She swam across, trying hard to find the reflection she’d seen from the towpath. Scrambling about in the water, they had both vanished. The woman had gone; she knew for certain the woman had not surfaced again, not after she went in, but that couldn’t be right, could it? Surely, even if she intended to jump into the water, human instinct would propel her up again? Liv swam round in what felt like an ever-widening circle, dipping her head beneath the water, trying to see in the darkness, hoping each time she came up for air that Pete would be by her side.

It was no good. She was almost out of breath, her hip aching from an injury she couldn’t remember ever having, her breath gasping because her lungs felt as if they’d been stabbed directly through her cumbersome clothes by the canal’s freezing fingers. And then, although she couldn’t see anything but the shimmer of the lights overhead – the last array of emerald stars dropping slowly towards the ground – something pushed against her. It was big, too big to be anything but another person. It rubbed along her back, spinning her about in the water. Twisting her around so she didn’t know which way she was faced anymore in the blackness of it all. She dived further down, the water clogging up around her clothes, so she had to work harder to move. Down here, she kept her eyes peeled for some hint as to where the woman was, where Pete was, but the darkness was impenetrable; the only way was to swim through it.

And then, as if someone whispered in her ear, she found herself turning about in the water, a gentle tugging at her, not against her clothes, but something vibrating within her, drawing her deeper into the canal, compelling her forward. Her eyes adjusted to the murk and darkness of the stinging water until she saw the reflection once again.

A small, winking trail of green, probably the reflection of the fireworks above, but it was the only guiding light she had. She heaved her body up once more and gasped for breath, then dived in the direction she was certain those lights had been just moments earlier.

On and on she swam, a tightening panic that she might be moving in useless circles while the water’s cold cloyed further into her bones. It wasn’t far, but already she was out of breath. Her oxygen levels were making her heart beat too fast, her pulse race in her veins, exhausting her, so even if she made it to the point of where the first light had been, she would be fit for little more than to float off up to the surface.