A Twist in the Tale (21 page)

We dined with
Travers the following Thursday. We turned out to be the only guests, and I
remember being surprised that there wasn’t a
Mrs
Travers or at least a resident girlfriend. He was a thoughtful host and the
meal he had arranged was superb.

However, I
considered at the time that he seemed a little too solicitous with Caroline,
although she certainly gave the impression of enjoying his undivided attention.
At one point I began to wonder if either of them would have noticed if I had
disappeared into thin air.

When we left
Eaton Square
that night Travers told me
that he had almost made up his mind about the picture, which made me feel the
evening had served at least some purpose.

Six days later
the painting was returned to the gallery with a note attached explaining that
he no longer cared for it. Travers did not elaborate on his reasons, but simply
ended by saying that he hoped to drop by some time and reconsider the other
Vuillards
. Disappointed, I returned his deposit, but
realised
that customers often do come back, sometimes
months, even years later.

But Travers
never did.

It was about a
month later that I learned why he would never return. I was lunching at the
large
centre
table at my club, as in most all-male
establishments the table reserved for members who drift in on their own. Percy
Fellows was the next to enter the dining room so he took a seat opposite me. I
hadn’t seen him to talk to since the private view of the Vuillard exhibition
and we hadn’t really had much of a conversation then. Percy was one of the most
respected antique dealers in England and I had once even done a successful
barter with him, a Charles II writing desk in exchange for a Dutch landscape by
Utrillo.

I repeated how
sorry I was to learn about Diana.

“It was always
going to end in divorce,” he explained. “She was in and out of every bedroom in
London. I was beginning to look a complete cuckold, and that bloody man Travers
was the last straw.”

“Travers?” I
said, not understanding.

“Patrick
Travers, the man named in my divorce petition. Ever come across him?”

“I know the
name,” I said hesitantly, wanting to hear more before I admitted to our slight
acquaintanceship.

“Funny,” he
said.
“Could have sworn I saw him at the private view.”

“But what do
you mean, he was the last straw?” I asked, trying to take his mind off the
opening.

“Met the bloody
fellow at Ascot, didn’t we?

Joined us for
lunch, happily drank my champagne, ate my strawberries and cream and then
before the week was out had bedded my wife. But that’s not the half of it.”

“The half of it?”

“The man had
the nerve to come round to my shop and put down a large deposit on a Georgian
table. Then he invites the two of us round to dinner to see how it looks. After
he’s had enough time to make love to Diana he returns
them
both slightly soiled. You don’t look too well, old fellow,” said Percy
suddenly.
“Something wrong with the food?

Never been the
same since Harry left for the Carlton. I’ve written to the wine committee about
it several times but-”

“No, I’m fine,”
I said. “I just need a little fresh air. Please excuse me, Percy.”

It was on the
walk back from my club that I decided I would have to do something about
Mr
Travers.

The next
morning I waited for the mail to arrive and checked any envelopes addressed to
Caroline. Nothing seemed untoward but then I decided that Travers wouldn’t have
been foolish enough to commit anything to paper.

I also began to
eavesdrop on her telephone conversations, but he was not among the callers, at
least not while I was at home. I even checked the
mileometer
on her Mini to see if she had driven any long distances, but then
Eaton Square
isn’t all that far. It’s
often what you don’t do that gives the game away, I decided: we didn’t make
love for a fortnight, and she didn’t comment.

I continued to
watch Caroline more carefully over the next fortnight but it became obvious to
me that Travers must have tired of her about the same time as he had returned
the Vuillard. This only made me
more angry
.

I then formed a
plan of revenge that seemed quite extraordinary to me at the time and I assumed
that in a matter of days I would get over it, even forget it. But I didn’t. If
anything, the idea grew into an obsession. I began to convince myself that it
was my bounder duty to do away with Travers before he besmirched any more of my
friends.

I have never in
my life knowingly broken the law. Parking fines annoy me, dropped litter
offends me and I pay my VAT on the same day the frightful buff envelope drops
through the letterbox.

Nevertheless
once I’d decided what had to be done I set about my task meticulously. At first
I had considered shooting Travers until I discovered how hard it is to get a
gun
licence
and that if I did the job properly, he
would end up feeling very little pain, which wasn’t what I had planned for him;
then
po~somag
crossed my mind – but that requires a
witnessed prescription and I still wouldn’t be able to watch the long slow
death I desired. Then strangling, which I decided would necessitate too much
courage - and in any case he was a bigger man than me so I might end up being
the one who was strangled. Then drowning, which could take years to get the man
near any water and then I might not be able to hang around to make sure he went
under for the third time. I even gave some thought to running over the damned
man, but dropped that idea when I
realised
opportunity would be almost nil and besides, I wouldn’t be left any time to
check if he was dead. I was quickly becoming aware just how hard it is to kill
someone and get away with it.

I sat awake at
night reading the biographies of murderers, but as they had all been caught and
found guilty that didn’t fill me with much confidence. I turned to detective
nov-els
which always seemed to allow for a degree of
coincidence, luck and surprise that I was unwilling to risk, until I came across
a rewarding line from Conan Doyle: “Any intended victim who has a regular
routine immediately makes
himself
more vulnerable”.

And then I
recalled one routine of which Travers was particularly proud. It required a
further six-month wait on my part but that also gave me more time to perfect my
plan. I used the enforced wait well because whenever Caroline was away for more
than twenty-four hours, I booked in for a skiing lesson on the dry slope at
Harrow.

I found it
surprisingly easy to discover when Travers would be returning to
Verbier
, and I was able to
organise
the winter holiday so that our paths would cross for only three days, a period
of time quite sufficient for me to commit my first crime.

