Christmas in the Snow (27 page)

Allegra dropped the iPad back down again. ‘Exactly. It’s completely unbelievable. And that’s what reassures me it’ll all be OK, Iz. Somewhere along the line,
they’ve got one vital fact wrong.’ She knew it wasn’t the typo – not now she’d seen the marriage record of Lars and Anya for herself. The Fischer family with a
‘c’ was her family. ‘It only takes one mistake to skew an entirely innocent turn of events into something more sinister. We just have to keep reminding ourselves that we both knew
Granny and we know she wasn’t capable of that.’

‘Yeah, exactly,’ Isobel said, nodding vehemently, her eyes fixed on Allegra.

Allegra tried to smile reassuringly, hoping she was hiding the doubt that was drifting like a solitary black storm cloud in her mind. Because how
did
they explain away that their
grandmother had married her sister’s husband? That was fact, noted not just in the parish records but also the civic registers. And what possible justification could she have had for taking a
child away from its father? If her explanation was so innocent, why had she kept it a secret from their mother all these years?

She smiled a bit wider, and Isobel – placated, for the next few minutes anyway – twisted back again on her sofa. Allegra took another sip of her wine and returned to flicking the
virtual pages of the
FT
. It soothed her to absorb herself in the machinations of big business. There was a safety in numbers she could always rely on – she understood how to smell
panic, the first top notes of confidence – and she found comfort in the rhythms of the markets. She knew how this game was played, at least.

Her eyes scanned the business pages: ‘Unemployment Levels in the US Stuck at 6.7%’; ‘FD of Tesco Resigns Hours Before Results Due’; ‘Pharmaceutical Giants’
$40bn Merger Talks’; ‘Hedge Fund Makes £6bn Profit in Q4.’

She stopped flicking and double-clicked on the last headline, her hand flying to her mouth as she saw Pierre’s photo. Tucking her knees closer to her chest, she began reading avidly. It
was essentially a profile piece on Pierre’s return to prominence – PLF was now third in the market and officially the same size as the world’s largest commercial bank, the
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, running a fund of close to $40 billion. Kemp was profusely name-dropped, but that wasn’t what kicked the breath out of her. It was the timing of
this.

A $6-billion profit in one quarter was a great result and certainly higher than she had been anticipating – although she knew their returns for the first three quarters of the financial
year were well above the industry average – but the fourth quarter didn’t close for another two weeks, and under the rules set out by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, they
didn’t need to file their F13 records for another forty-five days after that. So why was he jumping the gun, more than six weeks early?

She stared into the unblinking eyes that had once looked upon her kindly, admiringly, and thought she could guess. He was getting the report in before Besakovitch’s money was withdrawn.
This number would be half a billion smaller next week, but it wouldn’t be officially reported until May next year, giving him plenty of time to get Yong’s business in and signed on the
dotted line. This was a siren call to the Chinese businessman. Pierre had a new dream team, a star fund manager to manage their assets. How could he possibly ignore numbers like these?

How could anyone? Because this was also a message – to her, to Leo Besakovitch, that he didn’t need either one of them. Pierre hadn’t just closed the door behind them both,
he’d locked it too.

‘Legs?’

‘Huh?’ She looked up. Isobel was leaning back at a contorted angle, her head tipped so that she was staring at her upside down. ‘You OK?’

‘Yes, of course. I’m fine. Why?’

‘You’ve just been reading that with your hands over your mouth like you were going to scream.’

Allegra realized her hands were still at her mouth and dropped them down. ‘I’m absolutely fine. Just . . . getting caught up with work stuff, as usual.’

‘But you’re not working at the moment.’

‘That’s just fine print. I’ve already had six offers left on my phone and I’ve not even spoken to anyone yet.’

‘So then why don’t you speak to them?’

‘Because I want a break before I go back,’ she said. It was only a half-lie. She felt like a lioness who’d been attacked by her own pride and had retreated for her own safety,
but there was also unfinished business here. She had a lawsuit all wrapped up on her phone, she had job offers stored in her voicemail, and yet she wasn’t using any of it. She wasn’t
acting, wasn’t
moving
. And that in itself was odd.

