But Clover was frustrated as she watched the playbacks each day, noting the questions that weren’t being asked. Opportunities were being missed to get harder-hitting material. People were angry! Appalled! They should be capitalizing on that high emotion; Kit was living down to expectations, but Matty wasn’t a journalist, and half the footage involved her admiring someone’s coat or petting their dog. Johnny wasn’t pushing Matty on it, either – he was purely a visuals man – and Clover still felt troubled by his reluctance the other night to go in hard on Kit and include the fight footage. If he would willingly leave that out, what other material was being missed?

Clover was itching to get back out there herself, but there was no way she could; her blackened, bloodshot eye was still too alarming for public scrutiny, not to mention it made a direct connection with the fight. Instead she spent most of her time with Johnny when he got back, the two of them working in his bedroom together editing the footage and cleaning up the files they did have, cutting them down to pithy soundbites.

Poor Johnny looked wrecked. He was pale from spending too many hours indoors and staying up late, working on screens. Clover couldn’t keep up with him. Her bruised eye tired easily from the blue light, a low-grade headache niggled constantly and settled sleep was evasive.

Everyone was jarred, it seemed, and the atmosphere in the chalet was tense. Kit – leaving his room now, at least – was prowling like a wounded tiger, snapping at everyone and spoiling for arguments with Beau and Ari. He looked rough-shaven and moved stiffly. She supposed it would hurt too if he tried to laugh, but there was no chance of that. The fractional thaw she had sensed in the restaurant, as he had begun to relax into good news and even better wine, had frozen solid once more. He had scarcely looked at her since she’d intruded into his room and she could tell from his bristling hostility that he held her responsible for the fight, and its fallout. She could guess at his logic – her film had vilified him and therefore galvanized his attackers.

Clover was more than happy to keep out of his way. After the way he’d thrown her out, she couldn’t muster the energy it took to put a smile on her face and pretend she was friend, not foe. She felt physically and emotionally beaten up and was beginning to feel worse as the days slipped by without a single arrest being made. Kit’s face was all over the international press – but somehow these people had escaped as anonymously as they had arrived.