He turns back to the screen and clicks the profile. A small maple leaf flag suggests they’re Canadian. Home town: Vancouver, BC. Cain scrolls through the reviews from other hosts: 5.0 stars average rating. Perfect. Six reviews.

Left our place spotless.

Easy to communicate with and very tidy.

Loved hosting Dan and Cherry, very friendly and flexible.

‘Look at the other places they’ve stayed.’

‘How?’ Cain asks.

‘Click the profiles of the people who have left reviews.’

He does, we see the listings and go through them one by one, checking out the places they’ve been. They’ve got good taste by the looks of it. Always big houses from different parts of the world: Portugal, Morocco, Japan. They seem to be working their way around the globe and Lake Tarawera is next on their list.

‘Anyone could follow them around,’ Cain says, ‘stay at the same places after them, relive their trip.’

‘Why would you bother?’ I say.

‘Well, there are some freaks out there.’

It’s four hundred and thirty-two dollars we wouldn’t otherwise have. Money for nothing really and easily covers the costs of setting the place up.

Cain opens Google and he punches their name in, strikes enter and results flood the page.

‘What are you doing?’

‘No one is going to be honest on their WeStay profile. Let’s see if we can find their Facebook page.’ He’s scrolling as he talks.

‘Really? This feels a little like stalking.’

‘It’s harmless, Lina,’ he says. ‘Plus what if they were neo-Nazis or child abusers, you would want to know, right?’

‘Probably not. And who would list that on their Facebook anyway?’

‘It’s not hard to tell something is off about someone just by looking at what they choose to share. Couple of guys from my unit constantly post borderline neo-Nazi propaganda.’

Their social media profiles are easy to find. Cain finds the man’s twitter and reads his tweets aloud. Twitter is where you learn the most about people. A couple of hundred characters of anger, or admiration. Dan thinks Trudeau is a puppet. He’s a big Maple Leafs fan but will not be renewing his membership if they don’t fire the head coach soon. Cherry retweeted a feel-good quote from Chrissy Teigen and tweets about going to the gym almost every day, with images of smoothies, gym shots of her mid squat with a bar across her shoulders. More healthy recipes and #fitspo. She posted an image of an old man I assume is her father, on the anniversary of his death. I find their LinkedIn accounts on my phone. Dan has a much more professional photo than his Twitter account. A shirt with an open collar, a smile that is slightly restrained.

‘He’s a geologist working in exploration for a mining company,’ I say.

‘No wonder he hates Trudeau,’ Cain says.