Saskia did not let her expression betray the intensity of her thoughts. Her mind moved through scenario after scenario, reconfiguring the facts in arrangements consistent with a positive opinion of Gaus. They were implausible.
‘What you need to do, my adventurous friend, is to explain how you came to meet me here.’
‘Thinking,’ he said, as though this was sufficient. When she raised her eyebrows, he smiled, and continued, ‘Plus luck. I’ve always been lucky.’ He pushed up the brim of his bowler hat. ‘When you dismissed me, I really did intend to return to Geneva. But I remembered your desire to find the photograph that had been in your possession before the events of your “lacuna”.’ He shrugged and looked at the gun. ‘I wanted to find it for you. It would be a parting gift in return for the adventure you’ve given me.’
Though she did not believe a word of this, Saskia gave him an indulgent smile. ‘That was kind, but foolish.’
Gaus relaxed. With greater energy, he said, ‘I have a friend, Luc, who works for the police in Geneva. I placed a telephone call to him. He checked the records and told me that no photograph of yours had been confiscated. He did, however, tell me that a body had been discovered in Yverdon-les-Bains and that the suspect was a Russian gentleman who had been seen entering the Hotel Moderne with the victim. He was thought to be travelling to Kleine Scheidegg. A bulletin had been put out for his arrest.’
That might explain Pasha’s reception, she thought.
‘How did the police know he was heading for Kleine Scheidegg?’
Gaus said, ‘Apparently, the Eiger was mentioned in a telegram to the Russian Embassy in Berne, which the authorities intercepted.’
Saskia nodded. ‘They are rather more competent than I had hoped.’ To expedite his story, she prompted him: ‘So, having heard of the arrest warrant for Pasha, you decided I needed your help?’
‘I knew that the police would arrest Pasha, but that they weren’t looking for you. It is obvious to me that whatever you wish to find within the Eiger tunnels, it will be guarded, and the police activity in Grindelwald will have warned them. Simply walking up the track before the first train would no longer do; you must either enter the tunnel from the final station at the Jungfraujoch, which is impossible, or climb to the Eigerwand Station. From where would a climber do that?’ He gestured around the meadow. ‘Alpiglen. And could you succeed alone? Surely not.’
‘Saskia, this man is not telling the whole truth.’
Indeed.
‘Very well,’ said Saskia. She put the gun away. ‘I thank you for your diligence. It will not go unnoticed by Meta. But now, we must move.’
Gaus opened the panniers on the bicycle and showed Saskia their contents. In one there were underclothes, tweed waistcoat and jacket, woollen shirt, plus-fours, hobnail boots, leather gloves, snow goggles, and fingerless gloves. The other pannier was stuffed with rope. This being 1908, there were neither karabiners to pass ropes through nor pitons to anchor them to rock. At least the rope looked like good, Italian hemp. There were no alpenstocks–staffs with an iron pin at the base–but there were four short Eckenstein axes with curved blades and wrist straps.
‘Where did you get all this?’ she asked, removing her clothes, hat and boots. She kept the corset for back support. The rest she dropped in a pile. She made sure that her hair was in a tight bun resecured with the lancet.
Gaus turned to the Eiger.
‘I’ve climbed the northern face of the Jungfrau twice,’ he said. ‘Once as a boy with a chamois hunter, and once guiding some friends from the Alpine Club. The landlord of a tavern in Sengg keeps gear for us over the winter.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The climb to the Eigerwand terrace is not an easy one. However, I made it last summer with friends from Grindelwald and Zermatt, plus an Englishman. It took us two and a half hours, though conditions were good.’
‘How would you describe them today?’
‘Any attempt will be a roulette of stone and ice. But the recent cold works in our favour. The ice will be more stable, and hold back the rock.’ He looked her up and down. ‘How do you climb?’
Saskia was dressed. She buttoned her tweed jacket and swung her rucksack onto her back. Her feet were going to bleed in her boots, she knew it.
‘I’m no Gertrude Bell,’ she said, feigning an English accent in reference to the famous alpinist, ‘but I’ll have a bloody good go.’
They set off south at a strong pace. Saskia did not sweat or breathe heavily. The chemistry of respiration no longer worked in the same way for her. After twenty minutes, with the gradient increasing along with the wind, Gaus passed her a felt Alpine Hat. She took it gratefully and jammed it over her head, hair bun and all.
‘So tell me about Meta,’ he said.
Saskia remembered asking him whether he knew the word ‘zombie’.
‘I could tell you everything, but then I’d have to eat your brains.’
Gaus gave her a puzzled look. He was standing on an outcrop, and he reached down to help her up.
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘Never mind.’
A shower of snow and ice hissed down the mountain. They squeezed into a narrow gully. Saskia looked down. They had climbed more than a hundred metres. The chalets of Alpiglen were dots in a blaze of green.
‘Goggles on, I think,’ said Gaus. ‘Do you need a woollen head-warmer? I have one in my rucksack.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Here, let me show you how to use the axes.’
For the next hour, they pitted themselves against the increasingly steep face. Gaus led. On occasion, he slowed to cut steps in the ice, but otherwise the curved blades of their axes made secure holds. They raised their rucksacks above their heads when sharp stones clattered down about them. One struck Saskia’s rucksack with enough force to test her footing. At that point, Gaus suggested they stop and eat something.
They sat on an icy slab beneath an overhang with their feet dangling into the exposure. A mist came and went. In the gaps, the floor of the valley was a choppy, green sea. Its beauty saturated the eye. Gaus had chocolate, biscuits and a concentrated mixture of fat and protein called Pemmican. Saskia ate only the Pemmican, chased by a spoonful of brandy. The snow had soaked through every layer of her clothes. She felt tired and heavy.
‘I’d like to rope up,’ said Gaus. ‘Have you done that before?’
Saskia said nothing. She was flexing her feet inside the boots.
Ego unit, inhibit the pain I’m feeling.
‘That will increase the chances of a fall.’
I’m aware of that, Toaster.
‘I’ve climbed with ropes before,’ she said, sounding doubtful. ‘But perhaps you could remind me.’
‘You have good balance and a head for heights,’ he said. ‘So it will work well. We will be tied together by this rope. We keep it taut at all times. As I go up, pay it out.’ He showed her a systematic way of passing it through her hands. ‘Then, as you climb to me, I will pull it taut. I will lead so that I can support you if you slip.’
‘What if you slip?’
Gaus winked. ‘Agent Extemporal, I have not slipped yet.’
Saskia smiled. She understood the principles of belaying very well, but wished they had pitons to hammer into the rock.
‘Thanks for your continuing help, Gaus.’
He bowed. ‘It is a pleasure. This is what life should be about. Adventure. Challenge.’