Christmas in the Snow (12 page)

Allegra paled. ‘Is it my mother?’

‘No.’

‘Then can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?’ Allegra snapped.

‘I’m sorry, it’s very important. A sergeant called from the Swiss Police.’ Kirsty’s eyes slid to Sam, who was listening to every word, his eyes still blazing, jaw
twitching. ‘He says it’s a personal matter, Miss Fisher.’

‘I sincerely doubt that. There’s no reason whatsoever that they should be calling me – unless they’ve found the ski pole I lost in Verbier last year.’ She allowed
herself a wry smile.

Kirsty was unmoved. She was paid well to remain unmoved at all times. ‘He’s quite sure it’s you he needs to speak to. He confirmed your personal details with me. You have to
contact him immediately.’

‘Did he say what it was about?’

Kirsty looked awkward. ‘Identifying remains, Miss Fisher.’

‘Remains?’ Allegra frowned.

‘Of your grandmother. I’m afraid it was hard to hear: the connection was bad. He said something about a hut found in the snow and human remains?’

‘No. That doesn’t make sense.’ Allegra shook her head firmly. ‘My father’s mother is alive and well in Bristol, and my maternal grandmother died in 2001. Ring him
back. Tell him there’s been a mistake.’

‘I can’t, Miss Fisher. Sergeant Annen says he will only talk to you because you’ve got power of attorney. I’ve left the number on your desk.’

What? Allegra watched her go. The lasting power of attorney? So this was to do with her mother, then?

‘Well,’ Sam said, watching the confusion cloud her face and beginning to walk away. ‘It sounds like you’re going to be busy for a while.’

She blinked, returning her attention to him, staring at his expensively tailored back. ‘It’s a misunderstanding, Kemp. This changes nothing.’

‘Yeah. Good luck with that,’ he muttered, out of sight, but never, it seemed, out of mind.

‘Sergeant Annen, please.’ Allegra rubbed her face in her hands, tipping her chair back as she turned to face London in its night guise. It had been a long day,
scrutinizing screens and reports till the numbers had begun to swim before her eyes, and she’d completely forgotten about this inconvenience, hijacked by Bob and a meeting with the new chief
exec at Burberry as she’d arrived back on her own floor.

Kicking off her shoes, she put her feet up on the window-sill. Her hamstrings felt tight from too many hours sitting hunched and she felt an urge to get out of there and pound the streets. She
loved running through London at night, moving sleekly from one pool of light to the next along the Embankment, her arms and legs moving rhythmically as her mind – for once – was
unfettered and could drift on a meaningless stream of consciousness.

She wanted to feel the cold shock of the bitter night air in her lungs, to push her body and not just her mind, but she couldn’t. She needed to redraft the numbers; tonight, no doubt, was
going to be spent in the Four Seasons and she’d have to ask Kirsty to reschedule Thursday’s weekly report to the ex co for next Tuesday so she could get this new proposal done.

The blue light was flashing on her phone – a signal she had a text – and she mindlessly picked it up, frowning to see she in fact had sixteen texts. All from Barry.

‘Annen speaking.’

She sat up with a jolt as she remembered the other phone at her ear.

‘Oh, yes, uh . . . Sergeant Annen? This is Allegra Fisher calling from London. You called my office earlier today.’

‘Miss Fisher. Yes. I was expecting your call this afternoon.’ His accent was slight, the irritation in his voice carrying over fluently.

‘It’s been a busy day, Sergeant. How can I help you?’

‘We’ve been trying to contact your mother, Julia Fisher. I’ve been told you have power of attorney for her.’

Her eyes fluttered down to her mobile screen and Barry’s numerous texts. Annen’s name appeared on them all. What was this about? ‘That’s correct. I have LPA for her
business and legal affairs. My sister has LPA for her health and welfare. Is it me you need to speak to?’ She felt slightly ashamed for trying to pass the buck on to her sister, but what was
the bet Isobel had had a dramatically less shitty day than her?

‘Then it is you I need to speak to.’

She sighed. ‘Go on.’

‘I regret to inform you that we believe we have found the remains of your grandmother Valentina Fischer.’

‘OK, if I can just stop you there,’ she said briskly, pleased to get to the nub quickly. ‘There’s been a mistake. I’ve never heard of anyone called Valentina in our
family. My paternal grandmother is still alive – her name is Patricia Johnson – and my maternal grandmother was called Anya.’

