Bruno Crane
The Friend
He’s dead. He’s dead. I have to keep repeating it to myself as I begin the climb up the glacier.
Dead! I feel like I’ve just grabbed hold of a live wire.
The blood’s rushing in my eardrums, my heart’s going like the clappers.
I’m terrified … I’ve never felt so alive.
He’s dead and I’m here. I won. Turns out he was mortal after all.
Now I’m trying to think clearly through the adrenaline. I’ll use the chaos at the hotel and the falling snow as cover. This hike up the mountain is just as hideous as it was last night but, funny thing, my motivation’s much greater now. It’s all going to be mine.
It’s not going to be easy to get the stuff back to the hotel in the light of day, without being noticed, but I don’t have a choice. I have to do it now. In a matter of hours (perhaps sooner?) it’ll be swarming with foreign police and then I’ll have no hope at all.
If I can pull this next part off, I’ll be a pretty rich chap. Doubly as rich as I would have been. And his share – well, I think I’m going to enjoy it even more than mine.
Who’s the idiot now, Narracott?
Once I’ve got the gold I have to get out of this place as quick as possible.
Can’t go back to England, of course. I’ll be a wanted man after all this.
But what’s left for me there? I can start a new life elsewhere.
The beautiful thing about gold is, it can’t be traced.
It can be melted down and made new and universally accepted.
Perhaps I can hope for the same thing myself.
Can see myself finding a little place out here, in fact.
Or, rather, a big place. On a lake somewhere.
Yes, that will do me nicely. No, I can’t speak the language.
But I can afford staff now to smooth out any difficulties.
Perhaps I can drop out of society completely.
Yes, just leave the world behind. Do you know, I really hate people.
The snow’s coming down heavily and the wind drives the fat wet flakes straight into my face. It’s difficult to keep my bearings, but I keep pushing on, one foot in front of the other, sweat rising in spite of the cold.
See, Narracott? The old lump of lard can move pretty swiftly when he needs to.
I take little nips from my hip flask to give me some fire in my belly.
Try not to think about how easy it is to go off track in such conditions – even easier than the other night – and end up breaking one’s neck in a crevasse.
It seems worth the risk, though. Nothing to lose. And everything to gain.
He is really gone. And with him, the only other soul who remembers that terrible night.
Even though we were both implicated, even though it would have done more damage to him if it came out, he always held it over me.
Then I stop in my tracks, remembering what we heard two nights ago when we climbed up here.
Remember the flag with that damned wolf on it too.
Has someone followed us here from the past? I think of the young oddball with the glasses who couldn’t take his eyes off Narracott at drinks. Him? But which could he have been? The French youth seems like the only possibility … but I was so sure he was dead.
I take another big slug from the hip flask. Can’t dwell on all that. Get the stuff and get out of here, that’s the answer.
Finally, I see it and I could almost weep with relief: the dark shape of the hut appears through the haze of white.
A few moments later I am standing inside.
I lift the boards, loose from the other night, and then climb down into the shaft.
As soon as I lift the metal chest from the sack, I know something is wrong.
It’s too light. Even before I open it, I know it’s gone. The gold has gone.
The cry is out of me before I can stop it. I could swear that I can hear him laughing at me from beyond the grave. He would enjoy this.
It’s as though I can hear his ghostly chuckle ringing in my ears.
Crane, you stupid clown. Did you really think it was going to be so easy?
Look at you, you big ugly bumbling idiot.
It would be just like him to have the very last laugh; to come back and haunt me for the rest of my days.
I feel rage rise up inside me like the rage I felt last night and this morning, thinking of all the ways in which he has humiliated me. I wish him dead all over again.
I punch the wall of rock and howl.