Instead, she watched Jack. He was a powerful swimmer, using the overarm stroke, crossing the water from bank to bank in six quick lunges. Then back again. He did that ten times, and then waded to the edge of the river and . . .

She wouldn’t look this time. Belle scrambled to her feet and went back up into the sunshine and stared across the field, trying to get a grip on her racing pulse. Her heart was pounding in her chest; she felt breathless. She slumped down in the grass and sank her head into her hands. She sat there for minutes, unable to summon the strength to get up and go back to the farmhouse.

The water.

Him.

God, what was happening to her?

‘Ready then?’

He’d dressed quickly and now he was standing right beside her, the damp towel over his shoulder, looking down at her. Belle got back to her feet, trying to compose herself.

‘You know – there’s nothing in that water except a few trout and maybe a newt or two. Granted, they don’t get out to use the loo, but it’s pretty clean really,’ he told her.

‘Don’t laugh at me,’ she spat out.

‘You want my advice?’

‘Go on then,’ she snapped.

She was angry at him and embarrassed with herself. Failing to follow him unnoticed. Behaving like a Victorian virgin with the vapours at the sight of him in the nude. How fucking ridiculous. And being very noticeably terrified about getting back into any large body of water. Christ, she was a mess.

‘When you remember it, the thing that scares you so much, kick it straight out of your brain. Refuse to think about it,’ he said.

‘Is that what you do? When you start to think about the thing that caused those scars on your back?’ she threw at him.

‘Yep.’ He started to walk down the edge of the field, back toward the house.

‘What caused them then?’ asked Belle, trailing after him.

‘Being in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ he said, and walked on.

126

They’d been doing everything they could for weeks, and still Harlan was beefing on about it. The fucking girl.

‘If you hadn’t told him about the footprints, you fucking fool,’ Ludo said to Nipper as they tramped through yet another muddy farmyard, ‘we wouldn’t be in this shit.’

‘You say that one more time and I am going to knock you flat on your arse in this shit,’ said Nipper.

‘Yeah? You and who else, I’d like to know.’

‘I’m back to town tomorrow, fuck this for a game. I had all this country crap growing up, I don’t want it no more.’