Chapter Nineteen The Stag Do #2
He changed in the bathroom and emerged looking like a Bavarian nightmare designed by someone who had only heard briefly of Bavaria from a 1970s fashion designer on acid at a very noisy party.
The fuchsia clashed magnificently with his complexion, which had gone slightly green from either the wine, the cheese or possibly just the humiliation.
But at least the green complimented the shirt, a bit.
‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘Shall we ski?’
‘Right,’ Freddie announced, swaying slightly as he stood. ‘Follow me!’
‘Freddie, you can barely stand.’
‘That’s never stopped me before!’
???
The descent was chaos.
Tariq crashed into a family of German tourists and spent ten minutes apologising in his very best schoolboy German, which consisted primarily of the words ‘Entschuldigung’ and ‘bitte’ repeated in various combinations until the family fled.
Archie somehow ended up on a children’s learner slope and had to be rescued by a nine-year-old, who spoke to him with the patient condescension she usually reserved for her baby brother.
Tariq got moving again before rapidly losing a ski entirely and was last seen hopping determinedly toward the village, refusing all offers of assistance.
Rupert challenged a random French skier to a race and lost badly, though he insisted this was only because the Frenchman was ‘clearly experienced.’ ‘He must have been skiing for decades,’ Rupert said, as we watched his opponent glide effortlessly toward the lift station. ‘You can tell by the technique.’
‘He’s over seventy years old, Rupert.’
‘Exactly! Decades of practice. Hardly fair, is it?’
James, resplendent in fuchsia lederhosen, attracted attention from every direction. Children pointed. Adults stared. A group of Italian tourists took photographs. He waved at them graciously, like minor royalty acknowledging the peasants and promptly crashed into a snowbank.
Viktor, skiing behind the group, watched the chaos unfold with an expression that suggested he was reconsidering every decision that had led him to this moment.
But the real problem was Freddie, who had decided to bring the empty champagne bottle down with him, sitting on it like a makeshift sledge whenever the terrain permitted.
He shouted out with the unshakeable confidence of the profoundly drunk that he knew a shortcut.
‘This way!’ he shouted, veering toward a gap in the trees.
‘I remember this from last year! Cuts off twenty minutes!’
‘Freddie, you weren’t here last year.’
‘Must have been the year before!’
‘You’ve never been to Verbier before.’
‘Then I must have seen it in a dream! Come on, James!’.
And James, because James never learned and was also pretty far gone himself, followed him into the forest. The fuchsia lederhosen disappeared between the pines like a tropical bird that had taken a catastrophically wrong turn during migration.
Viktor, trailing behind to observe, heard the screaming about thirty seconds later.
He found them at the edge of a ravine. Freddie had skied directly into a tree, the impact was softened somewhat by the wine sloshing through his system and he was now hanging from a branch over a thirty-metre drop, laughing hysterically.
His skis had come off somewhere in the collision and were currently making their own way down the mountain, presumably toward a better life.
James, trying to help, had somehow got his ski caught in exposed roots and was sliding slowly but inexorably toward the edge.
The fuchsia lederhosen, vivid against the white snow, made him look like a highlighter pen being drawn toward oblivion.
The matching hat had already tumbled into the void below, a small pink dot growing smaller until it vanished entirely.
‘It is all fine!’ Freddie shouted, his voice echoing off the ravine walls. ‘I can probably climb back up! James, stop moving...’
‘I’m trying to help Freddie...’
‘You’re making it worse...’
‘The leather’s gone slippery!’ James’s fingers scrabbled uselessly at the frozen ground, the lederhosen providing approximately zero traction against the snow. ‘Why is leather so slippery? This seems like a design flaw!’
‘Stop. Moving.’ Viktor assessed the situation with the cold clarity that had kept him alive through situations considerably more dangerous than two drunk Englishmen and a ravine.
Freddie: suspended but stable, the branch thick enough to hold his weight for several minutes.
James: the more immediate problem, sliding gently but constantly toward a drop that would not be survivable in any outfit, fuchsia or otherwise.
He moved. Using Freddie’s abandoned ski pole Viktor anchored James’s remaining ski to a tree root, arresting the slide.
James lay there, breathing heavily, staring up at the grey sky, the fuchsia lederhosen now comprehensively soaked with snow and what appeared to be residual fondue. ‘Stay there,’ Viktor said.
‘Wasn’t planning on going anywhere.’
The rescue of Freddie required improvisation.
Fashioning a rope from the straps of his rucksack, Viktor managed to get a loop around Freddie’s foot and with more violence than what was technically needed, he pulled him to safety through the snow.
Freddie narrated the entire experience, providing commentary on the view, Viktor’s technique, his brute strength and his growing conviction that this is what a snow colonic feels like.
‘Viktor,’ Freddie said, with feeling, ‘you’re a bloody hero.
’ He collapsed exhausted, or possibly just very drunk into the snow by James, both covered in snow and pine needles, the fuchsia lederhosen now a kind of muddy magenta, both grinning like children who had just survived something that should by rights have killed them.
James hauled himself upright. The lederhosen squelched. ‘I think I’ve got snow in places snow shouldn’t be. Also possibly cheese. The cheese situation remains unclear.’
‘The cheese situation,’ Viktor said, with the tone of a man questioning every choice that had led him to this moment, ‘is the least of your problems.’
???
Dinner provided Viktor with an opportunity to extract additional information about the wedding and the opportunities it would bring.
It would be simple, these men were James’s closest friends and they were attending his wedding in three weeks.
It wasn’t, they didn’t even know the basic details.
‘So,’ Viktor said, keeping his voice casual over the fondue, ‘tell me about the wedding venue. What’s it like?’
