Dedication

To those who continue to listen.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email [email protected] or [email protected]. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. The Canada Suicide Prevention Service is 1-833-456-4566. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

Prologue

The lights on the Clifton Suspension Bridge are dazzling in the thin Bristolian rain. The woman walks across it all the time on her way to and from her shift cleaning at the Royal Infirmary and even though it is a notorious suicide spot she has never yet seen anyone fall. But there is a first time for everything and as she spots a young woman clutching the railings of the suicide fence, the thought zips through her mind: this might be the time.

She hears herself call out reflexively – Hey! The young woman clutching the fence looks her way and for an instant hope surges in the woman who has just come off shift until the younger woman, turning back to face the gorge, reaches out and begins to climb the fence. There is a terrible purpose in the way she moves. The woman who has just come off shift knows that whatever she does now could make the difference between life and death, and knowing that, sensing it, makes the hairs on her skin lift and her heart hammer and her legs surge forward.

Still the young woman clambers upwards.

‘Hey!’ The woman who has just come off shift feels her breath quit. She is so tired. It was a long day at work and she cleans the A&E department and there is always so much blood and grease and body fluids and so many cups and snack wrappers to clear up. She is accustomed to seeing bodies and knows what that three-second flight from the bridge through the air and into the water can do to flesh and bones.

The young woman lifts one arm and shouts, ‘Go away!’

The woman who has just come off shift stops in her tracks, three or four metres from the figure making her way up the fence. It is all in this moment. Life, death. She hears her own voice bark back, ‘Please, stop!’ The young woman freezes and shouts down.

‘Stay where you are,’ the young woman screams. ‘I don’t want your help!’