“What?” Danny says. He looks bewildered, as if he didn’t hear her right.

“Nothing,” Liz says. She gives a shaking, tremulous laugh. It sounds like she’s on the verge of hysterics. I know how she feels. And then she turns and disappears. I hear her door slam, and the lock grind into place. I don’t blame her. A strong part of me would like to do the same. But I can’t. I have to…

I stand, go over to the body, and very gently turn it again, this time forcing myself to look down at Ani’s dead face.

She looks almost like she died in her sleep. Almost. Not quite. There’s a tiny staining of blood on her lip where she must have bitten her tongue. And on her face, a few minute red dots. I know what they are, or rather, I know what they mean, but it takes a few minutes cudgeling my memory before my brain can come up with the medical term. Petechiae. First-year medical students don’t come across much homicide—but I’ve seen enough textbook photographs to recognize it.

There are no marks on her neck, and no other wounds that I can see, apart from the tiny specks of blood on her lips. When I bend to lower her gently back to the position I found her, facedown, I see it has flecked the pillow too. A line sings in my head: Lips as red as blood, skin as white as snow.

“I think she was smothered,” I say quietly to Danny. “Whoever did it either pressed her face down into the pillow, or they held something over her face and then turned her over afterwards. There’s not much bruising and no defensive marks that I can see—she was probably asleep.”

“Oh my God.” Danny’s face crumples into horror. He looks like a man decades older than his twenty-five years. “But, you’re not telling me—Tiger?”

I shake my head, but I’m not disagreeing with him—I just have no idea what to say. I can’t believe that gentle, zen-like Tiger could possibly have done this. But on the other hand—the door was locked. And could someone really have crept in and smothered Ani in her sleep without Tiger waking? I think back to her yoga-toned body, those slim, strong hands. The world seems to tilt and shift on its axis.

* * *

Out in the corridor, the others are waiting, pale and worried. Tiger has sobbed herself silent and is still crouched against the wall, Miranda’s arm protectively around her. Liz is still locked in her room. Carl and Rik are standing with grim, drawn faces either side of the door like sentries. Topher is pacing, and he looks like a man possessed by demons. There is an expression on his face that frightens me.

“What. The. Fuck,” he spits as Danny and I leave the room, closing the door behind us.

“Oi, mate,” Danny puts up his hands, but I shush him. Five of these people are scared and grieving. One… But I can’t think about that. It’s too surreal, too horrible.

“Come down to the living room,” I say. “I think we all need a drink.”

It’s barely 9:00 a.m., but downstairs I pour us all stiff whiskeys, and everyone drinks them without a murmur, except for Tiger, who is lying on the sofa, shivering, in a state of what I can only call near-catatonic shock.

“So,” Rik says, as he puts down his glass. “What happened?”

“Just a second,” Miranda says. “Where’s Liz?”

I feel a wash of panic, followed by a wave of rationality. There is no way anyone can have killed Liz while we were all standing out in the corridor.

“I think she’s in her room,” I say. “I’ll go and get her.”

“Not alone you won’t,” Danny growls, and he follows me upstairs like a watchdog as I make my painful, limping way to knock at Liz’s door.

“Wh-who is it?” I hear through the wood. She sounds as scared as I feel.

“It’s me, Erin,” I say. “And Danny. We—we need to talk about this Liz. About what happened. We need to try to figure out what to do next. Can you come out?”

There is a scraping noise, and the door opens, very slowly, until Liz is standing there, white-faced and hollow-eyed. She looks terrified, like there is nothing in the world she would less rather do than go downstairs and face her fellow guests—and I can’t blame her. I feel the same way. But we have to do it.

By the time we get downstairs, Miranda has built up the fire and Rik has poured everyone another round of very generous whiskeys. I want to say something about the advisability of adding more alcohol to this mix, but since I was the one who suggested a drink in the first place, I don’t feel like I have the right to object.

“So, what happened?” Rik says again as he hands Liz a glass. His voice teeters on the edge of what sounds like aggression, but I think it’s actually fear. “Don’t tell me she just died in her sleep.”

“She didn’t,” I say, very quietly, but they all fall instantly silent. “She had something called petechial hemorrhaging. Do you know what that means?”

There are headshakes all around the circle, apart from Carl, who nods.

“Little red dots, right? Yeah, I watch CSI. Shoot me.”

“Exactly. Little red dots where blood vessels have broken in the skin. It usually means someone has died of some form of asphyxiation—choking or hanging. In this case, given there weren’t any marks around her neck, I think Ani was probably smothered in her sleep.”

“Oh my God.” It’s a long groan from Miranda. She puts her hands over her face.

“She—she knew something.” It’s Liz. She speaks very low, and I have to shush the others to hear what she’s saying. “She came to my room last night, to try to persuade me not to sleep alone. When I asked why she was still awake, she said she had something on her mind, something she’d seen—I begged her to tell me—” She breaks off, her voice cracking. It’s virtually the longest speech I’ve ever heard her make, and she looks like she’s shrinking as all the eyes of the room turn to her.

“Oh, bloody hell.” Danny’s voice is angry, and he stands up, as if he can’t contain his feelings. “What did Erin fucking say? If you know something tell someone.”

“I know!” Liz says, her voice like a sob. “I begged her to say something, I really did—but she said she wasn’t sure—”

“Tiger.” Miranda is shaking Tiger now, gently. “Tiger, did Ani say anything to you last night, before she fell asleep?”

“I was asleep.” Tiger’s voice is broken, and very hoarse. It’s hard to understand what she’s saying, the words are cracked and fractured. I make out, “I’m so sorry… asleep… took a sleeping pill…”

“Wait, you take sleeping pills?” I say. I glance at Danny, who raises an eyebrow back, and I know he is thinking, as I am, of the crushed pills in Elliot’s coffee. Tiger gives a huge sob.

“Not normally, but I couldn’t sleep, I haven’t been able to since I got here. It started the f-first day. Eva said it was the altitude. She gave me some of her pills.”

“It’s true,” Miranda says. She glances round the circle, looking for support. “It was after breakfast that first morning, I remember the conversation. Rik, you heard her, didn’t you?”

“I’m sorry,” Rik says with a shrug. His voice is defensive. “I’m sure you’re right, but I don’t remember.”