Bloom studied the suicide press cuttings again. Seraphine’s pretty blue eyes stared out from the photographs. There was a statement from her parents saying that she’d never caused them any trouble and was the perfect daughter. Seraphine’s kind words about her family had never seemed genuine, and Bloom doubted the veracity of their statement. There were no anecdotes or evidence to back up the rhetoric. Perhaps there’d been something going on that Seraphine had wanted to escape from. Bloom knew that Seraphine’s mother, Penny, was overbearing and indulgent. And Bloom’s own mother had described Penny’s husband, Kevin, as a bully – and she rarely made such dramatic character assassinations. Any child would struggle with one parent who smothered them with emotional drama and another who attacked them. But a psychopath would quickly become intolerant of that level of irrationality. Seraphine’s inner life would have lacked emotional depth. It would have been flat. She wouldn’t have been able to understand her parents, because their behaviour had been completely devoid of calculated gain.

Bloom looked at the photograph of Seraphine again. What was she missing?

62

Sarah’s scream was unbearable. Jameson froze a metre from the edge. He stared ahead, waiting for the impact. He knew what he was waiting for. He’d heard it before: the sound of a human body hitting the ground. It was always much louder than expected.

But the impact never came.

His phone buzzed. He couldn’t look over the edge. He didn’t want to see. He took the phone from his pocket.

Blocked

Be still my beating heart, Mr Jameson. You really came through for your sweetheart. You can look down now.

3:41pm

Jameson braced himself and peered over the wall. An abseiling rope hung loosely just above the ground. Rose-Butler stood beside it, looking up at him. His harness was discarded on the pavement. He gave a small salute then walked calmly away, one hand in the pocket of his designer suit trousers. Sarah’s body was nowhere to be seen.

Jameson leaned further forward. A second rope secured to the base of the pole on his right stretched halfway down the building. At its end was Sarah. The relief made him feel drunk. She was tightly gripping the rope above her head.

‘I’m coming down, babe. Hang on.’ He ran back to the stairwell. Hang on, he’d said. Of course she was going to hang on. She would take the piss out of him later. Not that he would mind one bit.

He opened the stairwell door at the sixth floor. He could see the rope swinging, but not Sarah. He went down another floor. He saw Sarah’s hands around the rope above the perimeter wall. He ran over and grasped her hands in his.

‘Have you fallen for me, Sarah Something?’ He was manic, so frickin’ happy that she was alive that he’d become hysterical.