Christmas in the Snow

by Karen Swan

  ‘I miss my baby,’ Isobel said in a quiet moan, watching as a toddler was pulled through the snow on a sledge by his father. They were walking back through the town, skis stowed in lockers, and Isobel was keen to top up her Christmas shopping. The Infinity race had been high-octane fun, but once the excitement and adrenalin had ebbed, they had been left even more exhausted than before and had only managed a few snoozy blues before calling it quits for the day.

  ‘Of course you do,’ Allegra said, looping her arm through her sister’s and squeezing it. ‘It’s only natural. But he’s with his grandparents, remember, and Lloyd’s around in the evenings. I bet he’s being spoilt rotten. It’s probably ice cream and chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.’

  ‘Oh God, don’t say that. He’s a nightmare at letting me clean his teeth. I’m sure he’ll have fillings before he’s two.’

  Allegra chuckled. How could this neurosis come from the same woman who’d just – according to her ski app – clocked a top speed of 103 kilometres an hour on the downhill? ‘Iz, he’ll be fine.’

  A carriage slid past, the horses’ hooves picking high out of the snow, the driver’s face almost obscured by the thick grey collar of his coat, the tinkle of jingling bells like a soundtrack to Christmas.

  The town was busy again. The weather had closed in on the upper slopes throughout the course of the afternoon, forcing some of the lifts to stop, and all but the most hardened skiers had come back down.

  ‘Come on, let’s get a hot chocolate. Your nose has gone all red from the cold.’

  ‘It has not!’ Isobel gasped, immediately covering it with her other gloved hand.

  Allegra laughed. Her sister was so vain. ‘Besides, there’s something I want to tell you,’ she said, steering them towards a cafe on the opposite corner.

  She waited for the inevitable pestering as Isobel’s curiosity was piqued, needing to know now. She had never been one for delayed gratification.

  But there was nothing.

  Turning, she saw Isobel wasn’t behind her but peering in the window of the gift shop next door, hands round her face as she tried to get a better view of something inside.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ she called from the cafe door.

  ‘There’s an amazing nativity set here, Legs. Come and see.’

  ‘I don’t want to come and see. I want to thaw out.’

  ‘But I really want to get one for Ferds.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What do you mean, why? It’s the Christmas Story.’

  ‘Right. Because that was always forefront in your mind when you woke me at dawn every Christmas Day for fifteen years.’

  Isobel stuck out her tongue. ‘You might hate Christmas, but we need a nativity set now we’ve got a child. Not having a nativity set is like not having a Christmas tree or not having turkey or—’

  Allegra sighed. Her sister didn’t have a religious bone in her body and yet she wanted to recreate a biblical scene in her sitting room? ‘Fine! You get that. I’ll order the drinks and meet you in here.’

  Isobel squealed with excitement and darted inside, as though Allegra was her mother and had given her permission to buy sweets at the corner shop.

  Allegra ordered two foamy hot chocolates and a strudel for them to share, and found a table for them by the steamed-up windows. It was busy in there, clearly a sort of happy hour for the coffee shops as tired skiers and shoppers alike converged for a well-earned rest.

  Absently, she wiped the window with her hand, looking out onto the street like she was peering through a gap in the clouds. Her silent combat with Kemp earlier had left her shaken. She still couldn’t recall anything of last night after she’d clocked him behind Zhou, but she remembered his hostility – then and today – at finding her here in Zermatt and it rattled her. What did he have to be so angry about? She was the one who’d lost the war!

  Isobel joined her minutes later, an enormous cardboard box in her arms.

  ‘Oh my good God!’ Allegra burst out laughing. ‘Is that it? It’s almost to scale, surely.’

  ‘It’s uh-mazing!’ Isobel beamed, sitting down opposite, her eyes shining. ‘You should see the stuff they’ve got in there. All hand-made wooden toys and decorations. The girl told me her dad and grandfather still make it all themselves.’

  ‘Yeah, right. They say that to justify putting the prices up another thirty per cent. I bet you find a “Made in China” label underneath.’

  ‘You are so cynical. Honestly, I pity you. Pity you,’ she echoed with a superior smile.

