A Twist of the Knife

Dream holiday[4]

One of the things Annie liked best about going on holiday was deciding what she was going to wear in the evenings. She’d always had a passion for designer shoes, and of course, in her stylish opinion, if you bought new shoes, then a matching handbag was a must. Much to her husband’s dismay she regularly maxed her cards out on new outfits; she argued that it was her money, and he had to agree. And, to be fair, Nigel told her he was always extremely proud of how lovely she looked. Once he’d admitted to her, with that wry smile of his, that he got a secret kick out of seeing the envy on other men’s faces when they looked at her.

She was particularly excited about this holiday because it was the first time that the two of them were going away alone, without the kids. Thank you, Aged Ps, as Nigel called his mum- and dad-in-law! They weren’t actually that elderly at all, and were relishing taking care of Chloe, who was four, and Zak, who was going through his terrible twos. Zak had turned from an angelic baby into, at times, a demon out of a horror movie, with frequent tantrums, often involving hurling his food around the room. Although she would miss the children, the thought of having a week free of Zak was deeply enticing.

At least he liked attending the day nursery, and she was grateful for the respite that it gave her. She was able to continue her business as a hairdresser from home for three days a week without constant interruptions from him and it enabled her to afford to pay for her luxuries herself.

They were going to Montreux, a beautiful lakeside town on a sheltered bay, with fairy-tale views across the placid water of Switzerland’s Lake Geneva — or Lac Léman, its Swiss name that Nigel liked to call it by — to the Alps. The hotel, a magnificent building in grand Belle Époque style, had once been a palace, and all the guests dressed for evening cocktails on the terrace. Dinner, in the majestic dining room with its starched linen and fine-crystal glasses, where the waiters wore black tailcoats and white gloves, was a magical experience.

It was there, after a particularly fine dinner, that Nigel had proposed to her. It had taken him two years to get round to it, although, he had confessed to her shyly, he knew he wanted to marry her the moment he had first set eyes on her.

Nigel was an analyst for a stockbroking firm in the City, and was incapable of acting spontaneously. Analyst stood for anal, she sometimes chided him. He scrutinized everything, always thought through every single detail with the greatest care. Sometimes that drove her to distraction. He could spend hours online, poring over restaurant menus and wine lists, before deciding on where they would go to eat. He had already planned every minute of their holiday. And probably every second.

Their recent purchase of a new car had been a nightmare odyssey through websites and dealerships, weighing up the safety features for their precious children, all elaborately detailed by Nigel on a spreadsheet. They’d settled on a big Volvo off-roader, which ticked the most boxes, but then they had argued about the colour. Nigel wanted white, and Annie was dismayed. She told him that according to an article in a woman’s magazine, white was the colour people chose when they couldn’t decide on a colour! She wanted black or silver, or even navy blue.

‘But, darling,’ he had insisted, showing her a computer printout. ‘Read this. Yellow and white are the safest colours statistically. You are least likely to be involved in “a passive accident” in a yellow or white car. But I don’t think we want yellow, do we?’

Nigel tended to get his way because he always had statistics on his side. Besides, she knew, bless him, that he meant well, he had the best interests of his family at heart. So white it was. But one detail Nigel had overlooked, and which she teased him about mercilessly in the first weeks after they had got the new car, was that it would not fit in the garage of their house, near Hove Park, in the city of Brighton and Hove.

Well, that wasn’t strictly accurate. It did fit in the garage, but if you drove it in, it was impossible to open the doors, so the only way out would be through the sunroof — one of the options she had insisted on.

So the car became something she ribbed Nigel about, mercilessly. The big white elephant stuck on the driveway. But, she had to admit, it was comfortable, and inside you felt indestructible, like being in a tank.

It was Sunday night. The following Sunday, she thought, as she lay back against the headboard, flicking through the Style section of the Sunday Times, they would be luxuriating in that huge bed, beneath the soft, plump duvet, in Switzerland. Heaven! She could not wait, and her mind was too preoccupied with trying to remember all the things they must not forget to pack to concentrate on reading anything.

She kissed Nigel goodnight, switched off the light and snuggled down against the pillow, thinking, hiking boots, shorts, suntan lotion, nose block, sunhats...

