One by One

In the living room, the silence is deafening. There’s no longer any friendly backdrop of music to mask the tensions in the group, only the soft roar of the log burner, and the patter of snow against the window. Rik and Miranda are sitting together, their arms touching. They seem to have abandoned all pretense of not being a couple, and as I draw closer I see that their hands are entwined in Miranda’s lap.

Tiger is still talking to Carl in a low voice, as if she can calm him down.

Liz is sitting awkwardly on the edge of her seat. Her fingers are in her mouth, chewing at her nails, but as I enter the room she takes them out and flexes her hands nervously, cracking her knuckles. The little volley of clicks is very loud in the quiet room, and Ani, sitting between Liz and Topher, makes an involuntary grimace at the sound.

Only Inigo is by himself, and when I offer him the last bowl of salad, he waves it away with one hand.

“Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”

“You’ve got to eat, Inigo,” I say, but the look on his face worries me more than his appetite. The last thing we need is someone sinking into a depression.

“I’m not hungry.” He says it with more force, and I put my hands up.

“Okay, okay. Not trying to strong-arm anyone. I’ll leave it here, okay? If you don’t want it, no pressure.”

I am turning to go back to the kitchen when I hear his voice, very low.

“I feel like everyone is blaming me.”

“Blaming you?” I say, in surprise. “Why on earth would they do that?”

“Because of what you said before—about not being able to get through to the police. I heard them.” His voice drops to a whisper, and I have to bend closer to find out what’s being said. “I heard Rik and Miranda, they were saying—” He stops, swallowing heroically, and I see there are tears in his eyes. “I think they think I was making it up. That I didn’t talk to the police, or if I did that I didn’t stress the urgency of the situation enough. But why?” He looks up, his extraordinary blue eyes swimming with tears. “Why would I do that? Unless I’d—unless I’d k-k—”

But he can’t say it. Unless I’d killed her.

“I loved her,” he says, his voice cracking on the last syllable. “That’s what none of them understand. I loved her.”

Oh shit. I remember the rumors of the first morning, Inigo coming to bed late, Topher’s drawling, Not that again. Eva should know better.

“I loved her!” Inigo repeats, and I very, very much want to tell him to shut up. Because he seems to believe that this confession will exonerate him. But if anything, it’s the reverse. Because you need a pretty powerful motive to kill someone—and one of those motives is money—that’s the one we’ve all been assuming was at the bottom of this. And Inigo has no financial motive to kill Eva. Only Topher and Elliot fall into that camp, as far as we know. But the other thing that provokes people to kill is love. And Inigo’s just put himself forward as the only candidate for that category.

“I’m sure you did,” I say quietly, and then I watch as he stands and walks out of the room, unable to hold it together in front of his colleagues anymore.

In the kitchen I sink into my chair, prop my aching foot on Danny’s makeshift footrest, and wait for him to come in through the service door.

“What was all that about with Inigo?” he asks, and I explain.

“Bloody hell.” He runs his hand through his hair. “What a stupid little prick. What, with Eva shagging Inigo, and Topher getting his end away with Ani—haven’t they heard of Me Too? You can’t go around bonking your employees anymore. It’s not right.”

“It gives him a motive though, doesn’t it?” I say reluctantly, and Danny shrugs.

“I dunno. I mean we could probably give them all motives if we needed to. Miranda could be madly in love with Inigo herself. Rik might be a raging incel who hates having a female boss. Who the fuck knows. I could come up with some old bollocks against all of them if I had to. If you ask me it’s alibis we should be looking at. There must be some of them we can rule out.”

“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?”