‘Come on then.’ Mum is holding a towel open. ‘Better get out.’

  She wraps me up like a captive, rubbing at me through the fabric. My arms are pinioned to my sides. She leans close and smells my hair, kisses my ear with a wet explosion. ‘You know, you are very precious to me,’ she says quietly. ‘I know it’s hard without Eva. But I love you; Daddy loves you.’ Her voice is wobbling and she stops and takes a deep breath. ‘We all miss her. We have to be kind to each other.’ She holds me very tightly for a moment, crushing my bones.

  ‘But Mum, I don’t think she’s dead,’ I whisper into her neck.

  I feel her flinch. She pulls back, holding me at arm’s length so she can look at me seriously. ‘I know you want her to be alive. We all do.’

  ‘No. It’s more than wanting. I feel it.’

  Her eyes widen; she moves her mouth as if she’s searching for words. Then she says, ‘You think the Wild Man took her, don’t you?’

  I nod.

  ‘I know you’ve grown up with the story of him; but it is just a story, Faith.’ Her fingers squeeze my arms. ‘It’s not real. He’s not real.’

  ‘I saw him once…’ I begin, but my voice trails into silence because she’s arranged her face into a mask. And even though Mum is so close that I can see the pores around her nose and the shine on her forehead, I feel as though she’s far away. I shiver.

  ‘We just have to take it day by day,’ she’s sighing. ‘We’re going to get through this together, me and you and Daddy. Time will take some of the pain away. You’ll see.’ She turns the corners of her mouth up. ‘There, all dry.’ She releases me, giving me a small push on the back. ‘Go and get dressed.’

  8

  He’s shouting. It’s too dark to see anything clearly. His voice is raw, urgent.

  I peer into the blackness, making out the shape of him as he lurches to his feet. He’s a dark silhouette looming, a staggering shadow in the furthest corner. He strikes out, a fist stabbing the air. He moves suddenly, jabs another blow into an invisible enemy. A scream lacerates the night. The sound makes me cold and I cower inside my blankets, heart thumping. Please don’t notice me. Please don’t touch me. I keep absolutely still, eyes squeezed shut, listening. Then he moans and I can hear the rustle and scrape of him getting down onto his knees. I pray for him to go back to sleep. There is silence. But it takes me a long time to stop shaking, my heart flipping like a caught fish.

  I wake to the sound of crashing waves, remnants of a dream trailing with me: the whisper of male voices. I lose the meaning of their words as I wake properly, blinking in the early-morning light, yawning. Automatically I stare at the walls, tracing shapes of copper piping, my dull gaze running over metal shutters and the numbers engraved onto the wall in black paint. It’s what I do to pass the time. I must know every detail of this place by now.

  The voices haven’t gone. They make a low muttering. I am shocked into a different stillness, all of me alert and listening as I understand that these are real voices, not dream ones. I strain to hear their words, mixed in with seabirds’ cries and wave wash. I am sitting up now, heart thumping. I’m not alone on the island with Billy–there are other people here–people who can help me.

  Quickly I glance over at Billy, checking that he’s asleep. He’s curled up at the other side of the room with his back to me, motionless. With any luck he is exhausted and sleeping deeply. As usual, my ankles are tightly bound with rope. But he’s left my hands free. I sit up carefully, keeping one eye on him, as my fingers push at the coarse knot, pulling at the dense twist. My broken fingernails scrape against it. It is too tight. I must go faster. My fingers tremble and fumble. I can still hear the murmur of voices in the distance. I’m not imagining it. There are people nearby. Their faces will turn to me as I cry out, my feet crunching through shingle towards them. Billy stirs and I freeze. One more tug and the rope slackens, giving me a space to slip my fingers inside so that I can push it off.

  I don’t know where the key to the padlock is. It could be in his coat, which is draped over him, or inside his trouser pocket. My only hope is that it’s in the coat. My mouth is dry as I get to my feet, the rustle of my clothes, even the flexing of my muscles, seems audible and magnified. I edge along the wall towards him, keeping my eyes on his inert form. My heart is pounding in my chest as I squat next to the curve of his back. The coat has slipped half off, and most of the fabric hangs down, trailing onto the floor. Slowly I reach out a hand and slide it inside the first pocket I can find. My fingers touch metal. I breathe out. He murmurs, smacking his lips, and I keep my hand still in the pocket, watching his shoulder, the pale point of his ear. Then I’ve got the key in my grasp, and I’m on my feet, treading stealthily, quickly, towards the door.