There was a silence and she heard the sound of papers being shuffled in the background. ‘According to the birth reports, Anya was Valentina’s sister. Valentina Fisher, born September
1930. Sister to Anya Fisher, born 1934, deceased 2001. Next of kin Julia Fisher, date of birth 23 February 1948, currently residing Buttersmere, Hampshire, UK.’

Allegra was silent. Her mother’s date of birth. Her grandmother’s name. ‘Well, as I said, my grandmother was Anya Fisher. I’ve never heard of a sister called
Valentina.’

‘It is believed she died in an avalanche in January 1951.’

‘Well, my mother would have been not quite three then, so that explains why she knows nothing about her aunt dying in an avalanche in . . . Where did you say it happened again?’

‘I didn’t. It was in Zermatt.’

‘Well, I don’t understand what any of my family would even have been doing over there in the 1950s. This doesn’t make sense to me.’

‘It doesn’t make sense to anyone right now, Miss Fisher. That’s why we need your mother to provide us with a DNA sample. Assuming that the records are correct, she is the
closest living relative to Valentina Fisher.’

‘No, I’m sorry. My mother isn’t well enough to help you with that. She’s very fragile. Alzheimer’s.’

The word had a blunt force to it that she knew from experience stopped most conversations in their tracks. Sure enough, he paused. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. But it’s a painless
procedure – an oral swab, a couple of hairs and some nail clippings.’

‘Absolutely not. She wouldn’t understand what was happening. I’m sorry but my answer is no.’

‘Miss Fisher, please understand we cannot sign off on the case without it. It is a live police investigation, and until the remains are formally identified, there can be no burial. It will
remain an open enquiry and all the paperwork tells us that this woman was your grandmother.’

‘And I’ve already told you, my grandmother was Anya Fisher. We buried her when I was eighteen.’

‘Then you’ll agree there’s a discrepancy here that doesn’t add up and we have even more questions to answer than we initially thought. If your mother isn’t well
enough to help us, then we have to ask you, as her daughter and her LPA, to help us instead.’

‘You want
me
to supply a DNA sample?’

‘You are the next closest living relative. It is close enough.’

Allegra sighed irritably. If it meant they’d leave her mother in peace . . . ‘What do I have to do?’ she asked with a truculent tone.

‘I can send over the necessary papers authorizing a DNA test to be done at your local police station tomorrow. It won’t take more than a few minutes.’

Oh, this was just excellent. ‘Fine. Do you have my email?’

‘Yes, I liaised with your secretary earlier. I’ll send everything through within the hour.’

They hung up briskly, Allegra staring unseeing at the back of her door, her emergency day-to-evening outfit already dry-cleaned and hanging in its usual place. Beneath her hands, papers and
reports were growing cold. She needed to get back to work.

Instead, she picked up the phone and dialled a number.

‘Hey, it’s me. You free to talk for a minute?’

‘Oh yeah, it’s the best time of day, this. Ferdy’s down. Lloyd’s out with clients.’ Isobel’s voice was relaxed and Allegra guessed she was on her
‘restorative’ glass of wine by now. ‘What’s up?’

‘I just had a really odd phone call from a police officer in Switzerland.’

‘Eh? Switzerland?’

‘Mmm. Have you ever heard of a great-aunt called Valentina?’

There was a short pause. Allegra thought she was thinking, but then heard her sister’s lips smacking together and realized she was taking a sip of wine. ‘No, never. Why?’

‘Apparently, her remains have been found in Zermatt.’

‘Eeew! What do you mean by “remains”?’

‘I’m not really sure. Bones? She disappeared in 1951 apparently. An avalanche.’

‘Grim.’

‘Yes.’ Allegra was quiet for a moment. ‘I’ve got to give them a DNA sample so that they can confirm the identity.’

‘Huh. Well, I’ve never heard of any great-aunt. I’m certain Mum said Granny was an only child, and that’s not the kind of thing you get wrong.’

Allegra stared at her short, filed-square nails, glossy with a natural lacquer. ‘How was Mum when you saw her this week?’

Isobel’s voice flattened. ‘Oh, well . . . so-so. We had a reasonably good spell yesterday. Enough to get the LPAs verified, at least.’

Allegra rolled her eyes. Didn’t she know it! The paperwork had barely gone through and already she was embroiled in a bureaucratic fiasco.

‘Oh, hang on a minute, wait . . . You’re not thinking of asking Mum about any of this, are you?’ Isobel said in a panic. ‘Because that is the last thing she needs.
Long-lost dead rellies turning up out of the woodwork.’

‘Snow.’

‘Whatever.’

‘No. You’re right. There’s no point in bothering her with this. Not yet, anyway. We’ll see what the results reveal first. It’s bound to be a mistake. One typo and
they start barking up the wrong tree.’

