‘Well, Foley Mark Two is . . . dull.’ She stood by his bedside table and did a visual inventory: vitamin tablets, a phone charger, airpods, some paperbacks. He was a reader?

‘Oh god,’ she smirked, holding up the top one to show Johnny. ‘Unfuck Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life. He’s a deep thinker? Please.’

She went to the second. ‘The Power of Positive Thinking . . . Maybe he should take the anxiety pills?’

Johnny chuckled.

‘Obama’s biography,’ she murmured, holding up the copy of Dreams from My Father. She flicked through it idly. ‘Oh, look at that. A signed copy. Friends in high places.’

‘Not anymore. I bet he wouldn’t get a signature for Obama’s new book.’

Clover smiled, mollified by the thought. ‘True that.’

She picked up some loose papers and glanced at them – architect’s drawings for a house. Surprisingly twee, she thought, looking at the pillared porch.

She put everything back down thoughtfully. What did all this reveal about Kit Foley? He could actually read – fine, so he wasn’t a complete moron jock. He liked to associate with the great and the good – she already knew all about his ego. He was building a house. Okay, where? Was it simply an investment, or for him? Did he want to put down roots? He was thirty, no longer the teen sensation travelling the globe, breaking hearts and catching waves.

Johnny followed her into the bathroom. It positively gleamed. Towels were folded and hung on the heated rails. Clover looked at the products in the shower – local supermarket brands, nothing fancy. He used an electric toothbrush, the bristles bright and upright, suggesting the rotating head had seemingly recently been changed. ‘Looks after his teeth,’ she murmured. ‘Clearly likes his smile.’

‘I don’t think anyone would deny the guy’s got a killer smile, Clo.’

Clover looked back at him with narrowed eyes. ‘I would. He’s a snake.’

The contents of the bathroom cabinet were unremarkable. Paracetamol. Aspirin. Muscle rubs. Tubed support bandages. Some herbal remedies – echinacea, ginseng, St John’s wort . . .

‘Ugh . . . it’s all so . . . yawn . . .’ she hissed irritably.

‘We should probably shift and get back downstairs. They could be back any second,’ Johnny said nervously.

She looked around the space, feeling increasingly frustrated. Nothing that she could see revealed anything about the man. It was all so . . . unremarkable. And that was odd, because Kit Foley was many things, but unremarkable wasn’t one of them. There was no subversive reading material, no dodgy substances, not even a glimmer of bad taste. If this was a glimpse inside his head, there wasn’t much to see. Where was his personality?

‘Clo?’

‘Huh?’

‘Let’s not push our luck?’

‘Oh, yes . . . coming,’ she mumbled.