‘She’s drunk. And infuriated that I’m here.’ I started pounding up the stairs. The fury was mutual.

‘I try to give her the benefit of the doubt because she’s so young, and beneath the bluster she’s insecure and intimidated. But that doesn’t mean she can stomp over me in this imaginary fight to the top.’ I paused to catch my breath. These stairs went on longer than I’d expected. ‘My work friend Jamal thinks she’s been hacking into my email account.’

‘Which would explain why you didn’t get the email about this.’

‘I’m going to ask him to start digging. He knows the tech guys and I trust him to be discreet.’

We reached a door labelled ‘Bea, Henry, and Rudolph’ in childish scrawl, with a picture of a reindeer drawn in crayon. I stopped, my anger evaporating in a sudden fog of awkwardness.

‘I know I’ve dragged you away from your Christmas break into this preposterous situation that I’m afraid will only get worse, but I’m so grateful you’re here. I’m even more grateful that you didn’t make me share a room with Summer.’

Henry blinked. Just before he did, I thought I saw a glint of warmth in his eyes. ‘You’re welcome. I was dreading the singalonga-Christmas film.’

‘Films, plural,’ I said, as if taken aback by his ignorance. ‘You think Joy Papplewick would settle for anything less than three festive-themed musicals?’

‘Even more reason to be here, competing in an outlandish tournament for a job I’m not qualified for and don’t want.’

He opened the door, to signal that the conversation was closed, and gestured for me to enter the room.

‘Yowzers!’ I instinctively jumped back again, bumping into Henry’s chest before scrambling behind him.

‘I thought you were being polite allowing me to go in first, but you suspected something like this, didn’t you?’ I asked, once I’d crept in after him.

‘No one could have suspected this. Even with the clue on the door.’

The room was the size of a standard hotel room. The two single beds were positioned a few feet apart, opposite an old-fashioned wardrobe, chest of drawers, and a bookcase. There was a door on the far side of the room that I hoped led to an en suite.

Taking pride of place between the beds and the window stood a reindeer.

Not a nice little Christmas decoration reindeer.

A life-sized reindeer, either stuffed or a replica so good that it might as well have been.

Reindeers are big.

This one glowered at us with all the menace of a large mammal that had been killed, stuffed, and stuck in someone’s spare bedroom with baubles dangling from its antlers and another one stuck on its nose.

‘Come on.’ Henry took hold of the haunch, nodding to indicate that I should grab an antler.