The only downside to the holiday was the journey. She had never been happy about flying, even though Nigel had given her all the statistics, demonstrating to her that being in a commercial airliner was actually the safest place in the world — safer even than your own bed. But he could not convince her.

... books, Kindle, swimsuits, insect repellant cream, first-aid kit...

There was a familiar rustling sound beside her. Nigel would never go to sleep on a Sunday night without having read the news and financial pages of every single one of the broadsheets. Every Sunday evening of their marriage she had fallen asleep to that sound.

Scrunch, she heard. Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch. Then the thud of a discarded supplement landing on the floor on his side of the bed.

Scrunch, rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle.

Then a different sound.

A strange, deep, pulsing thump, thump, thump in the distance. Getting closer and louder.

Suddenly she was engulfed in a vortex of swirling air. She saw a propeller spinning in front of her eyes.

She screamed. Her eyes snapped open. She snapped on the light, gulping down air.

Nigel, fast asleep, stirred and murmured, ‘Wasser? Wassermarrer?’

The bedside clock said 3.15 a.m.

‘It’s OK,’ she said, upset at having woken him: he had an early start every workday and needed his sleep, especially on a Sunday night so that he was fresh for the week ahead — and the week before going on holiday was always a stressful one for him. ‘I’m sorry — just had a nightmare.’

She kept the light on for some minutes, lying there. It was a still, early June night. There was a faint scratching sound outside — a cat or an urban fox rummaging in a rubbish bag. Slowly, her breathing calmed. She turned out the light, and fell asleep again a short while later.

The next night, Monday, Annie had the dream again. It was exactly the same, only this time the propeller was even larger, and came even closer. Again her screaming woke Nigel, and it set Zak off screaming too; but she managed to calm her son down by recovering his ‘night’ teddy, which had fallen on his bedroom floor, and he went back to sleep with one of its paws in his mouth.

On Tuesday night she had the dream again. This time the propeller came even closer still. And this time she snapped on her bedside light and she told Nigel. ‘This is the third night running. I think this dream is telling me something.’

‘What do you mean? Telling you what?’ he asked, more than a little grumpily. Then he looked at the clock. ‘Shit, 4 a.m.’

‘I think it’s a premonition,’ she said. ‘It’s telling us we shouldn’t fly.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Annie, it’s you being afraid of flying! You have a bad dream every time before we fly.’

‘Not like this one.’

‘Can I go back to sleep?’

‘Go back to sleep.’

On Wednesday night, although she had been frightened to turn the light out for a long while, Annie slept a deep, dreamless sleep and woke refreshed, feeling positive and optimistic. Even Zak, for a change, was in a happy mood, gleefully pushing his big yellow digger truck around the floor, and making the accompanying sound effects.

After she had dropped the two children off at their nurseries, she returned for the first client of the day, Samantha Hardy, the wife of a work colleague of Nigel, who also lived locally, and chatted to her excitedly about their holiday. Samantha told her about a wonderful restaurant near Geneva she and her husband had eaten in, and promised to text her the name that evening when he got home.

On Thursday night Annie dreamed she was in a cloud. Cold, grey tendrils brushed her face, icy air thrashed her blonde hair around her face, making it feel as hard as whipcords, and chilling her body to the core. She was shivering with cold and fear. In the distance a thump, thump, thump became increasingly louder. Louder. Louder. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. The roar of an engine rising to a crescendo. She was rocking from side to side and screaming, trying to keep her balance. Then the propeller was right in front of her face, thrashing, thrashing, coming at her, thrashing; suddenly the air gripped her in a vortex, spun her, hurtled her straight into the propeller.

‘Darling! Darling! Annie! Annie! Darling! Annie! Annie!’

Nigel’s voice, panicky, distant.

Darkness.

Then a light came on.

A warm, bright glow. She blinked.

She was in bed, Nigel staring at her in alarm. ‘Darling. Annie, darling, it’s OK. Calm down. You were having a nightmare, it’s OK.’

Zak was screaming across the landing.

