He sat down heavily with a groan and gazed dumbly at the big tanned blond guys dancing around in the sand. The commentator kept referring to them as players. Looked like pricks to Daniel. He smiled thinking how long one of those blond fairies with their big golden pecs would last out on the ice with a hockey stick in their hand and Grady O’Farrel at their heels.

From deep inside the house there was a low noise, a scuffling growling sound. Daniel didn’t move. He waited, every sense on its toes, and it came again. He still had his gun on. Thank God, it still hung there on his hip. Slowly, silently, he slipped off the sofa onto his knees and faced the door, with the big green cushions between him and the opening. He unclipped his holster and slipped out the gun, holding it to his chest as he listened again. The guy on the TV was yelling again about the great strategy from someone called Neddy, and Daniel left it that way, but when the noise came again he could hear that it came plainly from the kitchen at the back of the house. It sounded like tearing. Something being ripped.

He stood up and quickly got his back against the wall behind the door, his gun up at his shoulder and ready. He slipped the safety catch off and cocked it. He waited until he heard the sound again, then while it was happening, leapt through the doorway into the lobby and slid along the wall to the kitchen door. The lights were on in the kitchen. They hadn’t been when he got in, but they were now. Jesus. He had an intruder. His mind worked fast. Maybe more than one. What if the sensor wasn’t broken? He whirled his head round to see if he was being trapped from behind. No one there. The lobby was clear, the front door still closed and locked. Daniel Hawk took a gulp of air, closed his eyes briefly in a silent prayer, and leapt through the kitchen doorway.

‘FREEZE!’

He landed crouched with his legs apart, both hands on his gun, pointing at the source of the noise.

A coyote. A thin, leggy, hungry-looking animal, tearing away at a broken and spilled plastic trash bag all over the floor. It looked up at him, something white and wet hanging from its mouth. Just like the coyote in the ski car park. Just exactly like it. A stupid, hungry scavenger, taking advantage of Tess’s sloppy waste disposal. He wanted to laugh with relief, and at the farcical sight he was creating, standing like a Secret Service marksman, pointing his hardware at a dumb coyote. And then he remembered the kitchen light. The one that had been turned on somehow since he’d got home. The animal grinned up at him with a leer.

‘Helps to see what you’re doing, doesn’t it, Daniel?’