chin. The jacket also had a hood lined with soft wool and fringed with long, black fur that she pulled up to protect her face.
‘Let’s get moving,’ Luca said, his eyes switching back to their route up the glacier. ‘We’ve got to get to the far side to be out of the wind. You OK with that, Shara?’
She looked pale and tired, but without another word swung her pack on to her shoulders, ready to leave. Luca smiled again, amazed by how different she seemed from the angry and aloof girl they had first met in the village. Bill had been completely wrong about her, he was sure of it.
‘I’m ready.’
Within seconds she was roped up between the two of them and together they trudged off towards the start of the snowline like convicts in a chain gang.
With each minute that passed, the wind grew steadily in strength. Funnelled by the adjacent peaks, it rampaged down the mountainside, picking up loose snow from the glacier floor and hurtling past them. Squinting against the swirling air, Luca leaned into it, concentrating on the route ahead. They had to reach the shelter of the higher ground.
As he marched forward, tugging at the rope, Shara struggled to keep pace. She panted in the thin air as huge, swirling belts of cloud rolled across the sky, blurring out the horizon. The ground had become a great flowing blanket of driven snow, with the wind streaming across the hardened ice, until all they could do was bend lower still against the maelstrom.
Luca trudged forward without checking his stride. All around them, the noise of the wind grew and grew, until it became a shrieking sound that made the sides of their Gore-Tex hoods clatter at deafening volume.
Hours passed and the strength of the wind only increased. It was relentless, the streaming snow eddying round their faces and condensing on their raw cheeks. Snow forced its way past their hats and neck gaiters, trickling down their bodies like sand and making them shiver from cold.
They had been going for three hours when suddenly the rope at Luca’s waist snapped tight. He waited for a moment, bracing himself against the wind, then stepped forward once again. It remained fixed. Behind him, he could see the blurry outline of Shara. She was bent forward, her hands on her knees.
As he trudged back along the rope towards her, Bill appeared out of the gloom. For a moment they stood in silence as the snow quickly covered the coils of rope at their feet. Shara was still bent double, struggling to breathe in the rushing air. Frost layered her face and her heavy jacket hood was caked in snow. She was shaking violently from the cold, her arms hugging her body to stay warm.
Luca pulled her upright, staring into her eyes. They were glassy, her eyelashes frosted at the end.
‘Hold on,’ he shouted to her. ‘We’re stopping here.’
Bill swung off his rucksack, pulling out the tent and poles. With heads bent low, they knelt on the hard snow, staking down the main body of the tent while the fabric flapped and twisted in the wind. Bill had his right glove off, the end clamped between his teeth, as he used his bare fingers to work the poles through the fabric sleeves.
‘OK,’ he shouted, holding one of the ends tight. As Luca put tension on the pole, the end slipped past the attachment at the corner of the tent, digging down into the snow beneath. With the snow half-blinding him, Bill hadn’t seen what had happened and Luca pushed harder, digging the pole down deeper into the snow.
Suddenly it flexed then gave a brittle snap.
Luca looked up to see the main support for the tent buckling to one side.
‘Shit!’ he shouted, banging his fist against the snow.
He flung his end to one side and crawled across the billowing fabric to where Bill crouched on the opposite side. For a moment they knelt in silence, heads only inches apart, as they tried to work out what to do.
‘Rock-face?’ Bill shouted.
‘Too dangerous.’
Luca then squinted across to where Shara stood.
‘We don’t have much time. You stay with her. I saw some overhangs in the rock west of here. Before the weather closed in.’
‘OK,’ Bill shouted back. Balling up the tent fabric with both hands, he trudged round to Shara who was still standing, arms clamped around her body. Wrapping the fabric around her to shield her from the worst of the wind, he pushed her down on his rucksack. Then he put one arm around her shoulders and with his spare hand tried to brush some of the caked snow away from her face.
Reaching into his jacket pocket, Luca pulled out his GPS and waited for the satellites to triangulate. Finally he got a clean signal and took a waypoint of their position. Without looking back, he shouldered his pack and marched off.
Seconds later he was swallowed up in the blizzard.
Chapter 27
The strip light flickered, its pallid glow picking up the curls of smoke from Captain Zhu’s dying cigarette.
The green walls were pockmarked with patches of raw cement and there were no windows, only a decrepit metal fan bolted to the far corner of the room, one of its three blades missing. A plastic table, which had evidently been left out in the rain for many years, stood unsteadily in the centre, exuding a dank smell of mould.
Of the two chairs that stood to either side of it, one supported the considerable bulk of Rene Falkus. Squeezed in between the plastic armrests, his body filled every part of the chair, forcing him to sit unnaturally upright, thick thighs locked together as if the need for modesty far outweighed that of comfort.
Across the table, Zhu had one leg folded over the other as he delicately stubbed out what remained of a cigarette. They had been locked in the same position for almost an hour, Zhu asking questions while Rene tried to answer with as little detail as possible, the pounding in his temples only exacerbated by the remnants of his hangover.
Leaning back in his chair, Zhu allowed his eyes to settle on one of the stains on Rene’s shirt.
‘I understand that you feel some loyalty to your friends, but is it worth risking everything you own to protect them from something that is simply inevitable? You must know by now that we will find them.’
‘I’ve already told you,’ Rene said tiredly. ‘They’re just on the standard route.’
‘Tell me where they are.’
Rene shrugged and looked down at the table.
‘I don’t know where they are.’
‘You will lose everything you have worked for,’ Zhu continued, his voice suddenly softening, as if he personally would regret such an outcome. ‘Your restaurant, your bar, everything. All we need to know is where they went.’
‘One phone call to the Foreign Office and we’ll soon see what you can do to my restaurant,’ Rene countered. ‘I have rights and you know it.’
Zhu’s expression looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Of course, your rights… The problem is, I don’t think there are too many lawyers inside Drapchi Prison.’
A muscle flickered in Rene’s cheek. He had heard the stories. The miles of underground cells. The darkness.
There was a pause as he steeled himself, choosing his next words very carefully. He had been in Lhasa for a long time, and had learned how to deal with the Chinese. But somehow this newcomer was different. There was something about him that turned the stomach. Something that made Rene think that the worst thing he could do was to show any fear. Clenching his jaw, he looked straight into the captain’s eyes.
‘Either charge me with something or get me the hell out of here. Enough of this bullshit.’
Zhu didn’t respond. Instead he leaned forward, picking up the silver lighter lying on the table. Using his thumb, he sparked it then snapped the lid shut again. He did this several times before leaning back in his chair again, leaving the flame burning.
‘You still have no idea what I could do to you, do you?’ he said. ‘I can take your livelihood, just like that.’
As he said the word, he snapped the lighter shut. Rene dragged up a smile, the effort clearly costing him.
