‘I told you, you’ve got to let me get the adults!’ Sam, also whimpering now, called from the top of the cliff face. ‘My dad’s at the surf club!’

At the mention of Mr Eastaugh, Owen grew belligerent.

‘You get him, I’ll never speak to you again.’

Owen continued trying to persuade Gordon to climb, and then he tried bullying him, finally promising unbelievable rewards, but Gordon was clinging to the rock face, cold and wet and hysterical now, bawling his eyes out in panic at the thought of moving.

‘Wait!’ Sam called. ‘Lemme come down and help!’

‘Don’t be an idiot, you’ll only get trapped too,’ Owen said. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

Owen was Gordon’s big brother. He would get him out of this. Nobody would know except them.

‘We won’t get in trouble,’ Owen told Gordon with grim determination, as if trying to convince himself. ‘We won’t!’

After a long stand-off, with Gordon refusing to move, Owen lost patience, raised his fist as if to punch him, and dragged him onto his feet. They paused on the first narrow wet ledge of sandstone. Owen climbed around the seaward side and found a different way up, a fraction more gently sloped with a number of handholds in the outcropping rock and the heathery scrub. Owen was confident and capable. Owen was the best rower in the junior boys’ surfboat crew. Owen’s eyebrows were crusty with the salt from surfing eight-foot waves. Owen could do anything. Gordon never had another hero.

Owen hoisted Gordon roughly onto his back. He climbed up the face, nearly to the top. He grabbed a handful of heather, banking on it taking his weight and Gordon’s. It would have, except Gordon panicked. This was what happened. Everyone knew it nowadays, from the number of ocean rescuers who drowned while trying to save others. The drowner always panicked. The drowner pushed the rescuer down. Survival took over and the drowner would become an animal, blinded by its own fear, and kill the one who had come to save them.

Through Owen’s body, Gordon felt the bunch of heather tear out of its roots and come loose in his hand. Survival sent Gordon mad. He screamed and jumped for another tuft. Using Owen as his springboard, he made it to the flattening at the top of the cliff. As he jumped, his foot contacted Owen’s temple. Owen was stunned for a split-second: just long enough to lose his second handhold.

For a moment, Owen stood with his toes dug into the cliff face. He was still connected to the land. He stood in a perfect vertical. His arms spread to either side, as if opening to embrace Gordon.