Thalia runs to fetch rope, and Gauntlett meekly offers up his wrists to be bound. I snort and drag his arms behind his back, fastening his wrists together that way. He must think I'm stupid.

I fleece him for weapons, a search which yields up a roll of garotte-wire and three knives – four if you count the razorblade taped to his forearm.

Then I shove him into the woodshed – the only place I can think of where he won't be near the family, though I flinch when he glances up at the ceiling and listens to the boards creaking under Clio's feet. He's studied the layout of this place, clearly. He knows where the family will be. He knows every nook and cranny where I could hide them.

And he's looking at me in unnerving silence, as if he's waiting to see how I'm going to handle this.

I feel the urge to hit him surge back, riding on a tide of nervous exhaustion. I need coffee and Clio's soothing gaze. I need the fog to clear. It's already pressed up against the windowpane, creeping under the rickety wooden door, lingering at ankle-height like a pall of smoke.

I snatch up the walkie-talkie and try to contact my colleagues at the fence, but all I get is static. They must be out on patrol. I try One-Eye instead, falling back on English in my hurry. "One-Eye! Come in, One-Eye!"

There's a pause, and then my own words crackle back at me. "Come in?"

I sigh and switch to Norwegian. "We've been through this! It's radio-speak. It just means, 'Are you there?'"

"Where else would I be?"

That's a fair objection. One-Eye never leaves his post, not even to go to the bathroom. I try not to look too closely under the hedges and rocks near his station, for fear of what I might find.

I half-turn, being sure to keep an eye still fixed on Gauntlett. "One-Eye, I've got him."

There's another pause. "By 'him', you mean...?"

"You know who I mean! Gauntlett. He was at the top of the cliff when I woke up."

And my brain can't help adding: Lying down, as if he'd been asleep beside me. He wasn't there when I went to bed – not that I remember going to bed. And I don't know how he could have climbed up the east side of the mountain in the dark. None of it makes sense.

Maybe One-Eye hears everything I'm not saying, because he mutters, "That's not right..."

I turn back to Gauntlett, who's pressing his lips together, as if he's fighting the urge to interrupt.

"Well, however he got here, I need to take him down to the fence," I say, glaring at the hateful green eyes until Gauntlett looks away. "Can you come up here to keep an eye on the Lundkvists?"

"Can't leave my post," says One-Eye staunchly.

"Oh, come on! I've got him – what do you think can happen now?"

Gauntlett presses his lips together again.

"If you've got him, why do you still need someone up with the family?" One-Eye points out.

Gauntlett's pursed lips turn up at the corners. "He's got you there, mate."

"Shut up," I hiss. And then, to One-Eye, "We need more freaking men up here!"

"Lundkvist won't allow it."

His voice has a kind of echo, as if I'm hearing it from multiple places at once. It's like auditory déjà vu. We've talked about this before, right? I guess we're always talking about it.

Still, it knocks me off-balance. I put out a hand to touch the clammy stones of the wall and wait for the echoes to pass. When they do, Gauntlett is still watching me, all trace of his smile gone. I raise the walkie-talkie to my mouth.

"Fine," I say. "Stay where you are. I'll give Lundkvist my gun and tell him to watch the girls."

Gauntlett sucks in a breath between his teeth, which makes me drop the walkie-talkie, seize him by the collar, and slam him up against the wall of the woodshed. "OK, asshole," I breathe. "What do all these expressions mean?"

He tries to shrug, in the limited space available to him. "I'm just an expressive person."

"And what is it that you're trying to express?"

"Well..." I can see his natural chattiness battling with his caution. He's clearly not used to keeping silent. "It's just... you really like giving that gun away, don't you? I was just... wondering what would happen if you kept it this time..."

"What do you mean, this time?"

There's a little sound behind us – someone small but insistent clearing their throat. I look round to see Thalia standing in the doorway, fully dressed and bereft of her toy seal.

"Clio says, are we making breakfast for the prisoner?"

"Hell, no!" I snap. That's the Lundkvist girls all over. Worrying that a man who was about to murder them in their beds might go hungry.

Thalia puts her hands on her hips. "Aren't we supposed to feed them if they're in our custody?"

"He's not in our custody, he's at our mercy," I say, glaring at Gauntlett. "And I don't have very much of that."

I drag him to his feet and steer him across the courtyard to the gates. The fog is still thick. My shoulder-muscles are still twanging. I haven't had time for coffee or a glimpse of Clio, and I can't help thinking that's going to cost me in the hours to come. But I can't leave Gauntlett unguarded, and I can't bring him anywhere near her. So I'm going to have to go without comfort for a while.

I shove him through the gates and out onto the mountaintop. One-Eye stands up when we pass him, and subjects Gauntlett to his keen, turquoise gaze. The birds hop and clamour around our feet. I notice Gauntlett pulling back from them, as if he doesn't want to risk them touching him.

