‘Oh no . . . you’ve got to be kidding me,’ Matty groaned, her laughter fading as they saw a group of snowboarders sitting on an approaching chair, their arms on the safety bar as – faces obscured by goggles and helmets – they stared down impassively. It was a moment before Clover recognized them.

All orange. All black. Khaki and blue.

They passed over in silence, with not a word nor a glance back, leaving the two of them lying like rag dolls in the snow and feeling like utter fools.

‘So this is where everyone’s been hiding,’ Johnny said as the girls joined him on the shoulder of the drop. Below was the snowpark, and it was positively heaving compared to the empty motorways they had been cruising on.

Clover looked down at the landscaped vista. It was so groomed and manicured, the snow glistened like white velvet. Two rows of rollers, rising and falling at alternate lengths and heights according to grading, were followed by a huge kicker slope that would send anyone going over it up towards the moon. Tens of snowboarders and freestyle skiers stood patiently along the lines, obeying the unspoken rules and etiquette and clapping others’ skills with heavily gloved hands. Occasional ‘whoops!’ carried into the air, sudden gasps too when someone got it wrong. There was, if not quite a party feeling, certainly a tangible sense of camaraderie.

Clover, Matty and Johnny made their way down the neighbouring piste in single file, going slowly as they scanned the park for their ‘team’s’ colours. Where were they?

Johnny found them first.

‘There.’ He pointed towards the superpipe. It differed from the usual halfpipes she’d seen before in that it was much bigger – with sheer vertical walls twenty-two metres high – and wider too. The projections and angles were deliberately engineered to promote big air jumps and ever more intricate tricks. It was the very reason Foley had chosen Kaprun and Zell am See as his base – the superpipe and this glacier meant he could train nine months of the year.

The pipe glistened menacingly in the bright sunshine and had a vast airbag set up at the bottom corner. A group of boarders were lining up along the top, waiting their turns to drop in. Beau’s distinctive and bright all-orange kit was easy to spot. He was standing behind Ari, who was standing behind Kit.

‘Quick. Let’s get to the bottom and watch them come down,’ Johnny said, taking off before they could argue.

They were there in twenty seconds, pivoting to a stop just as the guy before Kit launched into a languid zig-zag down the chute, his jumps becoming bigger and more complicated as he went. Clover gasped as he performed some sort of corkscrew twist at the end, flying through the air and landing on the giant airbag with a floppy, playful demeanour, like it was all just a game.