by Ruth Ware
“What does it actually mean though?” Erin asks. She looks bewildered. “The note I mean. Is he saying he didn’t call the police but now he’s gone to fetch them? Or has he gone after Eva?”
“Fuck knows,” Carl says brusquely. “Stupid little plonker. Has he actually left already?”
“Good question,” Danny says. “I’ll check.” He turns and walks quickly down the corridor taking the torch with him. The shadows close around us as he disappears. We hear him clattering on the spiral staircase, and then the bang of the door into the service part of the building where the ski lockers are. When he returns, he is walking more slowly, and his face is set. “Yes, he’s left,” he says as he comes closer to our group. “His skis are gone. So’s his jacket.”
“Shit,” Carl says angrily. “Bloody little idiot. When did he go? Who saw him last?”
There are shrugs all around the group.
“I saw him at lunch,” Miranda volunteers, and several other people nod.
“I saw him at lunch too,” Erin says heavily. “He was… he didn’t eat. He wasn’t in a good state. He went off, I assumed to his room, but he might have gone to the ski lockers. Did anyone see him after lunch?”
Everyone shakes their head. Then Erin frowns.
“What about Tiger?”
We all look around at each other, and I can see a sinking dread mirrored on the faces of the others. Where is Tiger?
Without saying anything, Danny sets off in the direction of her room. We all follow him, like a flock of anxious sheep.
At the door he knocks. Nothing. I can feel the tension rising.
“Bollocks to this,” Danny says roughly, and he sticks his staff key in the lock. The door springs open—and everyone crowds inside, jostling to see. I am at the back, my view blocked by Topher’s broad shoulders. I hear Ani’s anxious, “Tiger?”
And then I hear a sleepy voice saying, “Hey, what’s happened?”
There’s an audible exhalation, a mixture of relief and exasperation.
“Jesus, Tiger!” It’s Miranda. Her accent is usually an upper-class drawl. Now she sounds sharp and annoyed. “Don’t do that to us! Didn’t you hear Erin’s speech? Stick together!”
“I locked my door,” Tiger says. Her normally unruffled voice sounds a little bit less serene than normal. “What’s the matter?”
“Inigo’s gone,” Miranda says. And then, to my astonishment, something in her polished facade seems to crack, and she begins to cry.
ERIN
Snoop ID: LITTLEMY
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 5
Snoopscribers: 10
We all go to bed very early, exhausted by a hideous, hideous day. Some people pair up, making sure everyone knows who they’re with. Miranda and Rik aren’t pretending anymore. After Miranda’s breakdown outside Tiger’s room earlier, they have been inseparable.
Now, Rik simply says bluntly, “I’ll be sleeping in Miranda’s room tonight,” and there is not even a ripple of surprise.
What is perhaps more surprising is that Tiger and Ani pair up, leaving Carl and Topher as the two remaining single men. I had thought that Ani and Topher would have gone off together too… but something has changed between them since Elliot’s death. What I can’t figure out is who initiated the reserve. Elliot died having tried to tell Topher something, something Topher never gave him the chance to say. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that maybe there was a reason Topher didn’t want him airing those suspicions.
But on the other hand, it was the fact that Topher was in bed with Ani that prevented Elliot from talking to Topher. It wouldn’t be surprising if Topher, on some level, however irrationally, resented that fact. And Ani was, undeniably, the person who took up that coffee. Or at least a coffee, I remind myself. Though it was Topher who asked her to do it, from what she said to me in the kitchen. Assuming she was telling the truth. Jesus. I am talking myself in circles here.
It’s Miranda who raises the question we’d all overlooked.
“What about Liz?”
There is an awkward silence as we all realize that, once again, everyone has forgotten about Liz. All eyes turn to her, and she seems to shrink into herself, wrapping her arms around herself as if she can protect herself from our stares.
“Do you want to, like, share with me and Tiger?” Ani says brightly, but Liz shakes her head.
“No, thanks, I’ll be fine alone.”
