The Voice at Loch Morlich

Ice built slowly on the mirror arms. Every ten minutes or so, I reached through the driver's window and knocked it off with my glove, but it made little difference. Dusk was doing that thing where the treeline seemed to dissolve into grey, the trees becoming little more than suggestions. The Cairngorm Mountain road stretched ahead with perhaps sixty metres of visibility before everything turned white and indistinct.

I had the wipers on full. It did not matter. Snow swept sideways across the road in long curtains, and although the ploughs had passed perhaps an hour earlier, drifts were already creeping back across the verges. I kept the Forestry and Land Scotland vehicle in the cleared lane, following the reflectors whenever I could see them.

The radio had been failing for the past twenty minutes, giving me nothing but broken bursts. Morag's voice would come through clipped and buried in static, then vanish into white noise before I could answer. The repeater on Meall a' Bhuachaille was probably iced over. It happened every few storms. Usually the signal cleared by itself, or somebody went up when conditions allowed and knocked the accumulation from the aerial.

Nobody was going up there that night. At best, I had radio contact perhaps thirty per cent of the time.

I reached across and knocked the ice from the passenger mirror. My glove came back wet. Morag's voice crackled through again.

"Pine 6, Loch Morlich."

I snatched up the handset.

"Pine 6, say again."

Static.

I waited, counted to ten and returned the handset to its cradle.

In storms like that, I was often the nearest help available to the winter car parks and trailheads on that side of the Cairngorms. The Glenmore ranger team was small, and after hours it was generally me or nobody until Police Scotland or the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team could get a vehicle through. Depending on the conditions, that could take time.

So when the radio managed to spit out something about Loch Morlich, I was already turning in that direction. I barely thought about it. Habit, probably. If it was nothing, I would sweep the car park and return to the ranger base. If it was something, I was already halfway there.

The road curved and the wind struck the vehicle broadside, rocking it slightly. Not enough to cause trouble, only enough to remind me that the weather was still building. I dropped my speed by another 5 mph and kept both hands steady on the wheel.

It was the sort of night when you had to respect the margins. Everything grew thinner in a storm: visibility, traction, radio contact, the distinction between getting home and spending the night in your vehicle waiting for a tow.

I had done the job long enough to know that most of the trouble we pulled people from began when somebody ignored one of those thinning margins.

Usually it was day visitors. Tourists. People driving up from Edinburgh for a quick snowshoe walk without checking the mountain forecast, bringing snow socks, wearing suitable clothing or telling anyone where they were going. Then the storm came in and they found themselves stranded in a car park with a two-wheel-drive car and no mobile signal, wondering why nobody had warned them that the Cairngorms could become dangerous in winter.

We warned them. They simply did not listen.

I checked the odometer. Another mile and a half to the Loch Morlich turn-off. The radio popped again.

This time I caught a complete sentence.

"Pine 6, confirm location."

I lifted the handset.

"Cairngorm Mountain road, approaching the Loch Morlich turn-off. Is that you, Morag?"

"Receiving you. Report of a stranded vehicle at the winter car park. One occupant requesting assistance. Are you able to respond?"

"Already en route. Five minutes away."

"Understood. Keep me updated when you can. Weather is deteriorating quickly."

"Noted."

I replaced the handset and breathed out. So there was something after all. A stranded vehicle with one occupant. Standard enough on a night like that.

I would probably give the driver a jump or tow him to a safer section of road, check that he had enough petrol to reach Aviemore and send him on his way. Even so, something in Morag's tone bothered me. She did not normally need to remind me about the weather. I knew how to read a storm.

The turn-off appeared on my right. I took it slowly, feeling the vehicle slide a fraction before the tyres found purchase. The access road to the Loch Morlich winter car park had not been cleared as thoroughly as the main road. Snow lay deeper there, and drifts were building across the carriageway in uneven ridges.

I selected four-wheel drive and kept my speed low.

It was fully dark now. My headlights bored two tunnels through the snow, and that was the limit of the world. Trees crowded both sides of the road, close enough for me to see snow heaping upon their lower branches. Beyond them were only black shapes and white static.

I had been working with the Glenmore ranger team since October. The winter duties were mostly routine. There was less traffic than in summer, but the incidents tended to be more urgent. I checked trailheads each morning for vehicles whose owners had stayed out unexpectedly. I warned walkers about whiteout conditions on higher ground. I opened access gates after the ploughs came through so staff could reach the Cairngorm ski centre.

It was quiet, repetitive work. I did not mind it.

Between shifts, I maintained an interest that few people knew about. I collected old reports concerning the Grey Man of the Cairngorms. Not the recent online rubbish, tourist stories or breathless podcast material. I meant the old accounts filed by forestry staff and mountain wardens during the 1970s and 1980s, typed on paper forms, placed in cabinets and largely forgotten.

There were unexplained calls reported near the Cairngorm ski centre and across the surrounding plateau. There were photographs of oversized tracks found by forestry crews. There were statements from walkers who swore they had heard something that was not a deer, a fox or another person.

I did not know what I believed. Probably none of it. I simply liked reading the reports. I liked their tone: factual, restrained, without drama. A ranger recorded what somebody claimed to have encountered, filed the account and carried on with the job. There was something satisfying in that.

Morag had discovered my interest the previous month when she caught me copying an incident log from 1976 in the back office. She had given me a look that was half amused and half doubtful.

"Hunting the Grey Man now, Callum?"

"Just reading."

"Of course you are."

She had not pressed the matter. The following week, however, she had made a point of reminding me to carry the ranger-issued emergency signal pistol and spare batteries whenever I went out alone. The pistol came with three cartridges and was intended for remote winter incidents.

"In case you meet anything strange," she had said.

She had delivered the line without a flicker of expression. I had taken the pistol.

The car park opened ahead, a flat white expanse bordered by snowbanks and scattered vehicles. My headlights swept across two cars buried nearly to their door handles. Neither had moved for days.

Near the far edge stood a small SUV with its hazard lights flashing.

I rolled towards it and stopped about six metres away, angling my vehicle so the headlights illuminated the scene. The SUV was an older blue Nissan Qashqai. It had not been buried yet, so it must have arrived within the past hour or two. Its exhaust was clear, with vapour drifting from it, which meant the engine was running.

I put my vehicle into park, switched off the engine and took the radio.

"Pine 6 to base."

There were several seconds of static before Morag answered more clearly.

"Go ahead, Pine 6."

"At Loch Morlich winter car park. One vehicle, one occupant, engine running. Making contact now."

"Received. Remain on channel."

"Will do."

