Anna must have come down to this level, but because he’d used a different staircase, it was impossible to guess which way she’d gone. The lift shafts and staircases ran up the centre of the building, so there was no clear line of sight from one side of the space to the other. Brody swallowed down his panic and did the only thing possible. Somehow, he managed to ignore the throng of strangers jostling against him as he moved through the crowd and completed a full circuit of the floor, but he arrived back where he’d started without even a glimpse of her.

Had she gone down one more level to where the lifts and the toilets were? It was the only place left to look. He headed down yet another staircase to check, thinking as he did so that, with two viewing decks and two different staircases, he and Anna might circle around this place for hours, finding endless ways to evade each other. The most sensible thing would be to go back to where he’d been standing when he’d first seen her. If she was looking for him too now, it was the obvious place for her to go. He was looking for the ‘up’ staircase to do just that, when he passed the bank of lifts that had brought him up here earlier.

There weren’t many people wanting to descend the tower before midnight struck, but a handful were waiting for the next available lift. The doors opened just as he spotted Anna at the back of the group, desperately trying to work her way further forwards, and she slid past the bodies and into the lift.

He reached the doors just as they began to slide closed. Their eyes met. She looked as panicked as he felt. Maybe more so. His chest tightened further.

‘I’m so sorry, Brody. I—’

The doors cut off whatever she’d been about to say, and Brody was left standing alone in a spartan corridor of polished steel and bare white surfaces.

That was it. He’d been cut free. His anchor was gone. The full storm surge he’d been trying to hold back all evening finally hit him.

Gasping for breath, he clutched at his chest as he stumbled back against the wall and began to slide towards the floor. His vision went blurry and breathing became impossible. He closed his eyes as he heard the lift attendant shout, ‘Hey! Someone call an ambulance! I think this guy’s having a heart attack!’

Chapter Fifty-Four

THE LIFT SPED downwards, causing Anna’s ears to pop, but she hardly took in the journey at all. It was only when a blast of cold air hit her as she stumbled out onto the street that she had any sense of where she was. She was unable to process a single thought, and the adrenaline flooding through her system propelled her forwards and away. Fight or flight, they said, and just like last New Year’s Eve, flight seemed to be Anna’s thing. She was such a coward.