She was shaking, her heart thudding; she could hear the roaring of her blood in her ears. She was soaking wet, she realized. Drenched. Rivulets of perspiration streamed down her face, mingling with her tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she spoke in gulping sobs. ‘I’m sorry, Nigel, I can’t get on that plane on Saturday. Even if we get there safely, I’ll spend the whole week worrying about the flight home. I just can’t do it. I had the dream again. It’s telling me something.’

Her husband slipped out of bed, stomped out of the room and, uncharacteristically losing his temper, bellowed at Zak to shut up. It only made Zak’s screaming worse. Annie followed him in, found Zak’s night teddy on the floor again and gave it to him. Moments later he was calm once more. Then she stood for a while and stared at the little boy, thinking how deeply she loved him and Chloe. The thought of something happening to her — to her and Nigel — of never seeing them again. Of orphaning them. It was unbearable.

‘Planes don’t have propellers these days, Annie,’ he said. ‘Not large commercial planes. They haven’t for years — they’re all jets.’

‘I know about dreams,’ she replied. ‘I’ve read a lot. You dream in symbols. The propeller is the symbol. And anyhow, what about bird strikes? You read about those sometimes. There was a plane that had to land on the Hudson River in New York after a multiple bird strike. Do you remember, a few years ago?’

‘Yes, vaguely.’

‘The birds got sucked into the turbines and mangled up the fan blades — something like that. So jet engines do have propellers — sort of.’

Back in their bedroom she said, ‘I’m sorry, we’ll have to cancel the trip — or you go without me.’

‘That’s ridiculous, Annie! I’m not going without you!’ He sat down on the edge of the bed and thought for a moment. ‘Have you had any dreams about trains crashing? Cars crashing?’

She shook her head, then stepped out of her sodden nightdress. ‘Why don’t we drive? Take the White Elephant? It would be nice, give us a chance to use the sunroof.’

‘We only have a week,’ he said. Driving would take a whole day each way.’

‘If we left early on Saturday morning, on the Eurotunnel, we could get there by the evening. It’s about seven, eight hours’ drive, I seem to remember.’

‘We’d probably miss dinner on Saturday, and we’d have to leave a day early to come back — so we’d miss it the following Friday too.’

‘What about getting up really early?’

‘I thought we were going on holiday, not boot camp.’

She shrugged herself into a fresh nightdress. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘What about trains?’

‘I already looked into those before booking the flights.’

Of course you would have done, she thought.

‘The timings don’t work.’

‘Right.’

‘You’re sure you’ve had no premonitions about car accidents?’

‘No.’

They left the house at 3 a.m., caught a 5.15 a.m. Eurotunnel crossing, and, allowing for the one-hour time difference, were on the road heading out of Calais towards the autoroute by 7 a.m. French time. The satnav which Nigel, being Nigel, had already programmed the night before, told them their ETA in Montreux was 3.55 p.m.

Due to a couple of stops to take turns behind the wheel and for coffee, snacks and loo breaks, they arrived at the hotel shortly after 5 p.m., on a glorious, balmy afternoon. For the last half hour, travelling around the shore of the lake, they’d had the sunroof open, and despite feeling a little tired, Annie felt happy — and relieved that they’d made the right decision. And, hey, they still had time to unpack, have a rest and make it for cocktails on the terrace.

She had already decided what she would wear that night. A pair of cobalt-blue suede Manolo Blahniks, and a totally stunning handbag to match, with a Stella McCartney A-line cocktail dress that stopped a couple of inches too high above her knees. Naughty, she knew, but it showed off her legs, by far her best asset — although for knocking on thirty and having had two sprogs, she didn’t reckon the rest of her was too bad either. Tits still firm, stomach reasonably flat. So far, so good...

Out of curiosity, Nigel went online and checked the easyJet flight they would have been on. It had landed ten minutes early, shortly after midday. He told Annie.

‘But the thing is, darling, as I said to you. Even if we’d got here safely, I would have spent the entire holiday fretting about the flight home. I didn’t have the dream last night. We did the right thing.’

Nigel told her that if she felt they had done the right thing, then they had.