  ‘And obviously you’ve factored in the cost of getting that back on the plane. You may as well buy another seat for what they’re going to charge you.’

  Isobel’s smile disappeared, panic moulding her mouth into a small ‘o’. ‘Lloyd’ll kill me.’

  ‘Oh, it’s fine. I was only teasing!’ Allegra smiled, rolling her eyes and patting her sister on the hand. ‘I’ll cover it.’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘No, no buts. Just forget about it. You’d better let me see it, though. I assume it comes with a free donkey?’

  Isobel grinned, putting the box on the floor and pulling in her chair. ‘I’ll show you back at the apartment. They wrapped all the pieces individually and it’s a bit crowded in here. Besides, I want to hear what your news is,’ she said, taking such a big slurp of her drink that she ended up with a chocolatey moustache.

  ‘Oh, so you did hear me . . . Right . . . Good.’

  ‘Sounds ominous,’ Isobel said with a frown.

  ‘Uh, no. No, not ominous . . .’ Allegra cleared her throat. ‘Actually, it’s sort of good news.’

  Isobel frowned harder. ‘Now I’m really worried. Spit it out.’

  Allegra took a deep breath. ‘I found out this morning that . . . Valentina’s husband, and therefore our, uh . . . grandfather . . . He’s alive.’ She cleared her throat again.

  ‘Say what?’ Isobel murmured after an age.

  ‘He’s not dead. Never has been.’

  Isobel blinked. ‘And how exactly did you find out that?’

  ‘I ended up – slightly accidentally, actually – in the local church this morning. Turned out the priest knew quite a lot about her. It’s been in the local papers apparently. People have been going in and lighting candles for her. He even checked the parish records for me and showed me their marriage entry. And Mum’s birth.’ She had denied it for as long as she could but their mother’s birth record, right here in Zermatt, had been the final proof that Annen had the right family, anchoring once and for all the fact that Valentina was their grandmother, and Anya had lied.

  Isobel’s eyes widened. ‘Mum was born here?’

  ‘Mm-hmm. And our family – the Engelbergs – had one of the largest goat farms in the valley.’

  ‘Oh jeez, I don’t believe it. Peasant stock after all. Lloyd will never let me live this down.’ She dropped her head in her hands dramatically.

  Allegra squeezed her hand. ‘That’s not the main point I’m trying to make, Iz. Contrary to what Granny told us, Mum’s dad never died when Mum was little. He’s still alive and living here.’

  ‘Here? Here?’ Isobel spluttered.

  Allegra nodded, pulling out the piece of paper the priest had written on for her. ‘That’s his address. He’s about six minutes away.’

  Isobel withdrew, sitting back in the chair, shaking her head slightly from side to side, every bit as stubborn as her sister. ‘How can you know what he’s saying is true? He’s a stranger. How can he know more about our own family than we do?’

  ‘Because he’s a priest, Iz. And because I saw the entries with my own eyes.’ She reached her hands out towards her sister’s, over the table. ‘Hey, we’ve got a grandfather. This is a good thing.’ She smiled more strongly, hoping she was doing a passable job of looking happy about it. ‘Hell, it’s a great thing! Poor Ferds is the first boy born into the family in five generations. Frankly, he could do with a bit of male company!’


  Isobel had to crack a small smile at that, and her posture loosened a little. ‘I guess,’ she said quietly. But Allegra knew she was thinking about their granny, wondering about the lies she had told and why. What could have happened that she had written him out, erased him altogether from their family history? It felt almost as though him being dead wasn’t enough. ‘So what now?’

  ‘I think we should go and see him. It’s crazy not to, when we’re already here and, well . . . he’s Mum’s father! We have a responsibility to at least talk to him and let him know that he’s got a family.’

  ‘But I don’t understand how he can’t know already.’ Isobel frowned. ‘I mean, if Mum’s his daughter, what did he think had happened to her? Do you think Granny told him Mum was dead? It doesn’t make sense. Why would he have lost his daughter and not known what had happened to her? What was Granny bloody well doing?’

