Summit: A Novel by Harry Farthing

Author:Harry Farthing [Farthing, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2016-06-14T04:00:00+00:00

47

Olav Hotel, Avenue du Midi, Chamonix, France

September 19, 2009

1:55 a.m.

Soraya closed the back door of the Olav’s public bar behind her and locked it. Outside, the streetlights were fighting a losing battle against the small hours of the night. It was freezing so she tugged the hood of her sweatshirt out from under her fleece jacket and over her baseball cap.

Retreating into the little cocoon it created, she set off through the now deserted streets. It had been a busy Friday night, a busy summer season, in fact. It would be over soon and the next few months would be slower. She could kick back a bit and relax, and then, when the winter ski season began, she could get back to using every bit of her spare time snowboarding. Chamonix had some of the best off-piste skiing in the Alps. Soraya reminded herself that was why she was there. It would be good.

Life is good—or is it?

Walking down the hill at a near trot to escape the cold, she tried to imagine where Neil Quinn was at that very moment. He should have finished his booking in Saas Fee and would, she guessed, be in Munich visiting that antiques dealer he had mentioned. Once again, she asked herself what he was doing there. It seemed a bit odd. She wondered if it might actually be another woman even if she had to admit to herself that he’d made no effort to hide the screen of his phone in the bar when he scrolled through its address book to text that he would be visiting after his next job in Switzerland. On it, she briefly glimpsed a name, Graf, before he started to type. It had made her think of the German tennis player her father used to watch on TV when she was a kid in Australia. Still, it rankled her more than it should for someone who was meant to be playing by her own “no commitment” rule …

Striding on, she reflected on why she was even so concerned. Was Neil Quinn getting to her?

Turning into the narrow alley where she had a small studio apartment on the second floor, Soraya pulled her backpack forward to feel inside for her keys. As she did so, a dark shadow suddenly grabbed her left shoulder and the back of her neck from behind and slammed her against the side of the building.

Soraya instinctively twisted away but was unable to prevent the side of her face from impacting on the rough brickwork. There was a white flash of pain as the soft skin of her cheek and two teeth instantly broke, something deeper in her jawbone cracking. She heard the noise it made just before the inside of her mind folded in on itself.

She was out for a second or two, somewhere else.

When she came back, too stunned to scream or shout, her attacker flipped her around. With one viselike hand covering her mouth, the other ripped down the hood of

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