‘I know,’ Lucy murmurs.

‘I didn’t mean for it to happen,’ he says.

‘What did you mean to happen?’ she asks quietly.

‘Look. I don’t know. You saw me, I was high. We were high. It wasn’t just me. It was a prank. It wasn’t … it wasn’t my fault—our fault. Zach’s stressing,’ he says again. ‘But it wasn’t our fault.’

It’s what she’s been waiting for. It’s what she’s been needing. At his words, it all snaps into focus. Yes. She did see him—them. Yes. They were high. But, ‘What do you mean it wasn’t your fault? Of course it was your fault.’ As she says it, she knows it’s true, and she finds herself growing angry in the face of his avoidance of reality. Angry, but not surprised. ‘It was your fault,’ she repeats.

‘Okay, right.’ Jem exhales loudly with the admission—but is it an admission, or is he rallying himself?—then continues: ‘But you know Mitch found a gun in the boat. They would have shot seals, Luce.’

‘What are you trying to say? That that makes it okay?’

‘I don’t know, all right? I. Don’t. Know.’

‘Jeez, Jem. He had a family. I read about them in the paper. A daughter and a son.’ Those poor fatherless kids. She’d tried

not to, but she couldn’t help but imagine them. They were old enough to know their dad was dead, but, Lucy imagined, still young enough to expect answers, to expect logic.

‘I know he has a son,’ Jem says quietly. ‘You want to know how I know? You remember those people I told you about around the Regatta Day long weekend? After we’d found those half-dead seals? You remember how I told you that when I had a chat with them they squirmed like worms? They’d already filleted the fish the kid caught so no one would see? You remember that? Well, that’s the bloke who, who …’ his voice chokes, and he pauses to garble in a deep breath, before continuing. ‘You know them, Lucy. They’re fucking rednecks from Doo Town. You would’ve seen them around. And Mitch found a gun in their boat and it was them that time. I know it was them.’

‘You know what, Jem? You said to me at the time that it couldn’t have been them who left those seals—that the seals must have been shot a couple of days earlier, at least.’

‘But I know they did something! I know they’re the type; they’re the problem.’

‘They’re the problem? Fucking hell, Jem! That makes it sound like you did it on purpose. Like you’re on some kind of crusade to exterminate “their kind”. It’s fucked, Jem. It’s fucked.’

‘Lucy.’ He drags in a big, shuddering breath. ‘You know I didn’t do it on purpose. You know I didn’t mean for that to happen.’

‘Do I, though?’

Anguish tugs his lips in a direction she’s never seen them go before. ‘You do,’ he insists quietly.