Hitting him with the belay device had been an almost-instinctive move. He’d known that the heavy steel would have an impact. Even if he’d swung the rope with only a carabiner at the end, it would’ve been enough to knock Paul over. It was the element of surprise more than anything. Seeing Paul’s open, pleading eyes as he’d rolled him to the edge had given him a jolt, but he’d held fast and carried on. After the blow, what else could he do? He could hardly tell Paul it was an accident. The whole thing had given him a rush.
None of it had been supposed to happen like that.
Paul and Ginny had been supposed to ‘fall’ during the chain-led descent, into an area that Tristan could control. Where he could make sure that one, they were both actually dead; and two, they were out of sight and wouldn’t be found easily when the mountain rescue teams were eventually deployed. Cat pushing Ginny when she did had been a risk, but he’d dealt with it.
It was done.
They would need to find a way to scrub the events of the day from their heads, and move on.
Cat’s hand felt different to Ginny’s. Cat was bigger-boned than her sister – in a good way. She was far from fat; in fact, she had perfectly proportioned curves and a cracking pair of tits that he’d been more than happy to get acquainted with. Ginny was all skin and bone. Barely eating in a ridiculous attempt to look perfect for her Insta fans, while pretending to eat all the elaborate food she created on her channel. Were people really so stupid? It seemed so. He wondered if her followers would care that she was gone, or if they’d quite happily move on to the next shiny thing. She’d made murmurings about pregnancy and child-rearing influencers being the next big thing; hinted that she might want to go down that route.
He’d ignored her. He didn’t want kids.
Which is why he’d had the snip, several years earlier.
It could fail though, right? There’d been that guy at work whose wife had got pregnant after a failed vasectomy. It was more common than people realised – and there’d been no chance of an accident with Ginny as she’d been on the pill too. Although he wouldn’t have put it past her to stop taking it. Hence his own insurance policy.
But now . . . well, now he was kind of hoping that the procedure had failed.
He squeezed Cat’s hand. ‘Do you really think you might be pregnant? You know what Ginny’s like . . .’ He paused to correct himself ‘。 . . was like, with all her bloody theories.’
He felt Cat tense. ‘Paul thought it might just be the altitude and not enough food.’
‘But what do you think? I mean, I’m no expert, obviously, but aren’t there other signs? Don’t you have to miss a period?’
‘My periods have always been all over the place. When we were young, Ginny was able to track hers to practically the minute they were due, while I was always the one who ended up having an accident in white jeans.’ She tried to laugh, but it sounded forced.
‘That’s what you get for wearing white jeans,’ he said. ‘Weren’t they banned after the eighties?’
‘I’m surprised Ginny’s not still got a pair. She was much more into them than me. She was also quite happy to tell me how I was too fat to wear them. Just as well they were ruined, eh?’
Cat’s tone sat somewhere between nostalgia and bitterness, and it was a timely reminder of why they were here. He felt his own tone harden. ‘She was a little bitch, Cat. But you don’t have to deal with her shit anymore. Neither do I. I know you don’t believe me, think it’s just me trying to butter you up, but I really do wish I’d dumped her the minute I realised she had a much hotter sister.’
‘We might never have got together anyway, but at least Paul would’ve survived his fate.’
He let go of her hand. ‘Don’t tell me you’re regretting getting rid of him? OK, so it didn’t happen like it was meant to and I get that you’re upset about that. But you told me he was bad news, Cat. I believed you, even though you’ve consistently refused to tell me what he actually did. I know it had something to do with him leaving work. You might as well tell me now.’ He reached for her hand again, softening his voice. ‘If you tell me, then I’ll be able to reassure you that we’ve done the right thing here.’
‘Have we though? What the hell are we doing, Tristan? We’re . . . we’re murderers.’ She stopped walking, and slid her hand out of his. ‘I can’t carry on with this. When we get back down there tomorrow, I’m going to the police and I’m telling them everything.’