A moment later, a copy of the report appeared within Saul’s vision. He focused on the dashboard, thus projecting the report’s contents on to it. He quickly shuffled through several UP-generated video-files of Sanders’ bedraggled form being pulled from the water, along with several still shots of the motorboat and the bullet-holes drilled through its hull. He next skimmed the text, trying to build a picture in his mind of events as Gibbs had already described them.

Glancing away from the dashboard, Saul saw they had almost reached the cabin.

‘I figure the dead guy and one other chased your man Cairns down to the lake, meaning to kill him,’ said Gibbs. ‘Maybe they meant to shoot him out in the middle of the lake, where it’d be easier for them to dump the body. Except Cairns got away and took the boat for himself – which would at least explain the bullet holes.’

‘Two men chased him? Do you have any evidence for that?’

‘It’s as clear as daylight if you take a good look at the hillside up there. You’ll find a shitload of skidding footprints and broken branches. There were two of them all right.’

Saul nodded. ‘And you reckon your dead guy shot at him from the shore, then waded out into the water, and got hit on the head by the motorboat?’

Gibbs took one hand off the wheel and waved it in the air. ‘Something like that. I don’t have any better ideas at any rate.’

Maybe Sanders had been in the boat along with Jeff, thought Saul, while the third man was waiting on the shore. Sanders had fallen out, and got himself rammed in the head, then the third man had tried to shoot Jeff before he could get away. And if Sanders had been present, did that make Donohue the third man?

‘Look, I’m dying of fucking curiosity here,’ said Gibbs, ‘but I know I shouldn’t stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong. The important thing is that you make sure ASI understands the victim’s body has been misidentified. Cairns is still out there somewhere.’

And somebody doesn’t want me, or anyone else, to know that either Jeff or Mitchell are still alive, thought Saul. Both of them worked for the ASI . . . and now Donohue or someone else was trying their damnedest to cover something up.

As the truck lurched around a corner, Saul saw the cabin itself for the first time. Gibbs parked close to the edge of the wooded slope out front, and they climbed out. Mountains rose beyond the far side of the lake, and the air was startlingly cold as Saul drew it into his lungs. He walked over to the edge of the driveway and peered down through the trees towards the lakeshore, to where he could just make out a wharf and a boarded-up hut.

‘Let’s take a look inside,’ he suggested.