I clipped the radio to my belt, tightened my jacket and took my torch from the passenger seat. Then I stepped into the storm.

The cold struck at once. Wind drove in from the west, carrying snow that stung any exposed skin. I pulled up my hood and approached the Qashqai through snow already above my ankles.

The driver's window lowered as I drew near. The man inside was in his late twenties, perhaps, with a narrow face and a nervous smile. He looked cold but not hypothermic, which was something.

"Hello," I said. "Forestry and Land Scotland. Did you call for assistance?"

"Yes. Thanks for coming."

His voice trembled slightly.

"I got stuck. Well, not exactly stuck. I just don't think I should try driving back down in this."

I nodded. It was a sensible decision, however late.

"Have you got snow socks?"

"No."

"Winter tyres?"

"No."

"Four-wheel drive?"

"No."

Of course not.

I looked around the car park. The wind was strengthening, the snowfall heavier, and visibility had dropped to perhaps fifteen metres. The Qashqai was an older two-wheel-drive model with no winter tyres or snow socks. He was not equipped to drive out and did not appear prepared to remain there overnight.

The repeater would fail again soon. I could almost sense it.

Morag's voice broke across my radio, but the transmission was too fractured to understand. I looked back at the driver. He watched me through the open window, waiting.

The thin margin was getting thinner.

I keyed the radio.

"Pine 6 to base. Radio check."

Static.

That was about right.

I watched my breath cloud in the headlights. The call had sounded routine when Morag first mentioned it, but standing in that car park with the wind howling, the radio failing and a storm building towards a likely police closure of the Cairngorm Mountain road, it began to feel like one of those nights.

The radio crackled back to life while I was still beside the Qashqai. Morag's voice came through more clearly than it had for half an hour.

"Pine 6, base."

I keyed the microphone.

"Go ahead."

"Message relayed from 999. Two overdue walkers in the Loch Morlich area. University students from Edinburgh. Party of two failed to return from a snowshoe outing. Last known route was the marked forest-and-loch circuit from the Glenmore side. Can you respond?"

I looked at the man in the Qashqai. He was watching me with the same nervous smile.

"Received," I said. "I am already at the Loch Morlich winter car park with one stranded motorist. What is the timeline for the overdue party?"

"Stand by."

The wind rose while I waited, driving snow across the car park until I could scarcely see the treeline.

Morag returned.

"Police constable en route to your location. PC Imran Shah. Estimated arrival twenty minutes. He has the details."

Twenty minutes. The Cairngorm Mountain road would probably be closed within the hour, perhaps sooner. The B970 might be disrupted after that if the storm continued worsening.

The driver would be safer waiting in his vehicle with the engine running than attempting to follow me down the road.

"Understood," I said. "I will remain here until the constable arrives."

"Received. Base clear."

I walked back to the Qashqai and tapped on the window. The driver lowered it halfway.

"A police constable is coming up," I told him. "He should be here in about twenty minutes. Are you all right to wait in your car until then?"

"Yes," he said. "I'm fine."

"Keep the engine running and stay warm. Do not get out and wander."

He nodded. He did not ask why a police officer was coming or mention the overdue walkers. He merely raised the window again.

I returned to my vehicle and climbed inside. The heater was still blasting, so I turned it down and waited.

PC Imran Shah arrived eighteen minutes later. His headlights appeared along the access road, steady and slow. He parked his marked Police Scotland 4x4 beside my vehicle and got out.

Imran was about 1.78 metres tall, broad across the shoulders and clearly accustomed to keeping fit. He wore a heavy police parka and winter gloves.

I met him between the vehicles.

"Callum," he said.

"Imran."

We had worked several incidents together before. He was reliable and did not waste time.

"Morag said you've got a stranded motorist," he said. "Blue Qashqai?"

I nodded towards it.

"He's all right for now. What's the story with the missing pair?"

Imran took out his phone and turned the screen towards me. It showed a social-media post containing a photograph of two people beside a trail sign for the Loch Morlich circuit. They were young, in their early twenties, a man and a woman, both smiling and wearing hired snowshoes.

The timestamp was 16:17.

"They posted this less than four hours ago," Imran said. "Their friends saw it and assumed everything was fine. They were meant to meet for dinner at 19:00 and never arrived. The friends tried their mobiles, got no answer and called us at 19:30."

I checked my watch. It was 20:05.

"Where's their car?"

"Here. Silver Vauxhall Astra hire car. I checked it on the way in. It's one of the vehicles near the entrance."

I remembered the two half-buried cars I had passed.

"Engine cold," Imran continued. "Doors locked. There is a voluntary route card on the dashboard with two names and mobile numbers, both going straight to voicemail. It says they planned to snowshoe the Loch Morlich circuit and return by 18:00."

They were more than two hours overdue in a severe snowstorm. That was worrying, but not yet proof of disaster. People lost the trail, underestimated the distance or stopped when one of them injured an ankle.

"Shall we make a quick sweep?" Imran asked.

I looked across at the Qashqai. Its engine was still running, the hazard lights blinking through the snow.

"Yes. Let me speak to him first."

I crossed the car park and knocked on the window again.

"We've got two overdue walkers," I said when the driver lowered it. "We're going to check the route. Stay here, keep warm and don't leave the car. We will come back. If you get into difficulty, hold down the horn. We should hear it."

"All right," he said.

I returned to Imran.

"We'll check the winter refuge first, then take the circuit towards the loch."

The refuge stood near the western edge of the car park. It was a small managed ranger shelter, enclosed on three sides with a deep overhanging roof and a baffled entrance to keep out the worst of the weather. A bench ran along its rear wall, and a protected bottled-gas heater was installed inside for winter use.

We approached with our torches. The refuge was empty. There were no rucksacks, no loose equipment and no sign that anyone had stopped recently.

"The trail starts there," Imran said, pointing towards a gap in the trees about fifteen metres beyond the shelter.

The trail marker stood just inside the forest, a Forestry and Land Scotland sign bearing the circuit symbol and a directional arrow. The maintained winter route began beyond it.

We went back to the vehicles to collect our equipment. I took my rucksack, head torch, radio and spare torch, along with the emergency signal pistol and its three cartridges. Imran already had his kit. We met at the trailhead.

"You lead," he said. "You know the ground better."

I did. I had walked the circuit a dozen times since October. It was a straightforward route of roughly five kilometres, mostly level and maintained for walkers, snowshoers and cross-country skiers. It was difficult to lose if you remained on the marked track.

I switched on my head torch and entered the trees.

The prepared route was nearly two metres wide, compacted by machinery earlier in the week. Deep, untouched snow lay on both sides. My boots crunched against the hard surface.

