‘He’s just our friend,’ says Alisha.

They walk back into town together. Dillon walks beside Aaron, Jack in front with the girls.

Dillon watches Alisha. Aaron watches Jack.

A week later, on the way back from visiting his mum at the hospital, Dillon gets off the bus at the bridge. He stands above where the path passes beneath. He can smell the grain of cigarette smoke. As his eyes adjust he can see someone in the shadow below. Two figures, one kneeling. Then a bright dot glows, smoke is drawn in, and he sees Jack’s wicked face looking up at him while Oni fumbles at his crotch.

Dillon steps back. The river curves away towards the forest. The sun is low, the light red.

This town is stone, mostly. Rows of stone terraces nestled in a valley. A market street, a town hall, shops with the names painted on stone lintels. If you follow the river down, you’re soon in the forest. But stick to the road, and you enter the twenty-first century. Over the bridge, past the old stone warehouse, beyond the sharp grey rows of new houses, sits the industrial estate with its hangar-like supermarket and tile and carpet merchants, grouped around double roundabouts and unmarked roads.

But go farther still, and you’re out. The land rises, the valley deepens, the tops beckon. Floating on the long crests of purple moor are islands of stone, like blunt-headed breaching whales, circled by the thick runnels of peat-cut tracks. Up there, you can sit in the nook of a rock and see nothing but sky.

The beach is an hour away in the other direction. The first time Rose and Aaron are taken there, they arrive late, as the sun is setting over the wide bay. They stand watching everything carefully. Then something catches Aaron and he runs, arms at his sides, hands in his pockets, his skinny torso wobbling and his head down against the wind and the sand, his coat flapping against a body that almost isn’t there.

Rose stays back, watching her brother. Her foot is twisted round her ankle, her wrists interlock. The sea is big. Aaron is small against it. It’s flatter than she thought it would be.

She imagines she is a rubber band, twisted tight. She tenses, then releases, flinging herself wide into a sudden, gawky pirouette. She staggers a little, then spins again.

Graeme watches too. He is heavy, greying and still, carrying a weariness with him even here.

Jack doesn’t care about the beach. He’s been living with them for a month. The sea isn’t new to him. On the way to the caravan, he promised them all it would be shit. Since they arrived, he’s stood beside Graeme, poking the sand with his foot.