Christmas in the Snow Read online

Allegra didn’t dignify the comment with a response.

  ‘You’re sure you couldn’t just . . . overlook the creep bit?’

  ‘Oh, are you kidding me?’ Allegra snapped. ‘Were you just sitting here or not? Which bit of mutual contempt didn’t you get?’

  Isobel frowned quizzically, falling so far back in the cushions that she was practically horizontal. But she knew better than to say another word.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Traffic was heavy along Park Lane, thanks to roadworks outside the Grosvenor, and their taxi driver seemed to be lacking in festive spirit as he cussed at every motorist, biker and cyclist who tried to get past. Isobel didn’t notice. She was far too busy peering into all the bags bundled by their feet – admiring over and again the bounty of gifts that Allegra had bought without even glancing at the price tags. With the Christmas shopping sorted and Ferdy sleeping, Allegra should have felt relaxed, but instead she was digging her nails into the palms of her hand, feeling perilously close to tears.

  Her phone buzzed again and she pulled it out of her pocket with a frown.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ Isobel asked, watching her sister’s expression harden.

  Allegra glanced up at her. ‘No.’

  ‘Your phone’s been going off all day.’

  ‘My phone is always going off,’ Allegra murmured, not wanting to be drawn into a conversation about it. As much as she’d tried to downplay the shock of bumping into Sam in Selfridges, the truth was, it had undone her resolve to stay calm and it was harder now to pretend she was fine.

  She was not fine.

  ‘Yeah, but even by your standards . . .’ Isobel said, sitting up and taking a better look at her sister, as if seeing for the first time how pale she looked. ‘What’s going on? Why aren’t you answering your calls? Why are you even sitting here in a cab with me on a Friday afternoon?’

  But Allegra ignored her concern, slipping the phone back into her pocket and looking out of the window. They had stopped outside the Porsche showroom, and inside, a man in a dark suit was lightly running a hand over the flank of a 911 S.

  Isobel, getting the hint, picked up a copy of the Evening Standard that a previous passenger had left on the seat and began flicking through it. Allegra had no doubt she’d be looking for the horoscopes.

  A group of Japanese tourists were crossing the road from the Dorchester towards Hyde Park, and the taxi hit the glorious heights of third gear as the traffic began to flow again, past the roadworks.

  ‘Well, this is interesting,’ Isobel murmured after a moment. ‘Supposedly a certain individual is trying to get my attention. Hmm, wonder who that could be?’ she said wryly, throwing a glance at her sleeping child, before continuing to read. ‘But the problem is, “Changes in circumstance have thrown existing arrangements into disarray. Others are unsure how to handle the chaos.” They’re hoping I’ll know what to do but are too shy to ask. Ha! I don’t know any shy people.’

  ‘I can’t believe you still read these things. What’s wrong with you? Lucky leaves, horoscopes . . . You’ll tell me you believe in ghosts next.’

  ‘You mean you don’t?’ Isobel gasped, before a crafty smile escaped her.

  Allegra looked down the length of Piccadilly as they rounded Hyde Park Corner. The Ritz was lit up like a birthday cake in the lilac dusk, giant illuminated stars straddling the road as red double-deckers shuffled beneath and cold pedestrians competitively thrust gloved hands in the air to hail cabs.

  ‘Now you . . . Capricorn,’ Isobel continued. ‘Ah, you . . . Well, “Usually planning ahead is wise. While certain matters need to be organized, you’re urged to ensure those arrangements are flexible. That way, you’ll have no problem adjusting to the sudden but ultimately worthwhile changes triggered by Jupiter’s powerful aspect to Pluto.”’ Isobel looked across at her sister. ‘Oh yes, I’ve often said it – never mess with Jupiter’s aspect to Pluto.’

  Allegra arched an eyebrow. ‘Honestly, I despair,’ she said as her phone rang again. She pulled it out from her pocket. Her expression changed as she looked at the screen and she pressed ‘accept’. ‘Hello? . . . What? But how? . . . I see,’ Allegra murmured, glancing back at Isobel. ‘Yes, I understand . . . Um, I don’t know yet. I’ll need to think about that. Can I get back to you on it? . . . I see. Yes . . . Not at all . . . OK, thank you . . . Yes, goodbye.’ She pressed ‘end call’, biting her lip pensively.