The first two days of their stay were blissful. Tired from the journey, they spent much of Sunday chilling, relaxing on loungers beside the hotel’s infinity pool and reading. On Monday they went hiking up in the mountains and, later, Annie had a massage. On their third day, Tuesday, in the personal organizer section of Nigel’s phone was, Picnic lunch on boat. Dep. 11 a.m., return 4 p.m.

‘Couldn’t be more perfect weather for a day on the water, could it?’ Nigel said, pulling on his Dyke Golf Club baseball cap to cover his balding dome. He cast off the mooring rope of the brown-varnished, clinker-built dinghy they had rented. There was an outboard, if they wanted to use it, but Nigel was keen to row. He patted his stomach, which Annie had noticed was definitely in an expansionist mode these past few years, although he was a long way from what one could call fat. ‘Promised myself I’d lose this by the end of the week,’ he said.

‘Let me know when you get tired and I’ll have a go on the oars too,’ she said.

‘You can take over when we get to France, and row back!’ he said with a grin, and pointed at the craggy peaks of the Alps on the far shore. Deeper into the mountain range, some of the peaks were still snow-capped, but the visibility was not good enough to see them today.

‘How far is it across?’ she asked.

‘About fourteen kilometers — nine miles,’ he said.

‘Quite a row!’

‘Could do it in a couple of hours — shall we try? We can use the outboard to motor back.’

‘Do we have to pay extra if we get back after 4 p.m.?’

‘There’s an hourly charge, but it’s not exorbitant.’

‘Let’s go for it. Splice the main brace, Sir Francis!’

It was a baking hot morning, with a faint breeze, the blue sky smudged with just a few wispy cirrus clouds high above them. Annie sat back, watching Nigel in his pink shorts, white polo shirt and trainers steadily rowing, keeping up a good speed. She breathed in the smells of boat varnish and rope and the fresh, faintly reedy tang of the water, and listened to the steady splash of the oars. In the distance, she saw a ferry crossing, and a large pleasure boat heading along the lake in front of them.

Suddenly, her phone pinged with a text. She pulled it out of her bag and looked at the display. ‘From Mummy,’ she said, opening it.

All fine here. Zak good as gold. Taking them to Drusilla’s Park today. Hope you’re having a nice time!

She sent a reply that they were — they were having a really lovely time. Then as she put her phone away she said to Nigel, ‘Zak, good as gold!’

‘Respect to your parents, I’d say!’

An hour later the mountains of the French Alps ahead of them grew steadily larger and higher as they rowed nearer, but the far shore was still a long way off. Nigel had pulled off his top and, moving carefully in the boat, making sure not to rock it too much and capsize, he made his way over to Annie so she could rub sun cream onto his back and chest.

‘Want me to take over yet?’ she asked.

He was sweating heavily but looking relaxed and cheery. ‘No, thanks, I’m fine.’ He took his hands from the oars to pat the big roll of flesh that was his stomach. ‘Is it looking any smaller?’

‘Definitely, darling!’

Suddenly, she felt a sudden swirl of cold air; it was so fleeting that for an instant she thought she had imagined it. Then from the faint frown that crossed Nigel’s face, she knew he’d felt it too. But it was gone, as suddenly as it had come. A couple at the next-door table on the terrace last night, who told them they came to Montreux every year for their holiday, said to be careful out on the lake — there were strange eddies and currents, and treacherous mists could descend quickly and with little warning.

But of course Nigel had checked the weather forecast carefully this morning with the concierge. It was going to be a fine day on the lake as well as on the shore. No mists were forecast. A perfect day for boating!

But, almost imperceptibly, the water seemed to be getting choppier; although not unpleasantly rough, it was definitely no longer as calm as it had been. She commented on it to Nigel.

‘It’s because the breeze is coming from the Montreux side — the lee shore,’ he explained. ‘We’re heading towards the windward shore, so the further out we get, the choppier it will become.’

As he spoke, a wave, from the wake of some bigger craft, broke over the bow, sprinkling a few droplets over Nigel’s back — and she felt a few of them on her face; nice and refreshing, but at the same time, staring at the darkening water, she felt a faint tinge of apprehension. They were a long way out now, in a very small craft. She turned her head and looked back at Montreux, so far in the distance it took her a moment to identify their hotel.

