Come,’ he said, striding towards the thick orange flames licking up into the night sky. ‘Let us get you warmer.’ He looked over his shoulder. Where was the other one? He couldn’t see her amid the growing groups of people in the square waiting behind a thick bronze ribbon. That stupid ribbon! It was always treated like it was some kind of religious icon, fête-goers almost bowing at its presence. Ridiculous!
‘I… can’t let anyone see my front,’ the girl said, sounding like her teeth were chattering.
‘What?’
‘Where I was sick,’ she continued. ‘It’s rank.’
‘I do not know what that means, but I do know your mother was very thorough with the wet wiping before you left the car.’
He had thought that was crazy, standing in the cold, getting a packet of damp mouchoirs out and wiping more cold onto a jacket. Left alone, these two would be halfway to the ER already. Ironic as that was many, many miles away and they would never make it there on foot…
‘My mother!’ the girl exclaimed. Then she laughed.
‘I have made a joke?’ he asked her.
‘Orla isn’t my mum,’ the girl answered. ‘I know she looks dead old, but she’s my sister. I’m the one our parents didn’t expect. Our mum always blames the big bang theory and no one ever knows if she’s talking about the TV show or not. I really hope she is.’
Jacques had no idea what she was talking about either but it was good to hear her talking. He had been worried by how quiet and pale she had been in Gerard’s car.
‘Are you ready to get down?’ he asked her as they got to a reasonably uncrowded area behind the rope cordon no one really took much notice of.
‘If no one looks at the front of my coat,’ came the reply.
He swung her down and steadied her as her trainer-clad feet hit the snow and she rocked a little, looking slightly unstable. ‘OK?’ he checked.
‘I think so,’ she answered, unconvincingly.
Where was the other woman? And, also, where was this pregnant reindeer he had been promised? He was beginning to think the whole thing was a ruse just to get him here in the midst of the community on one of the busiest nights of the year. He knew he should have been integrating a little more now but old habits died hard and there were always those dark memories at the back of his mind…
‘Stand here,’ Jacques ordered her. ‘By the fire. Do not move. I will be back.’
He was going to get the girl a hot drink and then he was going to find the woman he seemed to have lost. Why was he even concerned? He had zero responsibility for any of this. And that was exactly what he had wanted when he’d moved here. It was just him, his dog, Hunter, and the mountain. He strode fast, towards the stall selling coffee and an alcoholic drink that tasted as bad as it smelled, which he had only ever had once. Then suddenly…
‘Oh!’
Someone had walked into his path and sideswiped him and was now rocking on their feet. He acted quickly, pulling them towards him before they fell into the queue waiting for hot beverages. It took him a second to realise who it was. Who he was looking for. The sister of the smaller one.
‘You,’ he stated. ‘What are you doing? And why can none of you tourists stand up in the snow?’
‘You walked into me,’ the woman replied. ‘And now you’re crushing my arm. Please let go.’
Jacques did as she asked and she stood still very briefly until her trainers seemed to disappear fast into a clump of snow and she was losing her balance again. He reached out to save her.
‘I’m good!’ she answered roughly, steadying herself and quickly planting her feet on more secure ground. ‘Perfectly OK.’
She didn’t look perfectly OK, she looked angry. Her eyebrows were narrowed over her large blue eyes. There was frost in her shoulder-length blonde hair. And then the look in her eyes intensified, quickly turning from mad to concerned.
‘Where’s Erin?’
‘Who?’
‘My sister,’ she said. ‘The person you had on your back and obviously isn’t on your back now. You didn’t leave her on her own, did you?’
‘Relax,’ he answered. ‘She is fine. But she could use a coffee. I was just?—’
She was moving now, pulling her feet out of the snow and making moves through the gathering crowd. He tutted and followed. This was the best plan. To reunite them while he found Delphine and got away from the whole mess of the situation. Except, as his eyes found the spot he had definitely left the girl, he realised she was no longer there. Merde .
‘So, where did you say Erin was?’
The blue eyes were looking kind of accusing now.
‘Just over there,’ he answered and pointed in a very vague way. Simultaneously he was scanning the features of every person around, looking for the girl in the puffy jacket. Come on, Jacques . This was slack. But finding people in a crowd, recognising faces, it was one of his specialities. And he needed that ability to kick in fast now before the next question came.
‘Over where?’
‘Er, not far.’ Where could she have gone? Yes, there was a crowd here, but it was scores rather than hundreds. And, with his skills, he should be able to pick out a tourist at this time of year from the others around.
‘How far?’
‘Just… a little further.’ Come on, Jacques. Look. Look hard.
‘There is no further,’ the woman answered, sounding very concerned now. ‘There is rope!’
Merde. Merde. Where was the girl? And why had she wandered off? He had left her where it was warm. Where she could regroup. No one here would have…
‘Someone might have taken her.’ The woman’s words were almost whispered, like if she said them too loudly it would make them come true.
‘No,’ he answered with fierce reassurance. ‘Not here. Saint-Chambéry, it is very nice.’
‘You could say that about anywhere. Just because a place seems nice, doesn’t mean bad things don’t happen.’ There was definite panic in her tone now. She was already drawing her phone out of her pocket. ‘God! Is there any signal anywhere around here? I need to phone her! I need to find her!’
‘There is no need to panic,’ Jacques told her.
‘Is there not? Because, so far, since I’ve been here, I’ve been in an RTA, walked in freezing conditions and now my sister is missing! I’d say I should have started panicking the minute I got off the plane!’
‘Orla?’
The girl’s voice sent a shot of relief down Jacques’s spine. There she was, a steaming cup of something in her hands.
‘Oh, Erin! Thank God! I thought you’d been taken by… wolves or… something worse.’
‘Do not hug me!’ the girl responded, drawing the drink towards her body as if to prevent contact.
‘OK,’ Jacques said, clapping his gloved hands together. ‘You are reunited. You have a hot drink. I am out of here before Gerard turns into an ice sculpture.’ He turned away from them. He was going to find where the hell Milo had got to.
‘Wait!’ the woman called. ‘Which way is… Delphine?’
He turned around. ‘Over there. The store.’ He pointed and then took off again. He couldn’t wait for this night to be over.