And still his instincts were pushing him to swim against the tide of it. Gasping for breath, hearing the grunt of his own voice as the weight of snow forced the air from his lungs. Fragments of blue sky flashed through his field of vision before being lost again in the maelstrom.
Then, almost as quickly as it had begun, it came to an end. He felt himself being dragged down, like a drowning man, and he curled up into a ball, raising both arms in front of his face in the hope of creating an air pocket. Enough oxygen at least to fuel his attempt to get back to the surface.
Silence returned, although his ears were still ringing from the jet-engine roar, and he found himself on his back, one leg apparently clear of the snow above him, the other folded painfully into his chest. His mouth was full of snow, and his teeth hurt from the cold of it. But there was space around his head. He coughed and spat and gasped for air, and heard Addie’s muffled voice coming from somewhere distantly above him.
‘Dad! Dad!’
Then, unexpected light almost blinded him, and her voice came loud and clear.
‘Are you okay?’
And he wondered what primal instincts had been at work that caused him to fight for his life. After all, he was a dead man walking, wasn’t he? Wouldn’t it have been easier just to surrender and let the avalanche take his life? That would have been an end to it.
But he hadn’t wanted to go. Not yet. Not like this. There was stuff that needed to be said first.
He felt Addie’s hand grasp his and pull, and he fought to disengage himself from the great chunks of frozen snow that had carried him almost two hundred feet down the corrie. And finally he was free of it, lying on his back, ice-cold air tearing at his lungs, staring up into the sky he had never expected to see again. Everything still seemed to work. He could move both arms, both legs.
Addie was crouched over him, her face etched with concern. ‘Fuck,’ she said.
He smiled. ‘Yeah, fuck!’
And for the first time in more than ten years, he saw her laugh. Something he thought he would never witness again. And he laughed too. And when they stopped laughing, neither of them knew what to say. Each overcome by their own sense of self-consciousness.
Finally she said, ‘I thought you were gone.’
He wondered why she would care. But all he said was, ‘An avalanche? In November?’
She shrugged. ‘Changed days. It was a slab avalanche. Happens when a south-westerly wind blows snow over the summits and into the north-facing slopes. It builds up but doesn’t consolidate. Then, if the temperature drops between falls and the snow freezes, like it did late yesterday during the ice storm, the next snowfall will land on the frozen surface and be very unstable.’
He found himself impressed that his little girl even knew such things. He said, ‘How come you’re okay?’
She smiled. ‘I sheltered in the ice tunnel. I really thought it was going to collapse on me. Thankfully it didn’t.’
She turned her face to the west. ‘Sun’s going down. We’d better get off the mountain.’
Without gloves or hat, he felt himself growing colder as Addie helped him down to the foot of the corrie. He remembered that he had left his pack by the entrance to the ice tunnel. A favourite old pack, lost forever. But the keycard for Younger’s car was still safe in his pocket, as were his iCom glasses. He put icy fingers to his ears and felt that the iCom earbuds were still there too. A minor miracle.
As they headed west-south-west, down a steep gradient liberally strewn with boulders half-buried in the snow, they were presented with the most stunning of sunset views along the length of the loch below. Snowy peaks glowing pink, flanking a fjord that looked as if it was on fire. Without a word passing between them, they stopped to take it in. Deep, flowing currents and eddies in the waters of the loch burned orange through scarlet, and the last glimpse of the sun slid from view beyond the far mountaintops.
Although the sky was still blue, the first stars were appearing overhead and Brodie thought this is what he would miss the most. That, and knowing that the aching beauty of the country which had nurtured him would still be here long after he had gone. As if his short, unhappy existence in this world had made not one jot of difference. Which, of course, he knew it had not. Addie was his parting gift. The only piece of him that would remain. The only part of him that was any good.
He turned and saw the light of the dying day in her eyes and remembered that she too had a gift to leave the world. He said, ‘What’s he called? Your boy.’
And he watched the light in her eyes die too. Her jaw clenched. ‘That’s really none of your business.’
They walked the rest of the way in silence, skirting a deer fence before passing the now derelict and slightly sinister faux-Gothic Mamore Lodge, and down a path that led to a footbridge near the Grey Mare’s Tail.
When they got to the village, they stopped at the top of Kearan Road, lights twinkling in the houses around them, but not a soul stirring in the fading evening light. Brodie saw lights on, too, in the medical centre and wondered if Sita might still be there.
He turned to his daughter. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and meant it.
She inclined her head a little, without meeting his eye, but had nothing to say.
‘Well... see you, then.’
‘Unlikely,’ she said, and turned up the path to the door of the police station. Slabs of yellow light fell from several windows, extending across the snow that lay thickly in the garden. There was something warm and welcoming about it. A family. A home. A life. Something he hadn’t known for years. He turned wearily to cross the road to the medical centre.
The duty doctor there seemed surprised to see him. ‘Dr Roy left some hours ago with the body,’ he said. ‘Robbie drove them round to the hotel. I saw him coming back a little later.’ He frowned at the bruises and grazing on Brodie’s face. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked, and Brodie raised cold fingers to his face, realising that his battered features must reflect the ravages of his brush with death.
‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘Had a bit of a fall up on the mountain.’
It felt like a long hike back round the road to the International, with heavy legs and a head that seemed likely to split itself open at any moment. Apart from a couple of coffees, he’d had nothing to eat all day. His stomach was growling and he felt almost faint from hunger.
As he walked up through the trees, he saw that there were no lights on in the hotel, its sprawling silhouette standing dark against a starry sky. It was all he could do to drag himself up the front steps and into the hall. He stood for a moment, letting his eyes accustom themselves to the dark, though there was almost no light here to see by, and he fumbled along the wall searching for switches. When eventually he found them, a bleak yellow light filled the hall. At least it was warm in here.
He pushed open the door to the Bothy Bar, but it was empty, brooding in darkness. He turned back into the hall and called out, ‘Hello? Anyone at home?’, only to receive a resounding silence in response.
Wearily he climbed the stairs to the bedrooms, thinking that perhaps Sita had gone for a lie-down, and irritated by the apparently perpetual absence of the hotel’s owner. He knocked on her door, and when there was no response, tried the handle. It opened into darkness. He found a switch and blinked in the sudden light. Her personal Storm case sat open on the bed, a handful of clothes laid out on the duvet. But there was no sign of her kit, just her torch lying on the bed next to her case. He breathed his annoyance into the empty room. Where the hell was she? And where was all her stuff? Maybe she and Robbie had already loaded her kit on to the eVTOL. He lifted the torch and headed back down the stairs.