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.
There have been a few cases of student suicide in Cambridge in recent years but their details are unknown to me. My research for this book has been general, not specific, and any similarities to real events are entirely coincidental.
I have long considered Cambridge to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and feel nothing but wistful envy for those lucky enough to live and study there.
References
Grateful thanks to my kind and clever friends and colleagues, without whose help I could not write my books: Sarah Adams, Jessica, Peter and Rosie Buckman, Lynsey Dalladay, Anne Marie Doulton, Matthew Martz, Sarah Melnyk, Kelley Ragland, Kate Samano, Denise Stott, Martin Summerhayes, Adrian Summons, Jess Thomas, Mark Upton, Claire Ward and Geoff Webb.
Any remaining mistakes are mine.
About the Author
S. J. Bolton is the author of four previous critically acclaimed novels,
