Fleet forced himself to focus on his hands, on the sturdiness of the freezing metal beneath his grip, but still he felt that familiar freefall in the pit of his stomach that told him he was no longer on solid ground.
About three metres up, there was a mesh guard that was supposed to deter members of the public. There was a hole, and Luke had managed to slip through easily, but Fleet was twice the boy’s size, and the mesh caught on the fabric of his coat. It was all he could do to keep climbing. At first it was as though someone was attempting to pull him down, but then there was the sound of his jacket ripping, and all at once he found himself free.
The boy was waiting for him. It was the only explanation as to why, when Fleet reached the top of the ladder, Luke hadn’t already jumped. He was out towards the centre of the bridge, his legs hooked over the slender guard rail. Looking at him balanced there like that, Fleet’s vision began to swim. He closed his eyes for a moment, then hauled himself from the ladder on to the walkway. He gripped the guard rail with his left hand, and kept his right firmly planted by his knees. Then he forced himself to clamber to his feet.
There may have been no breeze at ground level, but as soon as Fleet was upright, he found himself buffeted by a crosswind. In reality it probably wasn’t all that strong, but to Fleet it felt like a gale. Even the bridge itself seemed to sway, and for one horrible moment, Fleet genuinely believed he was about to fall. He looked down, and saw the water churning far below him. There was no sign of Nicky. Wherever she was, she was shrouded by the fog.
He took a step.
‘Stop,’ said Luke. He was standing – teetering – barely three or four metres away, but his voice sounded improbably distant.
‘Luke, listen …’
‘I came back to tell you what happened. So that you wouldn’t blame my friends. That’s all. If it hadn’t been for them, I would have come here sooner.’
‘No one’s blaming your friends, Luke. Not any more. They made mistakes, yes, but we all do that. Please don’t make another one now.’
The boy shook his head. ‘I told you what I did. I killed Sadie. My brother, too. I killed them both.’
‘Luke, listen, we can –’
But Luke didn’t wait. One moment he was standing on the walkway, the next he was gone – his fragile body plunging towards the water.
‘No!’
Fleet lunged, but there was never a chance he would reach the boy in time. Even as he closed the distance there had been between them, there was a splash as Luke hit the water.
‘Shit. Shit, shit, shit.’
Fleet was already climbing over the handrail, fighting every instinct that was wrestling to hold him back. He looked down, all the way down, and saw only the water – cold and cruel, and grey like concrete. Luke appeared to have sunk like a piece of granite. There wasn’t even a ripple discernible from the churn that showed where the boy had broken the surface.
Dimly, Fleet heard Holly’s voice. You can’t save everyone, she’d told him, and not for the first time in his life, he found himself wishing he would learn to follow his wife’s advice.
And then he jumped.
His first sensation, strangely, was one of relief. The second was of time standing still. But then the world came rushing towards him, at a speed he couldn’t have imagined. He barely had time to hold his breath before his feet impacted against the water, and pain coursed from his heel bones through his spine to the top of his skull.
He felt himself panic as he was swallowed by the water. He flailed uselessly, desperately trying to propel himself towards the surface. At first it had no effect. He was still falling, still plunging towards the riverbed far below. But then there was a moment of feeling in between, a sensation not dissimilar to how he’d felt when he’d been falling. He frogged his legs, the old muscle memory kicking in, and he found himself rising, rising, his lungs threatening to explode – until finally he broke the surface of the water.
He gulped in air, coughed it out again. He kicked against the current, rotating all the while as he searched for the boy. But there was nothing – just the cold and the rushing river. Dimly he found himself wishing he’d at least removed his coat before he’d jumped, because his clothes were suddenly as heavy as a suit of armour. He’d only been in the water a few seconds, and already his legs were burning from the effort of trying to keep himself afloat.
‘Luke!’ he called, whether out loud or in his mind, he couldn’t tell. His mouth filled with water, and he spluttered. ‘Luke!’
He took a breath and then ducked beneath the water. Immediately the world went quiet, as though he’d dropped into a void. But he could see even less through the murk below than he’d been able to through the fog above the river’s surface. He kicked for the sky, gasped as he stole another breath, then dived again – but as before, he saw nothing but a muddy swirl.
This time when he surfaced, he heard a shout. He whipped his head around in time to see Nicky and the young PC on the bank. Already the current had carried Fleet alongside them. Nicky was yelling, pointing. Fleet spun around, floundering to see anything but the spray of the water. Unless … there.
‘Luke!’
It was only the boy’s jacket and the back of his head that broached the surface. If Nicky
