One by One(77)

“Hi, Liz.” Her voice is slightly breathless. “Sorry, were you worried?”

“A bit.” I frown at her. “What were you doing in Miranda’s room?”

“I already flushed the staff toilet. I didn’t think Miranda would mind, and it was the closest. Um, Liz, fair warning—” It’s hard to tell in the darkness, but it looks like her face is a bit flushed. “Sorry, this is TMI, but I had a bit of an upset stomach. I think maybe the cassoulet wasn’t heated through properly. That’s why I—well, that’s why it took me a bit longer.”

“Oh!” I’m not sure what to say to that. Should I laugh? No, that would seem strange. I arrange my features into what I hope is a sympathetic smile. Then I worry that it might just look like a smile, so I frown instead. “Oh, gosh, poor you.”

“I realize you probably didn’t want to know that, but I thought I should warn you in case—well, I mean, we had the same supper—”

“Oh, I’ve been fine,” I say hastily. It’s the truth. I haven’t had so much as a twinge. But then I’ve always had really good digestion.

“Oh, good,” she says. There’s relief in her face. “I’d hate to have given you food poisoning on top of everything else.” She gives a shaky laugh, and then says, “Well, shall we?”

For a minute, I’m not sure what she’s referring to, but then she nods at the stairs, and I understand what she’s saying.

“Sure,” I say. But then something stops me. “Actually, you head down. I need the toilet as well.”

She nods, and begins to limp her way down the spiral staircase. I watch her go for a moment, and then I head down the corridor towards my own room. I unlock the door and slip inside, and go over to the built-in closet in the corner of my room. The door is ajar, which is how I left it. But, is it my imagination, or is it very slightly wider than it was before?

I stand stock-still for a long moment, looking at the door. It’s cracked open maybe two inches. It looks like a lot. It looks like a wider gap than before. But I can’t be sure.

Making up my mind, I open the door and pull out my suitcase, and then I unzip the lining. Inside, pressed flat against the base of the suitcase, behind the silky lining and a piece of card, should be a scarlet ski jacket. It’s too dark to really see, and I left my torch downstairs, but when I poke my fingers through the narrow gap, I can feel it is there—its downy softness reassuring. I let out a sigh of relief and sit back on my heels.

Then I zip up the lining and replace the case inside the cupboard, and I stand painfully and go through to the bathroom. I might as well make my story convincing while I’m here.

But it’s only when I’m halfway through peeling off my ski suit that something strikes me, something that stops me in my tracks.

That suitcase was on top of the stack, on top of my little wheelie cabin bag.

I left it the other way around. I am absolutely certain of it.

Someone has been inside my closet.

Erin? Or someone else?

My heart is thumping.

Slowly, very slowly, I pull up the zip of my jumpsuit, thinking hard, trying to figure out what to do.

Then I flush the toilet and walk back downstairs to try to figure out how much Erin knows.





ERIN


Snoop ID: LITTLEMY

Listening to: Offline

Snoopers: 5

Snoopscribers: 10

From up above I hear Liz’s toilet flush, and I hunker down underneath the duvet, hoping I can pretend to be asleep when she comes back. My mind is racing, trying to figure out what can possibly have happened.

Thank God I heard her coming up the stairs and was able to leave Elliot’s room and nip two doors down to Miranda’s. If she had found me coming out of Elliot’s, I would have had to come clean. And the truth is, I am much too scared to do that.

What the hell does it all mean? Is Liz the killer? But how? Never mind motive, she has a cast-iron alibi. She was on the bubble lift going down the valley when Eva was killed.

Except…

Except no one actually saw her get on the lift.

I try to think back to that final run down the mountain as everyone had described it. Eva was coming up in the Reine bubble lift. Carl had fallen over at the bottom, trying to get on, and Ani was helping him. Everyone else was standing at the top of the blue run, Blanche-Neige, huddled in the screaming wind, waiting for Eva, Carl, and Ani to arrive.

Then came Liz’s refusal to ski, and Topher’s bullying attempt to force her to do it.

Everyone agreed what happened next—Liz tore off her skis and walked back up the slope to the lift, to get on the bubble back down to the chalet.

But what if she hadn’t? What if she had gone through the little shack housing the lift and straight out the other side, towards the black run, La Sorcière. Then, at the top of the run, right by the steepest part of the piste, she stood and waited.

I try to imagine how Liz could have lured Eva across. Maybe she pretended she had slid helplessly down the black run, towards the sheer drop. Maybe she faked a problem with her boot or her ski. Either way, she must have called to Eva, and then, when Eva was very close to her, and off guard, she pushed her off the precipice.

That would have been the riskiest part. Not the risk of being seen—the visibility was too bad for that, and the lift building would have been between them and the skiers standing on Blanche-Neige. But the risk of failing to push Eva over the edge. If Eva had managed to save herself, or worse, if she had grabbed hold of her attacker and taken her over the edge as well, everything would have been finished. But it worked. It must have done. And now Liz just had to give herself an alibi—by ensuring that Eva was seen to be safe and well after Liz was supposed to have gone back down in the lift.