I continue waving my arms, hoping the operator will see us, even if they can’t hear us, and start the lift running again.

“I haven’t backed our laptop up for weeks,” Heather tells Dale. “We have to find it.”

“You don’t have to remind me,” Dale mutters.

Curtis turns on him. “What were you two doing down here for all this time anyway?”

“Hey,” Dale protests. “Don’t go pinning this on us. You left the room twice earlier and you know it.”

Heather and Dale certainly had time to go through our bags and hide the computers while they were down here, but potentially any of us could have rushed down and done it.

Or was it someone else?

Either way, this was meticulously planned. Whoever did this installed us upstairs in the function room, correctly assuming we wouldn’t drag our bags all the way around the building with us.

“We searched the entire ground floor,” Heather tells us. “Then I remembered the laptop.”

“Find anything?” Curtis says.

“Whole lot of locked doors,” Dale says.

“No staff?” I ask. “Or a landline?”

“We found two empty phone sockets,” Heather says. “One in the bar, one in the kitchen.”

Empty because someone removed the phones? I can see from her face that she thinks so.

“What are all the locked doors?” Heather asks.

“Find a control room?” Curtis says. “Or a Mountain Rescue room? First-aid room?”

“No.”

“Well, then.” Curtis goes over to rattle the door of the operator booth. It’s locked; of course it is. He cups his hand to the glass and peers through the window.

I join him at the glass. “Any sign of a phone or radio?”

“No.” There’s frustration in his tone.

Brent comes to see. A crash from behind makes us whirl around. The security camera lies in pieces on the concrete. Snowboard raised above his head, Dale stands beneath what remains of its mounting. I blink down at the remnants, stunned.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Curtis demands.

Dale lowers his board. “Don’t want them watching us, do we?”

I battle for calm. “But they might have rescued us.”

Curtis picks up the largest of the components. We don’t need an electrician to tell us the camera is damaged beyond repair. He tosses it aside. “You’ve just severed our one potential link to the valley. Anyone see any other cameras in this place?”

“There’s probably one in the restaurant,” I say.

Dale clears his throat. Somehow I sense what he’s going to say.

“I smashed it.”

Brent and I exchange looks and I’m pretty sure we’re all thinking the same thing. Is Dale the one behind this? But why?

Curtis marches up to him. “Of all the stupid things.”

“Oh, get real,” Dale says. “If someone’s down there watching us on camera, they’re in on this. They have to be.”