Johnny came back down the stairs and into the room. He was holding the local paper in his hand. ‘It’s only been reported locally so far. With any luck, it won’t get picked up internationally.’

‘Show me.’

Moving at what seemed like glacial speed, he shook open the paper to the front page. ‘DISGRACE!’ ran the headline, and below it, a large image of Kit in the middle of the melee. His arm was pulled back in momentum for another punch, his face twisted into a mask of fury, his teeth bared. He looked like an animal, the whites of his eyes making him seem crazed. On the ground, by his feet, a figure was stretched out; her face was turned away from the camera but her blonde hair fanned out over the pavement. Clover gasped to see herself, clearly out cold. Her whole body chilled at the sight of herself lying there, looking like a victim.

From the angle and – from what she could discern – the text, it clearly intimated that Kit had punched her to the ground. That he had started the fight. She couldn’t remember the choreography precisely; she had only fleeting fragments, shards of images, glinting impressions that caught and then lost the light, but she knew he hadn’t started it.

Clover looked up at them all. ‘Has he seen this?’

Ari hesitated before nodding. ‘Yes.’

‘And what does he say about it?’

‘Not much.’

Not much? ‘. . . Right.’

‘I’ll leave you to rest. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.’ Ari’s arm extended towards her awkwardly, as if he wanted to make contact but wasn’t sure where. Or how.

He left the room instead.

‘We’ll leave you to sleep too,’ Matty said quietly.

‘Wait.’

Matty and Johnny turned to find her holding out a hand, beckoning for them to come closer again. They gathered around, looking worried and anxious.

‘You need to get hold of that footage,’ she said in a low voice.

‘What?’ Johnny frowned.

‘The fight. It’ll need to go in the film. You’ve got to find out who took those pictures. Who was filming us?’

‘Clo, have you lost your mind? You got knocked out in that fight!’ Johnny hissed.

‘I’m aware. But this is an opportunity we couldn’t even have dreamed of. Kit’s being mobbed in the street? How can we not include it?’

Her words were met with a stunned silence.

‘Clo, he looked after you. He carried you to the car,’ Matty argued.