The Lonely Skier by Hammond Innes Read Free Book Online Page A

morning sitting out in the sunshine drinking cognac and discussing the shots Engles would expect. The multi-coloured plumage of the ski-ers and the babel of tongues that ranged from the tinselled guttural of Austrian to the liquid flood of Italian was a background to our conversation; absorbed, but not remarked in detail. Joe was no longer disgruntled at being perched up here on the cold shoulder of an Alp. He was a cameraman now, interested only in angles and lights and setting. He was an artist who has been given a good subject. And I was doubly preoccupied—I was listening to Joe and at the same time rolling an idea for a script round my mind.
    I did not notice her arrive. I don’t know how long she had been there. I just glanced up suddenly and saw her. Her head and shoulders stood out against the white back-cloth of a snow-draped fir. For a second I was puzzled. I thought I knew her and yet I could not place her. Then, as I stared, she took off her dark glasses and looked straight at me, dangling them languidly between long slender brown fingers. And then I remembered and dived for my wallet and the photograph Engles had given me.
    The likeness was striking. But I wasn’t sure. The photograph was old and faded, and the girl who had signed herself ‘Carla’ had shorter, sleeked-back hair. But the features looked the same. I glanced up again at the woman seated at the table on the other side of the belvedere. Her raven-black hair swept up in a great wave above her high forehead and tumbled in a mass to her shoulders. The way she sat and her every movement proclaimed an almost animal consciousness of her body. She wasn’t particularly young, nor was she particularly beautiful. Her mouth, scarlet to match her ski suit, was too wide and full, and there were deep lines at the corners of her eyes. But she was exciting. She was all of a man’s baser thoughts come true. She caught my eye as I compared her with the photograph in my hand. Her glance was an idle caress, speculative and not disinterested, like the gaze of an animal that is bored and is looking for someone to play with.
    â€˜My God, Neil!’ Joe tapped me on the arm. ‘Are you trying to bed that woman down?’
    â€˜Don’t be revolting,’ I said. I felt slightly embarrassed. Joe was so solidly British in that foreign set-up. ‘Why make a vulgar suggestion like that on a lovely morning?’
    â€˜You were looking at her as though you wanted to eat her,’ he replied. ‘She’s got that little Valdini chap for boy-friend. You want to go steady with these people. Knives, you know. They’re not civilised. He struck me as an ugly little fellow to start an argument with over a girl.’ He was right. The man sitting oppos-ite her was Valdini. He had his back towards us.
    â€˜Don’t be absurd, Joe,’ I said. Then I showed him the photograph, keeping my thumb across the writing. ‘Is that the same girl?’ I asked him.
    He cocked his head on one side and screwed up his little bloodshot eyes. ‘Hmm. Could be. How did you get hold of that?’
    â€˜It’s the picture of an Italian actress,’ I lied quickly. ‘I knew her in Naples just before Anzio. She gave it to me then. The point is—is the woman sitting over there the girl I knew or not?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘And frankly, old man, I don’t give a damn. But it seems to me that the best way to find out is to go and ask her.’
    Joe, of course, did not realise the difficulty. Engles had said, do nothing. But I had to be certain. It seemed so fantastic that she should turn up on the very first day I was at Col da Varda. But the likeness was certainly striking. I suddenly made up my mind and got to my feet. ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and find out.’
    â€˜Well, don’t go treading on the corns of that over-dressed little pimp. I’m a good