He gripped the fence with both hands, fighting his body’s desire to pull himself back up and the voice in his head telling him to let go. It would all be over in seconds. He didn’t need to speak to Rosa one last time. That would only cause more problems than it solved. There would be a rush of air as he fell, the chance to experience free-fall flight, then perhaps a fleeting sense of cold or of impact, but not for long enough to process it or to feel pain.

Stephen let go with one hand, closing his eyes.

‘He’s going to let go!’ a woman shouted.

There were yells, the sound of boots hitting the concrete hard and an excited screech. It was the shiny-eyed man, Stephen thought. Here to see him die. Perhaps he was Death. He’d never been religious or superstitious, but maybe at the last he was seeing the world without blinkers. All those horror films, true-life experience programmes, children’s stories, were real.

A hand clamped down hard on the ankle above his trapped foot.

‘I’ve got you,’ Maclure said. ‘Talk to me, Stephen. This is no time to be making choices.’

‘Death’s here,’ Stephen said, straining his neck to turn and look up into Maclure’s calm brown eyes.

‘If he is, then he’s not here for you. Not today. Come on, grab that railing and use your stomach muscles to pull halfway up. I just need to get a grip on your belt.’

‘I’m not sure,’ Stephen said.

‘Fair enough, but I’m your side of the barrier. You pull your foot out now and you’re taking me with you.’ Maclure smiled gently.

It wasn’t a threat and it wasn’t posturing. Stephen could see the truth of it.

As Maclure extended his grip to clasp more of the denim of Stephen’s jeans, a mobile phone tumbled from his pocket and plunged towards the freezing flow beneath them, disappearing as if it had never existed at all.

‘Shit, sorry about that. I wanted to give you the chance to speak to Rosa. I’ll buy you a new one if it’ll get you back up here. How about it?’

Stephen stared after his mobile phone. He didn’t want to go like that. To simply cease to exist, wiped from the world without trace, his entire life made pointless. He tensed his core, suddenly grasping the real reason why sit-ups hadn’t been a waste of time, and took a grip of the lowest railing, for the first time seeing what the climb up the inverted suicide fence had done to his rescuer’s hands. Blood dripped in gashes from his palms and skin was flapping in the breeze as he reached out to take hold of Stephen’s belt.

‘I didn’t mean for you to get hurt,’ Stephen said. ‘Thank you.’