Shifty had been turned around, retracing the route they’d come in on. It was dark, and Matty couldn’t face trying to get a room this late, couldn’t face talking to anyone. There’d been a wide parking bay by woodland and water, ten kilometres back, not stopped at before, and the relief at getting there brought shivers. It was a quiet road, quieter even than most, not a single car going past in the hour since arriving.

After a while, a feverish, night-time hunger kicked in. The bread had started to go stale. Matty fried two slices and the last remaining rashers of bacon, and ate it, fingers greasy and burning, under the blankets. Too much eating. Fiddled with the reception on the radio and got mostly white noise. Turned it off again and finished the beer, put the bottle outside by the wheel so it wouldn’t stink the van out. Too much drinking.

A piss before bed. The temperature had dropped, a wash of icy air hitting the back of the throat, a new harshness as Matty squatted in the soggy grass.

The small lough was over the road, sopping up to rocks covered in moss that was lurid green in the torchlight. A gathering of bone-pale reeds, each one defiantly separate from the next. The line of the hill on the other side of the lough was shallow, curved.

There was the sound of an engine, a low rub of it, the car’s lights appearing intermittently as the road bent.

In the morning, the lough would reveal itself, navy or silver, still or restless. The cough would be gone, the swim easy, and everything else would fall away.

It felt safer here. The water was safer, a rhythmic loll against the stones.

A rasp of gravel. The car was turning into the parking bay. Matty turned the torch off – company was exactly the opposite of desired. Perhaps they were stopping for a piss, too. Or to shout into their new mobile phone.

The car door shut loudly. Matty stayed looking at the water, sensing the driver somewhere at the edge of the bay, several metres behind – maybe checking out Shifty, tucked in under the trees, the light left on. The sound of rubber grips on the tarmac came closer, until they were standing a few feet away on the roadside.

It was Dale. Easy to tell, even in the gloom. He had a jacket on, hands in his pockets as he’d had before. He stood watching the black water. The air was clean and scentless.

‘All right?’ he said. The word was slight, unreadable.

‘All right.’ A careful sense of relief. It was OK. He was up for something. Shifty’s first time.

He took a breath in, but didn’t speak.

Think. Think what to say first. Why else would he be out here? He was tentative, nothing like Trevor, nothing like most people Matty tended to go with.