‘You should. It’s pretty cool. It’s got a resistance motor so you can swim against it.’

‘Of course it does,’ she tutted. ‘What doesn’t that place have?’

‘A lady of the manor?’ Johnny grinned, lifting the camera off the tripod and into the padded bag. ‘Although maybe it’ll get one of those sooner rather than later.’

‘Quite.’

Johnny crouched and collapsed the tripod. ‘She was practically dribbling into her soup the other night.’ He zipped up the bags and stood. ‘What d’you think they’re doing right now?’

‘Uh, working, I hope!’

Julian had arranged for Matty to travel to Salzburg with him today to meet the PR and marketing chief at the headquarters of their parent company, O-R Holdings. Their portfolio was mainly luxury hotels with a few high-end domestic developments, and there wasn’t any good reason that Clover could see why they should need to explore ‘synergies’, as Julian had put it. On the other hand, Julian was a valuable contact for them. As the only person in a position to wield any power over Kit Foley, it didn’t hurt to keep him close for the moment, and Matty had been more than happy to step up. Delighted, in fact.

They lifted the bags onto their shoulders and began trudging down the steep, unbashed slope. It was difficult with the bulky equipment to carry. ‘Shall we do a drive-by?’ he said as they got to the piste and he strapped on his board.

‘Yeah, why not?’ she shrugged, clipping into her skis; they had to pass by the snowpark anyway on their way back down. They traversed in easy turns, taking care not to drag the equipment, stopping at the point where a path ran off the piste down to the park.

A short line of boarders were waiting their turns. She saw Foley immediately. He was taller than most of the others and wearing a pale beige camo set. But that wasn’t what marked him out – it was his isolation in the pack that made him easy to recognize. While everyone else was giving each other high-fives and sitting in the snow in groups, there was a distinct clearance zone around him.

If he had noticed, he wasn’t showing it. He was waiting for the guy in front of him to drop in, but he looked distracted, his head turning towards the far edge every so often. Clover looked too and saw Tipper McKenzie, his coach, standing by the side, giving him encouraging nods in return. Ari and Beau were standing beside Tipper, their boards off.

‘Go Mikey!’ someone shouted. ‘Whip it!’

‘Schultzy!!’

Johnny, beside her, looked suddenly alert. ‘Oh shit. Is that Mikey Schultz? He’s Team USA. Just knocked Shaun White off the team for the next Olympics.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. What’s he doing here? He’s based in Utah, I thought.’