Editor’s note: This is the first installment of a series entitled Harp on the Water. It’s written by Hope Thompson, who lives in Algonquin Highlands. Thompson writes for theatre and television and has had plays produced in Toronto, Vancouver and Los Angeles. She recently wrote for the CBC’s Baroness von Sketch Show and is currently working on a collection of crime stories. Her series will run over the next eight weeks.

Spruce County Police Detective, Harry Harp, panted up the crisscrossing path that led from the dock to the top of the point. He was tall with dark eyes and at 47, had a creased forehead, giving him a quizzical look. Three weeks earlier, he had relocated to Spruce County, grateful for the escape from Toronto and the bitter aftermath of his failed marriage. For his first case in Spruce County, Harp had chosen a business suit but could already feel his dress shirt clinging, damply, to his skin.

Mistake number one, he thought.

Trotting behind Harp was Constable Terry Becker. A tanned local, he looked enviably comfortable in his cargo pants and shortsleeved cop-issue shirt.

Nimbly leading the trio up the path was Frank Gill. He looked to be in his 70s and was wearing work pants held up by suspenders over a checked shirt. About forty minutes earlier, Gill had called the police station in town and told the desk clerk that there was trouble at the Calvert place. He had met Harp and Becker at the boat launch to ferry them across the lake. During the boat ride, Gill explained that the Calverts lived off-grid. They also didn’t have a phone. Gill’s place was across the lake from the point and he’d woken to the sound of screaming.

The path from the dock ended in front of a wood-sided cottage. Two rotting chairs stood in front of it and Harp noticed that they were turned away from the lake, as if purposely ignoring the view.

That’s odd, Harp thought, catching his breath.

But there wasn’t much to see, anyway. A wall of trees blocked out the view of the lake, and, he guessed, hid the point’s inhabitants from prying eyes below.

Frank Gill stepped forward and knocked on the front door of the cottage, then without waiting for a response, pushed open the door. Harp and Becker followed him into a narrow room. The detective adjusted his eyes to its dim interior, lit by a single wick lantern and smelling strongly of dust and kerosene. The main feature of the room was a long display shelf of natural objects—a turtle’s shell, birds’ nests, a pair of deer antlers, varieties of dried leaves, desiccated berries, a piece of shelf fungus, the abandoned skin of a snake. At the far end was a small kitchen with a woodstove, cupboards and a length of counter. Across from the room’s only window was a pair of threadbare chairs and a sagging sofa. Sitting on the sofa was a woman and her eyes were fixed on Harp.

Frank Gill closed the door behind Harp and Becker. “Grace,” he said gently. “These men are police. They come to help—about Ida.” The woman wiped her eyes with a piece of cloth she pulled from her shirt pocket. It was then that Harp noticed something in her hair.

Pine needles?

She was wearing faded cotton pants smudged on the knees like she’d been kneeling in dirt and her flannel men’s shirt was caught with burrs.

“Ms. Calvert, I’m Detective Harp and—.” Cutting him off, she said, “My dead mother is in her bedroom.” She gestured to a narrow hallway then added. “They finally got what they wanted.”

Harp said, “They?”

“The cottagers!” She cried. “They hate us—.” Her face crumpled into tears.

Frank Gill stayed with Grace while Harp and Becker walked down the hallway to a closed door. Gently pushing it open, they were met with the smell of floral perfume, mothballs and blood. Ida Calvert lay on her bed under a flowered eiderdown, her grey-hair fanned out over her blood-soaked pillow. Liver-spotted hands were folded over her chest. Serene, almost, except that something had struck the woman’s face with enough force that her features—eyes, nose and mouth—were gone. Bits of bone mixed with wood chips and dirt lay scattered around.

“Becker?” Harp said.

The constable looked up and Harp noticed he’d lost some of his tan.

“Walk around the place, check the doors, windows, make note of anything out of order.”

The young man nodded.

A moment later, Harp was alone with the faceless woman.

