Snowstop

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One skid of the boot and he would be down, clutching at weak or non-existent straws. Well, Keith Blackwell didn’t want to go down, so he would take care not to, but there was snowy ground ahead and a precipice to the right, and no other way to reach Beagle Tarn except twelve hundred feet up and four miles from Ullsridding.

Rohan jacket zipped against the wind, boots oiled and laced, he carried a small rucksack with an extra shirt, and changes of underwear to be sparingly used, like the soldier he’d briefly been. In one sidepocket were packs of Kendal mint cake, plus a sportsman’s flask of four-star brandy — more for show than sustenance, because you didn’t booze while on the run. In the other compartment was a sheathed survival knife which could skin a rabbit or sharpen a pencil. Four crisp fifties folded into his wallet were equal to the pre-War five-pound note his father had said you should always carry on your person.

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