He gave it a second’s pause. Let the silence breathe. ‘I’m Staff Sergeant McGee of the Silver Detachment and this is my constable, Daniel Hawk.’

Sam nodded, suspicious. ‘What’s up?’ he said wearily.

Craig McGee replaced the magazine and cleared his throat. His constable opened a notebook.

‘There’s been a serious incident on the mountain, Mr Hunt. Happened today. We need to talk to everyone who was there. See if you remembered anything that might help us.’

Sam withered. ‘What kind of an incident?’

Craig looked to Daniel and then pulled at his face with a hand. ‘A murder. Kid killed in the trees.’

Daniel Hawk raised an eyebrow. Since when did the interviewing officer reveal the nature of the crime to a suspect? His superior had obviously spent too long behind a desk and lunching with the mayor. He looked down at his notebook, annoyed.

Katie was watching Sam. His face looked as if the flesh had been sucked from behind the skin, his eyes focusing somewhere outside the room.

Sam spoke softly, as though trying the words for the first time. ‘In the trees.’

Craig narrowed his eyes and continued. ‘You were on the chairlift station below the area of the incident at the time of the death, Mr Hunt. Did you hear or see anything unusual?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Are you sure? Take your time.’

‘I was sick.’

Hawk was scribbling as Craig continued.

‘So did you leave your station at all while you were taken ill?’

Sam swallowed. ‘Yeah. I left it for a bit.’

‘To go where, Mr Hunt?’

Sam’s world was shrinking. If his worst fears had been stalking him, circling him in the dark, they were on him now, pulling him low. He left to go into the trees, for Christ’s sake. Into the fucking trees. And what were they going to make of that?

A murder. A dead kid. In the trees. This wasn’t happening. But three people looking at him like they’d paid money to stare, assured him it was.

He raced to find an exit from this nightmare. The guy in yellow. He would tell them he’d been in the trees. What was he going to say? I blacked out at the time you’re talking about, and I woke up on my back in the pines? Nothing suspicious so far, eh Mr McGee? Want to see my other truck trader mags now?

He looked at Katie who seemed smaller than usual. Sam wanted to shout Help! at her, to have her cradle him in those soft arms and make these big guys in their big dark anoraks go away. Their rustling massive presence in the room was like an assault.