“That’s better,” she said, mostly to herself. “Thanks, Kash.”

“No problem.” He abandoned his attempts to stay dry and sat on the grass. “Major Crimes and SOCO are also en route,” he told Rosie. “I’ll have a scout around and see what I can see. Where exactly was he found?”

Jem aimed her torch toward the river, circling its beam on a tree with spindly branches. “He was stuck in there.”

Kash walked carefully in the direction she’d indicated, examining the ground for signs of a struggle or evidence the lad had been anywhere but the water. As he followed the path of the river, his dark outline merged into the shadows and the driving rain, the occasional bob of his torch beam the only proof he was still out there.

“Do you want to swap?” Jem asked Rosie. “It’s tiring after a while.”

Rosie shook her head, despite the ache across her back. “I’m all right.”

“We’ll never get him out of here. Not like this.” Jem stroked a muddy strand of hair from the lad’s forehead as if in apology. “Helimed don’t fly at night, and we won’t be able to do CPR properly while we carry him. The docs will probably call it on scene.”

“He’s just a kid,” Rosie said. She pressed down harder, doing her best textbook CPR, as if that alone might somehow change the outcome.

Jem’s shoulders were slumped in defeat. She used her free hand to rub her face. “It’s been too long, and his skull’s in bits. Even in a hospital, I doubt he’d have come back from this. Stuck here, he’s had no chance.”

“Shit,” Rosie whispered.

Jem nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

* * *

Jem couldn’t feel her hands. A small heating pad sat in each of her palms, but she couldn’t detect their warmth or grip them properly. Through sheets of rain, she watched the two Emergency Response doctors confer with the detectives beyond the perimeter established by the Scene of Crime Officers. A white forensic tent was rapidly being erected, but she could still see the lad’s body, its face angled toward her by the weight of the ventilation bag she had only just relinquished. Even in death he didn’t look peaceful. His half-lidded eyes glared when the torchlight caught them, and the tube curled his lips into a snarl, as if in defiance of the team’s decision. She shuddered and turned at the sound of approaching footsteps, grateful for any distraction but even more so when Rosie crouched by her side.