  A bird lands far up in the open space at the top of the pagoda. Its wings flap. A feather falls, spiralling through dust motes. My insides tighten. I reach the door, insert the key and try to turn it, but it won’t move. Billy stirs, stretching his hand behind him to scratch his leg with lazy fingers. Without turning over, he pulls at the coat, repositioning it over him. I wait for him to stop before I try again, wriggling the key as carefully as my trembling fingers allow, finding the bite. It clicks open and I slide the metal arc out of the top of the padlock. The door is heavy. It opens grudgingly. Sunlight slants into the room behind me, and I hear Billy mutter. I fumble my way down the narrow corridor towards the wire doors hanging off their hinges.

  My limbs burst into action, legs carrying me into the dazzle of the day. Arms pumping, I’m sprinting away from the pagoda, cutting across the shingle, past the sign that says ‘Danger–Unexploded Ordinance,’ stumbling towards the cracked and broken strip of road. My foot catches in a pothole and twists, sharp pain shooting through my ankle. I stagger, biting the inside of my lip. But I keep running. I can see the men. A small group with fishing rods sticking up, they are diminishing black shapes against the light. They are heading for the beach, and they are far away. I won’t let myself believe that they are already too far. I have to reach them.

  Adrenaline kills the pain, forcing my legs to keep working, and I make it onto the concrete road, following the straight line of it in a blundering run towards the barbed-wire fence. A rabbit dashes out from under my feet, ears back. I falter, catching my breath, and push myself on, arms working, panting past the empty huts, windows gaping behind shards of glass. My feet slide across the crumbling surface, small stones skidding beneath me. I can feel my ankle now–a howling pain. There are footsteps behind me, the sound of breathing. I hurl myself forward, opening my mouth. A sound comes out of me, a noise I don’t recognise, like an animal.

  His body thuds against me, a heavy weight, jolting me off my feet. I hit the ground, hands flailing uselessly. My chin cracks against the road, my chest landing hard, pushing the breath out of my body. He’s panting as he drops onto my spine. His fingers find my mouth and wrap around it. I struggle to inhale through my nose. My chest is exploding.

  He rolls me over, squatting over me, his hand across my mouth.

  ‘Not a sound,’ he says, ‘not a bloody sound.’

  I keep still, nodding. He releases my mouth and I suck deep lungfuls of air. He glances up towards the horizon.

  ‘They’re out of sight,’ he says. ‘Get up.’

  Perhaps they’ll find the remains of our fire. But even if they do, they’ll only think it was other maverick trespassers, fishermen, someone like themselves. I’m crying. I don’t want him to see. Rage and fear and disappointment cancel out the pain in my ankle and chin. I hate him. He has me by the arm, tight fingers squeezing above my elbow. We walk back to the pagoda slowly; I’m limping, pain in my foot when I put any weight on it. He gives a frustrated sigh and grabs me round the waist, throws me over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift.

  Hanging down, my head bounces against his back, his jumper in my face. Up close, the dank, mushroomy stink of the wool is suffocating. I twist my neck so that I can see behind us. The world has turned upside-down: scrubby gorse bushes and the huts hang into a bowl of sky and cloud. Everything jolts and shudders with his movement. There are no fishermen. They will be down by the sea, hidden out of sight below the bank of shingle, busy with their hooks and floats, opening flasks of sweet tea and talking about football scores and what bait to use for mackerel and cod. My tears trickle in snail tracks across my forehead into my filthy hair.

  In the pagoda he sits me down on the only chair and holds my chin so that he can contemplate the damage. It stings. He wipes his thumb across it and I see a streak of blood. He picks up a bottle of drinking water and wets a bit of his grubby sleeve, dabs at my chin. I wince. ‘Hold still,’ he tells me. He is so close that I see grime shadowing his skin, crusted scales flaking from his lips. ‘You want to get blown up, do you?’ Hair flops in a matted tangle into his eyes. His thin face bristles. His beard has got longer, making him look like a character in a film about a castaway, or Jesus. ‘I’ve seen it happen to people,’ he says. ‘Seen what’s left afterwards. And it’s not much, I can tell you that.’

