At least there was a modicum of shelter under the trees. Firs evolved their instantly recognisable shape specifically to prevent a build-up of too much snow in their canopies; so snow was still falling, sometimes in large lumps which Madeleine had managed to avoid, but they were far more protected from the wind while they were between the trunks. Madeleine looked up, trying to see an end to the tree-line. Then she turned around, looking down the slope this time, back towards where she imagined the lodge stood, if they hadn’t wandered totally off-course. All she could see were trees, and snow, and more trees. And as she looked, she realised that although they had been searching for the best part of forty minutes, they had checked a fraction of the places where Clara could be. And that was if she had even walked this way. She might just as easily have headed out along the track Tom and Lysander were searching, taken herself off across the piste to God only knew where.
She shook her head and turned again, pushing off from the trunk beneath her hand as she took another step, then another, towards the next tree.
‘Wherever you are, Clara,’ she said to the snow behind the next tree, ‘you’d better be alive, so that I can bloody well kill you myself.’
Ignoring the searing pain from her knee and hip, Tania righted herself and pushed up clear of the water, as far as she could. The water wasn’t deep, but it flowed quickly and was bone-achingly cold.
She could hear Gull calling her name, the light from his torch flashing in her eyes as he searched the hole through which she had fallen.
‘Stay back,’ she called. ‘Don’t fall.’ It had become difficult to speak. Without warning, her jaw chattered her teeth together in a rhythm over which she had very little control. The light from the torch disappeared, instead lumps of snow fell around her, crystals of ice clinging to her face as she looked up. The hole grew larger as Gull raked armfuls of snow out of the way.
‘Are you all right?’ he shouted. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘I’m OK. But I’m in the water.’ She’d lost her grip on her torch in the fall. Without Gull’s light she was in almost complete darkness, the echoing sound of the rapidly moving stream filling her senses as she scanned around but failed to find her torch.
More snow cascaded onto her head and the light re-established its beam in her direction. She looked up.
‘Reach up towards me,’ Gull shouted, he sounded as if he were in an echo chamber. He shoved the hand not holding the torch as far down as he could, gesturing for her to stretch up. She shuffled until she was underneath him, then reached up as far as she could, the tips of her gloved fingers brushing his. ‘Hang on,’ he said, retracting his hand and the light from the torch, both replaced by more falling snow as he dug again.
Tania realised she couldn’t feel her feet any longer, that the pain in her knee and hip had become foggy, as if she were no longer sure whether they hurt at all. She looked up at Gull; he lowered himself as far over the edge of the unstable snow as he dared, arm outstretched again. He gestured for her to reach up and she did so, this time his hand closed firmly around her wrist. He pulled her arm tight, tucking the torch away as he leaned down and took hold with both hands. Tania grabbed at him with her free hand and somehow, with Gull pulling, she managed to scrabble partway up the craggy rocks edging the stream. Gull changed his grip, taking an unceremonious hold of whatever piece of clothing or part of her body he could until she was free of the hole.
He rolled onto his back, breathing hard and swearing under his breath. She wanted to curl into a ball but couldn’t seem to muster up the energy to move at all.
They didn’t stay still for many seconds, Gull pulling her roughly to her feet and shining the torch in her face. Then the beam of yellow light made its way over the rest of her.
‘I’m OK, Gull,’ she said, through chattering teeth.
‘No, you bloody well aren’t. Christ, Tania, one second you were there, the next you were gone.’ He wrapped her up in a hug, squeezing her until she was fighting for breath. He pressed a cheek to hers. ‘I thought you were …’ He didn’t finish the sentence, instead he released his grip, studying her in more detail. ‘You’re soaking wet,’ he said.
‘I fell into water,’ she said, attempting a grin and a shrug of her shoulders. The grin morphed into more teeth chattering, the shrug into a shiver. ‘The stream.’
‘I’m taking you back to the lodge.’
‘No, I’ll be fine once we get moving again. We’ve got to find Clara.’
‘I’ll come back out and carry on searching,’ he said.
‘But you don’t know where to look,’ she said.
‘Not sure you’re doing a whole lot better, if I’m honest,’ he said, gesticulating towards the edge of the hole, the edges of his lips curling up in a grin, which was gone just as quickly, replaced by a look of fierce intensity. He grabbed her again. ‘I can’t lose you,’ he said, the words hot and fast in her ear.
‘And I can’t lose Clara,’ she said. She took a step away from him, bounced around on feet she couldn’t feel, ignored the pain in her knee and hip which she very much could feel again, and reached for his torch. She needed to find the footbridge over the gully. It must be roughly in this area, but she hadn’t appreciated how difficult it would be to find. She’d mistakenly thought the planks would be easy to spot, even by torchlight.
‘We should leave the search to the experts,’ Gull said. ‘You’re going to get frostbite.’
‘Half an hour ago you couldn’t wait to get the hell away from me,’ she said, scanning the area with the torch. ‘Now you want to tell me what to do? Good or bad decision, I’ve already made it. I’m carrying on. You can do what you like.’
He took hold of her arm, demanding her attention. ‘Christ, Tania– I’m not telling you what to do. I’m showing concern. There’s a difference. And, just for the record, the last thing I wanted was to “get the hell away from you” as you put it.’
Tania made to pull away, to carry on the search for the bridge, but he held her firm.
‘You were desperate to leave,’ she said, frowning as he shook his head. ‘And this isn’t the moment. Clara’s the priority. Not us, or me, or whatever the hell this is.’ She waved a sodden gloved hand between them, to emphasise her point.
He ran his free hand across what little of his face showed between the woolly hat pulled down over the crown of his head, and the zipper of his ski jacket, toggled right up to cover his chin. ‘No. You’re right.’
He let her go, and the weak yellow glow of the torch picked up something sticking upright, only about twenty feet to their left. Without replying, Tania forced her feet into action, wiggling what she thought were toes as she shuffled across. With the back of a sodden glove, she pushed at the snow and uncovered the edge of the footbridge.
‘Here. It’s here,’ she said, but Gull was already there with her, pushing at the snow and kicking a path across the chicken-wire-covered boards that formed the walkway. Before she could take a step onto the wooden planks, Gull caught her arm.
