I had to be standing on the roof to get a single bar of reception, and even then it was hit and miss. Which I’m well aware is, like, a thing in these books. You’ll just have to get over it. And I know there’s a storm front coming in. And I know I glossed over the fact that there’s a freaking library with a fireplace in the building (which happens to be where I will solve the damn thing). It’s pretty much the whole How-To-Write-A-Mystery checklist at this point. If it’s any consolation, no one’s phone runs out of battery until Chapter 33. So the reception and the battery thing is a cliché. I don’t know what to tell you – we’re in the mountains. What do you expect?

‘I’m sorry about before,’ I said. Seeing as we were shoulder to shoulder, I spoke outwards, lobbing my apology into the void of the mountain. It’s the only way blokes know how to show humility, by pretending we’re at a urinal. ‘I’m still processing everything, but I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I just figure, you know, today, we could have each other’s back. Shared experience.’

‘How about you fix your marriage, and I’ll fix mine?’

It was a lot of bravado for someone clinging to nicotine for courage. But I didn’t want to start another argument so I just said, ‘Fair.’

We stood in silence, watching the mountain. A faint mechanical clanking came from the distant chairlift. It was still early enough for some people to be pulling on their boots, but I figured the most avid had already been up for hours, finding the freshest snow. I could see roads tracing their way through treetops like veins, a river gouging the white plateau below, and all the way downhill to where the ground turned from pure white to mottled and patchy brown. The wind howled across the roof, rippling the clamped umbrellas that were skewered through the centres of a row of wooden tables. Andy was right: there were three artificial grass squares with golf tees on them, lining one side of the roof. At the far end, a spa behind an aluminium fence, its cover half open, mist shrouding the water.

My eyes couldn’t resist darting to where the body had been found. It was a long way from anything: the nearest resort’s ski-slope on the ridge, the tree line up the hill, or even the entrance road. From up high, my perspective was clear enough to form an opinion. There was no way the dead man had stumbled to where he lay unless he was already at Sky Lodge: it was just too far.