Death in Kashmir by M. M. Kaye Page A

crossed by Blue; the junction of the two runs bearing the appellation ‘Dirty Corner’ for reasons not unconnected with the frequent and simultaneous arrival at this point of both Blue and Red runners moving at speed and arriving from opposite directions.
    Sarah shot down the curving track, jump-turned with expert precision, and emerged into the straight stretch above the junction of the two runs a bare yard ahead of Ian Kelly—only to check violently, in a flurry of snow.
    She saw Ian, swerving wildly to avoid her, shoot past and cannon off a tree trunk to fall with a whirl of skis, sticks, snow and startled swearwords into a piled drift, and heard Reggie shout behind her as he came to an indignant standstill a yard or so to her left, the others stemming behind him on the slope. But she did not move. Her eyes, fixed and dilated, were on the two figures immediately ahead of her. The Coply twins, who were standing at the junction of the two runs.
    Alec was bending down, dragging frenziedly at the straps of his skis, while Bonzo, his hands cupped about his mouth, alternately shouted something unintelligible up the slope, and pointed down it.
    â€˜What the hell—!’ said Reggie Craddock violently. He thrust strongly with his ski-sticks and shot away down the track; the others following behind him, except for Sarah, who stayed where she was, held in the grip of a sudden, sickening premonition of disaster. It was only when she heard Ian swearing in the undergrowth and saw Reggie and the others reach the twins that she forced herself to follow them.
    Alec had rid himself of his second ski by the time she reached them, and was running down the Blue Run slipping and stumbling on the treacherous surface, while Meril was saying in a high, cracked voice that sounded as if it came from a gramophone: ‘But they took Mrs Matthews away—I know they took her away! She can’t still be here. They took her away!’
    Sarah took one look at the sprawled figure that lay at the foot of the icy slope below them, a dark smudge against the whiteness, and took the slope at a run. She heard Reggie’s warning shout and Meril’s scream, and then Alec had caught her, and they had fallen together among the snow-covered boulders beside that other figure that lay so still.
    It was Janet of course. Sarah had known that it would be. Perhaps she had known it, subconsciously, from the moment when she had awakened in the ski-hut, heavy-eyed and sick with apprehension, to find that Janet had not returned. The Coply twins, gesticulating in the snow, had only supplied the dreadful confirmation of what she already feared to be true.
    Sarah reached out and touched her. Janet lay on her side in the snow in a curiously confiding attitude, almost as though she were asleep. Her knees were bent, and her arms lay stretched at her side, her hands still gripping her ski-sticks. There was a little scarlet stain on the snow under her head, and her blue eyes were open. There was no trace of either surprise or horror on her dead face, but rather a faint, definite impression of scorn: as though she had expected death and derided it.
    Sarah became aware of Reggie Craddock swearing violently under his breath, of Meril’s hysterical sobbing, and of Fudge’s arms about her, pulling her away.
    â€˜Come away, Sarah. Don’t look dear. We can’t do anything; she’s dead.’
    Sarah jerked herself free and stood up. She had seen all she wanted to see in those first few minutes, and verified it when she had reached out to lay her hand on a pocket of Janet’s snow-powdered ski-suit.
    The narrow metal zip-fastener was closed, but the gun had gone. And it was not until after they had carried the slim, stiff figure up the hill to the hotel, and laid it in an empty room in an unoccupied wing, out of consideration for Miss Parrish’s nerves, that Sarah learned—by way of Dr Leonard’s wife, Frances, who has