Ari shrugged. ‘He’s upset of course, but he’s taking it on the chin.’ He looked at them both. ‘So I just wanted to make sure you’re still set for an ETD of eleven a.m. tomorrow?’

Clover blinked in disbelief. ‘He’s not still planning to go to St Moritz?’

‘Of course. Why not?’

Why not? Was it just her or was the whole world going mad? ‘But the story . . .’

‘Will blow over. Amy’s entitled to have her say.’

Have her say? She had destroyed him! Clover’s eyes narrowed; these weren’t Ari’s words. ‘But Julian . . .’

‘If he pulls the sponsorship, Kit can go solo,’ he shrugged. ‘He can self-fund.’

There was an astounded silence as Ari looked between her and Johnny with a tight smile. ‘Okay, so eleven then. See you tomorrow.’

‘Yeah. Night, Ari,’ Johnny murmured.

He glanced at her as they heard Ari’s bedroom door click shut. Another fraught silence blossomed. Their argument lingered like smoke, Ari’s dramatic downplaying of tonight’s events bordering on farcical. ‘. . . I’m going to bed too. I’m knackered.’

‘But Johnny—’

He set down his empty tumbler on Matty’s dressing table and walked across the room without looking at her. ‘Night, Clo.’

Clover stared at the wall. It stared back. She could hear the sound of taps running, toilets flushing in the others’ bathrooms. The chalet was preparing for sleep and the quietude of night whilst she sat there, both motionless and frantic. Everyone was playing roles that wore a veil of normality but the truth lay two degrees to the side; almost superimposed onto reality, but not quite. Was she the only one who couldn’t just sit there and take it?

She rose, not quite sure of what she planned to do. She only knew that they couldn’t roll into St Moritz tomorrow pretending everything was fine; something profound and terrible had happened tonight. She peered into the corridor, her gaze drifting over the closed doors and low blooms of light on the walls.

Silently, she tiptoed out and crept up the stairs. The lift would be too noisy, a liability with its distinctive ‘ping’ alerting inquisitive minds to movement. She wasn’t sure if she was more horrified by the thought of being caught by Ari or Johnny.

Within thirty seconds, her toes were burrowing into the cream carpet of the top floor and her breathing was heavier. To her left, Beau’s bedroom door was ajar, the lights off of course. To her right, they were still on. She stood outside the door, looking for shadows criss-crossing the room, but it was too large for them to fall by the threshold.