The wind was worse among the first stands of trees, funnelled between the trunks. Snow struck my face and clung to my eyelashes.

I expected us to find the missing pair quickly. Two beginners who had stayed out too long and exhausted themselves. Perhaps they had stopped for a rest and lost track of time. Perhaps one had twisted an ankle. We would escort them to the car park, remind them to check the mountain forecast and leave it there.

Imran followed in silence, sweeping his torch from side to side.

We had covered almost a kilometre when I found the tracks. Fresh snowshoe prints ran along the route towards the loch, perhaps an hour old. Their edges remained sharp despite the wind.

I stopped and crouched. Imran came alongside me.

"Likely theirs," he said.

Probably. The size and tread pattern were consistent with hire equipment. At first I could make out two outbound sets. One ran straight down the centre of the route. The second lay nearer the edge, but drifting snow had obscured it so thoroughly that it appeared and vanished from one patch to the next.

Something else bothered me.

I moved my head torch slowly across the track. At the edge of the compacted surface, where it met the deeper snow, there was a faint pattern almost filled by spindrift.

I leaned closer.

A third set of prints. Not snowshoes. Boots, perhaps slightly smaller than mine. They wove around the two snowshoe tracks, sometimes stepping off the route, sometimes returning to it. In several places, the boots had landed directly inside the snowshoe impressions, matching them with deliberate care.

"Do you see that?" I asked.

Imran crouched beside me.

"Someone has been following them. Or walking with them."

"Look where the boots land. They're using the snowshoe prints to conceal their own trail."

Imran said nothing for several seconds.

"That's strange."

It was more than strange. It was deliberate. Someone had followed the pair towards the loch and made a conscious effort to hide the evidence of their presence.

I stood and continued. The two sets of snowshoe prints carried on, although drifting snow repeatedly swallowed the fainter set. The bootprints continued to circle and overlap them. The wind strengthened, pouring loose snow across the route and filling every detail.

We had to move more quickly before the trail disappeared altogether.

Imran remained close behind. Neither of us spoke. The prints led deeper into the forest as the route narrowed and the trees pressed closer. Above us, the wind moved through the branches with a low, steady roar.

My head torch picked out the tracks ahead. For several stretches only the central snowshoe trail remained visible, the second obscured by drifting snow. The bootprints still appeared around it whenever the surface offered enough shelter to preserve them.

I was no longer merely searching for two lost walkers. I was tracking a third presence.

My light caught something red ahead, hanging at knee height just off the left side of the route. I slowed and steadied the beam.

It was a small knitted mitten, bright red with a white reindeer pattern, attached to a cord of the kind threaded through a jacket so that children do not lose their gloves. One end of the cord disappeared into the snow, where it seemed to have been dragged loose.

I crouched beside it. The mitten swayed in the wind.

Imran stopped next to me.

"Could be hers."

I rose and swept my torch forwards. About ten metres farther on, another red mitten with the same white reindeer pattern hung from a low branch at the edge of the route. It was attached to the other end of a similar cord, but this one was frayed as if it had been wrenched apart.

I touched the wool. It was damp, but not yet frozen stiff. It had not been there long.

"They're shedding equipment," Imran said behind me. "Or losing it while moving quickly."

The spacing troubled me. Nobody lost both mittens in two separate places unless they were stumbling, being pulled or running.

I moved my torch along the route. The snowshoe tracks remained visible, though they were filling rapidly. The smaller bootprints were becoming harder to distinguish.

Imran's radio crackled. He raised it and tried to reach Morag, but received nothing. He clipped it back to his jacket.

I pressed onwards, looking for more dropped equipment. My boots broke through the crust forming over the compacted snow. Scots pine and fir crowded both sides, their branches hanging low beneath the weight.

"Hello!" I shouted.

The wind snatched my voice away.

I tried again, louder.

"Forestry and Land Scotland! Is anyone out there?"

For several seconds there was nothing but wind and the hiss of snow against my jacket.

Then a young man's voice answered from somewhere ahead and to the right.

"We're fine. We're walking down."

I stopped. Imran stopped behind me.

"Do you need assistance?" I called.

The same voice came again, this time from the left.

"We're fine. We're walking down."

The words, tone and cadence were identical.

I did not move. Imran stepped alongside me, breathing sharply but steadily through his nose. The two responses had been separated by perhaps three seconds. If there were two speakers, they had repeated the same sentence in exactly the same manner. If there was one, the sound had carried from one side of us to the other.

But a snow-covered forest in a gale did not return an echo that cleanly. Wind fractured sound. Distance altered it.

"That was the same man," Imran said quietly.

"Yes."

I wanted to call again, but the repetition felt wrong. It felt like bait.

I kept silent and listened.

Wind shifted through the branches above, shaking loose clumps of snow that struck the ground with soft thuds. My breath sounded loud inside my hood. Beside me, Imran adjusted his footing, his parka creaking faintly.

There were no boots crushing snow, no further voices and no movement among the trees. The snowfall continued, thick and relentless, filling the tracks ahead and erasing the edges of my light.

I counted to thirty in my head. Still nothing.

Imran's torch swept the trees on our left, then those on our right. He said nothing.

I started forwards again, more slowly. My hand went to the radio on my belt, but there was little point trying it. The route curved right, and the snowshoe prints followed.

I watched the ground for more equipment or changes in the trail. The bootprints had almost disappeared, either covered by drifting snow or too faint to identify.

My light found a new shape ahead, tall and narrow, protruding from the snow beside the prepared track. I approached until I could see what it was.

A compact action camera fixed to a short hand grip had been planted upright in the snow. The black grip was about thirty centimetres long, with the lens angled back towards the route as if someone had deliberately positioned it there.

I crouched, pulled it free and turned it over in my glove. The casing was cold and free from condensation. When I pressed the power button, the device came to life for less than a second, revealing a frozen low-power display, then died completely as the battery failed.

The final image remained faintly visible on the screen.

A face filled the entire frame, too close to the lens for me to identify whether it belonged to a man or a woman. There was only pale skin and a pair of eyes reflecting flat, colourless light. The head was tilted slightly, as though somebody had leaned close to see whether the camera was recording.

The eyes did not look right. Perhaps they were too bright, or perhaps the reflection was wrong.

I stared at the image for several seconds. Imran said nothing.

I put the camera in my pocket.

"Evidence," I said. "Or someone's costly mistake."

"A costly and very strange mistake," Imran muttered.

I stood and continued.

The route descended slightly towards the loch, perhaps another four hundred metres away. The prepared track narrowed, with low branches forcing me to duck. The first snowshoe trail continued towards a fork. In the deeper shelter beside it, the second outbound set became visible again. Both led to the split.

