“Keep your fucking voice down,” Dale says. “She didn’t need it, did she? What do her parents care about a couple grand? They’re loaded.”

Oh God. I think they’re talking about Saskia. So was it Dale who used her credit card, not Saskia?

“She owed us,” Dale says. “And I didn’t hear you complain about spending it.”

Muffled sobs. “If this comes out I could lose my law license. We’d lose everything.”

“Don’t you dare go to pieces on me now,” Dale hisses. “Nobody knows. We got away with it, so why are you still going on about it?”

“Did we? Or is that why we’re here?” Heather sniffs. “Because someone suspects.”

“What, Milla, you mean?” Dale says.

“Or someone pretending to be her. You shouldn’t have stolen it.”

“We’ll be down from here by the end of the day. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut till then.”

Heather starts crying again. I’m bristling at how Dale’s talking to her. There’s no affection. He sounds angry and bitter. Curtis is right. Dale has changed.

“I’ll get you your tablets,” he says.

There’s a draft as someone enters the bathroom. The shower curtain flutters. I hold my breath. My wrist still remembers the clench of Dale’s fingers. If he did that to me down there, what would he do if he caught me in here?

I hear the tap running. The curtain flutters again. Has he gone?

Heather sniffs some more. “Thanks.”

“We need to get back out there,” Dale says.

A click as the door shuts, then silence. I slump in relief. That was close.

My mind is reeling. Does this mean they didn’t kill her? If they did, they’d be freaking out about that rather than the credit card, surely. But I can’t rule it out. One of them could have killed her and the other one doesn’t know.

Better get on with the search. I’ve checked everywhere in their dorm. All is quiet in the corridor, so I creep out. Who next—Curtis or Brent?

I hurry three doors down to Curtis’s dorm. It’s a lot neater than mine—I might have known he would make the bed—and it smells faintly of musk, his deodorant perhaps. I want to get this over with as fast as possible because I would hate for him to catch me in here.

His navy-and-white Sparks Snowboarding bag lies on the lower bunk, partly open. I unzip it all the way around and peel back the flap. The floorboards seem to wobble beneath me and I have to grip the bunk before I fall down.

There on top of the folded pile of clothes lies Saskia’s lift pass.

My hand shakes as I pick it up.

He shouldn’t have this.