She stood aside and he carried the boy through into the salon. He put him down on the carpet, in front of the fire, and stripped off the upper garments. He massaged the still warm chest, tried to blow breath into the collapsed lungs. But he knew it was hopeless long before he desisted and looked up. Elizabeth and Diana were there.

Elizabeth said: ‘Mandy has taken Stephen into the kitchen. Selby, is he dead?’

He nodded silently.

‘But how? What happened?’

‘His heart stopped. There may have been a history of weakness.’ He shook his head. ‘He didn’t look like a heart case.’

Diana said flatly: ‘I can’t believe it.’ She turned her gaze from the small body and walked over to the windows that looked out across the verandah. ‘They’re still skiing down there,’ she said. ‘Someone will have to tell them.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Elizabeth said. She bent down and touched the dead boy’s face, as though the touching would make the fact of death more believable. ‘Are you going to leave him here?’

‘For the time being.’