She looks at me for several seconds then tips back her head and laughs. “Would you look at your face! I wasn’t getting all Single White Female on you. I just thought it would be nice to spend a bit of time with my best friend, that’s all. Anyone would think you’re ignoring me!”

“I’m not.”

“Are you sure about that?” Her bright blue eyes bore into me.

“Of course I am. Anyway, what happened after Al and I left Isaac’s talk? Did he carry on giving Leanne the third degree?”

“No, he stopped and Isis took her off somewhere. I tried to go with them but Isaac wouldn’t let me. He said that Leanne was like an open wound, that the infection from her past was seeping out and that I couldn’t be with her or I’d contaminate her and she’d have to go through the process all over again.”

I laugh. “You’re winding me up.”

“I swear I’m not. He seriously came up with that crap. It’s a good job he’s so fit or he couldn’t get away with it. Anyway” – she dismisses the thought with a wave of her hand – “I went to look for them in the grounds but couldn’t see them anywhere, so I went back to the house. And that’s when I saw you standing in the hallway playing a game of musical statues all on your own.”

“I was listening to Isaac and Cera talking in the study.”

“What about?”

I squint into the distance. Isaac is leaning out of his study window, puffing on a cigarette. I would never admit it to Daisy but there’s something fascinating about him. On the surface he seems really chilled and laid-back, but there’s a lot more going on beneath the smiles and the pseudo-Buddhist bullshit. I’m not sure I buy what he said about getting over the abuse he suffered in his childhood by talking about it. I think the hurt’s still there but he’s found a way to block it out. “Al. I think they were pissed off with her for smashing up the hallway.”

Daisy follows my gaze. “You know he likes me?”

“Sorry?”

“Isaac. He fancies me. Leanne told me. He plays hard to get, apparently.”

I suppress a smile. Daisy’s propensity for self-delusion is astonishing, but her telling me that Isaac fancies her isn’t to share her surprise or delight; it’s to warn me off. This is her staking her claim. If it weren’t so ridiculously childish, it would be irritating. “Right, okay. That’s interesting.”

“I know, I like a challenge and, according to Leanne, it really pissed him off that I shagged Johan.” She smirks and runs a hand through her hair, preening even though Isaac is over a hundred metres away.

“Leanne told you that?”