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have friends, but she knows instinctively that this new, shining person would vanish from her
     life in an instant if she discovered the full extent of where she comes from. She still hasn’t realised that their brief friendship
     is already over. ‘She’ll kill me,’ she finishes lamely. ‘Look at me.’
    ‘Come on,’ says Bel. ‘We’ve got to get clean.’
    They pick their way back along the sheep path to the stream. The meadow is splashed bright yellow with islands of dandelion
     and ragwort. They are silent, now, and don’t dare look at each other. Their hateful task has robbed them of the chatter of
     the early hours. The only words they can find are practical, brief. They scramble along the bank to the pool. It seemed deeper
     when they were floundering about, fighting for footholds, but the water is deep enough to reach their thighs, and runs clear,
     the mud they kicked up all settled. Neither mentions what they’re doing, but each girl looks about her surreptitiously for
     Chloe’s blood, for any signs of what has happened here
.
    ‘Come on,’ says Bel again. She strips off her top, her jeans, and dumps them into the water. Jade hangs back. ‘Come
on
, Jade,’ she urges
.
    ‘Then they’ll be wet,’ says Jade doubtfully.
    ‘We’ll squeeze them out. And it’s still hot. They’ll be dry in no time. And anyway, we can say we fell into the river. No
     one knows where we’ve been all day. Come
on
!’
    Jade strips off her top and skirt. Her knees are green from kneeling in the woods. She wades reluctantly down into the water
     and stands there, shivering despite the heat, hugging the clothes to her chest. Bel snatches them away, throws them into the
     water. ‘Scrub,’ she orders. ‘Come on. Just get on with it.’
    Bel drops to her knees, water up to her chest, and rubs vigorously at the dirt on her arms and shoulders, the sweat in her
     armpits. Dips her head beneath the surface and re-emerges, dripping and swiping the grime from her face. Gestures to Jade
     to follow suit
.
    I can’t, thinks Jade. That’s where she … Where her face …
    ‘I can’t swim,’ she says
.
    ‘Don’t need to. Come on.’
    Bel lunges suddenly forward and grabs her by the arm. Stares hard into her eyes. ‘Jade. Don’t go soft on me now. If you don’t
     do this, if you go home looking like that …’
    She avoids completing the sentence. Doesn’t need to. Knows that Jade is filling the words in for her. They’ll know. They’ll
     realise. Already they’re distancing themselves from what they’ve done. Trying to separate the actions they’re taking now from
     the reason why they need to take them
.
    Jade kneels and plunges beneath the water, like a Baptist.
    She opens her eyes below the surface, sees that the water is once again thick with kicked-up mud. It’s dark down here. Quiet.
     This is what she saw, she thinks. This is how it was, her last moments
.
    Chloe’s face looms at her through the gloom. She kicks back in panic, struggles upward, bursts out into air. She flounders
     through the water to the bank. Half crawls, half runs to the top. Stands there shuddering in her underpants.
    They reach the gate. Each girl is dripping, clammy in her damp clothes
.
    ‘We’ll split up,’ says Bel
.
    She’s much calmer than me, thinks Jade. She seems to know what to do. If it was just me, I’d have made so many mistakes by
     now. They’d all know already. That it was me
.
    ‘I’ll go back through the village,’ says Bel. ‘To mine. They can’t know we were together. Do you understand?’
    Jade gulps, and nods. ‘Yes.’
    ‘They can’t know we were together
, ever
,’ says Bel. ‘You know that, don’t you? We can’t see each other again. If we see each other, we just pretend we don’t know
     each other. OK?’
    ‘Yes,’ says Jade
.
    ‘Do you understand?’ asks Bel again. ‘Not ever. Do you understand?’
    Jade nods again. ‘Yes. I understand.’
    ‘Good,’ says Bel
.
    She turns away