The phone was off the hook to stop the reporters getting another chance to con a statement from them, and the television set on the office wall was full of the CNN guy, live outside the office complex, pronouncing doom on their ski company. Who was going to bring the family skiing to a resort where the kids got sliced up?

Sindon sat in the strip-lit office, listening to the phones next door being answered by the cops in the outer office, tired and hungry from the long wretched day, wishing she would shut the fuck up and let them both go home. There was no more to be done. The police had asked them everything except their goddamn inside leg measurements and he’d had enough.

Pasqual pushed the mute button on the remote and slammed the rectangle of black plastic on the desk.

‘If it was that fucking Indian the cops are so interested in, I tell you I’ll break his dirty neck with my own hands before they get him behind bars.’

Eric thought that unlikely. He also couldn’t believe that Sam Hunt had anything to do with this horror. But the RCs had plainly thought otherwise. They had wanted to know everything. Sam had been with the company for years and though he was only a groomer, Eric knew him and Katie pretty well. Sam a killer? No way.

‘You know Sam well as I do. Don’t be crazy.’

Of course she did. In fact she’d had the hots for him a few years ago until she realized she was drawing a blank. It had irked her bad. ‘It’s Indians, Eric. I told you they’re more trouble than they’re worth. How many we got now?’

He sighed. ‘Three. We don’t have them, Pasqual. They’re not Mandingos, for Christ’s sake. Three Kinchuinicks work here. Sam Hunt, Endel LaBelle and Perry Nine Saddles.’

‘Shit. They deserve everything they get with dumb names like that. Perry fucking Nine Saddles.’

‘Perry sure doesn’t deserve what he’s got.’