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.

Johnny visibly relaxed as she walked silently over the plush carpet and he closed the bedroom door behind her with a soft click. Clover followed him down the stairs in pensive silence. If it had been a revelation, it had been for all the wrong reasons. She had spent the past half year studying this man; she knew his birthday, knew that he was a goofy-footer, allergic to shellfish, preferred blondes, idolized Bruce Lee, had a Hawaiian kākau tattoo on his left bicep, had torn his ACL in both legs . . . But having gone in hoping for added insight into a man she already knew so much about, she had come away somehow knowing less. He not only hadn’t conformed to expectations – he simply hadn’t been in there at all. It was troubling. If even in private he was hidden, how was she supposed to find him?

She had a sudden dread feeling that filming Kit Foley was going to be like getting a photograph of the invisible man.

Chapter Five