What a start to the week. Yesterday, she’d been cooking a roast chicken for her family and today, well, here she was, covered in mud, numb with cold, and surrounded by dead bodies. At least she’d been able to finish her chicken last night, along with a few glasses of red wine with her father.

She spotted the young fell runner who’d caught her eye because of his unfailing resilience and the aid he’d given in the first few hours, when he was truly needed. She approached him and offered him a sip of coffee. He took it gratefully. He was wrapped in a blanket, but looked chilled to his bones: he’d given most of his clothes to casualties in need of makeshift bandages.

‘You need to get home now. What’s your name? You’ve been absolutely bloody amazing,’ she said.

‘Glynn,’ he replied.

He had a slight accent and his deep brown eyes told her that it wasn’t just English blood running through the veins that ran along his arms, bulging with vascularity. He was a typical fell runner: like a streaky piece of bacon, zero per cent body fat and long, lean muscles. But he had a warm face and he’d impressed her.

‘Where were you trained to handle such situations?’ she asked.

‘I wild hike a lot and so you have to be prepared. Sometimes I volunteer with the MRT. I keep up to date,’ he said.

He spoke quietly and Kelly liked his unassuming manner. He wasn’t showy or arrogant, and he displayed no signs that he was likely to brag about what he’d done on the mountainside this afternoon.

‘You saw everything?’ she asked. She figured she might as well begin her interviews now, so she could pass on to the AAIB any witness testimony that was fresh. Besides, she wanted to hear how it happened.

‘I was over the Col and halfway up to the Pike. I heard the helicopter across the valley, but you hear them sometimes and I didn’t stop to look at first, I was aiming to smash a personal best. But then I knew it was struggling. The cloud was low, but it was clearing, and I saw it smash into racers behind me. It happened so fast.’

‘Of course. It’ll take a while to ascertain what happened. Are you okay with being called as a witness? We’ll need your statement in due course.’

He nodded. ‘That’s fine.’ He looked down.

‘You knew a lot of them?’ she asked.

He nodded again. ‘I think the two runners who are missing are under there; they were behind me,’ he said, pointing at the main part of the wreckage. The medic who’d given so much aid to the victims still hadn’t found his son, who’d been in second place.