  ‘Who was that?’ Isobel asked distractedly, flicking further back to the sports pages. Chelsea’s fortunes would dictate how good her weekend was going to be.

  ‘That was the Swiss Police. They’ve got the results back on the DNA test.’

  Isobel’s eyes widened. ‘Oh. That was quick!’

  Allegra shrugged. ‘Electronic age.’

  ‘What’d they say?’

  ‘It’s a positive. Valentina definitely was our grandmother. Mum’s mum.’

  ‘What?’ Isobel leaned back against the leather seat. ‘But how?’

  Allegra knew Isobel didn’t really need an answer to that and they were both quiet for a bit, trying to let the news settle.

  ‘Well, do we have to tell Mum?’

  Allegra shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We should ask Barry, see what he thinks.’

  ‘Yeah, good idea. Good idea.’ Isobel nodded thoughtfully, but an anxious expression had settled over her previously happy-go-lucky features.

  The cab started moving again, the driver changing lanes suddenly and almost taking out a biker weaving through the traffic on the inside lane. ‘He also asked what we wanted to do about the remains. You know, whether we wanted to have them couriered over here or—’

  ‘Couriered over? How do you courier a body? Oh God, I feel sick.’

  Allegra patted her arm lightly. ‘Don’t get in a tizz. I’ll deal with it.’

  ‘I know, but . . .’ She took a deep breath. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Zermatt still.’

  ‘Oh great. Really accessible,’ Isobel grumbled. ‘So how have you left it?’

  ‘I said I’d call him back. It’ll be fine.’

  ‘How can it be fine that Granny lied to Mum all her life about being her mother?’

  ‘I’m sure . . . I’m sure she had a good reason. Granny loved Mum. And us. There’ll be a reason.’

  Isobel looked back down to the newspaper on her lap, but her jaw had begun to jut. They were travelling over Albert Bridge now and Allegra looked up at the lights strung along the tension cables that, she always thought, looked like harp strings.

  ‘Oh my God!’

  Allegra looked back in alarm at her sister’s sharp tone. ‘What?’

  ‘You were fired?’ Isobel cried in disbelief as she continued to read.

  ‘What?’ Allegra echoed, snatching the paper from her sister’s hands.

  Her own image stared back at her, taken – she remembered – at an annual conference in Singapore last year when she and the other keynote speakers lined up on the steps of the building. She was the only woman, of course, her black Armani trouser suit and sharply bobbed hair doing a fine job of minimizing the fact.

  Her eyes scanned the text quickly, alert to anything libellous. If they said they’d sacked her, she could have them on that as well as the discrimination charge. But there was nothing. Only ‘sudden departure . . . internal dissatisfaction . . . exciting new phase . . . Sam Kemp . . .’

  She put the newspaper down, her hands shaking, her sister waiting.

  ‘I was not fired,’ she said finally. ‘I quit.’

  ‘Why? When?’

  Allegra swallowed. ‘Last night. For reasons that are far too boring to discuss.’

  ‘Uh, I don’t think so! Tell me, now.’

  ‘Honestly, it’s just politics. It’ll get sorted. I’m hiring a lawyer to deal with it all. It’s open and shut.’

  As if checking that it still was, she found her phone and scrolled back through her texts quickly. Pierre’s crude – illegal – demand blinked back a
t her in black and white. She pocketed the phone quickly, not even wanting to look at it.

  ‘So that’s why you came round this morning,’ Isobel murmured, reaching out a hand and laying it softly on Allegra’s arm.

  Allegra looked quickly out of the window. ‘I just couldn’t sleep that well. I went for a run and . . .’ She shrugged, her voice was close to cracking. ‘Well, I was at yours before I even knew it.’

  ‘You poor thing.’

  Allegra looked back sharply. She didn’t want pity, or sympathy – it suggested she had lost. ‘I’m fine. It’s just tedious.’

  But Isobel wouldn’t be thrown off the scent this time. ‘It is not tedious. It is upsetting and stressful and scary. Your job is your world.’

  ‘There’ll be others.’ But the strain of the lie was too much for her voice this time and it fractured, a sudden sob erupting from the void, and Allegra pushed her fingers to the bridge of her nose to stop the tears that were threatening. She took a few deep breaths.

