She knew Ari would have arranged for the car to be brought so close to the hotel doors that no photos would be possible – again – but there was nowhere to hide on the pistes. Up there, Kit would be exposed at last. Every set of eyes would be upon him, for all the wrong reasons.

‘But isn’t that the point?’ Matty asked. ‘It’ll be kicking off up there. Today’s the first day he’s appeared in public since the story broke. Everyone’s going to have an opinion on him. This is manna.’

‘Johnny’s filming everything.’

‘Yeah, but we need words as well as pic—’

Clover stopped her with a look. ‘Johnny’s on it.’

‘. . . Sure.’ Matty stared at her hands as a silence bloomed between them.

‘Sorry.’ Clover frowned as her gaze was distracted by something jarring and chaotic in the serene room. She gave a small gasp, rising from her chair and waving wildly. ‘Beau?’

Beau’s eyes widened as he caught sight of her and rushed over, almost tripping over a hostess trolley. Clover and Matty stared in bemusement as he staggered to the table. Was he still drunk?

‘Thank god! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!’

‘Beau, sit down, have a coffee,’ Clover said, trying to calm him. ‘You look . . .’ He looked wild.

‘No, I can’t sit! There’s no time!’

‘. . . Did you just get here?’

‘I couldn’t get out before. The roads were closed. There was an avalanche down by Visp.’ He seemed frantic.

‘Oh . . . Well listen, I’m sorry, but you’ve missed them. They’ve already gone up. The eliminations start at eleven a.m. but Kit’s not on till eleven forty or so. You might still make it if—’

‘No.’

Clover frowned. ‘Huh?’

‘It’s you I need to see. While Kit’s not here. I have to do it now. If I see him, I’ll talk myself out of it.’

Clover felt her heart rate switch into a gallop. ‘Out of what?’

‘I need to tell you what happened. What really happened.’ He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat; his neck was stretched with tension. ‘If he won’t say it, then I will.’

Clover looked at Matty.

‘But Beau . . . Johnny’s up with Kit and Ari. He’s not here. We can’t film.’

He picked up her phone from the table. ‘Why can’t you use this?’

Clover stared at it. Why indeed?

*

Professional it was not. Clover’s phone was propped up on the desk against a bottle of sparkling water from the minibar and held in place by a Twix. Matty was using her phone for the ‘tight’ shots on Beau’s face, which was trickier than it sounded – she had to hold the phone as still as she could, without micro-tremors, whilst turning her head away on every exhale so as not to blow on the mic.