One by One(50)

“Not for Elliot’s death. That could be anyone. We were all here—everyone was coming and going from the living room.”

“Ani took him the coffee. And we all know she’s got the hots for Topher.”

“She took him a coffee, but we don’t know if it was the same cup that killed him. You’d have to be pretty stupid to announce to the world you were taking up coffee to someone you were about to poison.”

“Could be a double bluff,” Danny says, a little feebly, but I can tell he’s only playing devil’s advocate. “But okay, sorting out alibis for Elliot’s gonna be tricky, I can see that. What about Eva though? If we’re accepting that Elliot was killed because he knew something about what happened to Eva…”

“Well…” I’m trying to think back, remember what everyone said about their whereabouts when we were discussing Eva’s disappearance. “Ani and Carl saw Eva safe and sound halfway down La Sorcière. So if someone did kill her, they must have been on the mountain before Ani and Carl. And they must have been a good enough skier to intercept Eva halfway down that run. Right?”

“Riiight…,” Danny echoes, slightly doubtfully. “Although… if it comes to that, Carl never actually said he saw her. It was only ever Ani’s word for it.”

“Okay, but she did see her, she must have done. This was before Elliot’s GPS information came out. Ani had no way of knowing that Eva had gone down La Sorcière otherwise, surely? If she were lying, she’d have said that Eva went down Blanche-Neige, which is what you’d assume, and what anyone would say if they were trying to throw someone off the scent.”

“Okay, I can buy that. So Ani and Carl are in the clear, is that your point?”

“Yes, and Liz, because she’d already gone down in the bubble lift. She left before Eva even arrived at the top. We’re looking at the people who were at the top of the run before Eva—which means Topher, Rik, Tiger, Inigo, and Miranda.”

“Not Miranda,” Danny says unexpectedly, and I frown.

“Why not?”

“Well, if we’re accepting Ani’s sighting, Eva was killed about halfway down La Sorcière. Which means we’re looking for someone who’s good enough to ski that run.”

I nod slowly. He’s right. Which means… Well, it’s actually a pretty small group of people in that case. Tiger. Inigo. Maybe Rik, though I’m not certain about that. He’s good, but you wouldn’t need to be just good, you’d need to be very good indeed. And Topher.

We keep coming back to Topher. Which is hardly surprising, because Topher has the strongest motive out of anyone here. And now he has opportunity as well.

“They got separated at the top, didn’t they,” I say, thinking aloud. “When the pisteurs closed Blanche-Neige. Some of them went back down in the bubble, and some of them skied it anyway. The people who took the bubble back down can’t have had anything to do with it. Who was that?”

“I don’t think they ever said.” Danny’s frowning now. “I know Topher and Inigo skied it, but I’m not sure about the others. Want me to ask?”

I nod, a little reluctantly. I should go out there myself, really. Danny’s manner with the group is getting more and more terse. He was close to squaring off with Carl earlier, which is—well, it’s just unthinkable. The last thing we need is a fight, added to this powder keg of grief and tension. But my ankle is hurting. A lot. And I can’t bring myself to put weight on it right now.

When the door swings shut behind Danny, I feel in my pocket for the blister pack of ibuprofen and count the hours since I’ve had my last dose. Three. I should really wait another hour. Instead, quickly, before Danny comes back, I crack the foil and swallow down two more pills.

As I wash it down with a gulp of cold tea, the door swings open.

“Topher, Inigo, Tiger, and Rik skied Blanche-Neige,” Danny says. “The rest of them went down in the bubble and met up with Liz, who was already waiting at the bottom.”

“Okay. Well… if someone hung back they could probably have sidestepped back up to the top of the run and skied La Sorcière instead. But they’d have had to be quick. Very quick. Eva was a fast skier, and she was already halfway down the run when Ani saw her. That doesn’t give someone much time to intercept her before she got to the bottom.”

“Unless… unless…” Danny says. He’s speaking slowly; I can almost see him figuring out the possibilities. “What if she’d fallen? What if they caught up with her, she’s hurt herself or something, they’re pretending to help her with her bindings and instead…”

I nod. There’s a definite possibility in what he’s saying. If this were opportunistic rather than planned… but then an objection occurs to me, and it’s a big one.

“There’s no drop on the bottom section of the run,” I say. “There’s no way someone could have pushed her off the edge.”

“No, but if she was incapacitated somehow they could kill her and leave her body in the trees. Elliot said himself that he wasn’t sure how the mountains affect the GPS signal. Maybe that’s what he discovered—that she wasn’t in the valley at all. Someone killed her on the piste.”

“Maybe…” But Danny’s comment has tipped off something in my mind. “But just a second, there’s one other problem with all of this.”