‘You can get it outside,’ Nina said impatiently. ‘It won’t be fresh in here for much longer!’

Eleanor clenched her jaw in annoyance, but slapped her hand on the scanner. The great door began to slide aside.

‘Where does it come out?’ Eddie asked, regaining his breath.

‘At the foot of the mountain,’ she replied. ‘The estate was a sheep ranch. The old farmhouse is still there. It’s ruined – but there’s a hatch inside it.’

‘What’re we going to do when we get out?’ Nina asked Eddie.

‘I’m thinking it’d be best for everyone if we got the hell out of here and went home to New York with as little trouble as possible,’ he replied, giving the woman he was holding a look of meaningful menace.

Eleanor scowled, but nodded reluctantly. ‘Agreed.’

Nina glanced back. ‘The key’s still down there, though.’

‘Well, let it bloody stay there!’ her husband exclaimed. ‘Besides, you’d need a full hazmat suit to get it out now.’

‘And how long will it take for someone to rustle one up? They could get the key and the sarcophagus – then this whole thing would start all over again.’

The door opened far enough for them to slip through. Eddie checked the room beyond, a small bare space with a ladder running up one wall, then carried Eleanor in. ‘Maybe we should get the IHA involved.’ He looked up the ladder. ‘There a lock on this hatch?’

‘Just a bolt on the inside,’ Eleanor told him.

‘Okay. Nina, you go up first and open it, then I’ll bring her out.’

Nina ascended the ladder. The bolt was set into the hatch’s underside, and moved easily. The same could not be said of the hatch itself, a solid piece of cast metal. She climbed higher and pressed her shoulder against it, using both legs for maximum leverage to lift it.

A cold wind blew in. Dusk had fallen, just enough light in the leaden sky for her to pick out the ruined building around her. She forced the hatch up and climbed out, shivering as chill gusts caught her.

Eddie, bearing Eleanor over his shoulder, climbed up behind her. ‘There any more cars at the house? I don’t want to walk all the way back to Queenstown.’

‘Yes, two,’ the old lady told him. ‘And there’s also the helicopter.’

‘Donny’s probably taken it already,’ said Nina. ‘I can’t imagine he’ll want to stick around.’

‘Donny!’ Eleanor snapped. ‘That ungrateful little—’ She scowled. ‘He left me to die!’

‘You can give him a nice surprise by turning up while he’s delivering your eulogy,’ Eddie said, picking his way over rubble to a collapsed section of wall. The lake was a pale swathe of reflected sky against the dark mountains, the mansion’s lights lower down the hillside. ‘Through here. We can get back to the house.’