“Liz, no,” Miranda says, with some concern, “I really don’t think that’s a good idea. Erin’s right—we should stay together.”
“Honestly,” Liz says. There is something obstinate, mulish almost in her face. “I don’t like sharing a room. I’ll lock the door.”
“Full disclosure,” Danny says bluntly, “Erin and me, we’ve got staff keys. We can get in everywhere. Now, I’m not saying we’re gonna come and bump you off in the night, but these doors ain’t exactly Fort Knox, if you know what I’m saying.”
“I’ll put a chair under the doorknob,” Liz says. She folds her arms, and I exchange a glance with Danny and a minute shrug. We can’t make her take our advice.
“All right,” Danny says at last. “Your funeral.”
It’s only after the words are spoken that he realizes how they sound.
LIZ
Snoop ID: ANON101
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 0
Snoopscribers: 1
I know what they are thinking as we trail slowly off to our separate rooms. They are thinking I am mad. Perhaps they are right. As I shut and lock the door behind me, I can’t help wondering if this is a terrible, dangerous idea, making myself the odd one out like this. What if it gives someone ideas?
But I cannot explain to them how much the thought of sharing a room with Tiger and Ani fills me with dread. It has been bad enough during the day, jostling with these faces from the past, hemmed into a nightmare with people I barely know.
I need my refuge. I need to be able to close the door behind me. The idea of spending the night on a mattress on Tiger’s floor, listening to her soft breathing, and Ani shifting in her sleep—it makes me want to shudder.
I push a chair under the handle of the door, then get into bed, fully dressed. It is too cold to change. I am lying there, with my eyes closed, trying to relax my stiff muscles, trying to tell myself it’s safe to fall into unconsciousness, when there is a noise at the door. I raise my head. Instantly my heart is racing at 150 beats a minute.
“Wh-who is it?” My voice is shaky with adrenaline.
I can barely hear the whisper through the thick wood.
“It’s me, Ani.”
“Hang on.” I swing my legs out of bed and make my way over to the door, pulling away the chair. Then I open it cautiously.
Ani is standing outside. She is dressed in a thick pink sweater that comes down almost to her knees. Her eyes are huge in the darkness.
“Ani, what are you doing? You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I couldn’t sleep, you know? I kept worrying about you, and I think Erin’s right. We should, like, stick together? Please come in with me and Tiger.”
“No, honestly, I’m fine,” I say. Ani stands there in the dark corridor, twisting her fingers together. She is looking at me in a way I don’t like. Her eyes are very wide and very worried. “I’m fine,” I say more forcefully. “Go, Tiger will be wondering where you are.”
“Tiger’s already asleep,” she says with a tremulous little laugh. “Out like a light and snoring. I don’t know how she does it—she’s so zen. And I just kept thinking about things, turning stuff over in my mind.”
“I think she took a pill,” I say. “She was talking about it at breakfast. But—what do you mean, thinking about stuff?”
“Oh… nothing.” She gives that little shaky laugh again, but there is something in her eyes. It is pleading and concerned. I get a sudden lurch of apprehension.
�
��Ani, do you know something you’ve not told anyone?”
She shakes her head, but it’s not really a decisive shake, it’s more of a worried Don’t know.
“Listen to me,” I say. My voice is an urgent whisper. It is not like me to be so forceful, but I am very worried. “You heard what Erin said, if you know something, tell someone. Keeping secrets is the most dangerous thing you can do. Did you see something? Was it when Elliot came to Topher’s room? Something about Inigo?”
“No, I didn’t—” she says, with a catch in her voice. “I just—I keep feeling like there’s something wrong… something I saw… I just—like, can’t put my finger on it.”
Oh God. My stomach is churning with unease. I have a horrible feeling that what Ani can’t remember might be very, very important. It might be the clue to the killer’s identity. It might be the one thing that gives them away.
“Ani, tell me,” I plead. “Don’t keep this to yourself.”
