‘Yes, and then she cheated on him too, because that’s what she does! She’s married to one of the richest guys in Sydney – do you really think that’s a love match? She’s clever; takes what she can get. Cory was on the cusp of becoming world champ and she was realizing she had backed the wrong horse – Kit was coming back from injury, some folk were saying he was past his best . . . He wasn’t. Truth was, falling in love had just made him soft. He didn’t have the same fire in his belly.’

Clover swallowed. She couldn’t imagine Kit soft, or not on fire.

She watched the figure pick up a stone by the water’s edge. He pulled his arm back and threw it far out of sight across the frozen surface. Faintly, the sound of it skipping over the ice – alone on the water – travelled to her ear. She felt a memory prick at the edges of her consciousness, a ghostly image trying to find form.

‘Look, I’m not saying Cory was innocent in all this. I know it would have been his damned plan, but he paid for his mistake a hundred times over. But her? She gave him just enough to think she was the answer to his problem . . . and when it all went wrong, she walked away and never looked back. While we were left broken.’ She began crying, angry, rasping sobs finally breaking through.

‘Mia, I’m so sorry,’ Clover whispered, feeling desperately useless. She was so far away. What could she do from here? ‘I only wanted to help.’

‘You did . . . you already did.’ She heard Mia sniff and gasp, could imagine her wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. ‘When you first turned up here, he was lying in that room being eaten alive with guilt. But you went and sat with him, in silence and companionship for days on end . . . you showed him he hadn’t been forgotten, that people still cared. You threw him a lifeline.’

‘But what I put in the film, it wasn’t true.’

‘No, it was, Clo. It was the truth! Just not the whole truth . . . You acted in good faith. And if you . . . deified Cory, or vilified Kit, it was because we let you. Kit went straight on to win back the title the next year; he didn’t miss a beat. The way we saw it, what did it matter if he copped a little bad press?’

Clover didn’t stir. She’d been so ready to believe the best of Cory and the worst of Kit.

‘. . . Thing is . . . all this time, I’ve been hating on the wrong person, haven’t I? Kit got hurt the same as me, but I ignored that. It was easier to go after him and ignore what my gut was telling me. The whole world could see what he’d done . . .’

‘Did Cory know that you knew?’