Further down the path, she catches a glimpse of the turning area where the road leading down to the highway begins. Or ends. It’s been years since the mining trucks stopped using it and the cracks in the asphalt are growing longer and wider every year. There’s no point maintaining it; these days, the only people who use it are fly-tippers who can’t be bothered to take their rubbish down to the recycling station in Valby. Stingy, dishonest people, who would do anything to save a shilling. But not even they would have the audacity to do their illegal dumping on Christmas Day, she thinks to herself. No one is stupid enough to come here, except Fredrik. Not even the height of summer seems able to draw the young people out here for forbidden swims in the unfit waters of the quarry. She instinctively touches her coat pocket to make sure she still has her phone. No one would find her here if she fell and hurt herself, especially not this time of year.

It would teach him a lesson, she muses, if he really had fallen and hurt himself. Not seriously, just enough to make him understand that he’s too old to be scampering around all alone in the middle of nowhere. Her hand automatically reaches up to her chest to atone for the forbidden thought and this time, she calls out.

‘Fredrik! Hello! Fredrik!’

Then she stops dead.

A wretched whining makes her head turn cold. And when she spots the black-and-white border collie further down the path, she knows. Sammy’s long lead drags behind him as he anxiously trots back and forth along the edge of the quarry, lying down for a few seconds, jumping back up and continuing his futile pacing, dangerously close to falling in. For a moment, it looks as though the dog is going to try to find a way down the sheer rock face, but the sound of someone approaching makes him prick up his ears and look around. Then Sammy spots Gertrud and races toward her, barking wildly. With his tail between his legs, the desperate dog dashes back and forth between Gertrud and the edge of the cliff, urging her on. She reluctantly follows, praying loudly to herself.

‘Please, dear Lord, don’t turn away from me now.’

There’s no sign of her brother from where she stops on the path with her mitten pressed to her mouth. For a dizzying second, vain hope overcomes her – maybe it’s not Fredrik down there. Maybe it’s just the old tennis ball Sammy insists on carrying with him at all times. Maybe Fredrik threw it toward the quarry in a careless moment instead of up the slope the way he usually would. And when she moves closer to the edge, heart thumping, and cranes her neck, she still can’t see him.