The big water tank looms out of the darkness on Bullocky Point, a squat, square concrete fortress, or gun emplacement. Kenny parks on the far side, hidden from the main road. Tom is first out of the car, stripping himself one-handed, sherry flagon clutched in the other. He kicks himself free of shorts and thongs and rapidly clambers up the rusted metal ladder fixed to the northern wall of the tank, still wearing his jocks. As Kenny joins him at the top, he is draining the last of the sherry. They gaze down from a high ledge into the dark interior. No water level can be seen; the inside ladder descends into blackness.

Kenny feels a flicker of apprehension. ‘Maybe it’s empty.’

‘Better toss something in,’ Tom says, and grapples playfully with his friend, jostling him towards the edge.

‘Fuck off.’

Tom releases him, and with a flip of his wrist tosses the empty flagon far out into the void. The splash is invisible, but noisily resonant, amplified within the vast echo chamber.

‘Last one in!’

‘You don’t know how deep it is!’ Kenny shouts, but Tom has already launched himself out into nothingness.

This time the splash is visible, a brief silver explosion against a dark field, followed by the glimmer of spreading ripples catching and reflecting the weak light. Tom’s voice follows, echoing loudly within the four walls. ‘Chicken!’

Kenny leaps immediately from the ledge, freefalling, it seems, for far too long. The sudden cold smack of the water is half reassuring, half shocking, stopping his heart, paralysing his breathing muscles. He surfaces, unable to breathe for a long moment. The walls and corners of the tank are as black as ink, but as his eyes accommodate he begins to sense the pale moon of a face somewhere in the centre, lit only by the faint glimmer of starlight and the cloud-reflected lights of the town. ‘So – what did you do with Debbie?’ he asks the moon-face.

‘A gentleman never tells,’ the face says.

They might be shouting, their voices are so amplified, reverberant. Kenny lowers his. ‘What’s being a gentleman got to do with you?’

Tom laughs as loudly as ever. ‘I thought you said you could hear everything.’

‘It didn’t leave a lot to the imagination.’

‘It was weird, Kenny. She let me do everything – except kiss her. Said I was too pissed.’

‘I’d have to be pissed to kiss her.’

Tom ignores him. ‘She told me a good story. She was kissing some guy at a party last year and he suddenly stops, turns away to spew up over her shoulder, then goes right on kissing her.’

‘Choice,’ Kenny says, and kicks away, a few lazy backstrokes. When he turns back, his friend’s face has vanished.

Ribbit, a frog croaks, a throaty basso in a dark corner. Ribbit.

Kenny’s tone is scornful. ‘Five out of ten.’

A human voice answers. ‘It wasn’t me, fuckwit.’ ‘

You expect me to believe there are frogs in here?’