Dead Scared

Tuesday 22 January (a few minutes before midnight)

JOESBURY FEELS THE cold air at the same moment he spots the door at the top of the tower. He’s outside before he has any idea what he’s going to do if he’s too late and she’s already jumped. Or what the hell he’ll do if she hasn’t.

‘Lacey,’ he yells. ‘No!’

The roof is empty.

From behind comes the sound of footsteps on stone and heavy breathing. Someone else has reached the top of the steps and a second later is outside.

He’ll never know what it would be like, to wake up beside her.

Joesbury sees a man half stop, gasp for breath and then race to the edge of the roof, leaving a wake of footprints in the unblemished carpet of snow. He watches him lean over the parapet, shine a powerful flashlight down, before standing up again and moving round to another side of the roof. Someone else is on the roof now. Both men are moving around, leaning over the parapet, shining torches down, their footprints spreading across the roof like a cobweb. There are people on the ground shouting up at them.

He’ll never see the look on her face when she meets his son for the first time.

There are uniformed police officers on the tower, speaking into radios, asking if there’s any other way off the roof. The mood is urgent, confused. All the snow has been disturbed now. Piles of it collect in corners. It clings to boots. Then a man barks out an order. The sense of urgency increases. Radios crackle. People leave quickly. One by one the tower empties, until only he and one of the porters are left.

‘Guv.’

He’ll never see the tiny lines appear at the corners of her eyes. Never tease her about her first grey hair.

‘Mark!’

Joesbury turns to George, who is ashen in the dim light. ‘Have they found her?’ he asks, and has a moment to hope that her face hasn’t been too badly damaged, that he’ll be able to look at her one last time. At her perfect, unblemished face. And then he realizes that when he opened the door to the roof the snow was complete, unmarked by footprints of any kind.

‘Not here we haven’t,’ says George. ‘That phone call was a hoax. But we do know where she is. Confirmed this time. They’ve put her on a different tower. Great St Mary’s, about half a mile away. Hold it!’

George’s hand has shot up, palm out, holding Joesbury back. ‘She’s hanging over the edge,’ he tells him. ‘Constable in attendance says she looks out of her head on drugs and she’s threatening to jump if anyone goes near her.’

‘Out of my way, George.’

George takes a step forward, to plant himself more firmly in Joesbury’s way. He is holding up a phone and hands it over.

‘PC Leffingham,’ he says. ‘He’s with her on the tower. Good luck, guv.’