Clover thought for a second. This was an American Olympic squad member, riding right in front of Kit?

‘Get the drone out, quick,’ she said, shuffling the carry-bag off her shoulder so Johnny could unzip it.

‘The light’s not great,’ Johnny said, moving quickly.

‘Doesn’t matter. Just do the best you can . . .’

The small crowd on the lip of the pipe cheered loudly as Schultz shuffled into position.

‘Quick, he’s about to go.’

Johnny got the drone up, its eye looking down upon the action as he fiddled with the remote. Clover kept her gaze pinned on the rider but in the next instant he was gone from her sights, the nose of his board tipping down and sending him flying into a vertical drop before scooping him up and sending him up and above the other side. He disappeared back down again, popping up another second later.

The onlookers were whooping and yelling as he got bigger and bigger air. From Clover and Johnny’s vantage point, he was only in sight when he breached the pipe’s walls, but even from a distance they could see the athletic dynamism of his aerials, his bravado astounding. Every jump required micro-precision and utmost control; to land two degrees front or back could be catastrophic.

He finished with a complicated trick that made Johnny stand bolt upright in response, his mouth hanging open, forgetting he was operating the drone. The onlookers too were on their feet, whomping the ground and sending their cheers out over the valley.

Seemingly something momentous had just happened.

‘Did you see that?’ Johnny cried. ‘He just pulled out a Switch Backside 1260. Like, practically no one can do those. White did it once, I think, at X Games.’

‘Oh?’ Clover watched the cacophony with vague bemusement. Snowboarding was opaque to her. See one twisty jump, you’ve seen them all, was her feeling. ‘Watch! Foley’s up.’

They waited as Kit slid into his starting position. He kept looking over at Tipper . . . Clover frowned. Did they have some sort of code? A Bluetooth connection that enabled them to speak to one another? Because Tipper suddenly stiffened. His hands came out of his coat pockets. He shook his head firmly. Took a step forward, shook his head again.

But Foley looked away. For a few moments, he readied himself and then he was gone – out of sight down the drop that made Clover’s stomach pitch. Two seconds later, he emerged high on the other side.

It was astonishing to her that people could do these things. That he could. Standing in front of him, having him tell her to get the hell out, and now watching him down there, flying and free . . . how could he be both men?

Wait . . .