  Isobel stayed quiet, the concern etching deeper into her face. ‘Is it anything to do with that bloke we saw?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought so.’ Isobel rubbed her arm soothingly.

  The taxi was turning onto Clapham Common now, a light mist hovering above the expanse of frozen ground as wrapped-up joggers ended their day as she’d begun.

  ‘You’ll stay for dinner, right?’ Isobel asked.

  ‘Thanks,’ Allegra nodded. ‘That’d be good.’ The last thing she could think about right now was food, what to make or how to cook it. Worse, being alone. For once, she really didn’t want that.

  A few minutes later, they were outside Isobel’s house, heaving the shopping bags from the cab, the cold air like a slap on Ferdy’s face and waking him from his sleep. Allegra paid, not bothering to get a receipt, and the three of them jostled their way into the narrow, inviting Victorian terrace.

  ‘You know, I’ve got an idea,’ Isobel said as she walked straight through to the kitchen, over to a cupboard and lifted down two wine glasses, an action as reflexive to her as breathing. ‘Lloyd’s parents are coming down tomorrow for the week. They’re spending Christmas with his sister this year, so they want some time with Ferds beforehand.’

  ‘That’ll be nice,’ Allegra said limply.

  Isobel rolled her eyes as she grabbed an opened bottle of cava from the fridge, a spoon dangling in the top. ‘For Ferds maybe. Diane still hasn’t forgiven me for not going with the tiles she liked in the bathroom.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Isobel took a deep breath as she poured the wine. ‘So, why don’t we go out to Zermatt, just you and me? Seeing the authorities face to face would mean we could get everything settled more quickly with this mystery grandmother of ours.’

  Allegra shot her a look.

  ‘What?’ Isobel held her hands up innocently. ‘And it would give you a break. You need to get away for a bit; it’s always easier to get perspective when you’re not at home in the thick of it.’

  ‘What about Lloyd?’

  Isobel shrugged. ‘He’ll be fine; he doesn’t get enough time with either his parents or his child. It would be good for him to hold the fort for a bit; it would only be for three or four days.’ She bit her lip as she handed Allegra a glass. ‘And of course if there was time for a run or two, then I’d have no problem with that.’

  Allegra couldn’t help but crack a smile. Isobel was a ski demon. ‘I bet you wouldn’t.’

  ‘So is that a yes?’ Isobel asked, holding her drink, as if poised for a toast.

  Allegra hesitated. She needed to instruct a lawyer and crack on with things here, pick up the phone to the headhunters and try to get her career back on track. It was the worst possible time to take off on a whim and go skiing. Not to mention the two people she disliked most in the world were going to be there too. How big was Zermatt anyway? Could she feasibly avoid them? At the question, she remembered the time when she’d been separated from her friends on the university ski trip to Val d’Isere and, even knowing their distinctive ski kits, she hadn’t been able to find them just on the one mountain. Zermatt, she thought – from a brief Google when she’d been on the phone to Annen – had three. That would be big enough to hide in, surely? It wasn’t like she knew what either Zhou or Sam would be wearing on the slopes and with helmets and goggles on, everyone was incognito anyway. She could be skiing next to Rihanna and not know it.

  Besides, Isobel had a point. This was the most efficient way of getting the whole sorry mess cleaned up and she had some time on her hands, for once. They had phones where she was going, and this revelation, as Isobel said, of a brand-new grandmother raised more questions than the DNA test answered. If they were going to have any chance of presenting this news to their mother, they needed the full facts.

  She looked at her sister’s hopeful smile and raised her glass in a toast too. ‘Yes. Yes, it is. Why the hell not?’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Day Fourteen: Nesting Dolls

  Zermatt was ready for them. All of them. Skiers and snowboarders disgorged from the cog-wheel train from Visp, spilling out into the square in their hundreds and making well-practised beelines for the waiting non-motorized taxis that were scarcely larger than tuna tins and emitted whines, not fumes. Beside them, looking overscaled and old school by comparison, stood the regal carriages of the Mont Cervin Palace hotel, the glossy horses that pulled them standing patiently, occasionally pawing the ground as the drivers, wrapped in heavy coats, lifted trunks and suitcases onto the roofs.

