She didn’t know what he meant. His words fell out, incontinent, his only company. He shut the boot and rubbed his hands back and forth over his skull, and laughed ruefully.

‘Rookie move.’

Bea rested, taking in the space around it, and how far it was to the trees. The pain in the right side of her head was louder. It was cacophonous, and hard to connect to anything beyond it. Russ leaned into the car, and pulled the snake trap from the back seat. He tested the weight of it, pleased.

‘Hell yeah,’ he said, then took it to the back of the car and tried to cram it into the boot, but it wouldn’t fit.

Seeming to remember something, he put the trap onto the ground, carefully, and rested his foot on it, as if it would run away. He reached into the boot, groping.

‘Got it.’ His hand emerged with a black spotlight torch.

He switched it on and put it down next to the trap. The beam shone haphazardly onto the car wheel. In the almost-dark, he leaned into the shadow of the boot, and began to haul and pull at something.

She knew what he was doing. She couldn’t see, but she knew – from the way his arms moved, and the way he was bending to see inside. It was intimate.

The ground was cloudlike as she began to walk, and there was a noise like water rushing. He leaned into the boot of the car, straining and tugging. She saw Dan’s hand, loosely hanging, then his arm, over the rim of the boot. Russ bent his knees, out of sight for a second, then straightened, with an effort. He had his arms around Dan’s torso, and Dan’s arm hung near the parking light, his hand illuminated by the red glow.

‘Dan?’ she said.

Russ strained, and took a half-step back. He dragged Dan out, clumsily, over the sill, and dumped him on the ground, heavy, curled up, like an embryo, facing away from her. His T-shirt had ridden up to show the skin at the small of his back. Russ stepped away.

Dan didn’t move. His knees were bent. His feet, in their trainers, lay one on top of the other, quite neatly.

‘Dan?’

It was three steps to reach him, then she knelt. His hand lay palm upwards, the arm bent back awkwardly. His head was in darkness, facing away. She couldn’t see his face. She touched the crease of his palm with the tip of her finger. His fingers didn’t move.

‘Dan?’ she whispered.