One by One(34)

LIZ


Snoop ID: ANON101

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It is 3:11 p.m. when the electricity dies. I am sitting up in my room, trying to shut out the noises from downstairs, when the room is suddenly plunged into darkness. I fumble for my phone, wondering if a bulb has blown. Then I hear shouts of annoyance coming from up and down the corridor. It is not just me.

“Did your electricity just go off?”

It is Topher’s voice, right outside my bedroom. For a moment I think he’s talking to me, but then I hear an answering deep rumble: Elliot.

“Fuck,” Topher says, in response. “That’s all we need.”

I open the door to find the rest of the group congregating on the landing, discussing what to do by the light of their mobile phone torches. In the end, we traipse downstairs to consult Erin and Danny. I hang back as Topher knocks irritably on the kitchen door. He is grumbling under his breath about the fucking arse end of nowhere.

“What?” Danny answers. His expression is belligerent.

“Hello,” Topher says, abruptly changing his tone. He is out to charm now. He is not stupid. He knows he has got to get these people on his side. The effect is impressive. It is like a switch being flipped. “So sorry to disturb, but our electricity’s gone out.”

“You and me both, mate,” Danny says shortly.

“And, is there anything one can do?” Topher asks. He’s stressed, and I can tell because his accent has become indefinably more monied.

“Not really. The backup generator was in the pool house.” Danny waves a hand at the debris just visible from the kitchen window. Topher swears. His charm is slipping.

“So we just wait and freeze to death?”

“Not freeze,” Danny says. “We’ve got plenty of wood. You can start by putting a log on the living room fire.”

Topher opens his mouth like he is about to say something. Then he seems to think better of it and closes it again. He turns and walks slowly back through to the darkened living room. The rest of us follow.

In the lounge, Topher flings himself onto the sofa while Miranda lights candles. Rik opens up the stove, stirs the embers, and puts another two logs on top.

“Great,” Carl says. “Bloody great. This is all we need. We’re gonna be fucking ice cubes by the time they find us.”

“We’ll be fine,” Miranda says shortly, her voice clipped and annoyed. “It’s Eva we need to worry about.”

Eva. In all the commotion, I had almost succeeded in forgetting about her. My stomach crunches with mingled guilt and anxiety.

There is a long, horrible pause while no one asks the questions that are running in their heads. What has happened to her? Was she caught up in that avalanche? Is she dead?

“Wouldn’t she have, like, phoned, if she were okay?” Ani says at last, breaking the silence. Her usual diffidence is even more pronounced. “I know there’s not much signal, but just… like… a text, even?”

“She might not have been able to get through,” Miranda says, but I can tell she is trying to persuade herself, more than being convinced by her own argument.

Elliot is standing in the corner of the room, looking out at the darkening snow, and then he says something to Topher in his deep, abrupt voice and leaves. Topher gets up from the sofa and follows him without a word.

I frown, watching them go, watching their shadows leap and flicker in the light from the guttering candles. Where are they going? There is something in Topher’s expression I don’t like. A sense of sudden purpose. And it gives me a jolt of unease.





ERIN


Snoop ID: LITTLEMY

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“This is bad, Erin.” Danny is rummaging through tins at the back of the darkened kitchen. As I watch him, he straightens up, running his hands over his close-cropped hair. “This is very, very bad.”

“It’ll be okay,” I say, but the truth is, I’m lying, and I know it. My ankle has puffed up to twice its usual size and still won’t bear my weight properly. We have no lighting, and the only heat is from the woodstoves. Danny can’t even microwave a frozen curry for dinner. And Eva—but I can’t think about that now. I push the image of her white, cold face away from me, locking it behind the door in my mind where I keep images like that, frozen in ice. I have to hold on to the possibility that she’s okay, that she made it down into the village and just hasn’t been able to get through on the phone. God knows, the reception is bad enough.

“Your foot could be broken for all we know,” Danny says, but I shake my head, with a confidence I don’t feel.

“I don’t think it’s broken. I think it’s just badly sprained.”

“How the fuck would you know?” Danny asks, and then holds up a hand. “Never mind, I forgot you’re a bloody doctor. Tell me again what you’re doing cleaning up after posh wankers for minimum wage?”

I could give about eight different answers to this. I could remind him that I’m not a doctor, I’m a medical school dropout. I could tell him the truth about what brought me to St. Antoine. I could give him a lecture on greenstick fractures. But I don’t need to say any of this because he’s gone back to looking through the tins.