She wanted to go around the tracks, even though snow was coming, and it likely wouldn’t matter. Which meant she was worried about more than just moving the body: she thought it was a crime scene, unlike the policeman. He certainly wasn’t canvassing the area, taking photos. He might have to rely on the photos of the stickybeaking guests, in which case he’d be glad he hadn’t shooed us off.

It was a silent agreement that Andy and I, who were standing at the corpse’s feet, would grab the ankles, and Sofia and the cop would take the wrists. We tried our best to keep him in the air, but as we shuffled down the hill in shin-deep snow, his head occasionally lolled back and gouged a valley in the fresh powder. He wasn’t that heavy, but he was hard to wrangle. I hooked my fingers into the side of his boot to help my grip. They were sturdy, steel-capped. Sofia was walking backwards, trying to hold his wrist to her chest, but the cop had turned, head into the wind, his arms behind him at waist height. I could hear Andy grunting beside me. He turned to me halfway down and I saw his jaw was set with grim concentration. Spit fizzed in his beard.

He saw me looking at him. ‘You good, mate? Need a break?’

I shook my head. I didn’t say: I’m fine. I’ve done this before.

CHAPTER 7

A stack of wooden pallets in the maintenance shed subbed in as an autopsy table. Around us were several benches strewn with tools, a snowmobile with half its guts pulled out, a few generators along the far wall beside a stack of tyres, and an assortment of tennis-racquet-esque ski shoes hanging on nails. There was no heating, and with the tin walls and concrete floor, it was like stepping into a fridge. It would do as a makeshift morgue. The one benefit of the extreme cold was the lack of odour from the body.

We lowered the body onto the stack of pallets, which were slightly too small, and the man’s limbs sagged over the sides. We took a moment to recoup, breathing heavily. I tried not to look at his discoloured face. I’d read about frostbite, of blackened extremities – noses, fingers – dropping off, but I’d never seen it up close. The policeman finally decided to take a few pictures. Andy rubbed a toe up and down the back of his calf. Sofia shivered, cupped her hands over her mouth and blew into them, then remembered she’d just been handling a corpse and returned them to her sides. The policeman finished with his photos and turned to us.