I dropped to my knees, the forest floor hard beneath me, snow caught in the folds of a spruce tree to my left, and he stopped just in front of the rifle. He was dressed in a thick winter coat with a fur-lined hood, a pair of combat trousers and an old, scuffed pair of black boots. The knife was in the right-hand side of his stomach, embedded to the side of the hip. As he kicked the rifle away with his heel, he winced.

‘Is Adrian dead?’ he asked.

His voice sounded desperate.

I looked at the gun he was holding, a white finger on the trigger, the blue of one of his eyes just above the sights as he angled the weapon down at me. I could hear my heart in my ears, feel my pulse in my throat. I didn’t know what the right answer was.

‘Yes,’ I said simply.

He nodded, looking off to a spot over my shoulder, and, as he did, I saw that his eyes were wet. It was marginally warmer under the canopy, but still freezing, the cold bedded in, so it could easily have been the temperature. But the muted flicker in his face told me it wasn’t.

It was relief.

He looked at me again, wiped one of his eyes with the tip of his thumb, and then – his face creased, pained – crouched down and got on the ground. Shuffling back, bringing the rifle with him, he leaned against the thin, marbled trunk of a cedar tree.

I watched him, saying nothing, as he started hunting around in his pocket, and when he found what he was looking for he brought it out, clasped inside the hollow of his palm. I was eight feet from him, maybe as much as ten, and initially it was hard to see what he was holding, but then he said, ‘You used to be a journalist …’

He threw across what he’d been holding.

It landed in a mix of dirt and frosted grass beside me: a small notebook, a pen clipped to the spiral binding. I picked it up and opened it. It was new, totally empty.

‘You know shorthand?’ he asked.

I frowned.

‘Do you or don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Then write this down.’

I studied him, his eyes, his expression, understanding what he was asking me to do but not understanding why. But then he gestured to the notebook with his free hand, and I unclipped the pen and turned to the first page.

‘What’s going on, Isaac?’

‘Just write down what I say, or I swear to God I’ll kill you where you sit.’ He stared at me, his eyes hard. ‘You think I won’t do it?’

I held up a hand. ‘No, I believe you will.’

‘Then do what I say.’