Time to get out. Goosebumps and a headache. Even Daz had disappeared now. Matty climbed up the ladder that was halfway along the concrete walkway, shivering.

A sudden movement ahead. Alexander, the lifeguard, who’d had his feet up on the railing in front of him, put his legs down and stood up, staring straight at Matty. Or rather, Matty’s legs. ‘Bloody hell, you all right there, Short Round?’

The man walking past to get to the diving board stopped, too. ‘Good Lord, are you OK? Did you catch yourself?’

Matty looked down. Blood. There was blood, trickling all the way down the inside of one leg in a thin, diluted trail. Sliding along one heel. A quick glance back, at the gleaming green mirror of the Pond.

Barracuda. Piranhas. Jaws.

Alexander had come onto the walkway. ‘Come here, then.’ He squatted down. ‘What’ve you done?’

Matty took a step backwards. A couple of men waiting to dive were looking over. ‘Nothing. I dunno.’

‘You’re bleeding, mate.’ He put a hand out, and almost touched the shorts’ hem.

Another step back, with a sudden, awful rush of fear. ‘It’s OK.’ Lower stomach throbbing, back throbbing. The blood wasn’t coming from a cut, but from higher, between both thighs. Higher.

‘We’ve got a first-aid kit. Did you nick it on the platform? Come on, I’ll patch you—’

But Matty was already running up the walkway, bleeding, Dad-less, in a body that was dividing, one part already floating back out over the Pond, to where it wanted to be.

Part 2

1999

Chapter 1

There.

From a distance, it looked like the slim drag of a biro over cloth. The tiniest flash of silver-black in the water, a spot at its end. Almost soundless.

The sky was beaten flat. Hardly a wind.

Slowly, the spot continued to move. A line was drawn from north to south, dividing the lough into two wide halves. When the spot reached the bay, it bobbed there, surrounded by towering slabs of hill, a sheer drop of dark rock on one side. For a long moment, it became motionless, before gliding smoothly back out, following the memory of the wake it had already made.

At the northern edge, the water stretched and became tall. A slick creature, moving upright now, towards a large boulder patched with moss that sheltered a bright orange rucksack, a woolly hat, and biker boots.

21/11/99

LOUGH _____, Air 10°C, Water 10°C, 1km

It had taken Matty almost an hour to walk there – the van parked on a lay-by – down a private road and then through scrubland that skirted the base of a hill. Deer were up on the higher part, untroubled by the boggy earth and uneven stones, moving like light on water.