Pete pulled on the shorts and T-shirt he’d only discarded a few hours before and stuck his feet into flip-flops, before racing the length of the boat back towards the engine room, to see if he could tell how far he’d drifted and if the ropes had been cut or untied. He was so familiar with the riverbank scenery that if it was anywhere less than a few miles, he’d probably be able to tell where he was from the shapes of the trees and the curve of the moonlit path. He shot back the two bolts on the door to the deck, focussing only on grabbing the tiller and getting his bearings.

A blast of cool, night, river-weed-scented air blew into his face as he pushed open the door, the moonlight showing him the unwelcome sight that he really was drifting mid-river, carried fast on the ebb tide, apparently several miles from the marina.

Swearing volubly, he was just clambering out when a hand clamped something over his nose and mouth, something that smelled weirdly like a vodka cocktail, only synthetic and super sickly, as if shovelfuls of sweetener had been added to the alcohol.

Out of the blue, into the black.

He didn’t see it coming at all, nor whose hand it was. His knees buckled and he stumbled backwards, down the two steps into the saloon. The smash of his skull as it bounced off the barge’s worn parquet floor was the last thing he remembered.

44

Meredith

The morning after her police interview Meredith awoke, confused and sweaty, from a horrible dream about Samantha.

In the nightmare, Samantha had been rising like one of the zombies in the ‘Thriller’ video, only instead of from a grave, it was from the top of one of the silos at Greenham. There were other women around her, and they were all chasing Meredith off the stage she’d been performing on with the band, the entire stadium audience coming for her in the lurching gait of the undead in horror movies, arms stretched straight ahead. Samantha was leading them, her eyes bright red and her mouth twisted in a smile of pure evil. Meredith remembered thinking, Oh shit, they know it’s me, they know who I am, because every zombie audience member was wearing a Minstead House T-shirt. Even as she was fleeing, she thought, I must re-order those, we’ll definitely have run out…

‘Fuck,’ she muttered, sitting up and reaching for her mobile. There were no messages or missed calls, which was weird. Pete usually texted her first thing, just a ‘good morning’ GIF or a cute photo of a cat, or his misty morning view of the river. She went to her favourites folder and pressed his number – he and ‘Work’ were the only numbers in there.