Then the sound of cracking ice pierced the air. The bird flung up into the sky and I cursed myself. I went to step back but there was another crack. I watched in horror as a line zigzagged away from my feet.

I leant down and slid my camera across the ice towards the loch’s banks, watching in relief as it glided to safety. But when I went to follow it, I suddenly plunged down, neck-deep in icy water.

I tried to grasp at the ice but it broke under my fingertips. The sub-zero temperature gripped me, making me begin to tremble uncontrollably.

This quick? Surely not?

I twisted around, paddling my legs and heaving myself onto a thicker ledge of ice, but I just slid back down, fully submerging this time, gasping for breath and the pain of the cold when I reemerged.

You’ve really done it this time, Gwyneth.

I looked towards the lodge. ‘Help!’ I called out through freezing lips. ‘Help!’ I said again, screaming this time.

As I said that, a piece of detached ice nearby floated towards me and smashed into my cheek. I fell sideways in shock, my hat falling off, freezing cold water swirling around my exposed head, the pain unbearable. I tried to grapple with the ice again but it broke, the fragments sliding over my freezing hands.

I kicked my legs, frantic now, gasping for breath, vision blurring.

I could feel myself growing weaker, my breath coming in spurts. Above me, the ptarmigan reappeared, circling around me, the feathers of its fluffy white wings lifting in the winter breeze. For a foolish moment, I hoped my camera was still capturing it, so close like I’d wanted.

Was this it, my last few moments alive? Of all the life-threatening positions I’d put myself in throughout my career so far, it had to be this that would take me: a frozen loch in my own country.

I thought of my parents then. Would they mourn my passing? Or feel relief I was gone?

Maybe relief. It was something I suddenly felt in that moment: relief I didn’t have to continue contending with the guilt, the sadness, the gaping hole left by their rejection. It was such a contrast to the fighting spirit people knew me for.

Finally, time to stop fighting.

But then Dylan appeared.

Chapter Five

I heard Dylan before I saw him, the sound of his heavy boots on the still intact ice and his quick breath. Then I smelt cigars and whisky. He leaned over me, all coal-dark hair and eyelashes. There was a look of panic in his eyes. He wrapped one long arm around my chest, yanking me up from the freezing loch and carefully treading ice to walk me back to the loch’s banks.