She kept putting one foot in front of the other, her hand on the strap of the backpack on her shoulder which was her only luggage. She had packed nothing more than toiletries, knickers and a couple of t-shirts. She didn’t want stuff; she didn’t want to wait. She just wanted to get away from there and from everything that had happened. She had caught the first train back to Salzburg this morning, only Matty aware of her plans and up to wave her off as the chalet slept. The plane had taken off and landed without her even noticing as she’d sat by the window, her head pressed against the glass.

The world felt like it had been pulled inside out; everything was inverted. Life felt chaotic and as fragile as glass. She had almost died. Blinded by shock and horror, she would have skied straight off a cliff if Kit Foley hadn’t chanced to have seen her . . . If. Her life right now, today and for ever after, hung upon that singular if.

She’d barely slept, her body jolting violently with the sensation of falling. And when she did dream, her mind kept replaying the image of that solitary snowboard swinging up and down the walls of the pipe as the news about Mikey reverberated through the band of brothers. She already knew she wouldn’t ever step foot up there, on that glacier, again.

She turned into the street. There was a playground and she could hear the sound of children playing; she realized how alien it sounded to her – unbridled laughter, sheer joy . . . When had she last heard laughter like that? When had she last laughed like that?

The slam of a car door made her look up. A little boy was scrambling out of the back of a black Audi estate, having to slide down the side of the seat till his feet touched the ground. His father stepped out too, reaching back into the car for something in the central compartment. His phone? Glasses? A beautiful dark-haired woman in a padded Moncler coat walked around from the far side and picked up a toddler from a car seat, kissing pink, chubby cheeks.

Wasn’t theirs the life Kit had told her would inevitably be hers?

Clover watched as the father walked around and opened the boot of the car, pulling out a Christmas tree, still constrained in its net. The little boy was hopping on the pavement excitedly, clapping his hands as his father effortlessly hoisted the tree onto his shoulder and shut the car boot. She watched the locking lights flash twice as the young family turned towards the smart stone apartment building, the little boy charging up the steps first.

The mother clutched the baby close to her chest, shielding her daughter from the cold and sleet, as she followed. The father went last, glancing around protectively before he turned in to climb the steps.