One by One(60)

“That’s him,” Topher says. “He was a really good bloke actually. That wasn’t my point—my point was simply that Erin is a bit more entangled in this than she’s letting on. And what happened to Alex—” He stops. Suddenly his expression changes and he grips Rik’s arm, so hard that Rik gives a little wince. He looks as if he has been given a very generous Christmas present. “Hang on a second. Alex died in an avalanche. With his best mate.”

“What are you saying?” Rik is looking wary.

“I remember reading about it in the alumnae newsletter. Alex FitzClarence died in an avalanche in the alps with his best friend, Will Hamilton. The only survivor was Will’s girlfriend, Erin FitzClarence.”

“Topher.” Miranda is looking as alarmed as Rik now. “Topher, what are you getting at?”

“I’m saying, this isn’t the first time our little Erin has been involved in a fatal skiing accident.”





ERIN


Snoop ID: LITTLEMY

Listening to: Offline

Snoopers: 0

Snoopscribers: 10

“Danny!” There is no answer, but I know he’s in there. “Danny, please, I’m sorry. Please let me explain.” I bang on his door for maybe the twentieth or thirtieth time, but without much hope now. It’s clear he doesn’t want to open up.

Only then he does.

“This had better be good,” he says, and his expression makes me quail, it’s so angry.

“Danny, I’m sorry,” I say again, desperately.

“You said you were going to explain.” He folds his arms, his fury barely contained. “So go on then. Explain. Explain why you lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you—”

He begins to shut the door in my face.

“Hey!” I cry, and instinctively I shove my foot in the gap, forgetting that it’s my bad ankle. The door crunches on it, and I let out a scream of pure agony. Danny claps his hands to his mouth.

“Holy shit, Erin, I’m sorry—I’m so, so sorry—it’s fine!” he bellows, knowing that the others are probably jumping up in panic, attuned to the worst-case scenario. “Erin’s fine, she just knocked her ankle.”

“I’m fine,” I call croakily, blinking away the sudden tears of pain that have started into my eyes, and whether they believe us, or they can’t hear anything through the staff door, no one comes running.

Either way, something has broken in the deadlock between us, because Danny opens the door wider and jerks his head at his bed.

“You better come in. Take the weight off.”

I hobble meekly inside and sit down.

There is a long silence.

“So?” Danny says at last. Every muscle in his body screams antagonism, but at least I’ve been offered the chance to explain.

“You’re right,” I say. “Even if I didn’t lie to you, I didn’t exactly tell you the truth.”

“I thought we were friends,” Danny says, and although the anger is fading from his kind, crumpled face, what’s left is worse—bewildered hurt. “I thought—I thought you and me was on the same side.”

“We were—we are,” I say desperately. “This doesn’t change anything. Everything I told you—about me, about dropping out of uni—it’s all true. I just didn’t tell you why.”

“Why then?” Danny says. He folds his arms and leans back against his little chest of drawers, letting me know with his body language that this isn’t going to be that easy. I’ve got a hole to dig myself out of.

I swallow. I haven’t talked to anyone about this—not since the nightmare days and weeks after the accident. But I owe Danny the truth.

“It’s true my dad’s a marquess,” I say. “But honestly, Danny, it sounds a hell of a lot grander than it is. He doesn’t live in a castle. My family isn’t particularly well-off. Alex went to boarding school, but I went to the local comprehensive because my parents couldn’t afford two sets of fees; I’m no different from you.”

He gives me a look at that, as if to say, Fuck off are you, and I wince, knowing he’s right. Danny grew up on a council estate on the outskirts of Portsmouth, the only child of a single mum who struggled for years to make ends meet. He has pulled himself up by his bootstraps, with no help from anyone. However far the FitzClarence fortunes have fallen, our upbringings were different, and that’s the truth. To pretend otherwise is pretty insulting.

“Okay, I’m sorry, that—that was clumsy. It’s not what I meant. I just meant—I’m trying to explain—”

I stop. I put my head in my hands. This is all I need. Danny was the one person on my side, the one person I felt I could rely on. Have I really screwed all that up, thanks to Topher?

“When I was nineteen,” I begin again, more slowly this time, “I went on a skiing holiday with my boyfriend, Will, and my brother, Alex, Will’s best friend. We were skiing off-piste, and we were stupid. We got caught in a—” I swallow. I don’t know how to talk about this, how to explain the horror of what happened. Words aren’t enough.

“We got caught in an avalanche,” I say at last, forcing the word out. “We triggered it. We were all wearing avalanche packs, but Alex didn’t manage to set his off. Will’s deployed, but it didn’t save him, he was buried too deep, and I couldn’t dig him out fast enough. I was the only person who survived.”