He traverses the walkway with his head down, not particularly fast but with a certain determined evenness in his stride. He won’t be deflected – and even if I had the power to try, well, I did my best a week ago, and look how that turned out. As he turns to descend the stairs the full force of a Fen wind hits him and blows him back a little, hair lifting. I hope it will be a dose of reality, like icy water, but he lowers his head and keeps going.

When he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he walks to the far end of the platform, to the solitary metal bench. That bench, beneath the godlike eye of the CCTV camera – it is as if it is a magnet for the lonely, the desperate. I can’t believe it, my beloved, my fair-haired young man, the only beautiful thing on sodding unbeautiful Peterborough Station – he is heading for the netherworld, the world of darkness and pain and misery for all those you leave behind. How much pain do you have to be in to ruin the life of everyone who loves you, forever? Don’t. I’d be screaming it now, if I could. Those who care for you will never, never recover.

He sits down on the bench and turns away from the other passengers at the far end of the platform in a hunched kind of way, as if he is cold, which he probably is. After a moment or two, he reaches into his coat pocket and withdraws a packet of cigarettes.

What, he smokes? I feel as if he has been deceiving me. If you’re determined to kill yourself why do it in a way that takes so long and makes you smell disgusting? Also, it’s illegal. Fifty-pound on-the-spot fine. Breaking the law is the least of his concerns right now, clearly. Still hunched, he lifts a disposable lighter and sparks it up.

Despite my disapproval, this gives me a small amount of hope. It’s an act of delay on his part, surely? Does it suggest hesitation, a desire to think things through? Or is it just a last one before he goes? Either way, his smoking will be spotted very quickly and draw attention – whoever is in the DTL office will see it on the CCTV or the smell of it will drift down the platform and alert some goody two-shoes at the other end.

Then, all at once, after a few moments of sucking hard and when he is only halfway through the cigarette, he drops it and grinds it beneath his shoe – it’s all over so quickly that nobody has noticed.