But she was waiting to see what he would say. She knew everything that happened to him today. He’d told her. He’d wanted to tell her, because this time the burden of fright and dark fancy was more than he could carry alone. If he was going to lie now he would have to do it in front of her. Not an option. He swallowed.

‘Into the trees.’

If he expected Craig McGee to spring forward and cuff him he was wrong. The policeman looked unmoved.

‘What were you doing in the trees, Mr Hunt?’

‘Beats me. I blacked out. I woke up there.’

Craig nodded as though that were a perfectly reasonable explanation, as though Sam had said he went for a soda.

‘Good alibi, huh?’ Sam said weakly.

‘You’re not under suspicion here, Mr Hunt,’ Craig lied.

Katie looked relieved. For a moment the ugly thought had crossed her mind that Sam was going to lie. What then? What would that have meant? All this had to be just a hideous and woeful coincidence.

Craig looked at Katie and back at Sam. ‘Are these blackouts common? Do you have a medical condition?’

Katie jumped in. She could see Sam was on a spit being roasted. ‘Sam fainted about a week ago for the first time when that avalanche explosion thing happened. The doctor thinks he had a virus. We’re kind of worried, if you want the truth. This isn’t fun.’

‘No. I can imagine, Mrs Hunt. You must both be very concerned.’

Sylvia lying on the bathroom floor. Sylvia whose blackouts were not blackouts but faints from the pain she was concealing from her husband. Sylvia who told him she’d just fallen and hit her head. Yes, they must be very concerned. Craig breathed deeply through his nose and dragged his wailing soul back from that bathroom.

‘What do you remember about when you woke up? What time was it for instance?’

Sam leaned forward, his legs wide apart, his hands clasped between his legs. ‘I think it was around one.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like were you hurt? Were you bleeding or showing signs of having maybe been hit?’

‘No. Nothing like that. I was just on my back in the snow.’

Katie looked away from Sam to the two policemen. ‘How old was the kid?’

Daniel spoke quickly, beating Craig. ‘We can’t divulge anything about the victim, ma’am.’

Craig over-ruled him. ‘Yeah, well you’ll see it on the breakfast news. He was eighteen years old, Mrs Hunt. And he didn’t die very quietly or gracefully.’

Katie crossed her arms and rubbed her elbows. ‘Shit.’

‘Where did your footprints lead, Mr Hunt?’

‘What?’

‘In the snow. When you woke. Did they lead from the station to where you woke up, or did they suggest you’d been somewhere else?’