‘No, it’s all good. The boys are at school and it’s my day off. Cue six hours of me trying to get the house back in order before they come back and destroy it all over again!’ She laughed lightly.

Clover gave a small smile. ‘Endless, huh?’

‘Definition of madness. Repeating an action over and over and expecting a different outcome.’ Clover heard her pause and she closed her eyes. How was she supposed to say this? ‘. . . How’s everything over there? Still in Austria?’

‘Uh . . . Switzerland now actually. St Moritz.’

‘Oh.’ There was another pause, the sound of a soft snort. ‘. . . Y’know, it doesn’t matter how much I try and visualize it, I just can’t see Kit Foley in the fricking snow. Wearing clothes. He practically had webbed feet.’

‘. . . Yeah . . . It takes some getting used to.’ She swallowed, feeling sick. How should she start it? How could she mitigate the shock? How could she say these words that needed to be said?

A silence buzzed down the line. Clover could hear the Pacific thumping down in her back garden.

‘Is everything okay, Clo? You sound . . . strained.’

‘I’m fine.’ But her voice was strangled and weak.

‘. . . Did you find something out?’

Clover’s throat felt stoppered. Where were her words?

‘. . . Should I be sitting down?’ Mia pressed into the silence.

‘. . . Probably.’

There was a long pause. ‘Okay . . . I’m ready.’

Clover became aware of her rapid breathing, adrenaline flushing her veins. She had to say it. ‘I know who bought your house.’

In the silence that followed, she listened to the sound of the faraway waves. On the lake in front of her, there wasn’t even a ripple. Every day, every hour, the ice thickened, freezing the landscape into a static pose. She could see someone walking down by the water’s edge, their footprints black depressions scowling behind them in the moonlit snow.

‘. . . It’s Kit, isn’t it?’

Clover’s breath snagged in surprise. ‘How did you know?’

‘Well, who else could it be to have you sounding so depressed?’

‘Mia . . .’ But what could she say?

There was a long pause. Mia’s voice sounded altered when she came back on. ‘Did he tell you?’

‘No. I broke into his room the first night we got here and found some architect’s drawings beside the bed. I didn’t connect the dots till . . . well, today.’ Her initial thought on seeing Mia’s photo had been that the house looked familiar because it closely copied what had originally been there. It hadn’t crossed her mind that it was what she’d seen beside Kit’s bed – and she’d forgotten about it in the next instant anyway, as the news about Mikey had broken.

‘Does he know you’re telling me?’

‘God, no!’ Clover winced. ‘I think he knows you would reject the house if you knew it was from him.’

‘Of course I would! He already tried once before.’

‘What?’