Just as I’d about decided to give up and head back to the real world, where job interviews consisted of people answering questions in a warm room, I spotted a lessening of the grey up ahead, and a few spiky metres later burst out of the tree line.

The loch was right in front of me, the water lapping at the shallow slope of a pebble beach. Across the water, mountains encircled the far shore in a tapestry of dark greens, browns and purple. It was stunning, instantly dispelling the discomfort I’d endured to get here. I could have stared at it for hours, except that further along the shoreline was a row of boats, each one painted in a different colour. It was easy to spot the patches of ice dotted about the surface of the water, and even easier to see Calvin and Lincoln sprinting away around the edge of the loch, Summer stumbling after them in her ankle boots.

She stopped only a short distance beyond the boats, so that as I hurried closer I could hear her yelling into her phone. ‘They’ve gone around the lake and back into the trees. I’ll drop a pin in the map so you know where to head them off. No, I haven’t got it yet. I’ll look now.’

She turned to find me climbing into the red rowing boat. I’d scanned the ice within reach of the shore and seen nothing. The only other way to find a clue would be to risk stepping onto it or look from within the boat. It didn’t take long to spot a small wooden box tucked up beside the bow.

‘Oh, brilliant! Well done.’

I jerked in surprise as Summer peered over my shoulder, having somehow sprung up beside me without me noticing.

‘What does it say?’

‘Why do you want to know? You’re only going to let someone else work it out and then sneak after them.’

‘What, and you didn’t get here so fast by following me?’ She pulled the kind of soppy pout that might work on our boss but made me want to slap her. ‘Don’t be a spoilsport just because I have Driver. What happened to us weathergirls sticking together?’

Ignoring her, I snapped a picture of the clue, grabbed a token, was about to dump the box back on the ice and then decided that Summer was right. If I was sticking to my interview strategy of being myself, I wasn’t about to be petty. Instead I handed Summer the box, clambered back out of the boat, and headed off in the direction I’d seen the other team leaving a few minutes earlier.