One by One(67)

“We’ll be fine,” I say again, though my voice is a little bit less convincing, even to myself. “Just go and get back as fast as you can.”





LIZ


Snoop ID: ANON101

Listening to: Offline

Snoopers: 0

Snoopscribers: 1

After the others are gone, Erin locks and bolts the front door. She fixes it in place as securely as she can, but it is not perfect. It has been warped by the avalanche so that the bottom lock doesn’t fasten properly and melted snow is leaking through the gap, but the lock at the top works. Then she checks the ski entrance, which is still buried by snow, and the door that used to lead out to the swimming pool.

“All safe and sound,” she reports as she comes back into the lobby. Her smile is bright and slightly artificial. There is something a little bit oppressive about the silence now. It weighs heavy and feels like it is pressing in on us. “How are you feeling?”

“Uh—okay, I think.” I rub the back of my head where I hit it on the banister and touch my knee gingerly through the padded salopettes. I wrenched it, but it is not as bad as I feared. Now that the first shock is wearing off, I can put my weight on it. “Still a bit wobbly, but I think it was mostly shock.”

“What a pair,” Erin says. She grins at me, the scar on her cheek twisting with the movement. “Me with my ankle, you with your knee. Couple of lame ducks.”

“I know.” I try for a laugh, but it doesn’t sound quite right.

“I reckon it’ll take Danny’s party about six hours to get to Haut Montagne and back. And who knows about Topher’s lot. I have no idea how badly bashed up the piste is. If it’s not easily skiable, they could be days.”

I nod. Clambering through waist-deep snow in ski boots is no joke. I know that.

“So I think we have at least six hours before we need to start worrying,” Erin says. “The question is, how are we going to kill the time?”





ERIN


Snoop ID: LITTLEMY

Listening to: Offline

Snoopers: 5

Snoopscribers: 10

It’s gone three. After the others left, Liz and I ate a meager lunch of lukewarm tinned soup—the bread was stale, almost inedibly stale, but dipping it in the soup made it soft enough to chew—and we have been playing cards ever since. The chalet is completely, eerily silent. I never realized before how stifling silence could be, perhaps because Perce-Neige is so rarely quiet—it’s always full of the noise of guest footsteps, playing children in the school holidays, the clatter of skis, the sound of Danny in the kitchen. While Topher and the others were here there was the constant jangle of someone playing music, and later the babble of conversation. Even on changeover days, there is the hum of the Hoover and the noise of Danny’s radio.

Now, there is no music. Our phones are long since dead. The TV and radio sit silent with no electricity to power them. There is no sound at all apart from the crackle of the logs in the burner. Even the patter of snow outside is virtually silent, behind the triple glazing.

Every few minutes I glance out of the window, checking the weather. It… isn’t great. There’s no point in sugarcoating that. It’s not as bad as it could have been. The wind has dropped at least. But the snow is still falling, and cloud has come rolling down the mountain, enveloping the chalet in a thick, frozen gray blur, so that visibility is down to a few feet. I am profoundly relieved that Danny is with Miranda and Carl, and knows where he’s going. Even so, I’m starting to wonder, in earnest, whether he will be able to make it to Haut Montagne and back again before night falls in earnest. Maybe Liz and I will be stuck here alone overnight. It’s not a completely comfortable thought.

As if echoing my unease, Liz flexes her fingers nervously—crack, crack, crack. The noise is like gunshots in the silence, and it puts my teeth on edge.

“How did you get involved with Snoop anyway?” I ask. I pitch my voice slightly too loud, trying to cover up the sound. Liz shifts in her chair. I can’t tell if her knee is hurting her, or if it’s the question that’s made her uncomfortable.

“I just applied for a job. They were a start-up at the time—just Topher, Eva, Elliot, and Rik. I was their first… secretary, I suppose you’d call it. PA, maybe. They didn’t have the weird job titles in those days.”

She falls silent again, as if the uncharacteristically long speech has exhausted her. I’m about to ask another question when, to my surprise, she speaks again.

“I miss it. I miss them. It was fun… for a while.”

“What made you leave?” I ask, but that’s when the shutters come down again. Her face turns blank and unreadable.

“No reason,” she says, looking down at her cards. “I just wanted a change.”

In the silence I pick up a card, and put down a king. Liz picks it up, frowning. I have put my foot in it, but I’m not quite sure how. I think of Danny’s remark about the incestuous nature of Snoop’s workforce, Eva sleeping with Inigo, Topher with Ani. Haven’t they heard of Me Too? Did something happen between Liz and Topher? Something she is running from? But no, I don’t think it’s that. Of all the people in the company, Liz actually seems to get on best with Topher. And Topher, for all his faults, doesn’t seem like the kind of man to pressure an employee into something sexual. Whatever was between him and Ani, I got the impression it was consensual.