He placed the hourglass on the floor and pulled at the door with more force – it still wouldn’t budge. “What the hell?”

He bent down so that his eyes were at the same level as the handle and keyed the torch on his mobile, peering at the gap between door and frame. The mortice lock had engaged, he could see the over-engineered Victorian slab of metal bridging the gap and locking him inside. He stared stupidly at the empty keyhole – there had not been a key in the lock ever since his father had died – there was never a need this far out in the glen, especially for a building that remained empty most of the year. Nobody had locked it, he’d have heard the key being put in the lock, or the dogs would have barked at the first sign of anyone else being near.

“This is ridiculous!” he muttered to himself, angry at being locked inside one of his own buildings. How could it have happened? He’d been in and out of the cold store for years. The door always swung shut on well-engineered gravity hinges and the latch held it shut. That was sufficient to keep any animals out of the cold store when he had game hanging, and a simple turn of the handle released the catch. He tried turning the handle again, watching through the narrow gap in the frame as the latch wound back into the door – but the mortice remained put.

The dogs panted up at him, wondering why he didn’t open the door. There were interesting smells outside, new smells that needed investigating. One of the dogs whined impatiently only to receive a kick. “Shut up, stupid animal, let me think.”

The sheriff thought, and the more he thought, the more concerned he became. The cold store was well off any beaten track, the only person he could expect to visit was Oscar – and he was dead. Nobody knew he was here. He checked his phone for a signal, knowing that the nearest phone mast was on the other side of the mountain. Nothing. No connection available. He checked the window, too small to climb through even if it didn’t have solid steel bars – his father had insisted the cold store be made more secure after a deer carcass had gone missing one particularly bleak winter. With eyes growing ever more frantic, he searched the room for a way out. The walls were thick stone, the narrow windows barred, the ceiling too high to reach and made with solid wooden beams with lathe and horsehair plaster filling the gaps – and the door, he already knew, was impassable.

The next appointment in his diary was for the Sheriff Court in Inverness on Thursday, three days away. If he ate the crisps sparingly, he reckoned he could last until then – and surely someone would be sent out to look for him if he hadn’t appeared or answered his phone? Then there was whoever had been using his store for their own purposes, perhaps they’d turn up any minute and help him out? Feeling suitably encouraged, he opened the first crisp packet and sat down on the floor, sharing a few packs with his dogs who wolfed the snack down as if it were their last meal. The box stated ‘24 mixed flavour multipack, not for resale’.