The Drowning by Rachel Ward Page A

don’t remember.”
    “Carl, I need to ask you this. There were bruises and scratches on Rob’s … on him. Do you know how they got there?”
    My knuckles connect with the side of his head. He recoils and comes back at me. I’m punching and kicking, but the water’s making my arms and legs slow and heavy and I’m cold, so cold. It’s draining the power out of me. I flex my feet trying to kick him with my heels and I do, I get him. He’s shouting and screaming. And he’s giving as good as he gets.
    “No, I dunno.” I can feel my palms starting to sweat. If these memories are real, then it was me who made the scratches and bruises.
    Mum’s sitting on the edge of her seat. Her hands are clasped together between her legs, back rounded, shoulders hunched. She looks like she’s in a dentist’s waiting room or something, not sitting in her own house.
    “Boys are always fighting, aren’t they?” she says now. “That’s what boys do.”
    Officer Underwood frowns, but it’s the other one that leans forward in his chair and asks, “When did you last see them fighting, Kerry?”
    God, what’s he getting at? Does he think I had something to do with it? Does he know?
    Mum looks down at her hands.
    “They were always at it,” she says. “I don’t know.”
    “Were they fighting at home? In the morning? Earlier in the afternoon?”
    “I don’t know. I slept in that morning. And when I got up …”
    “When you got up?”
    There’s a pause. He definitely thinks he’s onto something.
    “… I went to the pub.”
    Mum retreats back into her shell, head down, shoulders near her ears. I try to stay calm.
    The male copper makes some notes in his book. Officer Underwood glances at a lager can under the coffee table, one I must have missed when I was gathering them all up. Damn. I hate this, people like them, coming here. Looking. Judging.
    Underwood turns back to me.
    “Can you remember anything else at all, Carl?”
    “There was a girl there,” I say.
    “Neisha Gupta,” she says.
    “Rob’s girlfriend,” Mum murmurs.
    His girlfriend.
    Pouting for the camera lens. The strap falling away from her shoulder. Stop it. For God’s sake, stop!
    “We’ve interviewed her already. She’s … she’s very shaken up.”
    “I bet she is, poor love. What did she say? What happened?”
    “She didn’t want to talk about it. It’s obviously very painful for her. But she did say that the three of them were swimming, larking about, and they were fine until the weather turned. Then it was raining so much they couldn’t see, they got separated, and when she and Carl found each other, they realized Rob wasn’t with them.”
    “We were fine until the weather turned … larking about …” She’s lying. I was hitting him, wasn’t I? Why has she lied to the police?
    Mum swallows hard. I can see she’s trying not to cry.
    “Do you remember that, Carl?” Mum says to me. “Do you remember any of it?”
    “I remember the rain, that’s all.” There’s no way I’m gonna say anything else until I clearly remember what happened, the whole picture.
    “You should talk with her. It might help,” Underwood says.
    She and her partner get ready to leave. Mum asks what happens next, and she says that there’ll be an inquest, an inquiry into how he died. The coroner, who’s in charge of it all, has released Rob’s body to the undertaker, so the funeral can go ahead, and then the inquest will be a little while after that. She fixes me with a look, but only asks me to get in touch with her if I remember any more, then they’re gone.
    As the door closes behind them, I suddenly feel very tired. Mum sits back on the sofa, closes her eyes, and lets out a big sigh. I try doing the same. I’ve got a powerful feeling of needing to sleep, like the chair’s dragging on my arms and legs, making them heavy. But when I close my eyes I see the face in the bathroom sink, staring up at me. I hear the voice again: I’m coming, Cee.
    I