Caroline and I
arrived in
Verbier
on the second Friday in January.
She had commented on the state of my nerves more than once over the Christmas
period, and hoped the holiday would help me relax. I could hardly explain to
her that it was the thought of the holiday that was making me so tense.

It didn’t help
when she asked me on the plane to Switzerland if I thought Travers might be
there this year.

On the first
morning after our arrival we took the
ski lift
up at
about ten thirty and, once we had reached the top, Caroline duly reported to
Marcel. As she departed with him for the A-slope I returned to the B-slope to
work on my own.
As always we agreed to meet back at the ski
lift or, if we missed each other, at least for lunch.

During the days
that followed I went over and over the plan I had perfected in my mind and
practiced so diligently at Harrow until I felt sure it was foolproof. By the
end of the first week I had convinced myself I was ready.

The night
before Travers was due to arrive I was the last to leave the slopes. Even
Caroline commented on how much my skiing had improved and she suggested to
Marcel that I was ready for the A-slope with its sharper bends and steeper
inclines.

“Next year,
perhaps,” I told her, trying to make light of it, and returned to the B-slope.

During the
final morning I skied over the first mile of the course again and again, and
became so preoccupied with my work that I quite forgot to join Caroline for
lunch.

In the
afternoon I checked and rechecked the placing of every red flag marking the
run, and once I was convinced the last skier had left the slope for the evening
I collected about thirty of the flags and replaced them at intervals I had
carefully worked out. My final task was to check the prepared patch before
building a large mound of snow some twenty paces above the chosen spot. Once my
preparations were complete I skied slowly down the mountain in the fading
light.

“Are you trying
to win an Olympic gold medal or something?” Caroline asked me when I eventually
got back to our room. I closed the bathroom door so she couldn’t expect a
reply.

Travers checked
in to the hotel an hour later.

I waited until
the early- evening before I joined him at the bar for a drink. He seemed a
little nervous when he first saw me, but I quickly put him at ease. His old
self-confidence soon returned, which only made me more determined to carry out
my plan. I left him at the bar a few minutes before Caroline came down for
dinner so that she would not see the two of us together. Innocent surprise
would be necessary once the deed had been done.

“Unlike you to
eat so little, especially as you missed your lunch,” Caroline commented as we
left the dining room that night.

I made no
comment as we passed Travers seated at the bar, his hand on the knee of another
innocent middle-aged woman.

I did not sleep
for one second that night and I crept out of bed just before six the next
morning, careful not to wake Caroline.

Everything was
laid out on the bathroom floor just as I had left it the night before. A few
moments later I was dressed and ready. I walked down the back stairs of the
hotel, avoiding the lift, and crept out by the “fire exit”,
realising
for the first time what a thief must feel like. I had a
woollen
cap pulled well down over my ears and a pair of snow goggles covering my eyes:
not even Caroline would have
recognised
me.

I arrived at
the bottom of the ski lift forty minutes before it was due to open. As I stood
alone behind the little shed that housed the electrical machinery to work the
lift I
realised
that everything now depended on
Travers’s-sticking to his routine. I wasn’t sure I could go through with it if
my plan had to be moved on to the following day. As I waited, I stamped my feet
in the freshly fallen snow, and slapped my arms around my chest to keep warm.
Every few moments I kept peering round the corner of the building in the hope
that I would see him striding towards me. At last a speck appeared at the
bottom of the hill by the side of the road, a pair of skis resting on the man’s
shoulders. But what if it didn’t turn out to be Travers?

I stepped out
from behind the shed a few moments later to join the warmly wrapped man. It was
Travers and he could not hide his surprise at seeing me standing there. I
started up a casual conversation about being unable to sleep, and how I thought
I might as well put in a few runs before the rush began.

Now all I
needed was the ski lift to start up on time. A few minutes after seven an
engineer arrived and the vast oily mechanism cranked into action.

We were the
first two to take our places on those little seats before heading up and over
the deep ravine. I kept turning back to check there was still no one else in
sight.

“I usually
manage to complete a full run even before the second person arrives,” Travers
told me when the lift had reached its highest point. I looked back again to be
sure we were now well out of sight of the engineer working the lift, then
peered down some two hundred feet and wondered what it would be like to land
head first in the ravine. I began to feel dizzy and wished I hadn’t looked
down.

The ski lift
jerked slowly on up the icy wire until we finally reached the landing point.

“Damn,” I said,
as we jumped off our little seats. “Marcel isn’t here.”

“Never is at
this time,” said Travers, making off towards the advanced slope.
“Far too early for him.”

“I don’t
suppose you would come down with me?” I said, calling after Travers.

He stopped and
looked back suspiciously.

“Caroline
thinks I’m ready to join you,” I explained, “but I’m not so sure and would
value a second opinion. I’ve broken my own record for the B-slope several
times, but I wouldn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of my wife.”

“Well, I -”

“I’d ask Marcel
if he were here. And in any case you’re the best skier I know.”

“Well, if you
-” he began.

“Just the once,
then you can spend the rest of your holiday on the A-slope. You could even
treat the run as a warm-up.”

“Might make a
change, I suppose,” he said.

“Just the
once,” I repeated. “That’s all I’ll need. Then you’ll be able to tell me if I’m
good enough.”

“Shall we make
a race of it?” he said, taking me by surprise just as I began clamping on my
skis. I couldn’t complain; all the books on murder had warned me to be prepared
for the unexpected. “That’s one way we can find out if you’re ready,” he added
cockily.