Chapter 14: The Hut

The inspector took the receipt out of my hand and put it in a plastic sleeve.

"Now it is evidence," she said. "Now it is mine."

"I need a copy."

"You will have one. And so will the detective in Greenwich, tonight."

She snapped her folder shut.

"When they take him, let it be in front of people," she said. "In my experience it helps the mothers."

The mechanic went with her to Sion to sign a statement.

Matthias and I took the train up the valley.

It climbed for two hours, through tunnels and over gorges, until the snow came down to the tracks and the houses turned to dark wood.

His brother was waiting at the little station with a truck older than Clara.

He was a smaller, rounder Matthias with the same pale eyes, and he stared at me, then at his brother, then at me again.

He said something long in German.

Matthias said one short word back.

"What did he say?" I asked.

"Nothing. He is rude. Get in the truck."

The dog was in the back.

He was huge and gray and shaggy, and when he saw me he stopped wagging.

He jumped down, walked straight to me, and pushed his whole head into my stomach.

Then he lay down across my feet and refused to move.

"He remembers you," Matthias said.

"I don't remember him."

"You were a bit busy being frozen."

I knelt in the slush and put my arms around that big dirty neck.

"Thank you," I told him.

He sighed through his nose.

The brother drove us up to the village.

In English, slowly, he said, "My brother never brings a woman home. He brings home sheep. Skiers with broken legs. Once a goat."