Our eyes lock, and I see something there. Something that she knows. And suddenly I am very, very frightened.
“Ani, please,” I say. I am begging, I know I am, and I no longer care. But she just shakes her head, her eyes as wide and as scared as I feel.
“I can’t,” she whispers. “I have to… I have to think…”
Then she disappears into the shadows, leaving me standing in the corridor, watching with foreboding as Tiger’s door closes softly behind her. I wait, just to make sure, and then I hear the click as she turns the key in the lock, and I turn back to my room. There is nothing else I can do.
ERIN
Snoop ID: LITTLEMY
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 5
Snoopscribers: 10
“Shit.” Danny is lying on a mattress he’s dragged into my room, his hands over his face. “Why did I say that about the bloody funeral? I’m so bleeding tactless! Their mates have just died and they probably think I’m making cracks about it.”
“Honestly, Danny, I truly think that’s the last thing anyone is worrying about.”
I am so tired my eyes are scratching with it, and I’m sure Danny must feel the same, but I also know that there’s no way I’m going to be able to fall asleep. Everything is too wrong. Danny’s presence, comforting as it is, is too strange. The room is too cold. The situation is too dire. And I’m worried that if I do fall asleep, I’m going to have my recurring dream about digging through snow, that I’ll wake up Danny, that he’ll ask questions I can’t answer.
Most of all I just feel incredibly scared.
It doesn’t help that my foot is hurting again. A lot. I am starting to worry that maybe something is broken after all.
“Someone should have come,” Danny says, into the silence, and I know what he’s talking about.
“We don’t know Inigo didn’t phone.”
“What did he mean then, about making a huge mistake?”
“I don’t know, but it makes no sense, Danny. Why on earth wouldn’t he phone? The only reason would be if he’d killed Eva, and if that’s the case, we’re safer without him, aren’t we?”
“Maybe he did. Maybe he’s getting a head start on the police. We don’t know, do we?”
Danny’s remark stops me in my tracks, and I can’t honestly think what to say in reply. The truth is that I just don’t think Inigo is a killer. He seemed gentle, and desperate, and genuinely sad about Eva. But then I think of all the newspaper pieces I’ve ever read about “perfectly nice guys” who killed their kids or their partners or a complete stranger. And I am forced to remind myself of what Danny was trying to get at—these people are strangers to us. Whatever odd intimacy this situation has created, it’s illusory. We have known Inigo, like the rest of them, for less than three days.
There’s another long silence, and for a while I think maybe Danny has drifted off to sleep, but then he gives a great sigh.
“Shit, what are we going to do, Erin?”
“I don’t know.” The three words encompass all the desperation I’ve been building up since Eva’s disappearance. This is just unimaginably awful. First Eva, then Elliot, now Inigo. Our guests are disappearing one by one, like some bad horror movie. “If Inigo really has gone to get help—”
“I don’t believe it,” Danny says, with finality. “If he called the police like he claimed, then there’s no need for him to go and get them. And if he didn’t call them, why go and become the knight in shining armor all of a sudden? It doesn’t make sense. He’s not gone for the police. He’s scarpered, and this is his way of covering it up.”
His words make my stomach sink, but there’s no denying the logic of what he said. The truth is, whether Inigo has disappeared or not, it doesn’t change our predicament. We are stuck here, and we have no way of knowing whether Inigo will succeed in getting help—or even if he’ll try. All the complicated analysis in the world can’t change that. All we can do is sit and wait. Then, suddenly, an idea comes to me. “Wait, there’s one thing we could do.”
“What?”
“You could go. You could walk to Haut Montagne. Raise the alarm.”
There’s a long silence. Then Danny says flatly, “No.”
“I know it’s dangerous, but I can’t go with my ank—”
“Fuck the danger,” Danny breaks in. “I don’t care about the bloody danger. But you’re right—you can’t go, and I’m not leaving you here with a bunch of psychopaths.”
