Even so, as he sat in his car and turned the ignition, he had to agree that life was good and he was a lucky man.
At Challis Street, aware their senior investigating officer was on his way, Homicide waited. The peripheral staff, the evidence collators, the administrators, the others, who slackened marginally when the boss wasn’t in the office, upped their game, moved around more, filed their reports, sending them to Bridget, who would prioritise and then present them to Isaac daily.
Twenty minutes later, Isaac sat down with Larry and Gwyneth Simmons. The room was cold for Isaac, adequate for Angus’s mother, who had come from a bracing Scottish climate.
‘The truth?’ Isaac said. ‘Is this what we are here for?’
‘Yes, the truth of what happened on Cerro Torre,’ Gwyneth Simmons said. ‘Everyone that is if you exclude Mike Hampton believes it to have been an unfortunate accident, a life-and-death situation, a split-second decision needed, played out in a dangerous environment. But Angus told me the truth.’
‘Which is?’
‘Mike Hampton was having trouble with his wife. She had told him that she was involved with Angus, but it wasn’t true. It was another man that she was seeing.’
‘He accused your son?’
‘Mike told Angus that he would see him dead for what he had done.’
‘They patched it up in South America, my son and Mike, and that it was his wife making up stories. She’s like that. Have you met her?’
‘I have,’ Isaac said.
‘Did you form an opinion?’
‘I wasn’t looking to form an opinion, only to establish facts.’
‘Kate met Mike at a function in London, an awards ceremony. She was there with someone else, no idea who it was. Mike used to be a bon vivant, a lover of life and women, and Kate was his type of woman. He took her from whoever she had come with.’
‘That doesn’t paint a good picture of her,’ Larry said.
‘You never met Mike before his accident; I had. Kate became a wedge between the two men. Angus used to say that mountaineering was thirty per cent skill, seventy per cent determination. He disagreed with gifted amateurs paying for someone to nursemaid them up the highest mountains. He felt it was a distraction, so did Mike, and then there’s Kate in Mike’s ear, causing confusion, dissension between the two men, taking plenty, giving little.’
‘The mysterious lover?’ Isaac asked. ‘Was there one?’
‘It wasn’t Angus.’
‘Then who?’
‘Angus never told anyone, only me. He knew I would never reveal who it was, but now that my son is dead, I must tell you.’
‘Please do.’
‘Justin Skinner, another mountaineer, climbed Everest one year after Angus and Mike climbed it that first time. He’s as hard as nails, a brilliant climber, a sharp businessman. If you want to climb Everest and you’ve got enough money, he’ll take you, not so sure if you’ll get back.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘On his last, two of his group perished.’
‘Any repercussions?’
‘For Justin, none. On the mountain, up high, you’re a dead man walking. Every climber knows it, accepts the risk. Six died last year on the mountain, their bodies still up there. Did you know that if a person is beyond the point of no return, still breathing, but semiconscious or unable to stand, incapable of getting down before nightfall, they’re declared dead, left up there alive?’
‘I’ve read about it,’ Isaac said. ‘No option from what I know.’
‘There isn’t. Kate Hampton was sleeping with Skinner when Mike was overseas. He was the one keen on bringing Mike on board to take paying clients up Everest, his wife primed while she was in bed with Skinner, whispering in her husband’s ear later.’
‘Is that it?’ Isaac said.
‘No. On Cerro Torre, close to the summit, Mike starts up again about his wife and Angus. Angus wasn’t prepared, and on a mountain, the focus is moving one foot in front of the other. It’s not the place to discuss who’s sleeping with who.
‘It was Mike who lunged at Angus, made him lose his grip, held up only by Mike and a climbing anchor. Mike would have been responsible for Angus’s death, not that he probably intended that result, but it got out of hand. Angus managed to hold on, Mike fell, broke his back.’
‘Angus could have left him,’ Larry said.
‘Not Angus. He’s a purist, believed in the camaraderie of mountaineers. He secured Mike and went for help. He saved his life.’
Chapter 10
The one unassailable certainty in the investigation – someone was lying. Larry had his money on Simmons’s mother; Wendy was more inclined to Kate Hampton.
Isaac reserved his judgement until more was known about Skinner, another mountaineering legend, one of only three hundred and forty-four who had completed the ascent of the seven summits, the tallest mountain on each continent: Kilimanjaro in Africa, conquerable by a fit individual, Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains of Europe, Aconcagua in South America, Vinson in Antarctica, Denali in Alaska, and then Everest in the Himalayas. Carstensz in Indonesia, although technically not in Australia, made the seventh, as its tectonic plate allowed its inclusion. On the Australian mainland, Mount Kosciusko was no more than a Sunday afternoon climb up a gravel path.
Mike Hampton had completed six, and Angus Simmons had ascended five, not considering Kilimanjaro as a worthy inclusion.
At the television station, an air of benign introspection.
‘A public relations disaster, this constant negativity over Simmons’s death,’ Jaden said.
On the receiving end of his anger, Karen Majors, the head of sales, the person who was there to generate advertising revenue, but wasn’t. She didn’t speak, not because she wasn’t capable of holding her own in a conversation, but because it was her job on the line. Given a chance, she’d shift the blame, find a scapegoat: Tom Taylor would do.
