I had a moment of panic because sometimes I have these dreams – well, memories – about choking, and as I was wrenched from sleep the giant window and the feeling of space made me think, momentarily, that I’d fallen asleep outdoors. The ridge met the deep black sky under the spectacular brightness of stars unblemished by city fog or clouds. The wind outside sounded like it was groaning, and puffs of snow kept spitting off the ridge and swirling into the sky. Closer to me, the mountain was dimly lit from the spill of a halogen spotlight for the night skiers in the neighbouring valley, and the slope was dappled with bone-finger shadows of leaf-stripped trees. The temperature had continued to drop, trying to snake its way into the room; I could almost feel the breath of the glass pulsing against the indoor heating.

I rubbed my eyes and hauled myself upright, lumbering to the door. I opened it.

Sofia stood on the threshold, hands folded into her elbows, flakes of ice in her wind-tussled black hair. ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Did you bring the money?’

CHAPTER 5

Okay, look. Here’s the thing. I didn’t lie. Michael asked me to hold on to the money.

When he drove me back home that morning – I was silent in the passenger seat, still pulling sticky spider-web tendrils from my forearms – he’d said it was probably safer if I kept it for now. I could see the thinking: that Alan either took it or was supposed to give it to someone, and something had gone wrong along the way. Whether Michael had anything to do with the ‘going wrong’ part, I wasn’t sure, but if someone was a few hundred grand light, they probably wanted it back. I was another layer – the security blanket – in case the gunman had seen Michael’s car. If there was a gunman at all, of course.

I’d taken the bag with silent understanding. Michael had maybe implied he’d pay me for looking after it, but I was struggling to hear anything, just an underwater-style echo in my head that accompanied his moving lips. In a daze, I’d walked into my house, thrown the bag on the bed, vomited and called the police.