Travelling up in the lift, Esther did not look at anything except the face of the young man riding with her. No older than Lily, he had a springy afro, warm brown eyes, and a rolling, easy manner. ‘Your first time? You’ll be just fine, Esther,’ he said when she nodded bleakly. ‘Max up there will give you a countdown to go,’ he continued, checking her harness. ‘You’re the twentieth today, and everybody has had a great time. You are strapped in just fine. You’re going to do great. I’ll hand you right over to Max, and he’ll take care of you. A fine view from here, wouldn’t you say?’

Esther gripped the metal railings. Vertigo was connected to the fear of throwing yourself off a height. To do this was, she realised now, simply impossible. Looking down was not possible either. She looked out instead, half seeing the shimmer of the Thames, and the grey swarm of Slough, and the creamy April sky. The fear was visceral now. She could not move, let alone jump.

Somehow, she was standing with the man called Max. The rope had been clipped to her harness. The wind blew at their faces, gusting her hair across her eyes. ‘I can’t,’ she tried to shout, but no words came out.

‘I am going to count you down, Esther.’ He stood close. He wasn’t touching her, but she wished he would. She wished he would just pick her up and throw her out and be done with it. ‘You’ve got this, okay?’ His accent was Australian, his eyes a piercing green; greener even than Lucas’s. They held hers. ‘Okay, Esther, here we go… three… two… one…’

She plunged, flailing in a cold rushing nothingness, her stomach in her mouth, her skin stretched and flapping from her bones, the wind punching down into her lungs through her open mouth, fighting with the scream she released but couldn’t hear. The stretchy rope would break her fall. She couldn’t feel it yet. But she knew she would.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I cannot overstate my gratitude to the impeccable editing and story-instincts of Sarah Ritherdon, my magician of an editor, and to Boldwood Books, for their continuing faith in my work. Thanks too, must go to the rigorous copy-editing of Sue Smith, whose forensic eye for dropped stitches is as brilliant as it is unnerving.

‘The Split’ is my second ‘lockdown’ novel, the first draft emerging during the course of 2021. My tolerance to isolation was wearing thin, and I want to thank my wonderful sons, their partners, and all the close friends whose unfailing support helped me through. Special mention must go to the weekly lockdown Zoom group of old university friends, who kept asking, dutifully, how ‘the writing’ was going, and then listened patiently to my convoluted responses, between throwing out often wild – but always very welcome – ideas of their own.