‘Of course,’ I say, though this hadn’t occurred to me until that very second. ‘They’d come by the office earlier to fill in our standard form – you know: name, address, level of skiing, the standard disclaimer about skiing at their own risk, contact details …’ I drop in the disclaimer as if it’s unimportant, but I see the officer make a note. While remaining poker-faced on the outside, inwardly I smile.

‘I see. And was there anything unusual about that?’

‘No, nothing unusual, except that they’d both marked themselves as expert skiers when it turned out that wasn’t really the case.’

‘I see. So at what point did it become clear they weren’t expert skiers?’

‘Almost as soon as we set off.’

‘Right. So what did you do then?’

‘Well, they said they wanted to go into the back country, but I could see they wouldn’t be capable – well, more that it wasn’t the best idea, given their level of experience and the conditions.’ I add this to make out I was erring on the side of caution when the truth is I couldn’t be bothered to try to coax them down something they were going to be incredibly slow on in blizzard conditions.

‘So instead I took them down Couloir Noir – you know the one?’ He nods. ‘Officially it’s off-piste, but it starts and ends at the lift and isn’t too hairy, so I figured it was a compromise between keeping the clients safe and giving them what they want.’

Argh, I shouldn’t have said that. Because I didn’t keep them safe, did I? Not my fault. Not my fault.

‘I understand. So at what point did you realize the men had gone missing?’

‘They started going down the track quite slowly with me leading at first – off-piste, I generally think that’s safer, especially in bad weather. There was a bit of an issue because one of them turned out to be a speed merchant and kept overtaking me, with his brother racing behind him too so as not to be outdone.’

Good one. Put some blame on the clients. Not my fault.

‘To begin with it was OK though. The weather was getting worse, but they seemed to be getting more confident, turning better, stopping less, definitely going faster though, however much I urged them to slow down and follow me. Then we came to that bend – you know the one? They’d gone ahead again, and by the time I got round it, a few seconds behind them, I couldn’t see them.’

I wipe my palms again. I wish I knew where the man had been found. I’m not sure exactly what happened and when, who was in front and behind and at what point – I can’t remember any of that now. But I can’t say that.