“What? Fencers?” said Trish. “At least you’ve got a job.” We trudged back to the truck. As we climbed in, I saw a featureless oval look through the mesh glass of the Crossing Motors’ one window. It didn’t move until we were gone. “Feckless youths?”

“Damsons,” said Gary.

“Did they have names?” I surprised myself by asking. My face grew hot; I wished for my mother’s cool, flower-scented hands. Clever questions only display ignorance, don’t they? Yes, Mother. “The man? For deliveries?”

“Smith,” said Gary shortly.

“You realise this is a wild goose chase?” said Trish.

I followed them to the truck. The ground felt foreign, and my feet heavy on it.

The sun sailed inexorably across the sky. As we crossed each creek and bridge, something stretched tighter than wire below my ribs.

“It won’t be them,” Trish said. “The boys, I mean.”

I hadn’t said it was. We thought she ought to look. I hadn’t thought Gary might know more than I did.

“Trish,” said Gary, thoughtfully, “did Nerida—Mrs Scott—know you were with us all, that last time?”

“She made a point about it. Came and talked to me over the fence, nastily polite. Said she knew I’d been running about and, oh, that I was … never the decorous one, was I? I think she suspected about me and … Well.”

Gary snorted. I sniffed.

“She was laughing at me,” said Trish. “She said Tina had been home in bed like a good girl and Tina was there agreeing and—”

Gary braked, swerved and stopped.

“SHIT!” said Trish, bracing herself.

A swift long shadow dissolved into the scrub beside the road. My ears were ringing; the old ache in my neck was back. I put my hand to my cheek and the faint thread of my old scar.

“What was that?” said Trish.

“Nothing,” said Gary. He was pale. “A feral dog. Mangy. Long gone.”

“No dog I ever saw,” muttered Trish, and shuddered. Gary drove on. I craned out the window but saw nothing. Foolishness, my mother said. Those stories about half-glimpsed creatures in the hills.

“Where was Tina that night?” Gary continued. That last night. The night my father left.

“What is this? The inquisition?” said Trish. “Dad’s right, by the way. You need seatbelts. Betty here was home being a wet blanket.”

Gary raised his eyebrows. “Whose idea was it to go up the water tower?”

“Intense much, Damson?” said Trish. “Everyone goes up the water tower.”

“No, they don’t. Just bloody-minded Scotts with firecrackers. You know she was the worst of them.”

They might have been talking about a dead girl. Water warm as blood, and below that, cold as stars. I would have said I couldn’t even swim, yet memories surfaced, sluggish and drowned.

“What did she do?” said Trish, scathing. “Shout directions from her bedroom window?”

“Who got the car and decided on blind tag that night?” said Gary.