Perpetual motion had always been her game plan – never stopping long enough to place both feet on the ground lest she should become planted, always hopping instead from project to project,
team to team, like a frog on lily pads, determined not to get her feet wet – because to get wet would be to drown.

Every day she was out of the market, she knew her old life was beginning to pull away from her like an ocean liner – moving in a slow, strong, sure steady line, unable to swerve back and
scoop her from the seas. But there was only one person who could do that and she had to keep the door open for him – because he would come back for her; of that she was certain.

They’d been a team, the two of them. She knew him better than any of them – better, even, than his wife. She was the one he’d come to find late at night, a bottle of whisky and
two glasses in his hand, knowing she’d still be in her office, talking through his worries with her as she sat and listened and understood. Just like she understood that it hadn’t been
her
Pierre that night. He’d acted out of character, urged on by Kemp and a desperate, reckless bravado in front of Zhou. He was hurt by his old friend Leo’s desertion and was
trying to restore some pride. She knew all that. Of course she knew all that. She could even forgive it, because she knew he would be regretting it. So she’d keep waiting, just a little
longer . . .

It wasn’t
him
she blamed.

She frowned, remembering something . . .

She got up from the sofa and walked into the kitchen, stirring the soup that was bubbling quietly on the stove. ‘D’you need anything?’ she called over.

‘Have we got any of those crisps left?’

Allegra emptied the bag into a bowl and brought it over.

‘I was just saying
Notting Hill
’s on. Fancy it?’ Isobel asked. ‘I mean, I know we’ve seen it a million times, but’ – she shrugged –
‘it’s this or CNN.’

‘Is it in English? Because I don’t think I could bear to hear Hugh Grant dubbed into German.’

Isobel laughed out loud at the thought. ‘Ha! I almost hope it is. That would be so funny!’

‘Fire away. I’ll just be a sec.’ And she disappeared into the bedroom, pulling from her suitcase the report Bob had compiled on Kemp’s activity on the Besakovitch fund.
How could she have forgotten all about it? Holding it behind her back as she returned to the sitting room, and then hiding it from Isobel’s view behind a cushion, she curled up on the sofa
and began to read. And learn.

‘Are you sure this is right?’ Isobel asked, clutching at a wall as she skidded on some ice. The backstreet they were walking down was no wider than an alley, here
in the Hinterdorf area, or the Old Town part, of Zermatt, and though they were only two roads away from the Bahnhofstrasse, the splashy, sumptuous boutiques and hotels couldn’t have been
further removed from the old rickety-looking wooden buildings along here, which were almost blackened from standing up to over three hundred Swiss winters. Some of the huts were only one room wide,
most were balanced precariously off the ground on stone mushroom pillars, pretty whittled balconies protruded from chunky stone walls, and black-out shutters were boarded over the windows.

Allegra frowned in agreement. This couldn’t be right. She pulled the piece of paper from her pocket and read Annen’s notes again:
Connor Mayhew, SLF, Schweinestall,
Hinterdorfstrasse
. She looked around her with an expression of disbelief. It seemed hard to believe that the Zermatt branch of the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research – which had
showed a modernist HQ in Davos when she’d Googled it last night – was going to be found somewhere down here. And yet they were in the right street. . .

‘Well, according to this it is,’ she said with a sigh, folding it back in her pocket. ‘Let’s keep going.’

They continued onwards, tired after a morning’s hard skiing on Gornergrat in which they had each tried to break the hundred kilometres an hour reading on their MyTracks apps (Isobel had
managed it; Allegra had ‘failed’, at ninety-seven kilometres an hour) and taking tiny pigeon steps in their boots. The snow had become hard-packed beneath the taxis’ caterpillar
tracks here, forcing them to clutch at walls for support as they peered up at each door, looking for a number or name.

But even when Isobel found it, she didn’t believe it. Set high on slate stilts with a stepladder up to it that was nothing more than a tree trunk with notches carved in alternate fashion
up either side, the hut was about as far from an official agency building as you could imagine. It was only ten feet wide or so, with no windows at the front, and a shallow slate ledge only just
protruded in front of the door to create some sort of standing area.

‘
Really?
I’ve seen more official-looking barns,’ Isobel said sceptically.