“We don’t know anyone here is a psychopath—if it’s true that Inigo—”
“I’m not leaving you,” Danny says, and something about his tone makes it very clear: that’s going to be his last word on the subject. I hear a rustle of covers as he turns sharply over in bed. “And that’s that. Now go to sleep.”
But it’s a very long time before I do.
LIZ
Snoop ID: ANON101
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 0
Snoopscribers: 1
I climb back into bed. I am so tense that I am not sure I will get to sleep, but when at last I do drift off, it is into the deep, dreamless sleep of complete exhaustion. When I wake up it is bitterly cold, and although my clothes feel crumpled and sweaty, I am grateful that I never took them off. Getting up would have been too painful. Even with my clothes on, it is too cold to face getting out of bed, and I shut my eyes and just lie there. My phone has died completely, so I have no idea what the time is.
It is then that the scream rips through the quiet. It is a long, loud one that goes on, and on.
I sit bolt upright, my heart thumping, and then I swing my legs out of bed and stand. The movement is much too fast. I feel the blood drain away from my head, and then return with a prickling rush. My heart is still pounding with adrenaline.
Out in the corridor I can hear doors banging. Voices are calling out in panic.
“It’s coming from Tiger’s room,” I hear someone shout.
My hands are shaking as I fumble for my glasses and shove them onto my nose. It is so cold that my breath huffs white as I undo the door lock.
In the corridor Rik, Miranda, Topher, and Carl are crowded around Tiger’s door. Miranda is wearing a beanie hat and gloves.
“Open up!” Topher is shouting. “What’s the matter? Ani? Tiger? Open the door!”
The screaming has died into a low sobbing. It is impossible to tell who is making the sound.
I hear running feet, and then Danny the chef comes skidding around the corner of the corridor, wearing jogging pants and a crumpled sweatshirt.
“What the fuck’s going on? What’s all the shouting?”
“We heard screaming,” Rik says tersely. “From Tiger and Ani’s room. We can’t get them to open the door.”
“Stand aside,” Danny says, reaching into his pocket for his passkey. His hand comes out empty. “Fuck, must have left it in my other trousers. Oi!” He bangs on the door. “Open up! We can’t help you unless you open the door!”
There is a click. The door swings o
pen.
With so many people in the way, I can’t see who it is. But then I hear Miranda’s startled voice say, “Tiger! What on earth is the matter!”
Tiger is sobbing so hard she can hardly get the words out.
“Ani, oh God, p-please help me. It’s Ani. I think she’s d-dead.”
ERIN
Snoop ID: LITTLEMY
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 5
Snoopscribers: 10
It takes me painfully long to hobble along the corridor. My ankle has puffed up overnight and it hurts to put weight on it. As I round the corner the sound of voices swells into a panicked hubbub.
“What’s going on?” I ask, but no one’s listening, they’re crowding around Tiger and Ani’s door. Tiger is crouched in the corridor, her arms wrapped around her head, sobbing hysterically. Liz is standing over her looking terrified, and occasionally placing a hand gingerly on Tiger’s hair, like it’s about to burst into flames.
“What’s going on?” I say again, and this time Danny appears out of Tiger’s room, his face gray.
“Fucking hell,” he says. “They’ve got Ani.”
“They’ve got her? Who’s got her? What do you mean?” I can feel fear rising inside me.
“I mean, I’m pretty sure she’s dead.”
Oh God. Dread twists at my guts as I push past the others and into the room.
Ani is lying on a mattress on the floor. She’s facedown, but when I pull her shoulder to turn her over, she comes all of a piece, like a mannequin, her joints locked with rigor mortis. I don’t need to feel her cold, waxen face to know that she’s very, very dead.
Suddenly my legs won’t hold me, and I stagger to Tiger’s bed, which is still warm and rumpled. The room swims in and out of focus and I put my head between my knees, trying to hold it together.
“That can’t have been Inigo,” Danny says hoarsely. I shake my head in agreement. That much is clear. Oh God, what is this living nightmare we’ve found ourselves in.
