‘Mez! What’s the matter!’ He realised he was almost shaking her to try and get her to stop, so he wrapped one arm tight around her body and with the other, pressed her face into his neck as if his skin could gag her into silence. She struggled against his bare torso, trying to free herself, but at least she stopped screaming. Pushing his chest to loosen his grip, she stared into his face with wild bloodshot eyes, her cheeks chalky white.

‘What?’

She pointed towards the river with a shaking finger, in the direction of Andrea’s barge. For a moment he wondered stupidly if it was on fire, but there was no smoke or smell of burning. It looked fine, exactly as it had done the night before, its navy livery smarter than Barton Bee’s shabby dark green … He shook his head with incomprehension but Meredith still couldn’t speak.

The neighbours were popping alarmed heads out of their hatches, and Trevor and Johnny were pounding towards them, both in slippers, Trevor in a towelling robe and Johnny still in his pyjamas. They stopped in front of Pete and Meredith, who had now folded down to the ground like a malfunctioning garden chair, then they too followed the direction of her still-pointing finger. Pete stood up slowly and began to advance towards the edge of the pontoon, Trevor behind him, Johnny crouching down to take over comforting Meredith, who had begun to babble and sob.

Pete wanted to put his fingers in his ears. He had never heard Meredith like that, not even last week with the trauma of Ralph’s disappearance. Shit, he thought, what could be worse for her than that?

Then he peered over the edge of the pontoon, in the gap between his boat and Andrea’s, and he saw what Meredith had seen. Long strands of black hair rippling out like seaweed across the water’s dark surface, a body bobbing up against the wall, face down, clad in a spotty pyjama top. He recognised it – he saw it every morning when she came out for her morning herbal tea on her deck table, frowning at whatever jigsaw she currently had on the go; the little triumphant noise she made when she managed to slot in another piece. It was a sound she didn’t even realise she was uttering but which always made him grin to himself.

He’d never hear it again. She’d never cook him that supper; he’d never have the opportunity to tell her how beautiful she was, and how much he would love both her and the baby.

The baby.

His face contorted with grief and he too fell to his knees.

‘Fucking hell!’ Trevor shouted in panic next to him. ‘We have to get her out!’ He started stripping off his robe as if to dive in, but Pete reached out and gripped his ankle. ‘No point. She’s clearly gone.’