‘Maybe we shouldn’t go any further,’ she said.

Nigel looked at his watch. ‘Twelve thirty. Hmm, it is taking longer than I thought.’ He looked over his shoulder at the French shore. ‘It will take a good hour more at least to get there.’

‘Longer, I’d say,’ she replied dubiously.

‘We could go up the lake a little way instead, and then drift and have lunch in around half an hour. How does that sound?’

She nodded. ‘OK. Or we could row back a little towards the lee shore — it would be nicer to eat not rocking around so much.’ She suddenly had to grip the gunwales as the boat was rocked harshly by another, much bigger wave; the wash from a powerboat heading into the distance at high speed.

Nigel did not seem to need much persuading to turn the boat around. Annie offered to take over rowing, but he was fine, he said, and she could do some after lunch. But as he pulled on the oars he was looking less happy than when they had started out this morning, and the water was looking distinctly less happy too. Instead of getting calmer it was definitely getting a tad rougher all across the lake.

Above them the clouds were building up. Annie delved into the picnic hamper prepared by the hotel and brought out some bottled water. She took a long swig then offered some to Nigel. He shook his head. ‘When we stop, thanks, darling.’

After another ten minutes, to Annie’s relief, the water seemed a little calmer again. At 1 p.m. precisely, Nigel shipped his oars. ‘Lunch?’

‘Good plan,’ she said. ‘I’m ravenous!’

For several minutes, she knelt, keeping her head down, focused on the contents of the hamper. She pulled out a beer, which she opened and handed to Nigel, then peeled two hardboiled eggs, and carefully buttered two rolls. There were plates, knives and forks beautifully wrapped in linen napkins, wine glasses and a bottle of a local white wine, Dole, in a cooler bag. There was pâté in one container, slices of ham in another, tomato salad in a third, as well as an assortment of cheeses and fruits, and two miniature bars of Lindt chocolate.

‘I don’t think we’re going to starve!’ she said, carefully preparing a platter for Nigel. But to her surprise he did not comment. When she looked up to hand it to him, she could see why. Tendrils of mist were drifting by them like ghosts. She turned and the mist was everywhere, thin and hazy and wispy in places. It took her some moments to even spot the shore, and Montreux through it. ‘I thought the weather forecast was meant to be good, Nigel?’

‘That’s what it said on both the ones I checked online, and the concierge assured me of the same. This is probably just some kind of midday heat haze.’

‘More like a sea mist,’ she said.

‘This is a lake, not the sea, darling.’

‘That couple last night said something about sudden mists descending. Maybe we should head back while we can still see the shore — what do you think?’

He dipped his egg into the small pile of salt and pepper Annie had poured onto his plate, then bit into it, and chewed thoughtfully. ‘Maybe that would be wise. Might be best to use the outboard — get a bit closer to the shore and we’ll probably find it’s completely clear there.’

‘I’ll pack the picnic away.’

The boat rocked wildly as Nigel slid off his seat and edged his way, balancing with difficulty, to the stern. The mist was thickening by the second now. The temperature felt as if it had dropped twenty degrees. And suddenly, for a brief moment, Annie could see nothing at all — she was totally engulfed in the mist; she felt disoriented and giddy.

It cleared a fraction, and she could just make out Nigel, barely ten feet away; he was merely a shadow. But she could not see the shore, any shore in any direction. ‘I don’t like this,’ she said.

The temperature was dropping even further. Then, in the distance, she heard a steady, rhythmic thump, thump, thump.

It was getting louder by the second.

Thump, thump, thump.

Cold air suddenly swirled around her.

She could hear the roar of an engine. The thrashing of water.

‘Nigel!’ she called out, panicky. ‘Nigel, start the outboard, please, quickly.’

‘I’m trying — not sure which way I’m meant to turn this ruddy knob.’

She heard the clatter, clatter, clatter as he pulled the starting handle, but no sound of the motor firing. He pulled again.

The thump, thump, thump grew louder, closer. The thrashing sound was louder, closer. The roar of the engine was rising to a crescendo.