‘Big house,’ Freddie said confidently. ‘James’s uncle’s place.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘Cotswolds? Or is it Gloucestershire? Pretty sure they are the same thing?’
‘There’s a lake,’ Archie offered. ‘Or is it a river, geography was never my strong suit.’
‘Definitely water of some kind.’
‘And a chapel. Old. Norman, maybe? Or Saxon. One of those.’
‘There might be a maze. Or that might be a different house, I am pretty sure I got lost last time I was there.’
Viktor stared at them. ‘I know the venue, but what is the plan for the day?’
‘We’ll get details closer to the time! Must have been on the invite, surely. It’ll be on the mantelpiece somewhere.’
‘Speaking of invites,’ Rupert said, ‘did yours pass the frisbee test?’
‘The what?’
‘The invite frisbee test. You know the one, where you frisbee the invitation across the room and if it’s not thick enough card stock to hit the far wall, you don’t go. Basic social filtration.’
‘Can be a problem for Tariq,’ Freddie added. ‘His sitting room is so big you practically need to write it on an actual frisbee.’
‘The worst I had,’ Archie said, warming to the topic, ‘was when someone sent a bottle of gin with the invite. But rules are rules, so across the room it went. Gin everywhere. Passed the test though. Harbinger of a party to come.’
‘It’s James’s mum’s thing, really,’ Freddie concluded. ‘The wedding, I mean. We just turn up and drink.’
Viktor made a mental note: these people were useless. Luckily, he had received most of the details from the wedding planner directly.
The braserade (a local specialty where they put an actual barbecue on the table) set fire to Freddie’s sleeve shortly after. Tariq put him out with red wine, which was effective, but catastrophic for his white jumper. Then someone helpfully poured white wine over that to ‘take out the stain.’
Archie lost his other eyebrow and as for pudding, well what happened to the chocolate mousse is best not mentioned. It was a good thing that James ended the night in a fountain as that got rid of the worst of it. All in all, a fairly uneventful evening.
???
The sauna incident occurred the following morning.
A hearty breakfast followed by sweating it out in the spa sounded like the perfect way to see off the worst of the hangover. Saunas, steam rooms, plunge pools. Civilised. Safe.
Or it would have been, if Freddie hadn’t smuggled in a bottle of vodka.
‘Freddie, you can’t drink vodka in a sauna.’
‘Why not? It’s Russian tradition! Viktor, back me up.’
‘No, it’s really not...’
‘The Vikings did it!’
‘The Vikings didn’t have saunas.’
‘Well anyway,’ Freddie said, ‘it’s not for drinking.’ And before anyone could stop him, he poured the vodka over the hot coals.
The room filled with alcohol vapour. Eyes stung. Throats burned. There was a general exodus of coughing, streaming-eyed men stumbling toward the plunge pool.
‘Wonderful!’ Freddie declared, closing the doors behind them. ‘I feel ten years younger!’
Ten minutes later, Freddie had not emerged. They found him collapsed, but smiling and had to drag him out to revive him in the cold pool.
‘I’m fine! Just resting my eyes!’
‘You weren’t breathing!’
‘I was breathing on the inside!’
???
While most of the activities were only really of danger to James and his friends, the casino was Viktor’s undoing.
Verbier has a small casino; nothing compared to Monaco, but adequate for a stag do.
Viktor went to the card tables. The rest of us scattered across the casino floor.
James made a beeline to roulette; the simplest game, Freddie to whatever game had the most flashing lights and Archie joined Tariq at the bar.
Personally, I found a table on the side, where I could keep an eye on them all.
Viktor played well, at first. Controlled, methodical, the kind of player who counted cards without appearing to count anything.
But as the evening wore on, something shifted.
He started chasing losses. His bets grew larger, more erratic.
He kept glancing across the floor at James, who was having the time of his life at the roulette wheel and each glance seemed to make him play worse.
By midnight, it was clear Viktor was losing badly, losing serious money.
Meanwhile, James, who understood nothing about gambling or probability or even the cruelty of chance, had won thousands of euros at roulette by ‘picking numbers that feel lucky.’
‘Viktor!’ James bounded over, chips in hand, face flushed with champagne and triumph. ‘Wonderful night! I’ve had the most extraordinary run. Seven came up three times in a row! What are the odds?’
‘One in fifty thousand, approximately.’
‘Is it really? How marvellous. Anyway, listen...’ He pressed the chips into Viktor’s hands. ‘This is for you, a small thank you for saving my life, multiple times. I know it’s not much, but I wanted you to have something. Brother-in-law’s prerogative.’
Viktor stared at the chips. Five thousand euros. From the man he was planning to kill.
‘I can’t accept this.’
‘Of course you can! What’s family for?’ James beamed. ‘Now, the boys are doing toffee vodka shots. Freddie’s invented a new recipe. There may be actual toffee involved. Coming?’
Viktor looked at James’s open, trusting face. Looked at the chips in his hand. Thought about the forty thousand he’d just lost and the speed at which he got through money he did not have.
‘Coming,’ he said.
The boys toasted Viktor with toffee vodka. Declared him ‘a good chap.’ Welcomed him into the fold.
Viktor smiled, drank and accepted their affection.
And that night, alone in his room at the chalet, he pulled out the forged documents. The ones that made him Anastasia’s brother. Her only living relative. Her next of kin.
The debts were now critical. The people he owed were losing patience. He needed more money than Anastasia would give him and he needed it fast.
If James died after the wedding, Anastasia would inherit everything. The London flat, the trust funds, the investments, even the current account would be significant.
And when Anastasia then died...
Viktor looked at the documents. Looked at the ceiling. Thought about James’s trusting face and Anastasia’s careful eyes.
The plan crystallised, the timeline accelerated.
It would have to happen at the wedding.