“What on earth is Liz doing?” Miranda says irritably. She has been on edge ever since Rik told her she couldn’t go with him down to the village. The two-party idea makes sense, and she knows it does, but she would still prefer to be with Rik, and I can see the way her gaze keeps stealing across to him.

“I’m here,” says a timid voice from the top of the stairs, and we all look up to see Liz standing at the top of the spiral staircase. She is wearing the oversize blue jumpsuit she had on the first day, and is clutching her ski poles in one mittened hand. A bobble hat is balanced on top of her head, and her glasses are misted. She looks hot and sweaty, but, like the rest of us, relieved to be finally doing something.

She starts down the stairs, and then it happens. Something—a pole? A trailing strap? catches in the banisters, and she stumbles. Her socked feet go out from under her. One hand grabs for the handrail, but the mitten has no grip and the wooden rail simply slides out from under the plasticky fabric.

As we watch, helpless, Liz tumbles forwards down the spiral staircase with a series of sickening thumps. And then she lands at the bottom, ominously quiet.

LIZ

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I can’t breathe.

I lie there, panic pulsing through me, trying to inhale and failing. I can hear myself making little strange gasps, like a fish stranded out of water.

“Liz!” It is Erin. She comes hobbling over. Her face is white. She crouches beside me. “Liz! Oh God, are you okay?”

I can’t answer. I can’t get my breath enough to say a word. I make a motion, half nodding, half shaking my head. Am I okay? I am not sure.

“Fucking hell.” Carl falls to his knees next to me. “Liz?” He turns to the others. “Well, she’s alive at least. Can you speak, Liz?” He says it very loudly, like I am hard of hearing.

“I think she’s just very badly winded,” Erin says. She strokes my forehead. I resist the urge to pull away. I am not sure if I could, anyway. “It’s okay, don’t fight it. Just try to breathe slowly. I’ll count with you. One, two, three, four, five… and in. And now one, two, three, four, five, and out.”

With Erin counting, slowly and rhythmically, I manage to take a breath. Then another. At last, shakily, I sit up.

“Are you okay?” Erin asks again. “Does anything hurt?”

“My knee,” I manage. I pull up the leg of my jumpsuit, but I had forgotten my leggings underneath. You can’t see anything, but my knee feels hot. When Erin squeezes it gently, a pulse of pain flares up my leg and I flinch.

“Fucking hell,” Rik says shakily. “I thought for a minute there—”

He stops. He does not need to spell it out. I know exactly what he thought. I thought it too for a second. For a moment, we were almost five.

Erin helps me to stand up. I find I am shaking.

“Can you walk?” Erin asks. I nod and hobble a few steps. Behind me Carl’s face is grim.

“Well, you can’t manage four miles in snow, can you,” he says. It’s not a question.

“So we go alone?” Miranda says. Now it is Rik’s turn to look uneasy. I know what he is thinking. Three people should be safe together. But if Carl is the murderer, he is sending Miranda out into the snow alone with a killer.

“I don’t know—” he says, but Erin cuts in.

“Danny will go.”

ERIN

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“Danny will go.”

The words are out of my mouth before I have time to consider them, but as soon as I’ve said them, I know they make sense. It’s not just about the maths of sending two people out into the snow together. Danny knows the way. Carl and Miranda don’t.

“What?” The voice comes from behind me, and I turn around to see Danny standing there, looking mightily pissed off with me. “Erin, could we have a word, please?” he says, tightly. “In the kitchen?”

With a glance at Liz, who is white as a sheet and looks like she might keel over at any second, I follow him, and when the screen door swings shut behind us, Danny lets rip.

“Are you out of your fucking mind? We went over this. I am not leaving you here with a broken ankle and a psycho on the loose.”

“I didn’t mean just you,” I say, trying to keep my voice low. It feels weird to be articulating our suspicions like this, within earshot of the group. “I meant the three of you should go. It’s obvious—isn’t it? I can’t believe we didn’t think of it before. Carl and Miranda have no idea where they’re going—even with a map, the routes are covered up by the avalanche; it’s more likely than not they’ll end up wandering off into the forest and get lost. You know where the chalet is. You can speak French. And you know how to snowshoe. It makes complete sense. They stand a much better chance of getting there and back if you’re with them. I’d be seriously worried about them setting out alone.”

“Huh.” Danny looks taken aback at this. He can see the logic in my argument. “So… what, you and that Liz bird stay here by yourselves?”

“That’s right. I mean, think about it, Danny. She’s not going anywhere with that twisted knee, she’s as lame as I am. And she was never really a realistic prospect for the killer anyway. She can’t ski, we know she was stuck on the bubble lift when Eva actually died, and out of everyone here, she has one of the strongest motives for not wanting Eva dead. I mean, who knows what might have happened to everyone else in a buyout situation—they were probably going to lose their jobs at the very least. But Liz had no job to lose—and she stood to gain several million quid if the deal went through. That’s a pretty strong counterargument.”

“Yeah… I can see that…,” Danny says slowly.

“Please,” I say. I put my hand on his arm. “Danny, please. Get Miranda and Carl to that chalet and get word to the police about what’s happening. We can’t afford another death, and I don’t trust Carl and Miranda by themselves.”

“All right,” Danny says, making up his mind. “You’re probably right. I’ll go and get my gear. But you lock up when we’re gone, and don’t answer the door to anyone except me or the gendarmes. You got that? I don’t care if Topher comes crawling back with a sob story of Rik leaving him in the snow. I don’t care if Tiger snaps a binding. You don’t let them in. Any of them. And fuck knows what happened to Inigo, but I don’t like the idea that he might be prowling around out there in the snow, waiting for everyone else to leave.”

His words are like an unwelcome splash of cold water in the face. Inigo. We had assumed—I had assumed—that Inigo was out of the picture now. What if he’s not?

Uneasiness shifts in my belly, but I put my chin up.

“We’ll be fine. Even if someone does show up—which I doubt—there’s two of us, and one of them. And they’ll be outside in the snow, freezing their tits off.”

“Yeah, well,” Danny says darkly. “Just you stick to that, okay? I know you. Someone’ll turn up, claim he’s crawled eight miles through the snow with frostbite, and you’ll open the door because you’re soft. Don’t be starting up with the bleeding-heart crap. Put yourself first.”