The left branch ran towards Loch Morlich through denser trees. The right completed the forest loop towards higher ground. We followed the left-hand trail.

The wind eased beneath the thicker canopy, although the snow remained heavy. My head torch reached perhaps six metres before darkness swallowed the beam. I could hear Imran's boots behind me, steady and close.

The trees opened and the loch appeared ahead, a flat white expanse of frozen, snow-covered water. The route reached the shore before curving along its edge.

I swept my light over the loch. Nothing moved, and no tracks crossed the ice.

Then I saw a figure standing in the centre of the route, about twelve metres ahead.

It was completely still.

I stopped, drew my torch and added its beam to my headlamp. The figure did not move. It was a person, certainly, standing upright and facing us.

"Hello!" I called.

No response.

I advanced slowly. Imran moved beside me and trained his own light ahead.

Nine metres. Six. The figure remained rigid and centred on the path.

At three metres I could see him clearly. He appeared to be in his late twenties, thin, wearing a winter jacket that was too large for him, dark trousers and walking boots. He had no hat. Wet hair lay plastered against his pale face, and his eyes were slightly too wide.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

He blinked. His mouth opened, and he nodded with a quick, jerking movement.

"Yes. Yes, I..."

He raised one hand and gestured towards the trees behind him.

"I got separated. I lost my friends."

His voice was tight and hurried. He kept blinking, and his gaze darted past me towards something over my shoulder, or beyond Imran.

"Are you one of the missing walkers?" Imran asked.

The man nodded again with that same sharp motion.

"Yes. We were snowshoeing. I don't know where they went. I kept calling, but..."

He stopped and stared beyond me again, focusing on something among the trees.

I did not turn. I kept my eyes on him.

"What's your name?"

"Elliot. Elliot Vane."

His breath came quickly, forming pale clouds.

"Did you see them? The others?"

"We're looking for two people," Imran said. "A man and a woman, both university age."

Elliot shook his head.

"No. No, I mean..."

He made another vague, rapid gesture towards the woods.

"There were more. I thought there were more."

His gaze passed beyond both of us into the dark trees to the left of the route.

"How many people were you with?" I asked.

"I don't..."

His fingers worried at the zip of his jacket.

"Two. Two friends, I think. But I kept hearing..."

He stopped and swallowed.

"Are we going down? Can we go down now?"

His eyes finally settled on mine. What I saw there was not merely cold or fear. It was relief tangled with panic, the expression of someone who had held himself together by a thread and had just felt it break.

His claim was wrong. The route card and photograph showed a party of two. If Elliot had been with two friends, that made three, and nothing in the records accounted for him.

"Yes," I said. "We're going down."

Elliot nodded rapidly. Then his eyes slid past me once more, and his expression tightened before he forced his attention back.

I wanted to ask what he could see. I did not.

Beside me, Imran shifted and swept his torch along the route behind us. I heard the soft crunch of his boots as he turned.

Elliot remained in the middle of the path, breathing quickly and staring into the trees, where the darkness pressed close and the snow fell without pause. Something I could not see kept drawing his attention back.

I turned towards the car park. Imran moved alongside me without a word, and Elliot walked between us.

The wind struck harder as we climbed the rise. Waves of spindrift swept across the track, erasing our footprints behind us. I kept my headlamp aimed forwards and did not look back.

Elliot walked with his head lowered and his hands thrust into his jacket pockets. He stumbled twice within the first fifteen metres. Imran caught his elbow the second time. Elliot recoiled, then muttered something that might have been "Thanks."

I wanted to get him out of the wind so we could question him properly. The managed winter refuge was the obvious place. Its protected heater and sheltered interior would give us enough warmth to establish names, injuries and a timeline before deciding what to do next.

The route widened as we climbed towards the car park. I kept our pace steady without hurrying. Elliot's breathing was rough behind me, each inhalation sharp through his nose.

I glanced back once and found him staring among the trees again, his eyes following something invisible to me.

Imran had noticed as well. He said nothing, but adjusted his position so that he walked slightly behind Elliot on the left, placing himself between the man and whatever held his attention.

The refuge appeared as we cleared the last stand of trees. We crossed the car park towards it. The Qashqai remained where I had left it, its hazard lights flashing. Snow covered its windows, so I could not see the driver, but exhaust vapour still rose from the rear. He was alive and had remained in the vehicle.

I led Elliot and Imran inside the shelter. The wind dropped at once, and my ears rang in the sudden quiet.

The bench was empty. There were no rucksacks, loose equipment or rubbish. The bottled-gas heater stood within its sheltered installation against the right-hand wall, a squat metal unit with a ceramic grille and a black hose connected to a bolted 9 kg cylinder.

I crouched beside it.

The pilot light was out. When I reached for the valve, I found it turned fully clockwise, not merely switched off but tightened as if somebody had put their weight into closing it.

I studied the valve for a moment.

During periods when the managed refuge was open, the heater was normally left running on its lowest safe setting. Turning it off completely made no sense unless there was a leak or the shelter was being closed. Neither applied.

I looked back at Elliot. He stood near the baffled entrance, staring out towards the car park. Imran remained beside him with his arms folded.

"The heater is off," I said.

Elliot turned. His eyes looked glassy in my head torch beam.

"It was on before."

"Before when?"

He gestured vaguely towards the car park.

"Earlier. When we stopped."

"You stopped here with your friends?"

He nodded quickly.

"Yes. It was warm. We sat down."

He pointed to the bench.

Imran stepped closer.

"What time was that?"

Elliot blinked.

"I don't know. About 17:00. It was still light."

I checked my watch. The time was 20:23. That was more than three hours earlier, and it did not fit the social-media post Imran had shown me. The photograph was timestamped 16:17 and had been taken at the trailhead, not inside the refuge.

"You stopped here at about 17:00," I said. "What happened next?"

"We carried on."

His voice tightened again.

"Down to the loch."

"And the heater was running when you left?"

"I think so. Yes."

Someone had closed it since then. The refuge had already been empty and cold when Imran and I checked it before setting out, but that had been less than an hour ago.

I opened the valve and heard the low hiss of gas. The ignition caught with a soft whoomph, and the ceramic grille began to glow orange.

Imran moved nearer and held his gloved hands towards the heat. Elliot remained by the entrance, watching the car park.

In the heater's glow, I examined him more carefully. He was medium-tall, perhaps 1.80 metres, thin and probably in his mid-twenties. His oversized down jacket was dark blue. He wore black insulated salopettes with reflective strips around the calves. His light-brown hair was shaggy and plastered against his head by melted snow.

