Pipe Rat looked over at them, bringing the weight of the crowd’s stare with him. ‘You boys can be so proud of your dad. All he ever wanted was to make you proud. To be the best for you.’ He looked back at the paddlers. ‘Forty-eight career victories in twenty years, riding against guys half his age. He was ranking first on the ASP World Tour when he had his accident but before that, he had been world number two for four consecutive years . . . He was consistent, dogged, the best surfer never to make world champ there ever was.’

His words skimmed across the ocean’s surface.

‘Cory never had it easy. He never quite caught the breaks that mattered. But he was a fighter. He kept going. He was like all of us – a regular guy, not without his demons, just doing his best.’

Clover glanced at the boys. One day – just not today – they would also hear about their father’s sporadic drink and drug problems, the half-hearted retirement episodes when he gave up, gained weight and checked out of the sport. But he had always turned things around, gone back. The ocean didn’t need mermaids to lure him in, just barrels.

‘He didn’t grow up in some fancy house. He wasn’t no rich kid who got given everything on a plate. What he got, he earned. He did it the hard way. Through grit. And resilience. And talent. And self-belief. He wanted to win, not for money, but for love. For his family: Mia and his boys – Hunter, Taylor, Brady. You guys were his world. He wanted to make you proud. Cos he was so damn proud of you.’

Clover saw that Mia’s shoulders were hunching up by her ears as she tried to hold back her tears, and she leaned forward, resting a comforting hand upon her shoulder. Brady was still tucked up on his mother’s lap but the older boys were stoically looking back at the crowds, peering from behind their long fringes of white-blonde, sun-bleached hair. Their little bodies were rigid with tension as they hung on Pipe Rat’s every word about their father, their breath coming in big gulps that inflated their rib cages.

‘. . . Cory Allbright was a beautiful soul. This never should have gone down the way it did, we all know that. But there’ll be justice down the line. Karma be like that.’

His voice had become hard and brittle; everyone knew to what – or rather, whom – he was referring. Clover realized they were all now holding hands, forming linked chains in concentric circles around the small boat, ten, eleven deep. A short distance away bobbed a solitary surfer. Had he arrived too late? Or was he simply a passing rider, unaware of what he’d come across? He sat, silhouetted, watching, making no attempt to draw closer.