Allegra stopped at the bottom of the ladder and stared up. ‘Schweinestall’ could be clearly seen etched into a small wooden plaque beside the door. There was no mistake – they
were at the address Annen had given them.

Carefully, Allegra climbed up the steps. The shelf on which she had to stand was not more than a foot wide, and having knocked twice, she stood with her hands on the door, weight forward, like
she was trying to push it down.

‘Be careful! Isobel said anxiously, ever the health-and-safety officer.

The door opened after a minute.

‘
Ja?
’ A stern face stared back at her, almost nose to nose.

Allegra dropped her hands quickly, resisting the impulse to step back. To do so would be to fall seven feet.

‘Connor Mayhew? Allegra Fisher.’

Nothing.

‘Sergeant Annen gave me your details. He said he’d call ahead to let you know to expect us?’

Mayhew frowned back at her – his default resting face, she imagined. Soft and cuddly he wasn’t. He looked like a man who had wandered into town after a year of living with wolves,
although his wind-burnt, tanned skin picked out his eyes, and his hair seemed to suit him grey. In his mid-to late forties, she guessed, he had a long, rectangular face and tightly drawn mouth, a
wiry build and greying stubble that was on its last day before it graduated to a beard. He was also exceptionally tall, even to her, and wore the unselfconscious clothing of someone for whom the
kit was chosen on technical merits, not aesthetic – orange down jacket, a pair of yellow soft-shell ski trousers that were grubby on the knee, navy thermal roll neck. This, then, was the man
who had brought her grandmother down from the mountain.

‘Valentina Fischer?’ she prompted, watching the recognition finally dawn in his eyes at the name and wishing they could do this inside, off the ledge.

‘Oh. Yes.’ He paused, stepping back into the room. ‘Come in.’

‘My sister is with me too. Isobel Watson.’ Allegra motioned down towards her, but Connor simply signalled disinterestedly for them both to enter. With a surprised shrug –
unused to being invisible – Isobel scampered up the ladder.

Inside, the hut had low ceilings, with a vertiginous spiral staircase rising at the back and rows of shelves with wooden boxes on them lining the walls. Both women trod carefully, their eyes
roaming up, down, all around, their feet automatically checking for weak spots beneath their treads, but everything felt solid and quiet. And warm. Connor had walked to the far corner and was
crouched in front of a tiny stove, thick gauntlet gloves on as he pushed a split log into the tentative fire. The flames instantly leaped like Hades’ hounds and he shut the door, looking back
at them both with sharp eyes. ‘Do you have ID?’

‘ID?’ Isobel repeated.

‘I must see proof that you are who you say you are.’

‘Oh, yes.’ They both reached inside the zipped pockets of their coats and pulled out their passports.

Connor looked at them, matching the photos to the women standing before him. ‘Fine.’ He held them back out for them, his tone fractionally more friendly. ‘I have to ask. We get
all sorts trying to claim things from here. Trophy-hunters.’

‘Really?’ Allegra grimaced. Who could possibly want the personal items of people who had perished on the mountain?

He walked over to a small, square wooden table in the far corner and began flicking through the pages of a hardback ledger. ‘Was she your grandmother?’ he asked over his shoulder,
running one finger down the pages until he found what he was looking for. ‘GXC41220,’ he murmured, immediately walking over to some boxes on the right-hand wall.

Isobel shrugged. ‘Apparently.’ A resentful tone hardened her voice and Allegra knew – and understood – her sister felt a growing antipathy towards this woman whose sudden
appearance in their lives had thrown their love for their known grandmother, history and their memories into jeopardy.

Allegra’s eyes wandered the room. It was so surprising in here, like a rustic Tardis. The stove was flickering quietly, and she noticed a small black kettle sitting on the top. There was a
large rocking chair in front of it, with a tweed wool blanket thrown over the back, and in the opposite corner behind the stairs, the small wooden table with a couple of chairs. As well as the book
he’d just looked at, there were some papers and a rucksack on it, and a thermos sat beside a small foil-wrapped parcel of what Allegra guessed to be sandwiches. Oil lamps hung from hooks on
the overhead beams.