‘I’m not a hundred like Mum,’ Orla reminded her. ‘I know what you meant. And, you know, you could work towards getting out there and doing your own kind of weird stuff.’
‘Oh, I am, don’t you worry,’ Erin answered.
‘You are? College is going well?’
‘Ha, you’re funny.’
Orla hadn’t been aware she was making any kind of joke. ‘No, I mean, I know college work is tough, but you know you can always, I don’t know, run things past me if you want.’
‘You didn’t do any of my subjects and it was many, many,manyyears ago, right?’
OK, there was way too much emphasis on the manys there. Orla knew there was ten years between them, but it wasn’t ten centuries. But, also, she hadn’t meant the subjects. College, for her, had been a fusion of study, difficult social elements to weigh up and navigate and the real beginnings of turning from just a teen to a full-blown adult. It had been a lot.
‘It wasn’t easy for me,’ Orla admitted, cupping her hands around her coffee.
‘Really? Didn’t you get all As?’
‘I got one A,’ Orla said.
‘And failed the others?’ Erin laughed.
‘No, but sometimes teachers put a lot of weight on performance and results and they forget that there are humans behind it all.’
That was at the heart of why she did what she did. She sought out the intricacies in behaviour – animal and human, the whys and the why nots – some of which never even had a definitive answer. It was the spirit of something that mattered most, not the results according to some often-manufactured worldwide agenda, wasn’t it?
‘Are you studying me?’ Erin asked. ‘For an article?’
Orla shook her head. ‘No. Don’t be silly.’
‘Because forget the inside bits, I would make a great cover model, don’t you think?’ She pouted, the cream from the drink still on her top lip.
Orla went to reply but Erin quickly continued.
‘We should take our drinks and check the board. We don’t want to miss the flight.’ She got up, drink in one hand, trolley case handle in the other.
And that was how Erin Bradbee ended the conversation about college. Orla sighed. Well, it wasn’t like she didn’t have time to try again.
7
SAINT-CHAMBÉRY, FRANCE
‘You know what’s gonna happen, right?’ Erin began in a whisper. ‘We are going to be taken to a log cabin and it’s gonna be all hot chocolate and niceties until he turns… and the sweet middle-aged-man act is gonna drop and you and me are going to be killed like this ferrety weasel thing over my shoulder and he’s gonna turn us into snow mummies.’
Erin gave a muted yelp as the rather unique vehicle they were travelling in bucked over what Orla assumed was a rut in the road. There might be the carcass of a dead something on the parcel shelf but Orla hadn’t ruled out it being a shawl, no matter how anatomically incorrect that might be. But, so far, everything was as it should be. They’d been met at the airport by their driver, Gerard, as it had stated in Frances’s email, and they were on their way to Saint-Chambéry where they were going to be staying at a small hotel with the name ‘Delphine’. Once there, Orla’s remit was to report on the pregnant reindeer and meet the mute man who had developed a special bond with the animal. She was already hoping the ‘special bond’ included a unique way of communicating, as she had experience with Navajo Code and she’d found that fascinating. However, Frances had written:
I’m envisaging Vincent fromLostmeets Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and hoping the guy looks like Ian Somerhalder. Heart-warming, factual and sexy – the holy trinity.
‘Shh,’ Orla said to her sister, looking out of the window at their surroundings and glad for the Christmas music Gerard had put on over an hour ago.
‘Shh?’ Erin said in whispered shouting. ‘It’s freezing! I can’t get internetat alland the friendly barman/postman/Santa’s buddy or whatever he called himself is gonna murder us. Here. In this cold, cold place.’
Orla looked at Erin then, squished next to her in the back seat of this weird three-seat vehicle where their cases were in a footwell next to the driver’s position. Was she seriously a little bit scared? Her sister had her acrylic nails between her teeth and Orla needed to remember that despite all Erin’s swagger, she was still so young and obviously home was not currently the comforting sanctuary it was supposed to be. Perhaps Orla had a chance to provide some sisterly reassurance here in France, make her feel safe.
‘Erin, everything’s fine,’ Orla said calmly. ‘The very last place a murderer would take us is to where he lives and we’re heading exactly where we’re supposed to be going.’
‘But how do youknow? He could be driving away from where he livesandwhere we’re supposed to be because everything looks the same. Look!’ Erin put the flat of her hand to the window as if she was trapped in a transparent box.
Orladidlook though, and it was spectacular. Towering fir trees as far as the eye could see, the road like a slippery white snake slithering a path through the density, craggy mountains specked with snow, white mist hiding their peaks. It was the epitome of a winter wonderland. Quiet, simple, but she knew thepotential of what quiet and simple on the outside could hold. Maybe it wasn’t so much what the brief of the assignment here was, perhaps it was more about what she could make it…