To the right of the bed stood a chest of drawers and on it, was a collection of combs and lotions. The curved vials and tubes looked like they’d been sitting there for decades, grease darkened with dust and time. His gaze followed back over the woman’s thin body to the left of the bed where a side table had been placed. A glass of water stood next to a flashlight. Harp positioned himself between the wall, the side table, and the woman’s bed then raised his hands over his head and swiftly brought them down towards the woman’s missing face.

He frowned, thinking.

The room had one small window. Taking a step towards it Harp banged his knee against the sharp corner of the steel bed frame. Cursing, he gripped his kneecap and hobbled to the window. From the flakes of varnish in the corner of the frame, it was clear that it hadn’t been opened in years.

Harp looked back at Ida Calvert, his brain turning over.

After his inspection, Harp returned to the cabin’s main room. Grace Calvert stood at the counter ladling water from a bucket into an aluminum coffee pot.

“All we ever wanted was nature and quiet,” she said and pushed her hair back from her face. Her features were smooth, even patrician and Harp felt himself strangely drawn to her.

“I just never imagined they’d go this far.” She placed the pot on the woodstove.

“You say the other cottagers—hate you?”

A mosquito buzzed around his head.

“Because we’re different. We’re not like them. We don’t race around in boats screaming our heads off and blowing up firecrackers—.” She squished shut her eyes. When she opened them, anger had replaced her tears. “That’s why they hate us. That’s why they killed my mother!”

Harp tried to loosen his tie then thought better of it. “For the record, where were you last night, Ms. Calvert?”

At that moment, Harp noticed movement from the corner of his eye and turned his head. A scene unfolded through the front window as if a movie director had yelled, “Action!”

From the east side of the point, Becker ran into view waving dirt-covered hands. From the west, Spruce County Coroner, Boyce Williams, followed by two assistants, paraded up the path. And at centre stage, Frank Gill sat on a swing hung between two pine trees. The old man was swinging back and forth like a child.

Harp blinked.

Behind him, Grace Calvert was speaking. “I was in the forest, Detective. Sleeping. I walked to the village to buy a newspaper and when I returned, my boat was gone. They do that to us.”

“Wait—the forest?” Harp turned to her. Grace sighed. “With no boat, I had to walk around the lake. It became dark—so I lay down. I feel quite safe in the woods. At least you can trust the animals.”

Just then, the door burst open.

• To be continued

I am slowly, steadily making my way along the Everest Base Camp trek when Nic, who is trudging behind me, suddenly gasps for air.

Her panicked partner, Paul calls out to our Nepalese guides. They rush to Nic’s side, along with Brisbane doctor, Simon Arndil.

They examine Nic and find she is now okay. Nic tells them she had a stomach cramp and simply lost her breath – not hard to do at nearly five kilometres up with about half the oxygen at sea level.

As Nic struggled, I felt panic overcome me. My vision seemed to shimmer and for the first time, I realized how dangerous trekking at altitude can be.

I forced myself to calm down . . . breathe in through my nose, breathe out through my mouth.

We all began to walk again, towards Lobuche, where our camp that night would be pitched at 4,930 m amongst the Khumbu Glacier moraine.

Yeti Airlines

On our Yeti Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Lukla, where the trek begins, our stewardess offers us a mint and cotton for our ears as the small, twin propeller aircraft takes off, providing amazing views of the Eastern Himalaya. We experience a rather hairy landing on a very short airstrip at 2,800 metres and are awe-inspired by the huge, snow-capped peaks surrounding the village.

We are soon joined by throngs of people along a well-marked trail; local porters and dzopkos (a yak-cow crossbreed) carrying supplies for the villages higher up and trekking parties.

We head downhill, passing Buddhist stupas, chortens, prayer flags and prayer wheels, through villages with pretty stone houses and flowers, shops and terraced fields of potatoes and buckwheat. We come to a suspension bridge and make the first of many crossings of the Dudh Kosi, a raging river that flows from the highest peaks.

