The boys talked. It sounded a lot like the truth. She filled some of the gaps by asking questions, others by using her imagination. Images came to her. Skin. Water. Blood. As Eddie and John explained, she saw the events of that day unfold in her mind’s eye, as vivid as if she’d been right there with them, watching from the corner of

the ferry terminal shook in the harbour breeze. The walls shifted and the wood moaned around them like a tired old beast. Dusty beams of light fell in through the dirty window, casting them in light the colour of whipped butter. It was late morning, a school day.

‘There’s no way in hell I’m spending the night in here alone,’ John said.

Eddie taunted him with chicken sounds.

‘Don’t be an arsehole,’ John told him. ‘Would you stay out here with me?’

‘Sure,’ Eddie said. ‘We’ll have to come up with a lie to tell my parents, but it doesn’t have to be a good one. They won’t notice.’

John had already lied to his parents. He told them he was spending the next three nights on school camp. Instead, he’d snuck away from the city at dawn, hopped a train, bus and ferry, and arrived in Belport mid-morning.

Eddie was all too happy to skip school to spend the day with him. All John had said on the phone was that he needed to get away for a while, but Eddie was certain there was another reason, and he was almost certain he knew what it was.

John had brought along his sleeping bag and had planned on sleeping in one of the utility sheds at the deserted foreshore campgrounds. But each shed had been chained, padlocked, and marked with a sign that read, Smile, you’re on camera! Neither of them had been able to see a security camera, but the risk seemed too high, so Eddie had suggested the terminal.

‘What the hell even is this place?’ John asked, looking over at the soiled and stained mattress in the corner. There were loose bricks and broken glass on the ground, graffiti sprawled across the walls – For free cock call this number; Judy Bray is a fucking whore; Weed is gay – and a used condom hanging from one of the rafters. Someone must have flung it up there when they were done.

‘It used to be the main port on the island,’ Eddie said. ‘I remember it from when I was little. Now they have the new one in over at Elk Harbour.’

‘Call Barry for the best blowjob in Belport,’ John said, reading from the wall of graffiti.

‘Yeah, now this place is a beat.’

‘What’s a beat?’

‘Like, a meeting place for fags.’

‘Great,’ John said. ‘Now I’m definitely not spending the night here.’

‘Why don’t you just stay at my place?’ Eddie asked.