  Allegra sighed wearily. She had just as many questions jumping around in her own head. ‘I’ve got no idea. I guess we’ll only find out by asking him.’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘No, not now. I think we both need a bit of time to just . . . absorb the news. And anyway, we should go to the police station first. We need to collect Valentina’s personal effects, and we also need to sign off on transfer of her remains.’ She pulled a nervous expression. ‘Oh, and that’s the other thing that happened this morning.’

  ‘What? What other thing? Jeez, I thought you just went out to get milk!’

  ‘Yes, well . . .’ Allegra took another deep breath. She’d been wise not to do this in the throes of their hangovers. ‘I think we should organize a cremation and memorial service for Valentina here.’

  Isobel stared at her for a moment. ‘But what about Mum? The whole point of coming out here was to bring Valentina back with us and have more time to decide what to do about telling Mum.’

  Allegra shook her head. ‘I know, but . . . the more I think about it, the more it seems wrong to take her away from the only place she ever knew. There are people here who still remember her. The priest said people have been coming in and—’

  ‘Lighting candles for her. Yes, yes, you said,’ Isobel said distractedly, staring at her nails.

  ‘He also gave me the details of a highly regarded crematorium and said he’d be able to conduct a service for her on Thursday, before we go back. It’ll be tight but it was the best he could do.’

  Isobel’s eyes flicked up to her.

  ‘If you agree, of course.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Like I could ever win an argument against you,’ Isobel sighed.

  ‘We need to be united on this, Iz. Mum would want us to do what was best. She’ll never know her own mother now, and she may never even know of her, but don’t you think that after all these years of being lost on the mountain, Mum would want her to be put to rest in the only place she ever called home?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  They were both quiet for a few minutes, lost in their own thoughts as the cafe hummed with excitable conversations.

  ‘Come on, if we go to the police station now, we can get it over and done with. Then we can go back to the apartment and flop,’ Allegra said, trying to muster the energy in herself as much as in her sister.

  They scraped back their chairs and shrugged on their jackets.

  ‘What do you fancy for dinner tonight?’ Isobel asked, heaving the box into her arms, unaware she looked like Poirot with her chocolate moustache.

  ‘You tell me. I’m happy to cook,’ Allegra said, holding open the door for Isobel to step through.

  ‘You, cook? Aren’t you the same person who, when I wanted toast at your place once, rang San Lorenzo and got them to deliver it?’

  Allegra looked sheepish. Once, she’d done that. Once. And only because she didn’t have any bread. Or a toaster.

  ‘Let’s just go out. I’d feel a lot safer.’

  Allegra frowned as she glimpsed the tail end of a smile on her sister’s face. ‘Hey!’

  His voice didn’t fit his face. On the phone, Sergeant Annen had sounded twenty stone and like he feasted on buffalo for breakfast, so it was something of a surprise for Allegra to be led to an office where a man who looked like he hadn’t started shaving yet was waiting for her and her sister. He had very round eyes that bulged slightly – overactive thyroid perhaps? – and fine, straight hair that immediately fell back over his forehead every time he pushed it away, and a certain springy energy to his movements.

  ‘Miss Fisher?’ he said, coming round from his desk but not sure which of them to shake by the hand.

  ‘Sergeant Annen,’ Allegra said in reply, shaking his hand. ‘This is my sister, Isobel Watson.’

  ‘Mrs Watson,’ Annen said, shaking Isobel’s hand too. ‘Thank you for making the trip. Please, take a seat.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Allegra looked slowly around the office. A few posters – no-smoking, drugs campaigns – were Blu-tacked to the walls, a few framed photographs of police officers standing in line like in a school photograph, gently fading from years of sitting in a sunny spot.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind that I asked for you to be shown in here. I wanted to thank you personally for your cooperation. We treat every unexplained death with the same respect and diligence, regardless of whether the deceased has been dead a day or . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Well, over sixty years.’

  ‘That’s reassuring to hear,’ Allegra said, crossing her legs, her back straight and her hands laced loosely in her lap. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Isobel follow suit. ‘And has our grandmother’s death now been explained?’

  Annen hesitated. ‘Not entirely.’

