He turned at a noise. Miller was halfway up the bank, Bennet’s oversized form struggling behind. But she was stopped, having realised the danger was over. Then she was heading away, aware of a private moment.

‘I’ve lost Josie, and I’ll go to prison, and my sister will hate me. I have nothing. Why?’

He knew she didn’t mean why did she have nothing?

‘Why did I stop you? You were about to run off the edge. Why did you run?’

She tried to jerk her hand from his, but his grip was so tight that he was pulled down, on to his knees. ‘You think you helped me?’ she said. ‘Helped me do what? Mourn my daughter, from prison?’

‘You think that’s the answer? Killing yourself?’

‘My daughter is dead, so what do I have left?’

‘She’s not dead, Anna. So stop—’

‘She is! I didn’t say her name to them. Not once. They didn’t know. I should have called her Josie and they would have seen her as… as…’

He knew what she was struggling to find the words to say. ‘No, you can’t think like that.’

‘But it’s true. I didn’t use her name and now she’s dead and I have nothing left.’

She started to struggle free again, but nothing alive could have broken his grip. ‘So this is all about you? Anna is all that matters?’

He was almost as shocked as she with that line. Like a defibrillator, it kick-started some reaction inside her. The sniffling ended. The shaking stopped.

‘You go over the edge, I get left alone,’ he said. ‘My daughter’s missing. Now my wife wants to kill herself and leave me to suffer losing everything.’

Wide-eyed, she stared at him.

‘You don’t want me. Without Josie, you have nothing, you just said. So I’ve already lost you both. I’m jumping as well. I’m going first, though, because if I land on your body down there, I might survive, then I’ll have no wife or daughter and be stuck in a wheelchair.’

He got up, as if about to actually take a leap over the sheer drop. She kept hold of his hand and yanked him back down. ‘But then I get the wheelchair,’ she said, forcing a smile of sorts, just to show him she was over her insane moment. At least for now.

‘So what can we do? Leap together? Thing is, what if Josie comes back? Which I’m sure she will?’

She dropped her head into his chest hard enough to hurt. ‘I’m sorry. What was I doing? That was stupid and insane. I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s OK. It’s going to be OK.’

Anna had never wanted to believe anything more. But it was just silly hope.

M1/A/101.2