The rain stopped before ten.
By the time they reached the workshop there was a thin patch of sky above the roofs. Daniel looked past the building towards the water. He'd wanted the rain to make the choice for him.
Cass was at the bench with her phone plugged in beside the work.
“I'm staying here.”
Leah turned towards her.
“You don't have to.”
“I haven't got to finish early just because you two want to do something stupid.”
Daniel went into the old office. The floor was clean. He'd helped scrub it after October, though Leah had done most. He put his phone on the desk. Silas's blanket was gone; Daniel had returned it washed and folded.
Leah fitted the harness beneath Daniel’s outer layers. He bent, stood, took a full breath. She left the line’s clip hooked beneath the sill of the outside door, ready for him to fasten as he came out.
Outside, the branch had shifted farther down the race. One end worked against the wall. Leah stood above it for a moment, then turned to him.
“We're going on.”
He waited for himself to disagree.
She secured the fixed end of the line to the mooring post. Loose rope lay behind her hands for Daniel's walk out and her own movement along the bank. Some of the stretch between them would still cross the path.
She took his good hand and kissed him, hard enough to hurt his mouth.
He pressed his forehead against hers.
Then she stepped away, taking the line up to her chosen place on firm ground above the ledge. Farther downstream on the same bank, the rough stones showed beneath the light from the yard.
Cass stood in the open workshop door.
“I've got the phone.”
Daniel went back to the office. He could still see Leah as he turned the corner. Silas could find her too, if he chose to go that way.
At eleven thirty-seven, Silas knocked at the outside door.
He was wearing the same coat he'd worn at lunch. There was a small bag in his hand. Clean clothes, perhaps. He looked past Daniel into the room and saw only the desk, the chairs, the heater.
“Leah?”
“Working.”
“With Cass?”
“Yes.”
Silas stepped inside.
“I'd like to see her.”
“She knows you're here.”
“That wasn't what I said.”
Daniel closed the door without putting the latch on.
“She doesn't want to speak.”
Silas looked at him for a moment, then set his bag on the chair.
“You're very sure of that.”
“She told me.”
Beyond the wall something clanged. Cass called out, annoyed, then the sound of work resumed. Daniel was grateful for it. Leah could be part of that ordinary noise or elsewhere; he hadn't claimed to know exactly where she was.
Silas began unbuttoning his coat.
“How's the hand?”
“The same.”
“The leg?”
“Also the same.”
He hung the coat over the chair.
Daniel could see the forearm now, the cut healed into a rough red line. The other wounds were under the shirt. They'd had nearly a month, with care, to become injuries instead of an emergency. They weren't gone.
Silas rotated his right shoulder cautiously.
Daniel watched.
“You keep looking at it.”
“I gave it to you.”
“Yes.”
“I don't forget.”
“I don't expect you to.”
They sat opposite each other.
Silas took out his phone and checked the time. Daniel looked at the door. There was the room, the path outside, the turn towards the slipway, the narrowing beside the race. He could almost feel each distance as something his body would have to cross.
Silas followed the look.
“Want to go out first?”
“No.”
“You're shaking.”
“Cold.”
“There's a heater.”
Daniel rubbed his right palm against his trousers.
Silas leaned forward.
“You can say no.”
He knew. Every reminder made it harder, giving him the night back for a second.
“I know.”
“I mean it. If you want to keep it—”
“I don't.”
That was true in the way a cut could be clean despite everything around it.
He wanted to run. He didn't want to keep the thing which made the running possible.
Silas sat back. He wasn't offering again.
They waited.
At eleven fifty-five, Daniel stood. The harness pressed beneath his coat. He adjusted the cloth without looking down.
Silas stood too, slower.
“You'll be outside?”
“Yes.”
“Don't go far.”
Daniel put his hand on the top button of his shirt.
Through the outer door came the sound of the river. He could hear it clearly even with ordinary ears. There was enough water to do what he meant, perhaps enough to take him too.
He undid the button.