Gone Again by Doug Johnstone

skidded to his knees beside the body. She was facing away from him, looking out towards the sea. He turned her over.
    Lauren.
    Her skin was blue and grey, eyes closed. He touched her cheek. It was so cold, it didn’t feel like skin at all. Didn’t feel human.
    He grabbed her shoulders and hauled her up off the claggy sand into a hug, gripping her tight, feeling the cold sponginess of her body, tasting salt in his mouth. He stroked her wet hair, knotted and tuggy, and pictured that expensive conditioner she used in the bath.
    His body began to shake and he worried that he was going to drop her on to the sand, which seemed more awful than anything. The spasms convulsed through his muscles and he struggled to breathe, as if he’d been winded. He tried to gasp air into his lungs but he couldn’t. His eyes were blind with tears and snot ran from his nose. He couldn’t get snot on her, but he couldn’t let go either. He leaned away for a second and wiped his nose on his sleeve. He clutched her to his chest again, couldn’t stand to see her face. It was easier to hold her than look at her. He finally got a stuttering breath into his lungs and an ugly wail crept out of him.
    He sat with her like that for a lifetime, his mind dead, his body shaking, his blood cold and congealed in his veins.
    ‘Mark?’
    From the bottom of the ocean, he somehow felt a hand on his shoulder. He drifted upwards towards reality, then broke the surface.
    ‘Mark.’
    The hand tried to turn him, but he held on to Lauren like a shipwreck survivor clinging to driftwood. If he could just keep holding her, he could stay afloat.
    The hand was removed from his shoulder, then he sensed someone in front of him. He opened his eyes and saw a face he recognised, features he could place but somehow different, as if the whole world had been shunted off kilter.
    ‘It’s me, DC Ferguson. Tracey?’
    There were other police officers behind her, and an ambulance crew. He raised his head to look around. A smudge of faces and limbs, murmuring voices, the swish of the tide lapping a few feet away. The stench of salt water choked everything, corroding the world.
    ‘Mark, the paramedics need to check her over. You have to let go.’
    He resisted his fingers being prised away from Lauren’s back, then finally gave in and slumped on to the sand. Two men in medical uniforms crouched next to Lauren. Mark imagined them giving her mouth-to-mouth, pumping away at her chest until she spluttered back to life, coughing up seawater like in the movies. But they were just methodically checking her neck, heart, eyes, ears. Like livestock at market. They conferred quietly between themselves then stepped away.
    He scrambled back to her, leaned over. Stroked her cheek, her brow. The truth was, since Nathan had come along, they hadn’t had the time or energy to touch each other or really look closely at each other any more like they used to at the start. This would be the last time he would ever look at her face. He wanted to see her eyes open, but at the same time he was terrified by the idea, how final that would be to see her lifeless gaze.
    He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She always fussed about her hair getting in her face, tying it back more often than not, especially at work. Had it been tied back when she left the house two days ago?
    His tears were falling on her face and he wiped them away in a shameful panic, feeling the slackness of her skin, a kind of rubbery oiliness. He felt tremors starting up in his arms and legs and he hunched forward, head on the sand. He wanted the beach to choke him to death. He wanted the sand to scour his eyes and block his nose, he wanted the sea to drag him under, annihilate him.
    ‘Come on.’
    It was Ferguson again, trying to get him to sit up.
    Mark looked at Lauren and suddenly felt sick, a spasm rushing up from his stomach. He retched on the sand, tears and snot dripping, his body convulsing. He could feel Ferguson’s hand