Tim turns his head back to the river. He takes his bottle out of the water, peers into it, then dips it back in to top it up.

‘I don’t think it’s that surprising,’ he says. His voice is still quiet, but it’s lost its shaky quality. ‘We were just kids, and we stuck to a simple story.’

‘I suppose.’

‘And as for our families, they loved us. Everyone always wants to believe in the people they’re closest to. That’s natural.’

‘Yeah,’ says Matt. He glances at James, who’s staring at him intently, and nods his head, once. ‘Yeah, they do.’

James falls on Tim like a stone. One moment he’s standing a few paces behind him, the next he’s got a hand clamped on the back of Tim’s neck. His other arm wraps around Tim’s chest and he wrestles him to the ground. Tim lets out a startled grunt and drops his bottle into the river. It bobs in the current and catches the light as it floats away. For a second he struggles wildly, bucking his body back and forth –he’s fast, Matt thinks – and James has difficulty holding on to him. Then James moves his hand from Tim’s neck and wraps it around his shoulder, simultaneously pushing off from the ground with both his feet, and Tim collapses beneath the weight of his body.

‘Hey!’ Tim yells. ‘Hey, hey!’

Tim’s right arm is dangling over the small ledge of ground that juts above the river and he flails it back and forth, struggling for purchase. He finds none. James swings a leg over Tim’s buttocks and straddles him, pinning him to the earth.

Matt sees all these things from a long way away, as if he’s the observer in a dream. None of it feels real. He walks forward and kneels on the ground beside Tim’s thrashing body.

‘What the fuck are you doing, get off me!’ Tim yells. ‘What the fuck, James?’

‘Shut up,’ says Matt. ‘Just shut your mouth and listen for a minute.’

There must be something in his voice that takes Tim by surprise, because he suddenly goes quiet and stops struggling.

‘Jesus Matt. What the fuck?’ He twists his head to the left and stares up at Matt with one eye. Matt isn’t sure if it’s just a trick of the sunlight, but that eye looks yellow to him.

He looks down at Tim’s helpless, pinned body, and he feels a mixture of disgust and pity pulse through him. Sadness, too. Maybe that most of all.

‘We know what you’ve been doing,’ Matt says. He looks for a reaction on Tim’s face, but sees none. Tim squints his eye and spits dirt from the side of his mouth.

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean? James, can you get the fuck off me now please?’