Clover kept on staring at her. Depression? He’s dealing with a lot of shit right now. Although I appreciate he doesn’t present sympathetically. Ari had said that to her. And she remembered the self-help books by his bed, the anodyne bedroom.

‘It must be hard for you having to deal with someone like that.’

Clover tuned back in to find Charlie smiling at her. ‘He’d be hard work for any filmmaker – much less the person who made him public enemy number one! It’s fair to say we haven’t exactly hit it off.’

‘Sounds gruelling! Is it really worth it? There must be other stories you could tell – with people who are less personally invested in you.’

‘Honestly, if I could walk away, I probably would.’ Clover hesitated. ‘But I have to stick it out. I made a promise to Mia, Cory’s widow.’

‘Ah.’ Charlie looked at her like it all made sense now.

Clover shrugged. ‘She needs to know why Kit did what he did. She needs it if she’s to have any kind of closure.’

‘Cory didn’t know?’

‘He had some amnesia after the concussion. Any time I tried to press him on it, he’d become incredibly agitated and stressed.’

‘Who’s stressed?’ Tom asked, walking back in with the boxes of decorations he’d been unearthing in their basement store.

‘Cory Allbright. Was. Not anymore, obviously,’ Clover said quietly.

Tom frowned. ‘No.’

‘Clo’s new film is about the lowlife who caused Cory’s accident,’ Charlie said, sitting the baby up and patting her back.

‘What? Why?’

‘He’s about to relaunch himself as a pro snowboarder,’ Charlie said, smiling with satisfaction as she got up a big burp.

Tom shook his head in bafflement, as though that made no sense. His expression changed. ‘Talking of snowboarders, did you hear about the American guy, yesterday?’

Clover fell still.

‘No,’ Charlie frowned. ‘What happened?’ She got up another burp and kissed Bella on the cheek.

Tom lifted the lid on a box and pulled out a chain of paper links. ‘Fell badly in a training session for a competition in Italy. Broke his neck . . . twenty-five years old.’

‘Poor guy,’ Charlie murmured.

‘Yeah. Did you hear about it, Clo?’ He saw her expression. ‘. . . Clo?’

She swallowed. ‘I knew him, actually.’

Tom looked back at her. ‘Oh, shit.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did you know him well?’

‘. . . Well enough that I was kissing him in a bar in Switzerland last week.’

‘Oh shit.’

‘Tom, stop saying that,’ Charlie said, seeing her expression. But they both still stared at her in wide-eyed silence.

‘Is that why you were upset outside?’ Tom asked suddenly. ‘. . . Is it why you’re here?’

‘She’s your sister! She doesn’t need a reason to come and see you,’ Charlie said, rolling her eyes. ‘Ignore him. He has all the subtlety of a pig in stilettos.’

Clover cracked a smile. It was a powerful image – and accurate.