Then I noticed his boots.

They were good leather walking boots with an aggressive winter tread, the sort hired to visitors attempting a snowshoe route. I recognised the model: Scarpa boots supplied by an outdoor shop in Aviemore, the same kind visible in the photograph Imran had shown me.

But the laces crossed incorrectly. They were not simply loose or badly tied. They pulled each tongue towards the outside rather than holding it in the centre, and Elliot's ankles bent inwards as if the boots did not fit.

I crouched and angled my head torch towards his feet.

He was wearing them on the wrong feet. The left boot was on his right foot, and the right boot was on his left.

I straightened slowly. Elliot continued staring outside and seemed not to notice me. Imran was still warming his hands.

I said nothing.

I tried to imagine why somebody might put boots on the wrong feet. Perhaps he had dressed in darkness. Perhaps he had panicked, or his hands had been too numb to work properly. Perhaps he had simply forced his feet into the first boots he found.

Or perhaps they were not his boots.

I pushed that thought aside. It did not help.

Elliot shifted his weight and winced. His right ankle rolled inwards, and he caught himself against one of the shelter supports.

"Are you injured?" I asked.

He shook his head quickly.

"No. Just cold."

"Do your boots fit properly?"

He looked down at his feet for the first time. His expression did not change.

"Yes. They're fine."

I left it for the moment.

Imran took the radio from his belt and keyed it.

"Base, this is PC Shah. Radio check."

Static answered him.

He tried again.

"Morag, this is Imran. We are at the Loch Morlich winter refuge with one male, mid-twenties. He gives his name as Elliot Vane. We are still searching for the registered pair. Do you receive?"

More static.

The Voice at Loch Morlich

A fragment of a word came through, something that might have been "receiving" or might simply have been interference. PC Imran Shah clipped the radio back to his jacket and pulled out his mobile. He stared at the screen, then shook his head.

"No signal."

I unclipped my own radio and walked to the open side of the refuge. It was a purpose-built ranger shelter, enclosed on three sides, with the bottled-gas heater protected in a recessed housing at the back. I raised the antenna and switched from channel 16 to channel 12, then 14. I pressed the transmit button.

"Morag, this is Pine 6. Radio check."

Static.

I tried again. "Glenmore base, Pine 6. Receiving me?"

Nothing but broken white noise and an occasional crackle that might have been a voice or the storm tearing through the signal from the repeater on Meall a' Bhuachaille. I took out my mobile. No bars.

Wonderful.

I turned back towards the shelter. Imran was watching me. Elliot Vane still stood beside one of the support beams, staring out at the car park. The storm was worsening.

Visibility had fallen to perhaps ten metres, and the wind was rising again. Police were probably close to shutting the Cairngorm Mountain road, if they had not done so already, and conditions on the B970 would not be far behind. If we were going to get Elliot, the stranded motorist and ourselves out, we needed to move soon.

But first I had to leave something behind. A record, in case everything went wrong.

I walked to the back corner of the shelter, where a wooden box was bolted to the wall, lifted the latch and opened it. Inside was the shelter logbook, a spiral-bound notebook sealed in a large plastic bag, along with a pencil stub and two emergency candles.

I removed the logbook and turned to the last entry. On 19 December, four days earlier, someone called Mairi had written:

"Beautiful day. Saw three deer. Thanks for the heater."

I turned to a blank page and wrote the date, 23 December, followed by the correct time: 20:23.

I added my name, Callum Reid, my role with Forestry and Land Scotland, and a concise account.

Missing party reported. Two walkers in their early twenties, one man and one woman. University students from Edinburgh.

Last seen on marked Loch Morlich forest-and-loch circuit at 16:17, according to social-media post. Voluntary route card on dashboard gives expected return as 18:00.

Located unidentified male near trail. Gives name as Elliot Vane, mid-twenties, claims separation from two friends, although route card records only two walkers. Bottled-gas heater found shut off. Radio contact lost.

Escorting Elliot Vane back towards vehicles. PC Imran Shah present. Stranded motorist remains at shelter.

I paused. I nearly added something about Elliot's boots, but did not. It would have sounded paranoid.

Instead, I wrote one final line.

If found, contact Glenmore ranger base or Police Scotland.

I closed the logbook, returned it to its plastic bag and put it back in the box.

Imran had watched me do it. "Leaving a note?"

"Standard procedure," I said. "In case we don't get back."

He did not argue.

I looked at Elliot. He was still staring into the car park, but his shoulders had hunched and both hands gripped the support beam. I walked over to him.

"Elliot, we're heading back to the vehicles. You're coming with us."

He nodded without looking at me.

"Have you got any equipment? A rucksack? Anything you left behind?"

He shook his head.

"What about your friends? Do you know where they went?"

"No." His voice was barely audible.

"You became separated?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"I don't know."

At last he looked at me. His eyes were red-rimmed and wet.

"I don't remember."

I did not push him. He was either in shock or lying, and in either case I was not going to get useful answers while we stood in a winter refuge during a severe snowstorm.

The sensible plan was simple. Get Elliot back to the vehicles. Put him in my Forestry and Land Scotland 4x4, where he would be warm and contained. Try Morag again if the radio signal returned. If it did not, drive down towards Aviemore and hand him over to Imran or another constable. Arriving police or mountain rescue staff could take charge of the stranded Qashqai driver before the wider search began.

Then we would decide what to do about the two missing students.

I did not like leaving Elliot alone in the shelter. The heater was operating now, but someone had already shut its valve once, and Elliot kept watching something I could not see. His boots were still on the wrong feet.

He was coming with me.

"Let's go," I said.

Imran moved towards the open side of the shelter. Elliot remained by the beam for several seconds before following.

I took one last look at the heater. Its glow was steady. The 9 kg cylinder was half full and should keep it running for hours.

Outside, I stopped Imran beside the older blue Nissan Qashqai. The engine was still running and its hazard lights blinked through the snow. The driver remained inside, frightened but alive.

"Stay here with him," I said. "Keep Elliot within sight while I check the trail once more."

Elliot's head snapped towards me. "They went back towards the loch."

It was the first definite claim he had made. At the same moment, beyond him, the beam of my head torch caught a partly filled line of snowshoe impressions where the drifting snow had exposed the route again. One of the red knitted mittens with white reindeer lay near the edge, its joining cord disappearing beneath the fresh snow. I had already seen the other mitten farther up the circuit.

That evidence changed the decision. I would make a short, controlled return to the split in the tracks, taking Elliot because he claimed he could identify where his supposed friends had gone. Imran would remain at the shelter with the motorist, close enough to support us if we returned in difficulty.