Icy air engulfed them. The boat was rocking wildly; strands of her hair whipped her face. The water erupted around them into foaming bubbles, as if some monster beneath them was rising from the deep. Then a shadow, tall as a house, bore down on them out of the mist.

‘NIGEL!’ she screamed.

An instant later she was in the water, spinning around and around in a crazed, choking vortex that was pulling her backwards and under.

An Englishman in a dark suit and a sombre club tie, accompanied by a uniformed police officer, greeted the grief-stricken sixty-year-old man as he stepped off the plane at Geneva airport.

‘Mr Donaldson?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Gavin Pearson, the British Consul, and this is Inspector Didier Motte of the Geneva Cantonal Police. I’m very sorry about your daughter, sir.’

Michael Donaldson thanked him, blinking away tears, and shook both their hands.

‘A terrible tragedy, and on their holiday,’ Inspector Motte said, sympathetically.

‘Would you like to have anything to eat or drink, or a rest, before we head off, Mr Donaldson?’ the Consul asked.

‘No, let’s go straight to the mortuary, get it over with, please,’ he replied.

They exchanged few words in the police car for several minutes. Michael Donaldson sat on the back seat, oblivious to the passing surroundings. Then he asked, ‘My son-in-law, Nigel. Presumably you’ve not found... not... recovered... his body yet?’

Inspector Motte, who was driving, responded in his broken English. ‘We are diving on the lake since the unfortunate accident happened, but there are a number of — how you say — courants, and the lake is deep in this part. It may take some time. And we are searching the lake all over, by air and water.’

They drove on in silence. Annie’s father caught a glimpse of the lake to his right, a cluster of vessels way out towards the middle, and the small black dot of a helicopter hovering low over the water, and hastily averted his gaze. He did not even notice them pulling up outside the mortuary building. The rear door of the car was opened by one of the men — he barely registered which — and he stepped out as if in a trance. He was here to identify his daughter’s body. He could not get his head around this.

As if sensing him faltering, as they entered the building, the Consul put his hand on his arm. ‘Mr Donaldson, are you absolutely certain you want to see her body? We could do this another way — identify her from her wedding ring, or items of her clothing, or even dental records or DNA, if you’d prefer?’

‘I want to see her,’ he said. ‘I want to see my baby one last time.’

‘Of course.’

‘Just tell me — I’m still not totally clear about how the accident happened. The English police who gave me and my wife the news only had very sketchy details. They were in a rowboat, quite far out on the lake, in bad weather? It doesn’t sound like my son-in-law — he was a very cautious man. Was... I’m saying was... he might still be alive, mightn’t he?’

‘I think by now, two days, we would have found him if he was alive,’ the Inspector said.

‘Apparently your daughter, Annie, and son-in-law, Nigel, rented a small day boat, with an outboard, and took a picnic lunch prepared by the hotel,’ the Consul said. ‘The weather forecast was good, but unfortunately, where you have a large mass of water surrounded by mountains, it will always be susceptible to sudden changes. A mist came down that no one predicted — very fast, apparently, and it was a tragic accident. The little boat was run down by a ferry. The captain has been arrested.’

‘That’s not going to bring them back,’ Annie’s father said grimly.

‘I’m sorry,’ the Consul said. ‘I’m truly sorry. I wish there was something I could do. Anything.’

‘There is one thing,’ Michael Donaldson said. ‘How much do you think my daughter suffered? I can’t imagine what it’s like to drown—’

‘Let me set your mind at rest,’ the Consul said, interrupting him. ‘I spoke to the pathologist. Your daughter didn’t drown — her death would have been instant.’

‘How can you be so certain?’ Donaldson asked with suspicion.

‘Well — I was hoping to spare you the details.’

‘I would like to know. I’d like to be able to at least tell my wife that our beloved daughter didn’t suffer.’

The Consul looked at him, hesitantly, then turned to the police officer as if for help. But Motte just stood in polite silence.

‘She didn’t drown, you say,’ Annie’s father prompted. ‘Was she struck on the head?’

‘No, she didn’t — she didn’t have a head injury. I’m afraid, in the collision with the ferry, your daughter was cut in half by the propeller.’