There were no high-fives this time; all that greeted Kit’s triumphant run was a whistling silence. Tumbleweed could have blown down that pipe after him.

Clover watched as Kit unstrapped his board, reappearing in the tent several minutes later. Ari gripped him in an embrace that was part bear hug, part headlock. Clover laughed out loud at the sight of them – and of the other riders watching on in stony silence – prompting Matty and Johnny to look over at her.

‘You seem quite . . . emotionally invested,’ Johnny remarked, seeing that tears were shining in her eyes.

‘No,’ she demurred, implausibly. ‘I’m just pleased he got through. It’s better for the film if he makes the finals.’

He frowned, clearly not buying it. He turned to face them both properly. ‘So what did you two do? Because I know you didn’t go shopping.’

‘No.’ Matty pressed a finger secretively to her lips. ‘We interviewed Beau.’

He frowned. ‘First of all, why’s that a secret? And second of all – how?’

‘We did it with our phones.’

‘No!’ Johnny cried. ‘The quality will be shit!’

‘He was a cat on a hot tin roof,’ Matty shrugged. ‘He wouldn’t wait! We had to let him talk before he lost his nerve.’

‘Why? What did he say?’

‘Mainly stuff about his dad. He was an alcoholic, used to beat their mum, threw Kit down the stairs . . .’

Johnny looked at Clover. ‘. . . But Kit never mentioned any of that in his interview.’

‘Nope. And I don’t think Beau would have done either, had Amy not made these allegations. Beau said their background is the reason why Kit would never raise a hand to a woman; that it would dishonour their mother’s memory.’

‘And he was really close to her. Ari said he’d always ring her, wherever he was in the world.’

‘Yeah.’

Johnny thought for a moment. ‘Well, I guess it provides a . . . sympathetic slant, but it isn’t exactly binding proof that he’s innocent. Beau’s his brother. He’s bound to stick up for him. I don’t think it’ll be enough to change people’s minds.’

‘You don’t?’ Clover bit her lip.

Johnny looked at her, seeing her anxious expression. ‘That’s a good thing, surely? I thought our line was Kit Foley’s the people’s enemy. Sympathy would be somewhat off message?’

Clover glanced at Matty. ‘Well, things have become a little bit more complicated than we thought,’ she said hesitantly.

‘. . . How?’

Matty told him about Amy’s call to Julian in the middle of the night; how it had unravelled his manipulation of the entire project from the start.

But it wasn’t Julian’s manipulation of Kit that was Johnny’s principal concern. ‘But you and he . . .’ Johnny stared at Matty. ‘He . . .’