She excused herself and took her backpack to the ladies’ toilet where she changed quickly into clean clothes. She took off her boots and carried them back to the bar, where Johnny and Glynn had taken seats adjacent to a roaring fire, and Kelly listened as Glynn regaled the audience. The landlord had given out blankets and Kelly was reminded of the unity of people when under duress. The Goat was a natural: not too showy, but engaging enough to satisfy his audience. She felt Johnny’s eyes burn into her. She hadn’t seen him in any other capacity but as Lizzie’s father in two months. Now she could feel herself wondering what he’d been up to, and the question that plagued her every day popped uninvited into her head: did he stand by his testimony in support of Ian Burton?

Her cheeks burned from the heat of the fire, and her belly smouldered with the whiskey. The other drinkers hung on Glynn’s account of the afternoon, and at one point she caught Johnny’s gaze. She looked away.

‘So the’ say one’s in the hospital in a critical condition – one from the ’copter itself, some Lord or other, fancy bloke from London. PM’s made a statement an’ all,’ the landlord said.

Murmurs of concern.

‘He was at the climate summit,’ a female hiker chipped in.