"This is Gauntlett?" says One-Eye, as if he was expecting something a bit grander and more imposing.

Gauntlett doesn't seem to take offence. He gives One-Eye a cheery nod and says, "It's an honour." He doesn't say whose honour.

"You'd better get him out of here," One-Eye mutters.

That seems an odd way of phrasing things, but I'm too impatient to question it. I feel like I'm on the cusp of something. Safety? Freedom? If I get Gauntlett arrested and locked up, then this job is over, right? Lundkvist can leave the mountain – Clio can go back to university – maybe I can even get to know her as a person and not as a client's daughter.

But all that seems hazy and improbable, like the horizons behind the fog. Presumably, they're there – presumably there is still a North Sea, a mainland Norway, a Stockholm University to go back to. I just can't get excited about them, because it's been so long since I've seen anything but birds and fog and mountainside.

We walk in silence through the mist. I know we're going down the mountain, because the path slopes downwards all the time, but there's nothing else to guide me. And I swear, it's taking longer than it should. I can see the fence from the house on a clear day – not that we get many of those. It shouldn't take more than twenty minutes to walk there. Yet I check my watch and see that it's gone ten already. The fog should have cleared by now. We should be there by now.

And Gauntlett's saying nothing – though in a very pointed way. He's forever opening his mouth to speak and then changing his mind.

"So-o," he says, after a while. "How do you think this is going?"

"Keep walking," I grunt, pushing his shoulder.

"If you want my opinion–"

"I don't."

"–I think we should go back to the house and wait for the fog to clear," he ploughs on. "We're not going to find anything in this murk, believe me."

If we were anywhere else – and he was anyone else – I'd probably concede that he had a point. But the fence winds round almost the entire mountaintop. As long as you're going down, there's no way to miss it.

"We've probably blundered onto the east slope," he adds, as if he's following my train of thought. "There's no fence on the east slope, is there?"

"No, because it's a sheer cliff," I point out. "Don't you think we'd know about it if we were standing on a sheer cliff? Anyway, we can't be on the east slope. The sun's behind us."

He looks back at the sun, his eyes narrowing. There wasn't much colour in his face to begin with, but even so, the little he had drains away. "Wh – what time is it?" he stammers.

And then we hear the shots – indescribably loud in the mist-swaddled silence. At first, I think it's Lundkvist firing my gun. But there are too many shots, coming from too many different directions. It's like that moment of déjà vu in the woodshed. I feel like I'm in a tunnel of sound, echoes upon echoes thundering back at me, made all the worse by the fact that I can't see where they're coming from.

Have the guards at the fence spotted us? Are they going to shoot first and ask questions later?

Gauntlett curses and ducks under my arm, darting back up the slope of the mountain, almost bent double under the rain of bullets. I can't believe he can run like that, with both hands fastened behind his back, but I sprint after him before the mist swallows him up, and tackle him to the ground.

"God damn it!" he says again, spitting out turf. "It's coming from the house, you imbecile! They're starting without me!"

I don't know what that means, but to be honest, I stopped listening the moment I heard the word 'house'.

I want to leave him here – no, I want to trample him on my way back to the Lundkvists – but some barely-conscious instinct makes me haul him to his feet and drag him with me.

We run with our heads down, staggering over the uneven ground. All I can hear is the ragged sound of our breathing, and the high-pitched whine of bullets glancing off stone. Does that mean they're shooting at the house? And how could we be so near the house, after walking for an hour? I can see it looming out of the mist up ahead. Oh god, the gates aren't even closed!

I stumble over something, and Gauntlett pulls ahead of me. I know I shouldn't take my eyes off him, but I can't help looking down to see what I've tripped over – although part of me already knows what I'm going to find.

I roll One-Eye over and see a baleful, turquoise eye staring up at me. Black scraps of birds are wheeling overhead, hopping away and fluttering back, as if they're reluctant to leave him. Or as if he's a feast they don't want to abandon too soon.

I reel back from his one-eyed gaze and stagger to my feet. Not over yet. There are still the Lundkvists – although admittedly, Gauntlett is heading straight for them, and I shudder to think what he could do, even with his hands tied behind his back.

And then there's another sound. I feel it through the soles of my feet. An explosion? When I get to the compound, it's thick with another type of mist – one that tastes of smoke and sawdust. The house has been cracked open like a nut, the stones of its walls scattered across the courtyard.

My eyes sweep the wreckage, and then veer off in a panic when I start to see bright colours among the stones. Don't look, don't look! Might not be her dress – might not be her blood – might not be over – just as long as you don't look!

I can see Gauntlett's shoulders looming out of the clouds of plaster-dust. He's staring, open-mouthed, at the devastation – no, not at the devastation. At a slim figure on the other side of the courtyard, who's fumbling with some kind of harness, driving a peg into the loose stones of the clifftop.