"Ten minutes," I told him. "If we're not back, don't follow. Keep trying the radio."

He did not like it, but he nodded.

I led Elliot onto the marked circuit, heading towards Loch Morlich again. This time I kept him ahead of me, close enough to seize if he bolted but far enough away for me to watch his gait and his hands.

He walked unevenly. It was not quite a limp. It looked more as if his weight was distributed incorrectly.

The boots on the wrong feet could not have helped, but there was something else. Sometimes his steps were too wide, then suddenly too short. His arms hung loosely at his sides instead of swinging naturally.

I kept my head torch trained on the back of his jacket. The reflective strip across his shoulders caught the light and shone a dull silver.

The wind strengthened. Spindrift swept across the path in waves, erasing the edges of our earlier tracks. I estimated that within twenty minutes almost everything we had walked through on the way up would be smoothed over completely.

Elliot did not look back once. He kept moving with his head tilted slightly to the left.

I scanned the trees on both sides. My light penetrated perhaps five metres into the forest before darkness and falling snow swallowed it.

We passed the place where I had found the compact action camera. The hollow in the snow was already half full. The circuit descended towards the loch, and I slowed.

Elliot slowed as well, without being told.

That was when I saw the prints again.

Two sets of snowshoe tracks ran parallel for roughly three metres, then overlapped in the centre of the path. One set had been temporarily hidden beneath drifting snow farther back, but here both were visible again. Their edges were soft from the spindrift, although the depth remained clear.

One set pressed more deeply than the other. Either its maker was heavier or carrying additional weight.

Then the tracks split.

One set turned left towards the shore. The other continued straight along the main circuit for another six metres before vanishing beneath fresh snow.

I stopped and crouched beside the split. Elliot halted about a metre and a half ahead, then turned halfway round to look at me.

"Keep moving," I said.

He did not.

I stood and gestured forwards with my torch. "Go on."

Elliot turned away and resumed walking, more slowly now.

I followed the angled prints with my eyes. They left the managed track and entered deeper snow, heading towards the loch. The spacing became erratic near the end: shorter strides, then a broad churned patch where the snow had been kicked up and compressed unevenly.

Beyond it was a drag mark.

It was about 1.2 metres long and sixty centimetres wide, cutting in a straight line towards the trees along the shore. Its edges were smooth, not ragged as they might have been if someone had been dragged while struggling. The mark looked deliberate.

I stepped off the path. Snow rose beyond my ankles at once, and my boots broke through the crust with every stride.

Elliot stopped again farther ahead. I heard his breathing quicken.

I reached the drag mark and crouched. My head torch illuminated the depression. It was deepest at the churned starting point and shallower towards the trees, as though whatever had been dragged was gradually lifted as it moved.

Then I saw the third pattern.

The prints were smaller than the snowshoe impressions but longer than ordinary boot marks, roughly thirty to thirty-five centimetres. They were also much deeper. Their edges remained clean and sharp, untouched by the wind.

They stepped directly into the drag mark. Not beside it or around it, but within it.

There were three prints in all, evenly spaced along the drag line to the treeline, where both marks vanished into darkness.

I stood and backed onto the managed path. My hand went automatically to my radio, but I did not transmit. The repeater was still down.

Elliot was watching me. His head had turned fully and his eyes were fixed not on the drag mark, but on me.

"What did you see?" he asked.

"Tracks."

"Whose?"

"I don't know yet."

His hands emerged from his pockets. His fingers flexed once, then curled into loose fists.

I returned to the path and walked past him, angling my body so that I could keep him in my peripheral vision.

"Keep going."

He did not follow.

I stopped and turned. "Elliot."

He was staring at the treeline, at the place where the drag mark ended.

"Elliot," I said again.

He blinked and looked at me. Then he stepped off the path and began walking towards the trees.

He was not moving quickly. He did not run. He simply walked with that same uneven gait, straight towards the darkness and past the drag mark.

I moved fast and seized his sleeve.

"Wrong way."

He continued walking.

I tightened my grip and pulled him back. His jacket opened slightly where my hand tugged the fabric. The zip was only halfway raised.

His wrists were bare beneath it. He had no gloves, and there were no glove lines on his skin, only redness and chapping from exposure. Across his left wrist, smeared unevenly as though someone had tried to wipe it away, was a streak of dried, dark blood.

I pulled harder.

Elliot jerked back towards me with a strength that did not match the stumbling, injured way he had moved during the previous half-hour. He twisted out of my grasp and spun to face me. His eyes were wide, his breath sharp through his nose.

"We need to go that way," he said.

He pointed towards the trees and the drag mark.

"They went that way."

"Who did?"

"My friends."

"Your story doesn't match the route card. It records two university students from Edinburgh. You told us you became separated from your friends. We're going back to the car park."

"No."

Elliot shook his head rapidly. Too rapidly.

"No, they went into the trees. I saw them. We have to find them."

"You didn't see anything. You've been with us the entire time."

His arm remained extended. It trembled.

"Please. They're there. They're waiting."

I did not look where he pointed. I watched his wrists, the blood, the boots on the wrong feet and his eyes, which kept darting past me and back again.

I reached down and unclipped the ranger-issued emergency signal pistol from my belt. I carried it with three cartridges for remote winter incidents.

Elliot saw it, and his expression changed. The panic smoothed into something flat.

"That isn't going to help," he said.

"It isn't for help."

I did not aim at him. I held it low but clearly visible, as a warning.

Elliot stared at the signal pistol for five seconds, then looked back towards the trees.

"Sit down," I said.

"What?"

"Sit on the path. Here."

He did not move.

I lifted the pistol slightly without pointing it at him.

Elliot sat. He dropped directly onto the compacted snow, folding his legs awkwardly beneath him. His boots pointed at unnatural angles and his knees did not seem to align properly.

"Stay there."

He did not answer. He continued staring towards the forest.

I stepped back two paces, keeping the signal pistol in my right hand while drawing my torch with my left. I swept the beam over the treeline where the drag mark had vanished.

There was nothing. Only snow, trunks and darkness beyond the reach of the light.

I listened.

Wind. Snow striking my jacket. My own breathing.

Then a voice came from the trees.

It was young and male, the same voice I had heard earlier on the circuit.

"We're fine. We're walking down."

The same words, tone and cadence. Exactly the same.

I did not move.

The voice came again, closer this time, perhaps ten metres inside the forest.

"We're fine. We're walking down."

Then it sounded from farther away to the right, twenty metres off or more.

"We're fine. We're walking down."

