‘When did you last see him?’

‘The night before he died. We grabbed a coffee, talked about how he was doing, and he was able to ask me about work and my parents, which was always a good thing. When he was at his low points he couldn’t ask about anyone else, or think outside his own head. I spoke to him the day he died, too. I called his mobile and we arranged to have dinner the following week. Just pizza, nothing fancy, but I could tell he was looking forward to it. That’s why when the news came that he was … I just couldn’t believe it.’

‘Had he talked to you about his suicide attempt? It must have taken some time to recover from the incident on the bridge.’

Callanach refilled Rosa’s coffee cup and handed it to her, just to give her something to hold.

‘A lot, but not in the way you might think. As traumatic as it was, he said he realised at the very end how badly he wanted to live. He was angry, really raging, about a man in the crowd he’d heard laughing at him. Stephen said he was determined not to die after that, not to give the crowd what they were waiting for. He said he’d felt like a sideshow freak.’

‘I heard about that,’ Callanach said. ‘The gathering crowd is an unfortunate side effect of public suicide attempts. I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not, or at least I wasn’t. If being angry was what it took to get him down, then the insensitive moron who thought encouraging someone to end their life was a good laugh can be there every time someone does the same.’

‘Were you aware of any injury to Stephen’s right hand, specifically his middle finger?’ Callanach asked.

‘When we were having coffee the evening before, I held both of his hands in mine. They were perfect. Why?’

‘Just below his fingernail, it looks as if there’s part of a boot tread print and the finger was fractured. He didn’t mention any accident when you spoke to him on the phone?’

‘No, he was upbeat, said he’d had a good day,’ Rosa replied, beginning to cry again and folding a tissue daintily to press against her cheeks.

‘One last thing. We haven’t been able to find Stephen’s mobile. It wasn’t at Tantallon Castle, in his car or at his flat.’

‘The guy who helped him at the Queensferry Crossing – I can’t remember his name – was holding it to try to call me when Stephen slipped. He grabbed Stephen’s hand but dropped the mobile. We’d been speaking on the landline. He hadn’t got a new one.’