  I avert my eyes, closing myself off from him. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ he says. ‘You shouldn’t have run again. You made me hurt you. I told you before I didn’t want to hurt you.’

  His breath is rank and warm. I can taste it on my tongue. I hold my breath, shutting my eyes. Then I feel his finger, brushing at my tears, smudging the wet away with firm stokes as if it’s paint on canvas. I open my eyes and we look at each other. ‘Let me go,’ I whisper.

  There is a moment in which I think I can hear his heart beating.

  ‘Don’t walk on the shingle.’ He looks at me without blinking. ‘Not this side of the barbed wire. I’ll get some water for your ankle when the coast’s clear.’ He glances at the door. ‘Till then I’ll bind it up.’

  He squats down and tears a blanket into strips to wrap my throbbing ankle. He is precise and methodical. I guess that he’s done this before.

  ‘You won’t be running anywhere for a while.’ I catch a twitch of movement under his beard, the faint hint of a smile.

  ‘Bastard,’ I say quietly, but there is no fight left in me. I am overwhelmed with hopelessness. I want Dad to come. I don’t understand how they can have forgotten me. Why doesn’t anyone come?

  9

  Eva is swimming up from the depths. I’m looking down, searching flickering water, as her blurred face comes streaming out of darkness. She’s fixed me with a stare, her mouth trailing bubbles. Fingers claw the water. She can’t break the surface. She’s begging with her eyes, sinking backwards, hair and clothes tangling around her, floating up like seaweed. She is drowning. I can’t help her. I’m afraid. I can’t swim.

  I wake with a sob to the hard thrumming of rain on glass. First day that it’s rained this holiday. My curtains are slightly parted. Through them I see a dark sky with fast-moving clouds, the rain almost invisible, falling in silvered arrows. Branches of the acacia tree flutter. The window is open a crack, letting an earthy scent drift up from the garden.

  Mum is in the kitchen putting papers into her handbag. She’s getting ready to go to work in the library in town. She leaves after breakfast with Dad. Granny’s old Austin is temperamental, but when it works Mum uses that. Once, Dad promised Eva he’d give her driving lessons in it. Mum hesitates at the front door, looks at me, bites her lip.

  ‘What will you do today?’ she asks.

  I feel just like I used to when she left me at nursery school. I want to clamp myself round her legs like I did then, hold tight to her knees. Instead I hunch my shoulders, saying nothing. Mum blinks. She suggests in her cheerful voice, ‘Why don’t you and Sophie make potato cut-outs or papier mâché bowls?’ I won’t look up. I’m not going to pretend to be enthusiastic. ‘There’s plenty of old newspapers next to the fireplace,’ she continues, ‘and I think there’s glue in the kitchen drawer.’ She gestures to the stove. ‘Or you could make fudge…’ Her voice trails away. It was what Eva and I did on rainy days: the smell of hot butter and melting sugar. Burning our tongues when we licked the sticky liquid off the spoon.

  After Mum and Dad leave, Sophie switches the radio on to a channel with pop music and turns it up. Silver lies in his basket by the radiator, nose on splayed paws. Sophie clatters the breakfast things into the washing-up bowl and starts to swish a brush around, placing soapy dishes and cups on the draining board. She hums along to Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’. The song makes me think of Eva in her bedroom, singing into her hairbrush. As I take Dad’s empty coffee cup over to Sophie, I notice a bruise below her ear, green against the pale of her neck. When she sees me looking she tosses her head so that curtains of hair slide forward.

  ‘What is this… potato prints?’ She leans up against the kitchen surface, pulling her sleeves down with wet hands.

  ‘Potato prints are patterns made by cutting shapes into potatoes,’ I explain, ‘and then you dip them in paint and press them onto paper.’

  She sighs. ‘You want do this?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘You want to make… fudge?’ She raises one eyebrow.

  ‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘I want to go down to the quay for a bit. I’m meeting a friend,’ I invent.

  Sophie glances out at the rain. ‘You will get wet.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘Your mother won’t like it.’

  ‘She’d let me. If she was here.’ I cross my fingers behind my back.

  Sophie shrugs.

  I pull my hood over my head. The rain batters down, soaking my feet and legs. Water runs in rivers down the side of the road, gushing into gutters. I like the rain. It feels safe. I am hidden inside my hood, disguised. There are none of the summer crowds out. The river is deserted. Only gulls bob on the choppy surface, among the moored, empty boats.

  The dinghy park is filled with sailing dinghies and rowing boats. Most of them turned upside-down or covered in tarpaulins. I wander through the puddles, my fingers trailing fibreglass and plastic. At the end of the park, under a straggly hawthorn bush, is an old rowing boat. It has a pair of oars tucked under the seat. Rowlocks hang down, attached by frayed string. Water has collected in the bottom: a dirty puddle with dead flies, bits of leaf and the yellowed remains of hawthorn petals floating on the surface. It appears to be abandoned, or at least, hardly ever used. I walk around it, checking for holes. I take hold and pull. It’s immovable. I bend my knees and yank with all my strength. It doesn’t budge, just rocks towards me slightly, grating on the pebbly ground. I straighten up and look at the distance that needs to be covered to get the boat onto the river. My chest tightens. There’s no way I can do this by myself.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  I swing round. It’s only a boy. I look closer and recognise the plump boy from the quay. The one who lost the crab. His green anorak hood flops across his forehead. Water drips down cheeks, pink and plump as balloons. His pale eyes are spiky with black lashes.

  ‘Nothing.’ I offer him back the scowl he gave me the other day.

  He looks at me with a level gaze. ‘That your boat?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘It’s not, is it?’ He looks cheerful. ‘You nicking it?’

  I stare at him. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What for?’ He takes a pear drop out of a paper bag and puts it in his mouth. It makes his cheeks bulge even more. He offers me the bag and I shake my head.

  ‘I want to get to over there.’ I pull my sleeves over my knuckles so that I can point out across the grey water to the distant shadow of the island.

  He sucks noisily, squinting in the rain. ‘What do you want to go there for? Looks creepy.’

  I search his face for signs that he’s making fun of me. His eyes don’t flicker or slide away in that sly, tricky way I’m used to. He is solid in the rain, steady, interested. He’s not one of the village kids, I remind myself. He doesn’t know that he’s supposed to laugh at me. I pull my shoulders back. ‘I think my sister’s there. I need to find her.’ I wish I could explain better. ‘Something has taken her.’

  Now he’ll laugh. But he nods, considering. ‘What, like a monster or a murderer?’

  ‘There’s a Wild Man in the river. I think it’s him.’ I’m thrown by his attitude. ‘I… I just know she’s alive.’ I shuffle wet feet. ‘She’s not drowned like everyone thinks.’

  ‘Wild Man?’ He raises his eyebrows.

  I tilt my head towards the river. ‘Hundreds of years ago a man got caught in fishing nets over there. He lived in the sea–still does. I’ve seen him.’

  ‘Like a merman?’ He crunches his sweet, splintering it between his teeth.

  ‘Yes. But without a tail. He was covered in hair.’

  ‘No clothes? Just hair?’

  I nod.

  He stares at the water. ‘Wish I saw him.’ He turns to me. ‘And your sister,’ he says, ‘how long’s she been missing?’

  ‘Over three months.’

  ‘But won’t anyone take you across there,’ he squints across at the distant bulk of the island, ‘to get her?’

  I shake my head. ‘It’s private. Owned by the military. And nobody believes me.’ I hunch my shoulders. ‘I suppose it does sound stupid.’

  ‘Doesn’t to me.’

  There’s a figure approaching us through the rain. ‘That’s Joe,’ he says. ‘I live with him but he’s not my brother. We’re fostered.’

  A thin boy in a clear plastic raincoat steps carefully around the puddles. I see that he couldn’t possibly be this other boy’s brother because he is African. He stands in front of us, thin and dark with black eyes and curly black hair that catches the rain in shining drops.