It was not an echo. The wind was wrong, and the sound neither faded nor distorted. It simply moved.

Elliot remained seated on the path. His head turned slowly to follow the voice.

I held the signal pistol ready and kept my torch steady. The beam sliced through the falling snow without reaching whatever was out there.

The voice did not come again.

There was only the wind, the snow and Elliot's rapid, shallow breathing behind me, as if he had been running.

I raised the signal pistol, aimed high over Loch Morlich and fired the first cartridge.

The recoil was stronger than I expected. The red flare arced over the frozen loch with a hissing shriek that cut through the wind, then burst at the top of its climb.

Red light spread across the landscape. It was nothing like daylight, but it was enough.

The loch changed from black to flat white. The treeline became a wall of hard shadows, every branch outlined sharply.

About twelve metres to my left, just beyond the churned snow where the drag mark began, someone lay beside a small fir tree. She was half buried, with one leg folded beneath her and the other stretched straight. One snowshoe remained strapped to her foot. The other foot was bare except for a woollen sock that had slipped halfway off.

I moved before I had time to think.

Elliot remained on the path behind me. I did not look back.

The snow was deeper away from the managed route. My boots sank beyond my shins as I forced through, using my arms to push aside the drifts.

The flare remained aloft for perhaps twenty seconds, long enough for me to reach the fir.

The person was a woman in her early twenties. Blonde hair had been tied in a ponytail but had mostly come loose. Her face was turned sideways and pressed into the snow. She wore a dark green jacket with the hood down. One arm was trapped beneath her body, while the other stretched in front of her, its hand open and fingers bare.

I dropped beside her and pulled off one glove. Pressing two fingers beneath her jaw, I found a pulse.

It was faint and slow, but it was there.

I gripped her shoulder and rolled her onto her back. Her head lolled. Her eyes remained closed, and her lips were cracked and blue.

As the flare faded, I fumbled for my torch and switched it on.

Her jacket was partly unzipped. Beneath it she wore a fleece and base layer, both soaked with melted snow. She had no hat and no gloves. The two red knitted mittens with white reindeer, still connected by their cord, were the clues we had found spaced along the path. They were hers.

I leant close and said her name.

"Lucy Harcourt."

Imran had mentioned it earlier. A university student from Edinburgh, snowshoeing with a male companion.

Her eyes opened into narrow slits, but she did not focus on me.

"You're all right," I said.

It was probably a lie, but it was what you said.

"I'm with Forestry and Land Scotland. I've got you."

Her lips moved without sound.

I pulled the emergency blanket from my rucksack, tore it open and spread it over her. The material crackled loudly. Then I took out two chemical hand warmers, activated them and placed them inside her jacket against her core.

She made a sound, perhaps a breath or a word.

I bent nearer. "Say that again."

Her mouth formed the name three times before I understood.

"Nathan."

Nathan Rowe. The other name on the route card. Male, early twenties.

"Where is he?" I asked.

She did not answer at once. Her eyes drifted beyond me before returning. Her whole body trembled, though she was no longer properly shivering.

"Pulled," she whispered.

"Pulled where?"

She tried to raise her bare hand. It lifted only a few centimetres before falling. Her fingers were swollen and dark red at the tips. Frostbite.

"Something pulled him," she said.

Her voice cracked.

"Heard him call. Wasn't him."

I kept my expression neutral.

"Wasn't him. Voice wrong."

Her eyes focused on mine for the first time. She was terrified.

"Sounded right, but wrong."

I thought of the voice on the path, speaking from two different places.

"All right," I said. "We're going back to the car park. I'm getting you out."

She tried to shake her head. It barely moved.

"Nathan..."

"We'll find him," I said, though I did not know whether that was true. "Right now I'm getting you warm."

I slid my arms beneath her and lifted. Lucy weighed roughly 57 kilograms. The snowshoe on her left foot dragged through the snow, and I could not remove it one-handed, so I carried her with its aluminium frame knocking against my leg at every step.

The compacted path was only five metres away, but it felt much farther. My boots broke through the crust with every stride, and the wind drove directly into my face. Lucy's head rested against my shoulder. Her breathing was shallow and rapid.

When I reached the path, I lowered her onto the packed snow. She immediately curled onto her side and drew up her knees.

I looked back towards the fir tree. The flare had gone out.

My head torch cast a weak cone through the blowing snow. I could no longer see the drag mark or anything beyond six metres.

But I heard something.

A heavy compression, snow compacting beneath weight, followed by the release.

A footstep.

It did not come from behind me, where Elliot had been sitting. It came from the treeline to my left and moved parallel to us.

I drew the signal pistol and broke it open. I had fired one of my three cartridges. I loaded the second, leaving one unused in my pocket, and snapped the pistol shut.

Lucy was trying to sit up. I crouched beside her.

"Stay down."

She ignored me. Bracing herself on her stronger arm, she pushed herself partly upright. Her eyes remained fixed on the trees.

"It's still here," she said.

"I know."

"It took him."

"I know."

I put an arm around her and hauled her up. She could not stand by herself. The snowshoe twisted on her left foot and she gasped.

I bent, released the straps and kicked it aside. Then I took her weight against my side and began walking.

Elliot was still on the path about ten metres ahead. He had not moved. His head was turned towards us, watching.

I kept my eyes on him and one hand on the signal pistol.

We covered six metres, then eight.

Elliot stood.

He did not rise slowly or cautiously. He came off the snow in a single motion, his legs straightening and his arms hanging loose at his sides.

"Sit down again," I said.

He did not.

Lucy whimpered and gripped my jacket.

Elliot stepped towards us.

I raised the signal pistol, not fully, but enough for him to see.

"Don't."

He took another step, then lunged.

He was not aiming for me. He went for Lucy.

I shoved her sideways and swung the pistol hard. Its metal body struck Elliot across the jaw. He fell onto his shoulder and rolled over the packed snow.

I did not wait.

I raised the pistol, aimed low across the path towards the treeline and fired the second cartridge.

The flare travelled at about three metres above the ground and struck a tree trunk. It burst in a shower of sparks and burning red material. The light was so intense that I had to squint, and a wave of heat rolled back across the path and touched my face.

In that red light I saw movement.

Something was among the trees. It was not Elliot. It was larger, a broad shape withdrawing from the flare and stepping backwards into shadow.

The source of those long, deep prints.

I seized Lucy's arm and pulled her upright. She screamed, not words, only sound.

I half carried and half dragged her up the path towards the winter car park. My boots slipped on the packed snow. Her socked foot trailed behind her, scoring a line across the surface.

The flare continued to burn behind us, throwing our shadows far along the circuit.

