There was the sound of running footsteps outside and sharp, anxious voices. It was the others, coming back from the Ball. She had a sudden picture of the scene up on the bridge, the white police Rover with the orange and red flashes and the ambulance behind it, doors open, the blue light still revolving futilely on the roof. The grim appendages of every accident and tragedy. How many times had she averted her gaze from the same scene? And seen it too clearly once before, when they came for her father. How must it look now to Darcy and the others, coming back laughing, in search of her probably, and seeing that waiting for them?

Darcy. A cold shaft pierced her. Again, how could she, she had forgotten him. Her thoughts had been all for Tom.

The front door opened and beyond it she saw that the dawn had broken. The sky was gunmetal grey.

Her friends crowded in together, fear in their faces. Darcy’s eyes found hers at once and the horror in them melted away. Then he saw her pallor and the muddy, soaking wreck of her dress.

‘Helen. What’s happened? Are you all right?’

Over her shoulder he saw the stretcher and the long red outline, and the faces of the police, the ambulance men and the doctor.

‘It’s Oliver, isn’t it?’ He looked around at them all. ‘Isn’t it?’ he repeated. ‘Please tell me what has happened.’

Behind him Chloe’s hand went to her mouth. Pansy reached out to Scot Scotney and he held on to her, eyes narrowed in his tough face.

It was Helen who told him, in broken sentences ragged with her first sobs. Darcy listening with his head bowed but his hands were on her arms, comforting her. At the end he looked up, across to Gerry and then to Tom.

‘You went in after him?’ he asked. Their soaked clothes and uncontrollable shivering even under draped blankets answered him. ‘Thank you,’ he said simply.

The doctor, younger than Darcy, shifted on his feet. ‘He struck his head on the bridge as he overbalanced. His lungs filled with water at once. Death would have been within seconds. No-one could have done anything.’

Helen saw Tom shuddering. Except prevent him from going on the river at all. She heard the words in his head as clearly as if he had spoken them. Her muscles bunched to run to him, but then she saw Darcy’s hands, inanimate, still on her arms. She froze and Tom sat down, alone, at the foot of the stairs.

Darcy was talking. His voice was very gentle, but he had discarded his old, diffident self as inappropriate for this ugly dawn. He was their authority now. He thanked the ambulance men gravely and then turned to the police.

‘Yes. I am his brother.’

‘Your name, sir?’