Phoenix shrugs. ‘Like I said, I wasn’t keeping track. There were a lot of people in our group and I made a lot of friends. Anyway’ – he peers out of the doorway, looking back towards the living area – ‘you said Renata was upset. Is she still in the hot tub?’

The question catches Fran off guard. She’d completely forgotten that Renata was her excuse for knocking on Phoenix’s door. ‘Yes, yes she is.’

‘Then I’d better go see her.’ He reaches behind the door for his dressing gown and pulls it on. ‘I’m very good at comforting people. Seek me out Geraldine, if you ever need someone to talk to. I’m a good listener.’

Fran steps back from the door, suppressing a smirk. ‘Thank you, Phoenix,’ she says. ‘I’ve enjoyed our chat.’

‘Anytime!’ He hurries off down the corridor, his flip-flops slapping on the wooden floorboards, leaving Fran beside his closed bedroom door.

She sniffs the air. She can still smell Phoenix’s aftershave but it’s mingled with another scent now. Smoke. Tobacco smoke. It’s drifting down the corridor from the open back door. There are only two people who smoke on the retreat. One is recuperating in bed after a near drowning. And the other is Damian.

Unlike Phoenix, who greeted her with the unbridled enthusiasm of a Labrador puppy, and Renata, who casually greeted her, Damian doesn’t acknowledge Fran’s presence at all. As she steps onto the porch he continues to puff on his cigarette, his back resting against one of the struts, his gaze fixed somewhere between the end of the garden and the horizon.

‘Good afternoon,’ Fran says, drawing alongside him.

‘Hi.’

Fran looks him up and then down as he takes another drag on his cigarette. He’s a big man. Six foot four at least and, in her estimation, well over twenty stone. He’s heavily built but strong too, from the size of his biceps. Anyone who got into a fight with him would need their wits about them, or some kind of weapon, to come out of the altercation alive.

She decides to be blunt. ‘Why did you take my photo yesterday?’

Damian blows grey smoke into the air. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’

‘Actually,’ Fran says. ‘I would.’

‘Ah well.’ He shrugs and takes another drag on his cigarette.