It's Gauntlett. Another Gauntlett. Not a guy who looks like Gauntlett – not an impersonator. A picture-perfect copy who even moves the same as him.

I try to grab the one nearest to me – the one with his hands tied – thinking, in some numb, confused way, that this will stop them both. But of course it doesn't. And clearly, neither Gauntlett is in the mood for being restrained.

He jerks away from me, crying out in a shrill, schoolboy voice, "She replaced me! She fucking replaced me!"

The other Gauntlett is hauling on a rope, backing towards the edge of the cliff as if he's preparing to abseil down. He spots me, and gives me a cheery wave, exactly like Gauntlett would. I think he's even mouthing the words 'See you soon'. Where the hell have I heard him say 'See you soon'?

I sprint through the debris, leaping over stones and fallen beams, trying to keep my eyes from straying. The one thing I know is that I'm not supposed to let him escape. There aren't supposed to be two of them – one of them isn't supposed to be shrill and indignant and whining about being replaced – but I can't let either of them get away.

He drops over the cliff-edge, but I slide onto my knees, hauling on the rope he's dangling from. He struggles, but I get a fistful of his hair, and he braces his feet against the cliff to launch up at me.

Now we're rolling on the ground, trying to pin or punch or kick the other, and all I can think about is how much he looks like the first Gauntlett. This guy's got the same colouring, the same pointed chin. On impulse, I yank back his sleeve, and see the same razorblade taped to his forearm. What the hell is going on?

A cascade of rational explanations runs through my mind. Plastic surgery? Evil Twin? I mean, even more evil twin? But I've reached some kind of sticking-point, where rational explanations can't get through. This guy is Gauntlett – just like the guy behind me is Gauntlett.

And, once I've pulled on that loose thread, everything else unravels.

Gauntlett rolls on top of me, seizes my shirtfront, and slams me repeatedly against the ground, but the breath rushing out of me is all laughter – because none of this can be real. Birds don't mob you at the same time every morning. Clouds don't cycle through the same shapes on repeat. A thick fog can't really prevent you from finding a fence that's all around you. It's a seismic, side-splitting relief.

But when I pause to take a breath, the sound of beating wings fills up my ears. Gauntlett gasps and pulls away, disentangling himself from me just before they swoop down. Through the flickering gaps between their wings, I can see the first Gauntlett, still standing where I left him, his mouth gaping and his arms tied behind his back.

Then it all goes black. 

***

Mornings are the hardest part. I'm mugged into consciousness by a flock of black birds. They flutter out of the air in an avalanche of wings and claws, ruffling my hair, skimming my face with their feathers. Every morning. Like an alarm clock.

I roll onto my back and stare up at the sky. Inexplicably, there's a smile on my face, and it's my ribs – rather than my back – that are aching.

I guess I was having a good dream. I try to catch hold of its coattails before it flees, but it's like trying to hold onto the black birds. They rush me and then they're gone, without leaving so much as a feather.

I drag myself into a sitting position and fumble on the ground beside me for my gun. My hand finds something soft that rolls away under my fingers.

"Oh noooo," someone moans. "I'm still here! She replaced me and I'm still fucking here! What am I, just like you now? I can't think of anything worse."

Panic judders through me – panic and weariness and disbelief. It's the man I've been dreading, the face from my nightmares, lying on the ground with his hands strapped behind his back.

I struggle up and grab hold of him. It's hard to slam him against the ground, with his arms tied back, so I just lift him by the collar and shake him. "What are you-? How did you-? Where's Lundkvist?"

"Yeah, yeah," he sighs. "Let's speed things up, shall we, stuck-record-boy? Yes, I'm here. No, Lundkvist isn't dead yet. Someone will kill him later, at about 10:15. He'll look like me, but he will not be as good as me. You'll have given away your gun, so—"

Most of this washes over me as meaningless noise – it all would, maybe, if he'd been speaking Swedish. But he's talking in English, the language of my fear. English, like they taught me at the orphanage, when the world suddenly turned hard and grey.

He will look like me, but he will not be as good as me...

"There were two of you!" I burst out, still squeezing his shirtfront in my fist.

He stops jabbering and narrows his eyes. "What?"

Certainty drains away from me. I try to catch hold of the thought before it squirms away. There's smooth, slippery whiteness all around me, and just one tiny, incongruous, stirring memory, like a fly in the ointment.

"You were... there were two of you," I mutter. "I tied your hands behind your back, but there were two of you. It wasn't a trick..."

Gauntlett's eyes widen, but not by much – just from slits to buttonholes. "Oh, that's interesting..."

Every instinct in my body is telling me this is a trick, screaming at me not to trust him – except for that one tiny, stirring fly, half-drowned in the ointment, telling me we've been here before.

"Did we – did we do this yesterday?" I stammer.

He smiles. "There are no yesterdays or tomorrows in this place. There is only 'last time' and 'next time'."