One by One(30)

Argy bargy? What the hell does that mean? I’m about to ask when Miranda butts in.

“You might as well say it plainly, Rik. The lift attendant came out to tell us the avalanche warning had gone up to red, and they were closing the whole mountain, but half the party ignored the warning and deliberately skied off before they could get the nets out.”

“I’m so sorry.” Inigo at least has the grace to look embarrassed. “It was a total misunderstanding. I thought he was saying now or never, so I, uh, pushed off.”

“So wait, some of you skied home,” I say slowly, “and some of you took the bubble back down?”

Nods all round the circle.

“Naturally we stopped for a bit at the big pine by the shortcut back to the chalet to see if anyone was catching up, but when we saw people traveling back down in the bubble, we skied down to the bottom of the lift,” Topher says. “So we waited there for another twenty minutes, only for the bastards in charge of the resort to close that lift too. At that point we concluded Eva had fucked off back to the chalet, but since we were now downhill from the chalet with no functioning lift, we had no choice but to ski down to St. Antoine and get the funicular back up.”

“Okay… okay…,” I say, trying to make sense of it. “So the last time anyone is absolutely certain they saw her, she was skiing La Sorcière?”

Ani nods, turning to Carl for confirmation, who says, “That’s the size of it.”

“But La Sorcière was closed,” Topher explodes. “That was the whole fucking problem.”

The whole fucking problem is that your colleague and cofounder is missing in extreme weather conditions, I think, but I don’t say it. I am thinking about La Sorcière, about its treacherous, icy slopes, and the way the loose powder builds up on the sheet ice beneath, making every turn a throw of the dice between a painful skid and a mini avalanche. I’m thinking of its brutal moguls, hidden by the drifting snow between, and the impossibility of even seeing the icy hummocks beneath their blanket of snow, let alone judging those knee-juddering turns in bad visibility.

Most of all, I’m thinking of the sheer drop at the side of the run. A precipice lies just meters from the side of the piste in places; in conditions like this, you could simply sail off the edge into nothingness. That is why they shut La Sorcière first, out of all the runs in the resort. Not because they’re risk averse, or health and safety nuts, or don’t trust experienced skiers to navigate it. But because the twists and turns are a death trap in low visibility. But then I remind myself that the worst section of the drop is right at the start of the run, and Ani saw her skiing farther down. It’s a small comfort, but I’ll take whatever comfort I can get right now.

“Has anyone tried her mobile?” I say. Inigo nods.

“Several times. There’s no reception.”

Danny comes out of the kitchen at that point, looking royally pissed off. What about my fucking risotto? he mouths at me over the heads of the guests, and I hurry across to him.

“Eva’s missing,” I tell him in a low voice, and his expression switches instantly from irritation to concern.

“What, really missing? Not just gone AWOL?”

“I don’t know; it’s hard to tell. They’ve all acted like complete fuckwits. They split up, no one kept track of who was in which party, and Eva seems to have gone off by herself to ski La Sorcière.”

“Alone?” Danny’s jaw drops. “But, there’s a red avalanche warning. Why the hell didn’t the pisteurs shut the run?”

“Apparently they did. She must have ducked under the netting or something, or somehow got lost and traversed across to the wrong run.” Though I can’t think quite how that could have happened. There is no obvious interconnection between Blanche-Neige and La Sorcière. That’s part of the problem with the black run. It is hemmed in by a sheer cliff on one side, and a sheer drop on the other. There is no way out once you’re going down, it’s all twists and turns. “I don’t know. But Ani is pretty convinced she and Carl saw Eva skiing down it. I mean, I know she’s good, but that’s just foolhardy in weather like this.”

Danny’s face is really grave now.

“And no one’s seen her since?”

I shake my head.

“Do you think we should call the PGHM?” I ask. This is the specialist branch of mountain police who operate in the higher mountain ranges—a combination of gendarmes and mountain rescue.

“I dunno,” Danny says. He pushes his bandanna up his forehead and rubs fretfully at the furrow between his brows, trying to think. “It’s not impossible she’s just got lost and gone down the wrong route. With the lifts shut it’d take her a while to get back. I reckon they’ll tell us to give it a few hours before we panic. Should we try the ski pass office first? Maybe they can tell us if her pass has been used on any lifts?”

I want to kiss him. It’s not just a good idea, it’s a great one. But when I go to the phone in the lobby and dial the number on the back of the lift pass, I get only the insistent beep-beep signal of a busy line.

I go back to the little group huddled in the lobby, who are looking hot in their ski gear, and increasingly worried.

“We think the best thing is to check in with the lift pass office and see if Eva’s used her pass anywhere. I’ve tried phoning, but the line’s engaged, so rather than hanging around here, I think I’m going to hop down on the funicular and talk to the office in person.”