The trek

Our Nepalese guides wake us up early by bringing tea to our tents, followed by a hot bowl of washing water. We pack and head to our mess tent for breakfast. We then walk for a few hours before a hearty lunch and a few more hours’ walking before we are back in the mess tent for afternoon tea, followed by another wash and then dinner. Most nights we are tucked up in bed early after a vigorous day’s walking.

The pace is slow and steady as we make our way up. We are advised that the best way to avoid altitude sickness is to go slow and to drink plenty of liquids, hot liquids preferably, and we endeavour to drink three litres a day even though it means we rarely sleep through the night as we need to get up and use the toilet.

We hike through pine forest and cleared areas reveal terraced fields and a variety of crops, while spectacular mountain peaks unfold above us and seem to hover above the tree-line as they rise above the deep river valley. We pass Mani Walls, carved with “Om Mani Padme Hum” (Hail to the jewel in the lotus).

Namche Bazaar

“No, they don’t have cars,” the woman with the New Zealand accent explains via mobile phone to someone on the other end of the world.

However, they do appear to have internet everywhere. In fact, I send an e-mail from Gorak Shep, at 5,288m, where the proprietor of the internet café uses a petrol generator and satellite dish to ensure communication with the outside world.

At Namche Bazaar, we run into Willie Benegas, an Argentinian living in the USA who is a professional Mt. Everest guide. Willie has climbed Everest eight times and this season will make his ninth attempt.

We ask him about the danger and he shrugs it off saying: “Flying into Lukla is extremely dangerous. You’re playing the odds all the time.”

He concedes the commercialization of Everest but believes it is the low budget expeditions that account for the accidents.

We wind our way up to Thyangboche Monastery where we arrive in time for the Buddhist monks’ afternoon chant. The light is dim and there is a rank smell of trekkers’ socks but the deep, melodic chant invades my chest.

At Dingboche, at 4,360m, the snow arrives with a vengeance, covering our tents. Our Nepalese guides thwack the sides to knock the snow off as we huddle for warmth in the mess tent, only venturing out to the toilet tent. We are now getting just 60 per cent of the oxygen we would at sea level. We are losing our appetites, not digesting our food or sleeping very well. The conversation in the mess tent inevitably turns to altitude sickness. There are now eight people on Diamox, a drug used to treat acute mountain sickness. We retire to sleep, our sleeping bags crunching on the snow and ice. The nights are about -20C. I am wearing just about everything I have packed but still shiver. I can’t get my feet warm.

At Gorak Shep we find a tiny village teahouse, where we gather around a potbelly stove and enjoy steaming cups of hot chocolate. Outside the snow continues to fall, covering everything, including the yaks. Tomorrow is the big day.

Everest Base Camp

We awake to 360 degree views of snowcapped mountains: Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse, Tawatse, Ama Dablam, Kantega and Thamserku, Khumblia and Kongde Ri.

We set off early, the Khumbu Glacier to our right as we slowly ascend and descend over rocky terrain.

Hour after hour, I concentrate on walking slowly and steadily, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, and carefully placing each step, only glancing up occasionally to see Everest poking her head through her sister mountains.

And, then, a sea of yellow tents appear in the snow ahead and then a second camp of multicoloured tents further on.

We pass a tent advertising an Everest Base Camp German bakery and, after 10 days’ walking from Lukla, we are here.

The camp itself is nothing special, just a bunch of tents pitched on icy, rocky ground. But the view is extraordinary. We can see the Khumbu Icefall, where Sherpas each year install fixed ladders and ropes so climbers can make their summit attempts.

I reflect on the effort it has taken to get here and marvel at how these people will stay at this very inhospitable place for months in their quest to climb Mt Everest.

In less than an hour, we are on our way back to Gorak Shep, struggling the last few kilometres as a wicked head wind blows up the glacier. We arrive, exhausted, about 5 p.m.

The next four days are a blur as we rapidly descend back to Lukla with all-day walks.

Near the end, we celebrate our ascent with our team of 23, under the leadership of Harka Rai. We sing and dance together and distribute our tips. Before we know it, we are on a Nepal Airlines flight back to Kathmandu, Everest this time on our left, and we bid her thank you and goodbye.