I did not look back.

The managed refuge appeared through the trees, first fifteen metres away, then ten. Imran stood outside with a torch raised in one hand and his radio in the other. He had remained with the Qashqai driver as ordered.

When he saw us, he ran.

"I've got one!" I shouted.

He reached us and took Lucy's other side. Together we carried her the final few metres into the shelter.

The bottled-gas heater was still operating, its ceramic grille glowing orange. I lowered Lucy onto the bench. She collapsed against the back wall, shaking so violently that her teeth rattled.

Imran began asking questions.

"Where did you find her? Where is the other walker? What happened?"

"Elliot attacked us," I said. "My hands are numb. I can't feel my fingers."

"Elliot did?"

"There was something else in the trees."

Imran stared at me.

"Is the radio working yet?" I asked.

"No."

I turned back to Lucy. Her eyes were half closed and her lips remained blue. I crouched in front of the heater.

The valve was open. I increased the heat and the grille brightened, sending warmth into the shelter in waves.

My hands shook so badly that I could not grip the zip on my rucksack. Imran reached past me and opened it. We activated two more hand warmers and tucked them inside Lucy's jacket.

Then Imran removed his gloves and began warming her hands gently between his palms, trying to restore circulation without rubbing the damaged tissue.

Lucy screamed. It was not loud; she lacked the breath. Even so, it cut through the shelter.

"I know," Imran said. "I know. Stay with me."

Her hands were dark red, with the fingertips turning purple. The tissue had begun to swell.

I looked away.

The car park was empty except for the blue Qashqai. Its engine was still running and its hazards continued to flash. The driver remained inside.

There was no sign of Elliot.

I stood at the open side of the refuge with the signal pistol in my hand. One cartridge remained.

I scanned the treeline. Nothing moved. The wind had strengthened again, and visibility had dropped to roughly six metres.

Imran continued caring for Lucy's hands. She had stopped screaming and now cried silently, tears running down her face.

I stayed at the shelter entrance and watched the car park.

Five minutes passed, then ten.

Headlights pierced the snow. Two vehicles emerged, a marked Police Scotland 4x4 followed by a Forestry and Land Scotland truck. They parked beside mine and their doors opened.

Sergeant Fiona MacLeod stepped into the light first, short and solidly built, moving quickly in her police winter gear. Behind her came Euan Fraser, a Forestry and Land Scotland technician from the Grantown-on-Spey office, carrying a rucksack and wearing a head torch.

I had met Fiona once during joint winter-response training the previous autumn. She was coordinating the police side of the search, alongside the local Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team.

They crossed the car park towards the refuge. Fiona saw me.

"Callum."

"Here."

She looked past me at Lucy on the bench and Imran tending her hands.

"One survivor," I said. "Lucy Harcourt. Severe hypothermia, frostbite to both hands and possibly her feet."

Fiona nodded and moved past me. She crouched beside Lucy, removed a thermal blanket from her kit and wrapped it around her shoulders.

Euan remained beside me.

"The other walker is still missing," I said. "Nathan Rowe, male, early twenties. The man we found earlier called himself Elliot Vane. He attacked Lucy and me. He's disappeared."

Euan's expression did not change.

"Disappeared where?"

"I don't know."

I reached into my pocket and took out the compact action camera I had found on the circuit. When I had first handled it, its frozen low-power display had briefly retained the final image, even though the exhausted battery would not respond to the power button.

I handed it to Euan.

"Found this on the path. The battery is dead. The last image on the display showed a face, but I couldn't identify it."

Euan turned the camera over in his hands and put it carefully into an evidence bag from Fiona's kit.

I looked at Fiona.

"I left a note in the refuge logbook. Timeline, details, everything I saw."

She nodded. "Show us the tracks."

Police personnel took charge of the stranded motorist while Imran stayed with Lucy. Fiona remained within supporting distance as Euan and I returned towards the trailhead.

The wind had filled most of the impressions, but I could still make out their edges where the two snowshoe tracks had split and the drag mark had turned towards the trees.

I pointed them out.

"Two outbound sets of snowshoe prints here. One set was hidden by drift farther back, but both reappeared near the split. Lucy's turned left towards the loch. The drag mark begins there and continues into the treeline. A third set followed inside it. Longer than ordinary boots and much deeper."

Euan crouched to examine what remained.

"How long?"

"I didn't get a perfect measurement. Roughly thirty to thirty-five centimetres."

He said nothing. He took out his mobile and photographed the surviving impressions.

By the time we returned to the shelter, fresh snow had covered them.

At first light, more Police Scotland officers arrived with volunteers from Cairngorm Mountain Rescue and two additional Forestry and Land Scotland rangers from the Glenmore team. The search spread out from Loch Morlich in a grid.

They found scattered equipment: a hat, a water bottle and one snowshoe that did not belong to Lucy. The drag mark had vanished beneath about twenty centimetres of fresh snow.

They did not find Nathan Rowe or Elliot Vane.

Not that day.

Lucy was evacuated by 10:00. An ambulance met the rescue vehicle near the reopened section of road and took her to hospital. I later heard that she survived, but lost three fingertips from her right hand and two from her left.

Elliot never appeared again.

I gave my statement to Sergeant Fiona MacLeod at the Loch Morlich winter car park and repeated it at the Glenmore ranger base two days later. I wrote everything down: the long prints, the voice coming from different directions, Elliot's attack and the large shape moving among the trees.

Morag Bell called me into her office on 27 December. My report lay on her desk.

She did not shout. That would have been easier.

She simply looked at me and said, "You went back onto the circuit without radio contact or immediate backup. You failed to secure a witness, and you fired two emergency cartridges before contact with the control room was restored."

I did not argue.

She slid a written warning across the desk.

"Sign it."

I signed.

"You're fortunate Lucy lived," Morag said.

"I know."

"Next time, you wait for support."

"Yes."

She watched me for a long time. Then she handed back the signal pistol, with its remaining cartridge accounted for.

"Don't make me regret this."

I took it and left.

The following week, I returned to routine winter patrols. I checked trailheads, cleared snow from signs around the winter car park and warned visitors about the conditions.

The Cairngorms remained crowded every weekend. Families brought children. University groups arrived in unsuitable clothing. Solo walkers assumed they needed no equipment because the car park had been ploughed. Others came without winter tyres, snow socks or any sign that they had checked the mountain forecast.

Sometimes the radio worked, and sometimes it did not. Sometimes help arrived within twenty minutes. Sometimes it took three hours.

And sometimes the only help available was whoever happened to be there when everything went wrong.

That was the job.

I carried on doing it.