Somewhere in the World by Peter Fuller
The telephone rang four times before Gerald McBride stopped writing, reached across his desk and picked up the receiver. On the other end of the line was Milan Chowdhury, a man who had little time for pleasantries, or humour. “I have received a report that the body of a man has been found on the mountain. It is located inside Green Boot’s Cave, so it is well above the death zone”, Chowdhury said.
McBride knew immediately the implications for him of this news. He had, as he did every morning, checked the weekly weather forecast on the conditions to be found on the ‘Big – E’, and he did not like what it had said. Although he knew in his heart that any resistance to Chowdhury’s instructions was useless, he still hoped that a little Australian banter might swing the situation in his favour.
“Well, that makes around two hundred and twenty frozen cadavers left up there and that doesn’t include those on the Tibetan side. Christ, Chowdhury, other climbers have started using these bodies as signposts! Since the long departed in question is not going anywhere fast, perhaps I can leave my investigation until there is an improvement in the weather”.
McBride’s humorous irony was lost on Chowdhury. “Impossible, you know the rules. Whilst it is safer not to recover the body, it must, nevertheless, be identified if possible and the reasons for the death recorded. I have arranged for an H125 helicopter to take you to Gorakshep tomorrow morning, eight-thirty sharp. From there you can climb the remaining two-hundred metres to the Base Camp. Take your assistant, Amir Rana, with you and two of the best Sherpas that you can find”.
McBride had already calculated what the climb would involve – from Base Camp at 17,800 feet to Green Boot’s Cave at 28,000 feet. “I’ll see you in a week’s time”. He said, throwing down the receiver.
He and his team spent a day at the Base Camp becoming acclimatised to the altitude. McBride was always surprised at just how rudimentary the camp is; a haphazard collection of tents mingled with clumps of stores tied down under tarpaulin.
Their climb was hard, but uneventful, and they reached the cave after three days. Outside the cave’s entrance McBride rested, wiped the snow from his protective goggles and took in the view. At 28,000 feet the ‘Goddess of the Sky’, as the mountain is known locally, is the epitome of nature’s stark beauty as well as being a deadly companion. McBride understood, too, that was gradually becoming an open-air graveyard.
They found the body they sought wedge at the very back of the cave. The average thirty-degrees below temperatures had wracked and distorted the body beyond recognition. The eyes and open mouth were blackened sockets, whilst the torso was twisted into a hideous upright position.
McBride’s interest was, however, drawn immediately to a perfectly round, frost-edged hole on the cadaver’s forehead a few millimetres above its right temple. He rummaged in his backpack and drew out a small plastic ruler and proceeded to measure the hole’s diameter.
He checked the measurement three or four times and then rested back onto his heels. “A thirty-five-calibre bullet. Murder it is then!” McBride rose from his crouched position and turned to Amir. “You know the dreadful implications of all this, don’t you?” he sighed.
Amir stuttered, “That the man was deliberately killed?”
McBride looked at his shoes, shook his head and smiled grimly. “It means that we have got to get this bloody body off this bloody mountain with bloody little equipment. And it’s a bloody long way down”.
A story and a place for rugged men! Himalayas of course.
From Simon This piece certainly answers the brief in taking us straight away into foreign parts. And it reads like a strong opening chapter in a crime novel. What is immediately striking is the competence of Gerald McBride. He would rather not go straight out to find the reported body, but that is not because he has doubts about his abilities. He simply thinks it would be prudent to wait for better weather. He is an Australian (I like the way that piece of information was shuffled in) who knows the mountain inside out. Once he has accepted that the mission has to be executed straight away, by working out the height where the body has been seen, he knows exactly how long the job will take. McBride is a man of great practicality who has been through these routines many times before. The ghastly condition in which the body is found does not surprise him; it is a sight he has seen many times before. He is surprised, though, by the bullet-hole in the skull. But, again, he knows exactly what to do, using his ruler to establish the calibre of the weapon used. He is a detective whose future investigations I would be intrigued to follow. My only criticism of the piece is that the terms of the brief was to write a piece which did not explicitly specify the location and here the references to the ‘Big – E’ and ‘Gorakshep’ left me in little doubt as to where the action was set.