“Well… it does change one thing, doesn’t it, mate?” Carl says. There is something in his voice I don’t quite like. It is a kind of grimness. Rik looks puzzled.

“Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re getting at? Eva’s shares you mean? They’ll go to her husband I assume.”

“Except they won’t,” Carl says flatly.

“What? I don’t understand what you mean. Even if Eva’s intestate, Arnaud would still stand to get everything, and he’ll certainly want to accept the buyout now, won’t he?”

“Shareholders agreement,” Carl says. When Rik still looks blank, he spells it out. “When the company was set up there was a clause in the original paperwork to say that no one could pass their shares to an outsider. You’re a shareholder mate, didn’t you know this?”

“What?” Rik says, more forcefully. “No, I didn’t know this! Why the fuck would anyone think that was a good idea?”

“It’s quite common,” Carl says with a shrug. “In fact I’d go as far as saying it’s good practice. Stops the company passing into the hands of twats and plonkers. Means the original founders can’t be forced out without their consent, that kind of thing. Topher and Eva set it up that way so this sort of thing couldn’t happen—you know, if someone gets divorced and has to give up half their assets, you don’t necessarily want their loony ex to have voting rights.”

“So what the fuck are you saying?” Rik says. He looks horrified. “Eva’s shares disappear on her death?”

“Nah, they still exist. But Arnaud has to sell them to Topher.”

“To Topher? Why not to the rest of us?”

“Because this agreement predates you and Elliot coming on board,” Carl says shortly. “This is how they set it up back when it was just the two of them. It was never updated when they issued more shares.”

“So… Topher will have to buy out Arnaud?” Miranda says. She comes to sit beside Rik, her brow furrowed. “Except, well…” She stops, significantly, and exchanges a look with Rik.

“Except he can’t,” Rik says bluntly. “He doesn’t have enough liquidity. I don’t think that’s any big secret, is it? So what does that mean?”

“There’s an insurance policy to cover the cost. At least there should be, assuming they kept up the payments. They’ll have to be independently valued, and Arnaud’ll get whatever the valuers thresh out, I imagine. No idea how they’ll take the buyout into consideration. That’s for the insurers to decide I suppose.”

“So wait, what you’re saying is…” Rik looks thunderstruck. “What you’re telling me—”

“Is Topher’s voting share just got increased to sixty percent. Yup, that’s about the size of it,” Carl confirms.

There is deathly silence in the room.

Miranda looks stricken.

Rik turns and walks out the door.

ERIN

Snoop ID: LITTLEMY

Listening to: Offline

Snoopers: 5

Snoopscribers: 10

The news of Eva’s death is like a pebble thrown into a pond. No, not a pebble—a rock. First there is the god-awful, bone-shaking impact, and then the ripples of reaction, radiating out from that original catastrophe, and then rebounding, interacting, magnifying, and negating one another.

As Danny and I serve out soup to the guests in the silent, candlelit dining room, I can’t help watching them, the way they’re trying to make sense of Eva’s disappearance in their own individual ways.

Some of them are in deep denial. Inigo, for instance, refuses to believe the GPS evidence. “She could still be down in St. Antoine,” he keeps repeating. “GPS is wrong all the time and anyway, even if her phone is somewhere—what does that prove?”

Some of them seem to have been struck dumb by the tragedy. Tiger hardly eats. She just sits, head bowed over her untouched soup, letting the noise of the group wash over her as if the others aren’t even there.

Some of them look stunned. Ani seems only half aware of what’s going on; she crumbles her bread and makes inane remarks to no one in particular. Liz looks white and shocked, and barely speaks.

But some of them don’t seem to be affected at all. Elliot, for instance, is spooning his soup with a poker face and much gusto, as if the tragedy had never happened. His lack of reaction is almost disturbing, though when Ani bursts out, “Elliot, don’t you care?” he looks genuinely surprised.

“Of course I care,” he says. “I still have to eat dinner.”

It’s Topher who my gaze keeps returning to. Topher, who has lost a partner, and gained a company.

For Snoop is now in Topher’s complete control, that seems pretty clear, and for all his wild-eyed grief in the kitchen earlier, he doesn’t seem that shaken by the news that he is now the majority shareholder in a billion-dollar company. In fact, he seems to have taken it in his stride, feeding on it almost, as if his personality has expanded to fill the vacuum left by Eva’s absence. As I clear the soup bowls and refill the wineglasses—at least wine doesn’t need cooking or refrigeration—he picks up his glass and downs it, laughing wildly as he does. He has been drinking a lot, throwing back glass after glass as he regales the silent Tiger with some tale of his and Eva’s exploits when they first started the company. And the thing is, I can see it—I see the reason why they made this man CEO. I see the confidence that led him to think he could take a wild, improbable idea in a crowded market—and make it into a billion-dollar proposition. Something I never quite understood before—how someone would have the chutzpah to do this, and all before their thirtieth birthday—is suddenly plain.

Rik on the other hand seems to have shrunk. He looks bewildered, punch-drunk, like a man who’s lost everything which, in a sense, I suppose he has. With Topher in charge, that billion-dollar buyout is melting away, leaving him with… what? Shares in a company he tried to sell out from under the founder? A position under a leader he doesn’t trust? I can’t see him surviving much longer in his post when they get back to the UK, best friend or no best friend. Topher doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who would forgive or forget the kind of coup Rik and Eva were attempting to pull.

What’s more impressive is that Carl and Miranda, who might easily have switched loyalties when they saw which way the wind was blowing, have instead both rallied around Rik. Do they really believe Snoop is doomed without Eva at the helm? Either way, they are not siding with Topher, that much is plain. Instead they sit either side of Rik, like chess pieces guarding their king.

But it feels like the match is over. They have lost their queen. For once more there is a space at the table, an empty place. Not Topher’s this time, but Eva’s, her empty chair a constant painful reminder of what has happened, not letting anyone forget, even for a second.

* * *

The chalet is still relatively warm in spite of the power cut and the temperature drop outside. Its thermal insulation and triple glazing means that the heat from earlier in the day is still enough to make the bedrooms bearable, while the two log burners downstairs keep the living room and dining room toasty.