1

Her aunt’s winter place was a nineteenth century Belle Epoque, dark brown with orange shutters, adorned with a round turret. The high snowdrifts on both sides of the porch were untouched for several days. Muddy corrugated icicles as thick as Leila’s arm dangerously dangled from the roof.

‘I wish somebody would teach that beast to open the door,’ Leila Weinrich whispered with frustration.

That was too much to ask of Wolfie. She was a smart dog, sure, but expecting her to be a porter on top of being cute? Not fair! Leila struggled with the shopping bags in one hand and the satchel filled with books dangling from her elbow. She searched her pockets and pulled out the key.

She unlocked the front door and budged through the dusky hall that smelled of open fire. The antique set of German armor gleamed at her with fresh polish. She turned left into the narrow corridor, and pushed the door to the drawing room open. She was surprised the dog didn’t show up.

‘Wolfie!’ Leila called out.

The capricious husky had no intention to welcome her. Leila was surprised. She stopped at the door, her eyes searching for the mischievous beast.

The drawing room was much brighter and warmer. It was a large room looking out on the mountains. It had an antique Iranian rug in the middle and was furnished as Leila had remembered it. But there was no sign of Wolfie. Instead, her eyes stumbled on something that made her stomach turn: somebody’s legs were sticking out from behind the chest of drawers. They were man’s legs, dressed in brown, not too clean shoes and crumpled pants made of dark brown wool. One pant was pulled up, exposing a green woolly sock and a pale ankle with sparse dark hairs.

‘Ouch!’ Leila shrieked, but instead of jumping away, as nine out of ten Classics students would have done, took another step forward.

There, behind the chest of drawers, lay a man - about forty years old, dressed in a waterproof gear on top of green tweed jacket and brown wool trousers. It was clear from the first sight that he was quite dead.

Leila was not that timid, but she lost her cool. She jumped three feet in the air and her eyes lit up with panic. She dropped her satchel and shopping bags on the floor, and rushed to the door, catching her foot on the electric cable. Something heavy fell off the desk with a loud bang. But Leila was in no mood to look what it was.

She flew through the hallway, rolled down the porch, run outside, and bumped into a tall skinny man of about seventy. He was dressed in a green coat over a checkered cotton shirt, and he didn’t make an impression of a friendly old guy. He had wrinkly red face, a crew cut hair, and a navy blue paisley scarf around his neck. His faded blue eyes looked straight through Leila. This was undoubtedly Dick Jones, a retired English banker, her aunt’s next-door neighbor. He eventually spoke in a patronizing voice of an old bore:

‘What’s the matter with you?’

With the pinkish veil of fear still covering her eyes, Leila remembered her aunt’s warning not to let Nosy Dick, as she lovingly called him, anywhere near the house. Aunt Christina had a low opinion of old Dick Jones. She reckoned he was a nasty gossip and an awful bore. Leila had received clear instructions not to converse with Nosy Dick about anything more than the weather.

‘Nothing. Nothing is the matter,’ Leila whispered. She couldn’t squeeze much else out of her mouth.

But the former banker didn’t buy it. He clung to Leila like a tick to a dog’s tail. Before Leila knew it, he’d slipped through the front door. She was a helpless idiot for not locking it up.

‘What was that terrible noise? And who was screaming?’ Nosy Dick continued his interrogation, unobtrusively nudging Leila in the direction of the drawing room.

‘No one screamed,’ Leila said regaining her strength. ‘I was listening to a play on Spotify. Sorry, I didn’t realize it was that loud.’

‘Nonsense. There is no signal here. They are still mending something after the storm, ’ Nosy Dick frowned. He stopped talking and looked down at petite Leila to see how she was taking it. Leila Weinrich didn’t look that well. She was staring at Dick with her lips parted and an expression of sheer terror on her face. She didn’t even protest when Nosy Dick opened the door to the drawing room. Leila couldn’t make herself go inside, wishing for unfortunate corpse to somehow spontaneously combust. She remained in the hallway, attentively studying the polished floor boards, waiting for Nosy Dick to freak out and call the police. But the former banker didn’t produce a sound. Instead, he was inspecting the room with morbid fascination. Leila forced herself to step into the drawing room and her eyes darted toward the chest of drawers.

No corpse was there. No dirty brown shoes, no wrinkled pants, nothing but her leather satchel dropped on the floor with books scattered around it. Next to it were croissants in a box, plastic bottle of milk, and a can of gourmet dog food she’d acquired for Wolfie. The lamp and its bronze base was on the floor, and the green glass bowl shattered in pieces.

‘Thanks for dropping by, Mr Jones. No worries. I just slipped and dropped my bag. Must’ve caught myself on something’,’ Leila said while gently directing Nosy Dick to the door.

The old banker felt cheated. There was a glint of dejection in his eyes. He had walked all that way for something more thrilling than the Latin textbooks littering the cobwebbed floor. Tough luck: Leila guided him outside and waved goodbye. After she was certain Dick had vacated the premises, she returned to the drawing room. She eyed the spot where the corpse had lain before and found no such thing. That was very strange. Leila remembered it vividly enough- wrinkled trousers, a green woolly sock, dirt clouding the rubber sole. She suddenly felt very small and easily tired. Though she promptly stopped thinking about it when she remembered something else.

‘Wolfie!’ Leila shouted. No one responded.

‘Wolfie!’ She repeated with a notch of anger in her voice. There was no answer.

Leila’s heart skipped a bit. A missing corpse was an unpleasant and thought-provoking affair, but if Wolfie went missing aunt Christina would never speak to her again. Leila looked out into the hallway and under the stairs, next to the set of German Armor. She thought she spotted something large, gray and shapeless.

‘Wolfie!’ Leila screamed in fright.

The gray pile moved, and from under the stairs, yawning and tottering, crawled a dog - a gorgeous husky, a mighty beast the size of a newborn calf.

‘Wolfie, girl, are you all right?’ Leila whispered, hugging the dog. ‘Are you OK, sweetie?’

Wolfie yawned with a rumbling howl, shaking herself awake, but she didn’t succeed. Her blue eyes remained cloudy. Something strange was going on with the dog. Usually she greeted Leila with jumpy excitement and tail wagging. But now she barely crawled towards Leila, yawned again, sank to the floor, and dozed off. Leila checked the dog’s nose - dry, but not too warm. Wolfie looked healthy, just very sleepy.

Stroking the fluffy head on her lap, Leila wondered how she had ended up in a remote chalet in Austrian Alps. She wished she was in her small apartment, with her cat Snoopy, and most importantly, with Tom, her boyfriend of two years.