Craig walked back to where Eric and Pasqual were drinking coffee with the office staff to give them instructions and keep them calm while Daniel did his best to swing his legs out from the plastic seat without banging a shin, and failed. Bell grinned, and carried on writing down everything a ski patroller who’d been nowhere near the incident, hadn’t seen the boy and didn’t know what time he’d finished, had to say to him.

Outside in the almost empty parking lot eight Crown Vics sat like unpopular arcade games, their lights flashing aimlessly. Here and there the darkened silhouette of a police officer stood beside or leaned on their vehicles, as the red and blue licked across the blackened snow like disco lights. Even more uselessly, an ambulance sat poised for action. Daniel mused, as he crunched across the frozen lot, on what they thought an ambulance could do for that assortment of meat cuts.

He’d parked the Ford at the edge of the trees, well away from the lodge. He always did that at an incident – parked a distance away to leave room for whatever needed to get close in there. Ambulances, fire trucks, whatever. Courtesy really.

The Ford was a dark square by the trees, its presence betrayed only by a snow-dusted roof, courtesy of another flurry, and the reflections of the winking red-and-blue lights on those surfaces not dulled by mud or frost.

As he approached the shape and put a hand out to open the door, Daniel heard a sound. A low, ugly, animal sound about fifteen or twenty feet away from the car. He paused, his hand an inch away from the chrome handle, his heart starting to beat a little faster. The noise stopped. He listened, not breathing, his hand losing interest in the door handle and instinctively creeping towards the gun at his hip.

There it was again. A snarling, low, throaty growl accompanied by a tearing sound. It was straight ahead of him. The back of Daniel’s neck crawled. He was sure he was being watched. He could feel it. Something malicious was looking at him, assessing him, weighing him up. He tried to deny the sensation, asking himself where that ridiculous abstract concept of being watched comes from? How do the prey of the world’s greatest predators know when the lion is in the grass or the snake is hanging from the branch? They do. Some sixth sense, some ancient inherited skill tells the dinner that the diner is reading the menu, and Daniel Hawk could feel it right now.

The noise ceased again, but he could sense it was merely an intermission. Slowly, carefully and quietly, Daniel opened the car door and slid inside. With the door still open he turned the ignition key and the lights burst into life.