‘Speak of the devil,’ Tab whispers.

The very tanned man from the kitchen has just climbed out of the pool and glistens as he hugs a towel round his shoulders. ‘Water’s warm,’ he says with a wink as he walks past. ‘Get yourselves in there.’

‘You seem like you’re not in the mood all of a sudden,’ Tab says to Will.

‘Sorry,’ Will replies. ‘Mind if I catch up with you in a bit?’

‘Don’t be too long, yeah?’ Tab says. Cerys blows him a kiss.

Suddenly awkward, Will gives a deflated thumbs up and turns away from them.

He strides back into the house. He knows what this is all about now.

Room with a View

Will bounds up the first flight of stairs. He strolls round the mezzanine landing, feeling suddenly light-headed. Beyond closed bedroom doors, people fuck noisily. One door rests half open, a discarded vampire cloak strewn across the threshold. Will catches sight of entangled limbs belonging to at least four separate owners. At the end of the landing he ascends another flight, steps of solid green glass with light refracting through them.

The master bedroom occupies the entire top floor, glazed along its back wall, giving a birds-eye view over the bay and the English Channel beyond. Will takes no more than a few seconds to appreciate the view before darting to the far side of the space. The floor surface changes underfoot as it becomes a wet room, a slalom arrangement of frosted screens lending some privacy. Will perches on the edge of the enormous bath, positioned so he has a line of sight past the screens and into the room itself, where the vast bed takes centre stage.

He dips in his pocket for his phone, killing time by looking at the photos of this very party being posted by the minute.

But he doesn’t have to wait long.

‘Now that is what you call a view, huh?’ the man’s voice says, closing the double doors to the staircase behind him. ‘What do you think about that?’

Lauren’s dad is still damp from the pool. The towel is bound round his waist now, his chest as gleamingly hairless as his smooth head.

‘Wow,’ the girl says. She’s giggly, nervous.

He puts his arm round her shoulder, his head resting against her blond hair as he points out which boat is his, and says how he sails to France sometimes and how she should come along one day.

‘That’d be cool,’ she says vaguely. Again, the giggling.

Will’s uncomfortable watching this. The girl is young – younger than he is. There’s something off in her manner; she senses something’s not right. But this guy knows what he’s doing.

Will tells himself not to think about this man and April. He knows that won’t help right now.