He fitted his skis back on and started off down the last lap towards the Mähderlift.
Ryderbeit had ridden up on the Parsennbahn an hour before Packer, while the funicular was still busy, on the loose assumption that his appearance would be less conspicuous in a crowd. He was again wearing his blue pixie cap, but on Packer’s orders he had discarded his combat tunic for a quilted blue anorak, and he was to wear his goggles at all times. Packer knew that it would be useless to forbid him to drink.
When they had parted, in the main street of Davos, Ryderbeit had been oddly silent. Packer was not surprised: Pol had ordered him to kill Ryderbeit, so that while Packer had assured the Rhodesian once again that this was not part of his contract, Ryderbeit’s experience of life had not left him with a trusting disposition.
At the Weissfluhjoch station he had fortified himself with a couple of large Steinhaegers, chased down with a mug of beer; then joined the queue for the short steep Gipfelbahn to the summit of the Weissfluh. Like Packer he was leaving himself plenty of time, ostensibly in case of hold-ups, but in fact to allow himself decent pauses in which to refresh himself. For unlike Packer, Ryderbeit drew a natural satisfaction from taking risks, both calculated and fortuitous — a satisfaction which increased in proportion to the perils involved.
Another of Packer’s strictures upon him that morning was that he must, under all circumstances, avoid creating a scene. At the Gipfel Hut the first thing Ryderbeit did was to come close to a fight with two beefy young men, one of whom he accused of taking his chair while he was having a pee. They spoke French, but Ryderbeit recognized their accent as Belgian, and said something to them in a patois he had picked up in the Congo, which made them flinch, then slink away. But they would remember him.
In the hut he consumed three more Steinhaegers and three more beers, until he had left himself less than eight minutes to cover the five miles to his position on that treacherous bend overlooking the T-bar.
The first leg was an easy run. The snow was excellent and Ryderbeit used his skills to the full. He was the kind of skier who is hated both by professionals and amateurs. He broke every rule of the slopes: racing up behind slower skiers and swerving past them without warning, cutting across them on bends and using his sticks as menacing weapons when someone either failed to notice him or move out of his way in time.
Just above the Parsenn Hut he rounded a bend and came up behind a girl who was wobbling precariously. He made no attempt to slow down, merely swerved a fraction to the side and passed so close to her that his stick caught her a neat cut across her hips and his nearside ski came within an inch of slicing into her ankle. He heard her yelp, and with a glance back, saw her tumble into a crooked sprawl. He grinned and raced on down towards the hut. The thought that she would remember him, too, did not worry him.
At the hut he had to waste two valuable minutes taking off his skis and walking across the flat snow to the head of the Gruobenalp run, where he could calculate on reaching speeds of up to sixty miles an hour. But here again, like a gambler on a winning streak, he could not resist the compulsion to take unnecessary risks.
The run was relatively clear, and his speed soon brought an exhilaration that blinded him to thought. He was 200 yards past the bend before he realized. He pulled up with a Christie that almost threw him on his back; then looked at his watch. He had less than a minute to go. Without panic, he took off his skis and started back up the icy glistening piste, keeping to the soft shoulder where the snow gave him more grip, and where he was less likely to meet skiers coming down.
He reached the bend overlooking the T-bar exactly thirty-two seconds behind schedule.
At exactly 3.49 by her watch, Sarah heard the rumble of the cable car, then a pause as it bumped along the ramp inside the shed below the Gotschnagrat restaurant. At the same moment, from behind her, came a loud clattering noise that reminded her of a London taxi. She looked up and saw the long shadow of a helicopter rippling across the snow above her. The side door of the cockpit was open and a man was leaning forward, scanning the ground through binoculars.
When she looked away she saw one of the men from the terrace tables below walking up towards her. She had prepared herself for this, and picked up her camera. Her movements were unhurried, although her hands had begun to shake inside their fur mittens, as she went through the motions of winding the film. She peered through the viewfinder just as the man reached her.
He was thin and high-shouldered, with deep eyes in a dry, grainy, ageless face. He stopped a few feet in front of her and smiled with a mouthful of metal teeth. ‘Excuse me, mademoiselle, I regret to intrude —’ he spoke French with a strong accent — ‘but I am obliged to supervise all strangers during the presence of His Imperial Highness.’ He gave a short bow.
The effect of her smile was muted by her dark glasses, but it was enough to make the man lower his eyes. Behind and below him, Sarah saw a group of about half a dozen men walking up from the cable car hut to the restaurant.
‘I hope I am permitted to take a photograph of
