The Mole

Chapter 1
Part 1

Ed was the first one to step out of the car. His face screwed up as he stretched his back, and he let out a tired sigh. A few limbs and bones snapped into place. When he started walking towards the house, a broad smile appeared. He whistled between his teeth.

“Alriiight. Good choice, Coz!” he yelled over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off the building. In the backseat, Thom was clutching the last straws of his patience.

“Come on you two, get out, get out! I can’t fucking breathe anymore. Phil, wake the fuck up. Jon-nyy, stop teasing me and get your arse out of this fucking tin. I-”

“Need to take a piss, we know, Thom. You’ve been informing us every five miles for the last hour - stop shoving me!”

When Thom finally managed to climb out of the vehicle, he fell dramatically to the ground, audibly gulping air.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Thom, quit being such a drama queen,” Ed laughed at him from the porch.

“Easy for you to say; giants always get the passenger seat,” Thom retorted, reproachful.

“And midgets the middle seat,” Colin added matter-of-factly as he walked towards the door with the key ready in his hand.

“Shut up, Yorke, I had your guitar case pressed into my leg for three hours,” said Jonny, limping a bit. Phil, still sleepy-eyed and with a red spot on his head from leaning against the window pane, had already started unloading the boot of Colin’s station wagon. Soon backpacks and boxes of food and, more importantly, alcohol, were sprawled out over the drive.

The weather was nice in Haulmé, one of the most northern villages in France, and quite possibly the tiniest. Nice meaning that it wasn’t raining nor freezing, although the wind was blowing quite chilly at this altitude, even for November.

It had been Ed’s idea, actually, to spend a few days abroad to rekindle the band spirits. Since, however, Ed wasn’t the most practical of the bunch, Colin had accepted the task of looking for a place to stay. And booking it. And letting the others know where, when and how. And driving there.

“What the hell, Thom, did you really have to bring your entire wardrobe?” Jonny muttered as he threw Thom’s backpack over his shoulder along with his own. Thom, just back from the toilet and now struggling with two beer crates, rolled his eyes.

“Just take them inside, boy, and you might get a penny,” he replied in a low, commanding voice. He ignored the ‘tsk’ and dragged the tower of crates inside, leaving a trail behind in the crushed red bricks of the driveway.

Once inside, the five of them took their time to examine the place. Enthusiastic exclaims were heard throughout the entire house. Colin’s word of choice, ‘chalet’ was quickly replaced by ‘villa’, not in the least because it was more pronounceable. Despite six bedrooms, two bathrooms, a fully equipped kitchen, a fireplace and a sauna, the house lacked any form of communication with the outside world. No internet, no phone, no mobile range in the area, not even public transport within a mile.

“Not even a phone, Colin?” Thom asked, ready to go upstairs and claim a bedroom. “Is this your first attempt to sabotage the trip?”

Colin laughed.

“If you say so, Thom,” he responded mysteriously.

That had been Jonny’s idea. The whole sabotaging thing. He had heard of an American TV series (“Actually, I think the concept was Belgian”) called The Mole, where the contestants have to fulfil tasks together to earn as much money as possible. However, one of them is the mole and secretly tries to prevent the rest of the team from winning. At first, not everyone was down with it, claiming it would have the opposite effect on the group.

“That’s not how you rekindle a bond, Jonny, that’s how you break it apart,” Ed had snorted.

“Oh, come on,” Jonny had pleaded, “it’s just a bit of fun. I’m so tired of playing Assassin.”

And, agreeing that it’d be just for fun, they had decided to join in, dropping the money prize, obviously, and on a windy October night two weeks earlier they had drawn names. Instead of confessions in front of a camera, Phil had had the idea of making a box in which everyone would have to put a piece of paper with the name of the person they would accuse of being the mole, and what their clues were. The Confession Box, an old cookie jar with the lid firmly taped to the glass and a small opening in the cork, was reverently put next to the fireplace in the lounge.

The rest of the morning was spent in rather good spirits, some putting away the groceries they had brought along, others, like Jonny, taking a nap, despite Thom blasting M.I.A. through the house. Jonny wasn’t quite the morning person, so no one seemed to mind him not helping. After all, they had left Oxfordshire at four AM, piling into Colin’s car, and taken the ferry across the North Sea, car included.

By the time Jonny arrived downstairs again, his hair standing up at the back of his head and the tip of a sleeve rubbing against his eye, there was an impressive fire warming the living room, and the others were each occupying a couch, softer and louder voices blending into each other.

“Jonny!” Ed looked up, relieved. “Tell me, doesn’t it sound like a great idea to go climbing tomorrow?”

“In the sodding rain, absolutely brilliant idea,” Colin added snarkily, letting his back fall against the couch and crossing his arms. “Or did it seem like a good idea to –whoops- make people slip off rocks?”

“That’s right, try and get your way by making me sound suspicious,” Ed rolled his eyes and took a sip from his beer bottle.

“It’s going to rain for the rest of the week, I told you,” Phil jumped in, mumbling with a mouth full of crisps. “The warmest day will in fact be tomorrow.”

Jonny joined Thom on the two-seater and tried to avoid drawing attention to himself by mimicking Thom’s I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude, wishing he had a book himself, but he should’ve known only Thom can get away with that. Everyone was looking at him expectantly.

“Er,” Jonny said, then shook his head.

“No no, I’m not deciding. You know I’m rubbish at deciding.”

An uncomfortable silence filled the room. All eyes were still glued on Jonny.

“Fine! Let’s get this over with and go tomorrow,” he sighed, letting his head fall onto his propped-up knees.

Ed grabbed an invisible notebook and pretended to take notes, mumbling “Day one - Jonny – decides on climbing on Wednesday – tries not to raise suspicion by picking the majority’s side – is visibly planning mischief behind big innocent ey-“

The rest of the sentence was muffled by a pillow hitting Ed square in the face. Jonny couldn’t help but smile as the others burst out in laughter.

“You watch out, O’Brien,” he said darkly from behind his fringe.

It was the first time in fifteen minutes that Thom actually looked up.