Dead Scared

A FALCON CAN feel sensation through every one of its thousands of feathers. As it takes to the air, energy will pulse through its wings, stoking its heart; as it glides on thermals, it will feel a soft, buffeting warmth, and when it dives for prey the feathers on its wings and its back will feel as if they are on fire.

I can feel all of that now, here at the tip of the world, with only stars above me.

And stars like I’ve never seen before. Huge, silver dinner-plates, casting out light from one to the next, until the whole night sky looks like a vast, illuminated spider’s web and not a single one of them seems out of reach.

I take a step forward and know I’m weightless. Another step and I almost leave the tower behind. Enough to make you giddy, this sudden knowing; this startling realization that flying is easy. Flying is just a matter of thinking the right thoughts and believing. I can let my mind soar and my body will follow.

I’m up, on the wall, the wind teasing, tugging at me like the hands of a dozen children. Come now, come and play.

Then a voice. Hard and grating. I spin round and snarl. It backs away.

The city looks so beautiful, as though someone has thrown gold dust over a black velvet cloak, and I think I’ll visit it, one last time. I’ll dive down, faster than a falcon, swooping up at the last second to float like a ghost along the streets and over the rooftops.

‘Laura! I’m coming a couple of steps closer. Just so we can talk to each other. No, steady on, love. Look, I’m not moving.’

My name isn’t Laura.

‘Sorry, Lacey. I’ve just been told your name is Lacey. I’m Pete. PC Leffingham. Can I come a bit … OK, OK, I’m staying here.’

Lacey? Is that my name? There is a tree directly below me that still has leaves and I wonder if they’ll tickle, those leaves, when I glide past them.

‘Lacey, I’m talking to a friend of yours. Says his name is Mark. Mark Joesbury.’

Those leaves are dead. They won’t tickle, they’ll tear my flesh open as I hurtle into them. The branches will pull out my hair, stick into my eyes, impale me.

‘He wants to talk to you. Can I just hand over the phone so Mark can talk to you?’

‘Mark Joesbury is dead,’ I tell him.

A short pause, while PC Whoever-he-is tells his caller the news of his own demise. ‘No,’ his voice calls up to me again. ‘He’s very much alive and wants me to tell you to get down from there now or he’ll have you on traffic duty till you get your twenty-two-year long-service medal.’

‘Joesbury’s an arsehole,’ I say. ‘Joesbury set me up.’

I hear PC Leffingham’s mumbles and tell myself they are nothing to do with me. I look at the shining silver saucers that used to be stars and I swear, if I just bounce, I can touch them.

‘He says he knows. He says he’s very sorry. He says please just come down and let him tell you he’s sorry.’

The wind feels like a blanket, like a soft bed, like a quilt wrapping itself around me.

‘I don’t think she’s listening to me, sir. I don’t think it’s going to work. She’s leaning into the wind now. Christ, if it drops … what? OK, hang on … Lacey!’

Oh, will he not leave me in peace? I am about to fly.

‘Lacey, Mark says they found the note in your car and they’ve put out an all-ports warning on three different cars. He says they’ll catch them. It’s over.’

‘Have you ever watched a falcon dive?’ I ask. ‘Do you have any idea of the speed it reaches?’

‘Lacey, he says he loves you.’

‘Tell him he’s full of shit!’

‘Steady, steady on, Lacey. Don’t let go … let me just … OK, I won’t come any closer. Sir, I really don’t think …’

Leffingham’s voice fades and I sense him back away from me. Good. I can see a moonbeam, shining directly down upon the pavement, its light spreading along the stone like a soft, warm pool.

‘What? Sir, I … OK, I’ll give it a go.’

The moonbeam looks like a trail, sent for me to follow.

‘Lacey.’

I sigh. I am going to have to jump just to get the hell away from this pest.

‘Lacey, Mark says he’s on another tower. He says he can see you and if you look in the right direction, you can see him. Over there, look, to the north. He’s got a torch. He’s waving it around. Oh, Christ, he has too.’

I have no interest in where Mark Joesbury is. And yet one of my huge round stars has shrunk, it seems, and fallen lower, and is dancing around like a dervish because I can see what is getting PC Leffingham so excited. Across the city, where I judge the tower of St John’s to be, I can see a powerful light being swung around in a constantly repeating arch.

‘Tell him I’ll see him in hell,’ I say, and get ready to jump – I mean, to fly.

‘He says he heard that and you’re absolutely right you will because he’s going to jump too – what?’

What?

I’m not looking at the sky, any more. Or at the city, or even across the vast dark space to St John’s tower. I am staring at PC Leffingham and at the phone still clamped to his ear. He’s arguing with the man on the end of the line. Well, now he knows what it’s like.

‘Sir, this is getting beyond … no, I’m not telling her that … who’s with you? OK, OK, Jesus wept.’

Leffingham runs a hand over his face and for a second I think it crosses his mind that he might push me himself and bring the whole farce to an end. ‘Mark says if you jump, he will too,’ he calls up to me. ‘He swears it on his son’s life because this whole business is his fault and if you die he won’t be able to live with himself and – yeah, yeah, I’ve got it – and when he jumps he’s going to take the torch with him … and the last thing you’ll see is that torch. And he says he’ll hit the ground first because he’s a lot heavier than you.’

‘Tell him to go fuck himself.’ I’m up on the ledge. I’m going.

‘Lacey!’

I swear that voice wasn’t PC Leffingham’s.

‘Lacey, he says he can’t live if you don’t.’

I look up, for my big dinner-plate stars and the silver silk streamers that I will fly among. They’re gone and in their place are just tiny dots of light, millions of miles away. Below me, my black-velvet city strewn with gold has gone too. All that’s left is a town that is beautiful but cold. Over to the north, where the light from a flashlight hasn’t stopped waving, I can picture the man who’s holding it, a man who is up on the edge of a parapet, just like me, and I know that he and I are on the verge of a pretty big adventure. Whether we jump, or whether we don’t.

My call.

Without taking my eyes off Joesbury’s torch, I give PC Leffingham my hand and let him lead me safely back down to earth.