They sat there quietly, trying to conserve heat as the evening grew blacker, the wind sharper.

‘What if they can’t find us?’ she asked him.

‘They will.’

‘But they’re taking so long.’

He paused. ‘They’ll come.’

She shivered again and he clasped her tighter, holding her so closely she could have been a baby in his arms. She felt herself warm against him.

‘. . . You’re being very kind to someone you hate so much . . . You could push me off this cliff and no one would be any the wiser.’

‘Don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me.’

She lifted her head and looked up at him. He looked back at her, the whites of his eyes the only bright spots in the dark. He looked cold and haunted, incredibly tired – and she felt a sudden, inexplicable, urge to press her lips to his. As though it was the natural thing to do for warmth, human contact, body heat . . . A kindness she could give back.

She saw it run through his eyes too, a surrender of the hostilities that marked their every encounter. She watched his gaze roam over her face in that way it had in the pool, when acrimony had shape-shifted into passion, when suddenly shouting wasn’t enough and the verbal had had to become physical. She felt it again now, the need for emotional conflict to find a physical form. They were both cold, frightened, shocked, grieving . . .

She heard a thud-thud-thudding and he lifted his head, like a wolf nosing the air, as a bright light suddenly rounded the mountain, heading closer. Almost instantly, his grip released her, his legs sliding down and letting the wind twist around her once more. ‘. . . They’re here.’

She walked, her head tucked down against the wind and sleet. It felt strange to walk on the flat in trainers after weeks of trekking on slopes in ski boots. So many bodies, so many lights . . . The shop windows twinkled with extravagant displays – snow-dusted reindeer and life-size sleighs, giant wooden Advent houses and mannequins dressed in velvets and sequins, broadcasting that it was time to sparkle, to celebrate . . .

She kept her gaze averted, eyes fixed on the rubber-soled feet of the people coming towards her, stepping around her. Mikey Schultz was dead. That beautiful, vibrant man-child, on the brink of glory and success . . .