She didn’t really feel up to it, and thought she might faint at any moment, but she had to contain her own emotions and needs and do what she could. Only then did the obvious occur to her: they had to call for help. That should have been the first thing she did, but she hadn’t been thinking—just tearing down the slope without switching on her brain.

“Call emergency services, Peter,” she said. “I’ll open the door and try to pull him out.”

Would she even manage to open the door? Probably not, because it was so dented and damaged that it would take a crowbar to open it, and even that might not be enough. A blowtorch? Panic took hold of her. She wanted to throw up and cry and faint, or just wake up from this nightmare of wounded flesh and blood and glass and crushed metal. Why on earth had she come down here? It would have been better to call the emergency services and let the professionals do their job.

“Call emergency services, Peter!” she shouted—why wasn’t he answering?

She pulled and tugged at the door, but it was stuck fast.

“Come here for a moment,” Peter said eventually.

“We need to raise the alarm, Peter. Call them!”

Expending great effort, she put a heel on the centre of the door hoping to shift something into a new position, but it did nothing.

“I want to show you something first,” said Peter. “Come here.”

She kicked once more, tugging at the handle, doing it again and again—but nothing happened. She kicked the door one final time, but mostly in resignation rather than hope.

Reluctantly, Jeanette took her eyes off the victim, who still hadn’t shown any signs of life. She struggled over a stone and through bushes to the back of the wreck where Peter was standing.

“Look at this,” he said.

The boot, opened by the crash, was wide open—she had seen that from the road. What she hadn’t noticed was what the boot contained—a small suitcase and two sports holdalls. Both open—she assumed that Peter had for some reason unzipped them.

At first, Jeanette didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand why the contents of the bags mattered here and now in the middle of this devastation, or how one person could have so much money.

“Is he alive?” Peter asked again.

“I don’t know for sure. But it looks really bad. He’s probably cracked his skull, and has a . . . I don’t think he can breathe at all.”

“With this money we can build a future together.”

It was a strange thing to say—the money wasn’t theirs.

“He’s dead, right?” he said, reassuring himself.

“I assume so,” Jeanette replied, a sob in her throat. “But we still need to call . . . why aren’t you calling?”