But if the room’s concept and design were refined, the person inhabiting it was not. The bedsheets were a twisted tangle, a pillow on the floor, a laptop left charging in the middle of the mattress. The wardrobe doors were hanging open but it seemed to be superfluous, for there were clothes everywhere: jackets, jumpers and jeans piled high on chairs, bunched-up boxers and single socks on the floor, snow base layers inside out on the radiators. Vape cartridges and Rizla papers had been left on the desk, some magazines – car, surf, porn – slowly sliding off a chair.

‘Huh. So he’s forever fifteen, then,’ Johnny muttered. ‘This looks like he had a party in his parents’ room.’

‘He’s certainly a slob,’ she said slowly, following Johnny into the bathroom.

There were wet towels on the floor; a stale urine smell told them the loo hadn’t been flushed. More vapes. A shampoo bottle upside down in the shower.

‘Ah. This is Pluto’s room,’ Johnny murmured, reading the name on the label of a white pill bottle in the wall cabinet above the basin.

‘What?’ She walked over and stared at it. ‘Beau Foley.’ Dammit. ‘Alprazolam. What is that?’

He gave a disdainful snort. ‘It’s a street benzo . . . Benzodiazepine? . . . Treats anxiety.’

‘He’s got anxiety?’

‘Oh, I sincerely doubt it. Uses it as a downer, most likely.’ He reached in and pulled out some more bottles. ‘Yeah. Bringing him down from these.’

Clover looked at him blankly.

‘Our boy likes to party,’ he muttered, putting them back again. ‘Wingman and freeloader – playing to type so far.’

She walked back into the bedroom and looked around it with disdain. ‘And supposedly he’s the nice brother!’

‘Oh good.’ Johnny rolled his eyes. ‘Here’s a thought – let’s not do this in Ari’s room. I’d really rather not chance upon his exotic knife collection.’

They walked out into the hall and stood outside the door opposite. ‘Ready?’ she asked him. Johnny shrugged – he just wanted this all to be over as quickly as possible – and she realized she had been asking for her own benefit. She needed to take a breath before she stepped in here, into the most private space of the most hated man. ‘Here we go, then . . .’

They went in. It was like stepping into a cathedral – the instinct to look up, to gasp. Beau’s room could have been, should have been beautiful, but this was a whole other level. Three times bigger and decorated entirely in milky whites, it was like stepping into a cloud. The entire far wall was crittall and smoked glass, looking onto the main living area downstairs and beyond it, the picture window over Lake Zell. A giant freestanding copper bath was positioned front and centre, affording the bather wonderful views, but for the person having a cup of tea on the sofa downstairs . . .?