  Isobel, who was trying to take charge so that Allegra could ‘rest’, was insistent upon leading the journey, and as she rummaged in her bag for the town map, Allegra stood beside the town’s snow-dusted Christmas tree, soaking it all in. It was only eleven days till Christmas and the first week of the winter peak season – the pistes were pristine, the restaurants and boutiques fully stocked for the festive onslaught – and the sense of anticipation, of unleashed energy, lent a crackle to the air as snowflakes hurriedly tumbled to earth.

  She watched the taxis – skis sticking out from the external racks – begin to creep up the steep hills on caterpillar tracks as Isobel finally found the map in her jacket pocket; she listened to the charming jingle of the bells on the horses’ reins, ever so politely telling people to get out of the way, while Isobel turned the map the right way round, looking up moments later with a concentrated confusion. ‘I think it’s this way,’ she said finally, pointing left.

  ‘Just follow me,’ Allegra sighed, losing patience and heading right.

  ‘But—’ Isobel protested, wrestling with the release mechanism on the handle of her wheelie bag.

  ‘It’s south, sixth right off the Bahnhofstrasse.’

  ‘Oh.’ Navigation had never been Isobel’s strong point. ‘It’s because I’m starving. You know I can’t think on an empty stomach.’

  ‘We’ll drop our bags and change, then get lunch.’ Allegra gave a quick smile to soften her bossiness as she realized she was dictating the schedule and hijacking Isobel’s mothering intentions. Besides, it wasn’t hunger that had left Isobel dazed and confused, it was exhaustion. Allegra was well used to packing with only a moment’s notice – she even had a ski bag at home, ready-packed – and she’d bought the business-class flights on her air miles within minutes. But whilst she had gone online to look for accommodation, a glass of wine in her hand, Isobel had had to crawl into her loft to find her ski gear that had been boxed up for the best part of eight years and then write a detailed itinerary for Lloyd and her parents-in-law about Ferdy’s meals, sleep times, predilection for coal and his busy social diary. It had kept her up till midnight and Allegra hadn’t fully appreciated her sister’s ability to manage the complex logistics of Ferdy’s life.

  They walked through the main street, their bags bulging with ski kit behind them, both their heads turning left and right, Isobel trying to spot the best pharmacy and deals on Moncler, Allegra look
ing for the correct turn-off.

  Zermatt was exactly as she’d expected it to be. Unable to break with her usual habit of research, research, research, she had memorized the piste and town maps on the flight over so that even without seeing it, she knew the river must run alongside the next block to their left, that the old town was dead ahead, the heliport was behind them to the right . . .

  They walked slowly past shop windows where 20,000-Swiss-franc designer watches sat next to chocolate-rendered mini Matterhorns, and bundles of so-chic cashmere jumpers sat cheek by jowl beside novelty marmots. Christmas lights were strung up above the streets, deep (empty) flowerboxes hung at every window, snow was piled like marshmallow toppings on every roof, and festivity hung in the air like perfume.

  The street was teeming with people as skiers trudged the pavements in their distinctive rocking gaits, the bindings on their boots clumped with snow from their last run, their skis swung over their shoulders like rifles. She saw a group of hung-over snowboarders – their trousers worn low and antlers on their helmets – grabbing a snack lunch with hot chocolates and crêpes on their way to the slopes; she peered in at the shoppers clustered in the coffee houses with bags at their feet and their hands round vin chauds. God, she loved being in the mountains. Sometimes she felt they were the only place she was truly relaxed.

  Turning right opposite the Mont Cervin Palace – impossible to miss on account of the wall of light pouring down six storeys from the balconied windows – they found themselves in a narrow side street of rough-hewn stone buildings and Isobel redeemed herself by finding the apartment first. With cold hands, she entered the combination code they’d been given by the owner, took the key from the deposit box and fell into the lobby to escape from the cold, carrying their bags up a narrow turning staircase.

  ‘I knew it!’ Isobel gasped as she unlocked the door and they saw the apartment they had found last night on their frantic internet search for somewhere to stay. With the Christmas season officially under way and such strong early snowfall, everywhere was booked solid, and even this they only had for four nights until Thursday, changeover day.