Diana Glass
The Help
‘But Jane,’ Mrs Bantry says. ‘You always get your man – or, so to speak. And they have got away.’
‘They had to be allowed to go,’ says Miss Marple.
‘We are talking of two desperate, and therefore very dangerous, murderers. The more desperate someone becomes, the more dangerous, like a cornered rat that jumps straight for the throat. Did I ever tell you about poor Gladys finding one in the pantry—’
‘Jane!’
‘Sorry, dear. Well … you see, to let them leave was really my only option. The police are not yet here. They have, I am sure, a weapon. They have already killed three times – they would not hesitate for a moment to kill again. They have little to lose and everything to gain. I have not found myself in such a situation before: being confined to one place without any help from the authorities. I had to consider what was best in the circumstances. I could not put anyone else’s life in danger. ’
‘So you let them go?’
‘I suppose it does appear that way,’ says Miss Marple. ‘If they ever manage to leave the mountains, that is.’
Mrs Bantry widens her eyes. ‘What do you mean, Jane?’
Miss Marple does not answer. She tilts her head to one side as though she is listening to something, beyond the hearing of the rest of us. There is something knowing in her expression … and a little sorrowful, too.
‘Jane,’ says Mrs Bantry. ‘You’ve gone a little spooky. You’re scaring me a little.’
Miss Marple seems to give herself another little mental shake. ‘Sorry, dear,’ she says. ‘What was I saying? Anyway, I must just go and do something – will you excuse me?’ She moves off in the direction of the lobby.
Twenty minutes later and I am sitting in the gondola, on the very seat where Anthony Narracott took his last breath.
I fasten my ski boots with clumsy fingers.
I persuaded them to start up the mechanism: the two murderers have a significant head start, but they have had to scale the mountainside on skins and this will help me to close the distance.
The gondola is a marvel of engineering, yet seems painfully slow as it ascends the bleached slopes of the mountain.
For the first time in days the visibility is excellent: not a cloud in the sky and the sun rising over there in the east sets the whole mountainside aglow.
I press my face against the window and stare and stare but there is no sign of them, down below.
They must be up and over already. I am aware of my heart beating powerfully in my chest, the blood rushing through my veins, my every nerve ending alive.
Terrified – alive. Diana the Hunter. A clunk as the mechanism locks into place and I realise I have arrived at the top of the mountain.
I walk along the ridge, carrying my skis.
The views, now that the sun is risen, are dazzling.
Over there in one direction is Italy, the other, France.
In the direction of the pass over into Italy are two pairs of ski tracks, leading into what appears from this perspective to be a great void of nothingness.
I put on my skis and push off. There is so much new powder – in places it is up to my thighs – but because of the intense cold it has stayed light as icing sugar and the turns are easy enough, as long as I concentrate on keeping the skis as close together as possible.
It is such smooth going that my body registers a moment of pure pleasure before I am reminded of the task at hand.
I spot them, halfway down the slope. Two figures, looping down through the powder.
They look so graceful, free and harmonious.
For a moment, it gives me pause. Could I just let them go?
Pretend I had never seen them? But I know that I can’t.
That gold, stained by so much death and suffering: no one should benefit from it.
I compress my turns, increase my speed. And then I make a turn that dislodges a small fall of snow.
I regain my balance, but it has sent several larger pieces of the top layer rolling and skittering down towards the two women.
There is a shout. I pause for a moment and realise they have turned to look up the mountain.
One of them is pointing with an arm – no, something else …
In the same moment that I understand I feel a white-hot bolt of heat entering my body.
A short, animal bleat escapes me and I fall like a felled deer into the soft eiderdown of white.
I lie encased in the freezing softness of the snow as the sensation, which I now dimly recognise as a bullet, begins to make itself known as pain, pain that I understand has the power to swallow me whole.
The external world seems to recede as it takes over.
So it is through dim eyes that I watch as the snow twenty yards or so beneath me begins to move.
It is like watching the stirring of some huge creature woken from its slumber.
I am just above the fracture line. The women beneath will be directly in its path.
They have to ski to the side. I had some brief training at Arisaig House in Scotland before I was deployed with the SOE – day trips to Aviemore – and this is one of the things I remember.
But do the women below know this? In spite of everything, there is an impulse to call out to them.
But they’re too far away and I couldn’t make a sound if I tried.
The pain is astonishing now. And then a realisation: I could stop resisting.
I could allow it to overwhelm me. A strange sense of calm descends.
Perhaps this is how my brothers- and sisters-in-arms felt at the end, on that long-ago night.
The thought is a balm as I close my eyes and release myself to the void.