Skip to main content

Excerpt

Excerpt

One by One

From the “About Us” page of the Snoop company website:

Hey. We’re snoop. Come meet us, message us, snoop on us—whatever. We’re pretty cool. Are you?

Topher St. Clair-Bridges

Who’s the daddy? Well, if anyone’s got a claim, it’s Toph. snoop co-founder (along with ex-girlfriend, model/artist/professional badass @evalution), it all started here. If he’s not at his desk, he’s probably riding the moguls in Chamonix, losing his mind in Berlin’s Berghain, or just hangin’. Come find him on snoop at @xtopher or hit him up via his PA Inigo Ryder—the only dude who gets to tell Topher what to do.

Listening to: Oscar Mulero / Like a Wolf”

Eva van den Berg

From Amsterdam to Sydney, New York to London, Eva’s career has taken her all over the world—but right now home is Shoreditch, London, where she lives with her husband, financier Arnaud Jankovitch, and their daughter, Radisson. In 2015 she co-founded snoop with her then life partner @xtopher—their idea born of a single desire: to maintain their connection across 5000 km of ocean. Topher and Eva have since uncoupled, but their connection remains: snoop. Make your own connection with Eva on @evalution, or via her personal assistant Ani Cresswell.

Listening to: Nico / Janitor of Lunacy

Rik Adeyemi
head of beans

Rik’s the money man, the bean counter, the keeper of the keys—you get the picture. He’s been keepin’ snoop real since the very first days, and he’s known Toph for even longer. What can we say? snoop’s a family affair. Rik lives with his wife, Veronique, in Highgate, London. You can snoop him at @rikshaw.

Listening to: Willie Bobo / La Descarga del Bobo

Elliot Cross
chief nerd

Music may be snoop’s beating heart, but code is its DNA and Elliot is the maestro of code. Before snoop was a hot pink logo on your phone, it was just lines of Java on someone’s screen—and that someone was Elliot. Best friends with Toph since before they could shave, he’s cooler than any tech-head has a right to be. snoop him on @ex.

Listening to: Kraftwerk / Autobahn

Miranda Khan
friends czar

“Miranda is into killer heels, sharp fashion, and really great coffee. Between savoring Guatemalan carbonic maceration and surfing Net-a-Porter, she’s snoop’s smile to the world. Wanna write us up, hit us up, haul us over the coals, or just say hi? Miranda’s the place to start. snoop knows you can never have enough followers—or enough friends. Make Miranda one of yours at @mirandelicious.

Listening to: Madonna / 4 Minutes

Tiger-Blue Esposito
head of cool

The epitome of chill, Tiger keeps her trademark zen state with the help of daily yoga, mindfulness and—of course—a steady stream of snoop through her oversize headphones. When she’s not pulling a Bhujapidasana or relaxing into an Anantasana (that’s a side reclining leg lift to the uninitiated) she’s polishing snoop’s cogs to make sure we look our very best, and getting the word out. Chill with her on @blueskythinking.

Listening to: Jai-Jagdeesh / Aad Guray Nameh

Carl Foster
law man

There’s no two ways about it—Carl keeps us on the straight and narrow, making sure that wherever we snoop, we’re doing it on the right side of the law. A graduate of University College, London, Carl did his pupillage at Temple Square Chambers. Since then he’s worked in a variety of international firms, mostly in the entertainment industry. He lives in Croydon. snoop him on @carlfoster1972.

Listening to: The Rolling Stones / Sympathy for the Devil

 

Chapter 1: Liz

Snoop ID: ANON101

Listening to: James Blunt / You’re Beautiful

Snoopers: 0

Snoopscribers: 0

I keep my earbuds shoved into my ears on the minibus from Geneva Airport. I ignore Topher’s hopeful looks and Eva, glancing over her shoulder at me. It helps, somehow. It helps to shut out the voices in my head, their voices, pulling me this way and that, pummeling me with their loyalties and their arguments to and fro.

Instead, I let James Blunt drown them out, telling me I’m beautiful, over and over again. The irony of the statement makes me want to laugh, but I don’t. There’s something comforting in the lie.

It is 1:52 p.m. Outside the window the sky is iron gray, and the snowflakes swirl hypnotically past. It’s strange. Snow is so white on the ground, but when it’s falling, it looks gray against the sky. It might as well be ash.

We are starting to climb now. The snow gets thicker as we gain height, no longer melting into rain when it hits the window but sticking, sliding along the glass, the windscreen wipers swooshing it aside into rivulets of slush that run horizontally across the passenger window. I hope the bus has snow tires.

The driver changes gear; we are approaching yet another hairpin bend. As the bus swings around the narrow curve, the ground falls away, and I have a momentary feeling that we’re going to fall—a lurch of vertigo that makes my stomach heave and my head spin. I shut my eyes, blocking them all out, losing myself in the music.

And then the song stops.

And I am alone, with only one voice left in my head, and I can’t shut it out. It’s my own. And it’s whispering a question that I’ve been asking myself since the plane lifted off the runway at Gatwick.

Why did I come? Why?

But I know the answer.

I came because I couldn’t afford not to.

One by One
by by Ruth Ware