  Allegra frowned.

  ‘While the deceased’s identity has now been confirmed, thanks to your help, there are still some questions we don’t have answers to.’

  ‘Such as why she went up to the hut during the storms, you mean?’

  He nodded. ‘Exactly. I’m afraid we have yet to discount the possibility of foul play.’

  Isobel whipped round to look at Allegra, but Allegra forced herself to stay still.

  ‘You don’t believe her husband’s account of events?’

  ‘Well, we haven’t been able to disprove his account of what happened that night, but there’s never been anything to suggest he’s telling us anything other than the truth.’

  ‘So then who do you suspect?’

  Annen blinked at her. ‘One line of our enquiry is looking into the motives and actions of the victim’s sister.’

  ‘Granny?’ Isobel burst out. ‘But you can’t be serious. She was . . . She was totally the kindest, gentlest, most loving woman ever. There’s no way she . . . There’s just no way she would have hurt her own sister.’

  Annen’s eyes slid between the two sisters sitting before him.

  ‘But I understand she never mentioned having a sister to you or your mother?’

  Allegra shook her head, determined to stay calm, even though anxiety was beginning to make her feel lightheaded. ‘No.’

  ‘And did she ever mention her husband?’

  ‘He died of tuberculosis when Mummy was three,’ Isobel said firmly.

  ‘Anya’s husband?’ Annen clarified, looking more grave.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry to say that was a lie. Her husband, Lars Fischer, is still living in this town. He was even the mayor for a few years.’

  ‘Sorry, wait—’ Allegra said, leaning forward. ‘There’s a mistake. Lars Fischer was Valentina’s husband, not Granny’s. Anya’s, I mean.’

  Annen hesitated. ‘According to town records, he was married to them both, Miss Fisher.’

  Time halted its path. ‘What?’

  Annen picked up a pen and began absently twiddling it in his fingers. ‘Valentina died in January 1951. Lars, her widower, married Anya Engelberg in March 1952.’

  ‘But . . .’ No words would come; thoughts couldn’t form. Granny had married her own sister’s husba
nd?

  She turned slowly to look at Isobel, who was herself ashen, her mouth agape.

  ‘In addition,’ Annen continued, with a note of apology in his voice, ‘Anya left her husband in 1953. She disappeared, taking her niece and stepdaughter – your mother – with her. No one in the town ever knew where she went.’

  Allegra turned away, wanting to cover her ears with her hands, to get up out of this chair and leave this room and forget every single last detail of this conversation. Denial. Denial.

  ‘You’re trying to tell us Granny stole our mother and took her away from her only true parent and left the country with her?’ Isobel asked, trying to inject a laugh into the comment, to make it sound ridiculous, unbelievable, but her voice was tremulous and rising.

  Annen looked across at her with regret and nodded. ‘Lars Fischer was never able to trace her.’

  Because she had left the country.

  The room fell silent as the sergeant allowed them to process the revelation.

  ‘Does anyone know why she left her husband?’ Allegra asked after a while, rallying. ‘Was he . . . I don’t know, was he a drinker, a gambler, a womanizer? Did he use his fists? Because Granny wasn’t . . . As my sister said, she was a kind and gentle woman, devoted to our mother. What you’re telling us doesn’t tally with the woman we knew.’

  ‘I’m sure it doesn’t. But with respect, you only ever knew her as children – and after she had got away with it.’ He coughed lightly. ‘And the gossip in the town at the time Valentina disappeared alleged that Anya had been secretly in love with her brother-in-law for years.’

  ‘Gossip? Is that what she’s to be judged on?’ Allegra asked stiffly.

  ‘It isn’t fact, I know, but as you might imagine, there’s precious little paperwork to go on, and it helps us build up a picture of motive. With two of the three players involved now dead, it is even more difficult to get to the truth, but none of us can dispute the simple fact that she lied to you all.’

  Allegra looked away, sickened by what she was hearing. She didn’t know what to believe, who to trust. Her grandmother had been her rock, the only person who had held her together when she’d been everyone’s else glue after their lives had been so spectacularly blown apart eighteen years earlier.