‘If you don’t, I’ll have to …’ He sounded defeated. ‘Will you just get in the car?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t make me have to do this.’ He took two steps forward.

‘I’m not going.’

His head came down. ‘Ah, God.’ Lots of breath in the words.

His eyes came up again, his expression becoming measured, careful, and it was clear when he was going to move and how he would. Matty got there first, pushing him, hooking a foot round his ankle and yanking, and shoved him in the shoulder.

Cormac staggered back, caught off-balance, and twisted as he fell back against the car, his skull catching the edge of the driver’s open door. There was a dull, solid sound as he tumbled side-first into the grass next to the front wheel.

A moment of silence, broken only by a gull flying alarmingly low.

His eyes were shut. He groaned almost imperceptibly through his closed lips, and shifted. ‘Fucking hell.’ The words were muffled, as if he was speaking from under a pillow. His hands moved slowly towards the back of his head.

Matty grabbed the handcuffs and clipped the open one around his wrist, dragging his arm so that he was partly sitting upright and forcing the second cuff round the lowest spoke of the front wheel. He was mumbling something, his eyes still shut. ‘Ah, bollocks.’

Into the car, climbing over to the passenger seat, and the glove compartment, fingers scrabbling until they touched something small and metal. Matty took the handcuffs key, backed out of the car and tossed it into the grass. Just in case.

A hand into each of Cormac’s pockets, taking out the car keys from one and his mobile phone from the other. Matty locked the car, and threw them both into the grass too. ‘I’m sorry.’ Stood up, quickly. ‘I’m really sorry.’

A small, distant sigh from him.

Go.

Matty took the bike and a single rucksack, leaving everything else, and pedalled as fast as possible down the hill. There was an uncontrollable sound on every outbreath, an unearthly whining. A blank headiness.

The quiet roads. Not the main roads. The lough road was best, at least to get out of the village.

The taxi would come in ninety minutes and the driver would find Cormac. It would take him a while longer to find the key.

Past the coaches. Wheeling past the dog, who hared out, more enraged than ever. Looping around the potholes.

The lough opened out, the quayside and the little car park. Tiny scudding waves and a seal head.

A seal head, and a hand.

An inland lough and a seal head and a hand.

Brake. The bike scuffed, skidded sideways. Matty circled and rode back to the gate of the car park. Throat scraped raw with the cold.

There was nothing there. The small, chipped-white waves, a mineral shine to the water. The island beyond.