Neve sits in the back of the police car now, wrapped in a silver thermal blanket as blue light smears rhythmically across the windows. The hiss and crackle of the radio begins to fade as icy rain pounds onto the roof of the vehicle.
The RNLI had arrived first, confusing her with their jaunty logo because she thought they were people who rescued you at sea. They came with astonishing speed after she made the call. Later she would learn that one of their emergency stations was situated close to Waterloo Bridge.
They arrived before the police. Neve’s phone had died before she could finish the conversation with the operator so for ten surreal minutes before the police car had arrived, she’d stood on the bridge alone, looking down at the boat as it turned slow circles in the blackness below, its spotlight swishing back and forth. She half thought about hurrying away and leaving them to it. But it seemed desperately sad that this stranger should have no one apart from the emergency services rooting for her to be found.
So instead she kept up the vigil, staring into the depths below. Her heart had jolted when she saw something white swell and roll in the water, then she realized it was a large plastic bottle. The sensation of relief, that she wouldn’t have to jump in and attempt a rescue, had almost buckled her at the knees.
Later, she would understand that no one would expect her – someone with only average swimming ability – to try and rescue a drowning woman from the Thames in winter. But guilt periodically comes in a bright, sharp jab under her ribs. This at least is a sensation she recognizes.
When the police arrived she’d told them what happened in jerky, shocked sentences. They’d gently encouraged her to start again from the beginning and tell them the whole story.
Now here she is, in the strange aftermath and she can’t stop shivering. Every now and then a particularly strong shudder jerks through her, which makes her clench her jaw. It’s unnerving. She read somewhere that shock can be dangerous in some physiological way she doesn’t really understand and wonders whether she ought to ask for something from the ambulance crew.
She looks out the window and sees through the condensation and raindrops that one of the RNLI men is talking to the policewoman. It’s the small, Northern one with tight curly hair and an efficient air about her. The policewoman nods and then glances at the car. Neve draws back, as though caught doing something wrong.
The door of the police car opens, but it is the young black officer who pokes his head in and peers at her.
‘You alright, love?’ he says gently. He has pretty eyes, thickly lashed, and a cold that clogs his voice and makes him fumble for a tissue. He honks into it and regards her.
Neve nods.
‘Look,’ he says, ‘we have been informed by the rescue crew that the tide is very strong tonight and the weather is taking a turn for the worse. They’ve made the decision that they aren’t going to continue the search.’ He pauses. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’
His formal words are countered by the kindness in his face.
‘I think so,’ she says in a small voice. ‘There’s no hope. Will she just … stay down there?’
He makes a face.
‘Probably not,’ he continues, ‘but it can take a little while for, uh, people to wash up at this stretch of the Thames.’ He pauses. ‘Was she a friend of yours, the woman who jumped in?’
Neve swallows, picturing the moment again.
The shocking speed of it all. Cold, dry lips on her cheek and clawed hands gripping her shoulders. The bright flash of the dress as she tipped herself up and over into the black water.
‘I was just walking past,’ she says. ‘I don’t know her at all. I was just … going home and there she was. I started talking to her. And then she …’ she swallows. ‘She just did it. Right in front of me.’
The policeman makes an indeterminate sound of sympathy, his head to the side.
It’s only now Neve remembers the envelope, realizing she must have dropped it on the pavement in the shock of the moment. ‘Look, she gave me something,’ she says. ‘An envelope? There was something really strange about it. I only took it to stop her being weird.’ She swallows again, feels a tremble judder through her and then she laughs, loud and inappropriately. ‘But it didn’t work, did it!’
The policeman nods. ‘We’ve got that, also her phone and bag. In a bit we’ll get a written statement and then get you home. Bit of a rough night. You’ll feel better tomorrow.’
Neve nods gratefully, her eyes brimming.
It’s almost six a.m. when the police car pulls up in front of Lou and Steve’s building on a leafy street in Kentish Town. It’s still dark outside. Several windows are lit. A handful of people are quietly closing front doors, slinging bags over shoulders and jamming in earbuds, walking, hunched with fatigue, down the road to the tube.
Neve thanks the two police officers, noticing the lingering look from the attractive black one. As she closes the car door she realizes gratefully that she is so late home her sister will almost certainly be up, tending to her eleven-month-old baby, Maisie.
The car pulls away and Neve makes her way carefully down the slippery steps that lead to the kitchen.
Lou and Steve live on the bottom two floors of the tall Victorian building and she is hoping she can alert Lou’s attention through the window rather than ringing the bell and waking the entire household.
But she realizes with a sinking heart that all the lights are off in the kitchen. It would be typical if Maisie had chosen to sleep through for the first time ever, on this of all nights.
Then she sees her sister, swaddled in the long baggy cardigan she wears as a dressing gown at the sink, Maisie on her shoulder, as upright and alert as a meerkat. The baby sees her aunt and waves sweetly, opening and closing her fingers over her fist.
Neve returns the wave with a weak smile. Lou turns and Neve sees rather than hears her shocked yelp. Lou disappears back through the kitchen door and a few moments later the front door a level up is noisily unbolted and opened.
Lou stands in the entrance and peers out at her sister as she climbs the steps. Her face is puffy and Neve can see right away that she has had a bad night. Lou’s eyes look small and pink, like a rabbit’s. She has patches of dry skin on her cheeks, which are flushed, as though she is the one teething and not Maisie.
‘God, look at you,’ she says. ‘Is this you just coming home? I thought you were in bed. Oh … Neve? What on earth is it?’
Neve doesn’t have any more tears but is suddenly overcome with the need for human comfort. She stumbles towards her sister, longing to hide her face in the woollen softness of her ample shoulder. To be held like a child and told everything will be okay.
‘I can’t really …’ says Lou with a sharp laugh, ‘Maisie,
