He nodded. ‘She wanted to get as far away as she could – a five-hour plane ride away. She had no money but our neighbour knew what was going on – he used to hear the screams – and he loaned it to her. Mum didn’t know how she was going to pay him back when she had us to look after, rent to pay . . . Kit won the money in his first surfing competition eight months later and he mailed it over to him.’

Clover blinked at him. Her heart was beating so hard she felt sure they could all hear it. ‘So . . . surfing became a way for Kit to help your mum financially.’

‘Yeah. Within a year, he was the family breadwinner. A local surf company agreed to sponsor him and he went pro as soon as he could.’

‘Did it also help him, emotionally, do you think? Being on the water?’

‘For sure. It kept him from burning up. He had a lot of rage for a long time. He couldn’t forgive my father for what he’d done to us.’

Clover was silent for a few moments. She didn’t want to have to ask these questions. Not now. ‘. . . Beau, I’m sorry but I have to ask this. In light of the revelations that have been made by Kit’s former fiancée in the press this week – doesn’t your family history lend weight to her allegations? The abused becomes the abuser?’

‘No.’ Beau sat further forward on his seat. Clover could see his hands were tightly clasped together on his lap. She could see the self-control it was taking to hold himself together. He must have known she would ask this. ‘It’s because that happened to us, that he would never, ever do those things she’s accused him of. He saw our own mother beaten black and blue. It simply isn’t in him to do that to someone else.’

‘But he was involved in that fight in Zell am See,’ she said quietly. ‘There’s footage showing him—’

‘He didn’t throw a punch until he saw you get hit. I think it took him straight back there, to our childhood, seeing our mum with a black eye. He was a mess afterwards. I hadn’t seen him like that in years. He couldn’t bear to see what had happened to you.’

Clover looked at the floor. That was why he hadn’t come to see her? Why he’d thrown her out from his room, unable even to look at her? She could feel emotions pressing at the backs of her eyes, in her throat, a pressure in her chest . . .