I stacked some slim stones in my palm and sent the first one into the water. It careered off at an angle, sinking quickly. The second hopscotched along five times. My third one scudded once and disappeared.

Dad was the champion in our family. We used to hold competitions on holidays at the big lake in France, when we were all still together. He was like a choreographer, making the stones pirouette or do light, tripping footsteps. He’d celebrate the epic ones – ten, even twelve – as if a Wembley crowd were roaring around him. Benji would just lift up the biggest stone he could find, stagger to the edge and heave it in, before screaming as if he’d just caved someone’s head in and it was blood all down his front, not lake water.

The Spanish guy had been almost completely quiet, short-circuiting on the pavement. There hadn’t been anyone else on the side street when it happened. Just us. The thought of him lying there, someone coming up, taking his wallet from his pocket – a wave of disgustingness rolled up from my gut and I hunched over my knees, retching, failing to puke. As if the words wouldn’t even come out. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. Please don’t be dead.

Manslaughter. That’s what it would be. It sounded worse than murder. The slaughter of a man. A man, slayed. A boy with his rucksack on both shoulders and some pretty amazing dance moves, once he was high.

God. The loch seemed to be rising. Each lurching wave bringing it higher, rearing up, and I was underwater, suspended in a slow, floating death dance. Salt packed into my throat.

Jesus, the weed.

I was clutching one last flint. Focus. It had a subtle sparkle, the remains of a glitter dust pot tipped out onto it. A sawtooth edge and a very sharp point. No good for skimming. I put it to the inside of my wrist and drew it along one of the creases in my skin. The crease deepened and went pink. A little harder. It made a chalky line and I felt a faint, thin pain. I kept going. Tiny beads of blood appeared. A dark river blossoming under ice. I sharpened the point on the boulder beneath me and made two more lines parallel to the first, going over and over them until I hissed.

When I finally looked up, the mist had completely vanished, the sky now breezy and blue and nonchalant, as if it had been like that all along and I just hadn’t noticed. In front of me, the water was scuffed silver in places, stretched taut and black in others, and there were white patches everywhere. Shit. White patches. My chest clogged up. But they were just clouds.

I looked back down at my wrist. Three lines. I could do a fourth and put one more across the lot of them, jail-count style. And cut open all my veins, bleed out right there, with no one for miles to take me to hospital, see how I liked it. I licked the tip of my finger and wiped at the blood, making a smeary square.