Another piece of the roofing went as I made my way to the head of the slittovia. Sparks and steam rose high into the night and were whipped away by the wind. Carla's body was huddled in the snow close to the platform at the top of the sleigh track. It was quite still. The scarlet of her ski suit glowed brightly in the lurid light. I turned her over. Her eyes stared wide out of a face covered in wet snow. There was a patch of blood in the hollow her body had made in the snow. A bullet had shattered her shoulder. Two more had struck her in the chest. The stains were a darker red than her ski suit. She was dead.
I crossed the platform then and made for the dark hole where Mayne had fallen. His body lay right below the spot where the fire was fiercest. Great gouts of flame were licking through the broken gabling. The wind was driving the fire through the wooden building, fanning the flames so that they looked like the exotic petals of some fearful jungle flower, writhing in horrid carnivorous ecstasy. One glance at Mayne told me that there was nothing to be done for him. His body was a charred and blackened mass, lying in a pool of melted snow. It was twisted and unnatural. And where the clothing had fallen away from one arm, the unburned flesh was pock-marked with shot. His had been an unpleasant death.
Joe joined me then. 'Dead?' he asked.
I nodded. 'Nothing we can do. Better go and get your cameras. I'll give you a hand.'
Joe did not move. He was staring up at the flaming building. There was a crash. The whole gable that had roofed Mayne's room seemed to crumple. We scrambled back through the snow just in time. It collapsed with a roar. The flames licked round this fresh wound with increasing fury. Sparks flew and were driven into the night. A set of beams, charred and eaten by the fire and still blazing, fell across Mayne's body. They stood for a second, up-ended in the snow. Then they keeled over against the side of the building, their bases hissing and blackened, the upper ends still flaming. The wood of the hut flooring caught and began to burn. 'Better hurry, Joe,' I said.
But all he said was, 'Christ! What a film shot!'
'What about Aldo and his wife, and Anna?' I said, shaking his arm.
'Eh? Oh, they live downstairs. They'll be all right.'
found them round the back, dragging their belongings out into the snow. At least, the two women were. Aldo was wandering about helplessly, wringing his hands and muttering, 'Mamma mia! Mamma mia!' I imagine he felt pretty sick at having helped Carla to escape.
We got Joe's gear out and dumped it in the snow. It was whilst I was doing this that I suddenly remem bered the skis. Without them it would take me hours to get down to Tre Croci. I stumbled round to the front of the building. My heart sank at the sight of it. The whole front was ablaze now. Half the roof was gone and where the staircase had been the upper storey was nothing more than gaunt, blackened beams pointing flaming fingers at the moon. The door of the machine-room stood open as Engles and Keramikos had left it. It was already blackened with the heat and beginning to smoulder. The flooring above the concrete room was alight and the supports all round it flaming. At any moment the whole structure might collapse on top of it.