‘Mmm.’ Isobel had always been easily placated by her sister’s calm authority.

They lapsed into an easy lull.

‘Are you still in the office?’ Isobel asked, hearing the silence at Allegra’s end. The TV was on at Isobel’s, and Allegra was sure she could hear Ferds gurgling over the
baby monitor.

‘Of course.’

‘You could come here for supper if you like. Lloyd’s out late tonight, and I’ve got enough stir-fry for two.’

Allegra smiled, imagining the warm glow of Isobel’s kitchen, a bottle of red open on the table. She looked up at the almost fluorescent glare of the office lights – conducive to
keeping everyone awake at their desks. ‘Thanks, but I’ve got some catching up to do. One project’s being a bit tricky.’

‘Sure.’ The resignation in Isobel’s voice suggested she hadn’t really expected any other answer.

‘Look, I’ll speak to you soon, OK?’

‘Yup.’

Allegra hung up, spinning in her chair and standing, pressing her forehead to the cold of the glass. She was too high up to see the people below in the darkness, but she could feel the
gravitational pull of them, a tide of office workers leaching away to their homes for a few hours’ respite before beginning the same cycle again tomorrow. Where would she go, right now, even
if she could? To the house in her name that stood empty and dark on an Islington street, like an abandoned dog with not even a collar round his neck to show he belonged to anyone? To sit beside her
mother, alone in a community full of strangers but kept company by a choir-singing, rugby-playing Welshman and the past in her head? Would she call the friends she never called? Search for the man
she hadn’t yet met?

She knew she would do nothing. This was the only life she knew – the only home, the only lover she had. She turned away from the window and returned to her desk, her back to the rest of
the world.

Allegra knocked lightly on the orange door, not realizing she was holding her breath as she listened for the sound of footsteps on the other side. She looked at the plush
eucalyptus wreath and its deep red holly berries twisted between the leaves, which she’d brought with her. Would it clash? she worried, holding up the wreath to get a sense of the colours
together, just as the door was opened and Barry’s face was framed by the leaves so that he looked like a jolly Caesar.

‘Ho, ho,’ he chuckled, planting his hands on his hips and doing his best Santa impression.

‘I thought this might look cheery,’ she said, holding it out to him, aware of the single, somewhat straggly strand of blue tinsel Blu-tacked to the communal hall wall.

‘Amazing,’ Barry beamed, the word bouncing like a rubber ball in his accent, and standing back to let her pass. ‘We’re getting well into the festive spirit here. We made
a start on the Christmas cards this morning,’ he said, stepping into the small kitchen and retrieving a tack and hammer from a drawer.

A ‘but’ hung in the air.

‘But?’ she enquired, looking nervously down the short hall. There appeared to be no movement inside. Where was her mother? Sleeping?

‘Well, it’s not a great day today, so she had a nap and we’ve been listening to carols and having a sing-song ever since. We’ll try again tomorrow.’

‘Oh.’ Allegra looked at him with gratitude and bafflement. She couldn’t fathom the selflessness required to care for another human being who wasn’t your own flesh and
blood. How many nights was his sleep disturbed by her mother trying to hide Monopoly money under the mattress? How often did she abuse him – verbally, if not physically? Allegra didn’t
suppose her mother’s feeble swings registered on his rugby-honed physique. What impelled him to dedicate his own precious days to caring for someone who didn’t remember him half the
time, who would refuse on a whim to eat his meals and felt no social compulsion to be ‘nice’?

‘Where is she now?’ Her voice was low, as though she was scared of being overheard.

‘In the lounge. You go through. I’ll just put this on the door and then pop next door to Judy’s.’

‘Judy?’

‘Yes, at number eighteen.’ He paused, wrinkling his nose. ‘We’d talked about afternoon tea and a game of cards, but I’ll put her off till tomorrow, all things
considered an’ all.’

‘OK.’ Allegra watched as Barry shut the door gently behind him and a tapping began on the other side. Slowly, she stepped through the hall and into the living room. It wasn’t
large, the ceilings not high, but it was warm and bright with tulip-printed wallpaper and sandy-coloured carpets and a beige chenille two-seater sofa with matching armchair. A small plastic
Christmas tree had been set up on one of the side tables in the corner, with multicoloured fairy lights and a gold star at the top, a red paper tablecloth wrapped round the base. Allegra noticed a
trio of cardboard angels arranged on the mantelpiece of the electric fireplace in among a couple of cards showing robins and Victorian carol-singing scenes.