He looked at his car, clearly thinking about the broken window. I realised I’d dropped the iron just below the door. It was half dusted in snow by now, but still visible. I used my foot to nudge it under the car. Marcelo stepped closer to the window. If he peered in, he’d see the cables strewn across his dash and know that something was wrong.

‘I saw the window was broken from the storm.’ I said it too loudly, but it worked, making him turn back to me. ‘Those nice leather seats and all. Thought it would be a shame if those were ruined. I was hoping to find something to cover them with inside.’

‘Good man,’ he said, slinging an arm around me and steering me away from the car. ‘Forget the leather, let’s get you inside. Hang on . . .’ He paused, dropping a knee into the snow. My stomach, which had already had far too many opportunities to gravitate already, found another one. Marcelo groaned in standing, hand outstretched, holding something for me to see. But it wasn’t the iron. ‘You dropped your phone.’ He handed me the device.

Look, this is a borderline breach of Rule 6 – a fortunate accident – but every detective needs a bit of luck. Narrative suspense is built by stacking the odds against the gumshoe, but every now and then, just like in real life, the dominos topple in their favour. And, honestly, I don’t know why Marcelo didn’t see it. Maybe he was distracted, calculating how much his window would cost to replace, or maybe the cold had fogged his vision. Maybe his hand hurt from socking me in the jaw. It was a similar device to a phone, of course – small, rectangular and electronic, with an LCD screen – but he really should have noticed. But I wasn’t about to question it. I figured, after yesterday, I was owed some good fortune.

So I snatched the portable GPS device, freshly wrenched from its windscreen mount, and burrowed it into my pocket before he got a better look.

There was an abomination of a vehicle parked outside the front of the guesthouse. A bright yellow windowed cube sitting hip-high atop garish mechanical treads, it looked like the offspring of a military tank and a school bus. Steam was hissing out from underneath it, the engine on and hot.