Chapter 1

It was only a few steps from the main street, but
the dark alley seemed remote and ancient.  John's
eyes adjusted to the dark slowly, and for a few
seconds he imagined he saw a looming figure in a
pile of rotting rubbish bags until his eyes
adjusted. He hefted the crowbar in his hand and
grinned at himself.  This place was deserted, just
as he had hoped.

He moved quickly but quietly down the slant of
light from the street into the recesses of the
alley, and found the doorway he had inspected in
the daytime.  It had probably been the tradesman's
entrance to the large insurance building facing
the street, and a hundred years ago the servants
would have taken in bread and crates of wine at
this doorway.  But it was dark and boarded up now,
a heavy rusted padlock sealing that time against
the modern age.

John inserted the crowbar into the loop of the lock,
but as he did so, it fell to the ground with a dull
clunk.  Surely it wasn't so rusty it was ready to
fall off?  He picked it up, and inspected it.  It
looked like it had been recently forced, the rusty
plate was scratched back to clean metal which shone
in the dim light.  The hasp on the door was folded
back, he noticed.  The padlock hadn't been securing
the door at all, someone had imply hooked it back
onto the dangling hasp.  He was sure the lock had
been secure earlier that day.  He threw it into the
rubbish and pushed the big wooden panelled door,
expecting a horror house shriek, but the door was
silent and the dark rectangle of the quiet building
showed no light within.

He was glad he'd brought a torch, and dug it out of
the pocket of his bulky jacket. The floor betrayed
many footprints, layers of them upon layers.  This
passage must not have been used in years.  At the
end of the short corridor, he found another padlock
on the floor, and the door ajar.  This door led out
into a plush modern office, with open plan desks and
computers flickering away in the night.  A set of
large plate windows looked onto the main street, and
he knew he was vulnerable as long as he was on this
floor.  He kept close to the wall, in case some late
night security guard or cleaner was on the prowl,
and sidled along towards the front of the building
where he knew the stairs were.

Once away from the street level and the fishbowl
windows, John made steady progress up the flights of
stairs.  The steps were carpeted and the handrail
was continuous around the central shaft, so he felt
comfortable with the torch off.  As he reached the
top, he flicked it back on to look for the roof
access.  High in the corner was a fixed ladder
leading up to a trapdoor. Holding the strap of the
rubber torch between his teeth, he jumped up to the
bottom rung of the ladder and pulled himself up,
hand over hand, until he could get his feet on the
rungs.  The trapdoor had a bolt fastener, but it was
undone, and he used the top of his head to push the
door open as he climbed out.

The air was cooler outside, and the bitumen roof
absorbed the sound of his footsteps.  Around him,
the city crowded like a Roman ampitheatre, and what
he was about to do merited such an audience.  He
found his bearings and began creeping towards the
front of the building, aware that there was no hand
rail and that in the dark he might come across the
precipice sooner than expected.

He became aware of the sound of breathing first. The
sky was moonless, and the streetlights were below
roof level and cast no light on his footsteps.  He
froze, and as his eyes adjusted to the dim light,
he could make out the figure of a man standing on
the front edge of the roof, facing away from him,
his breathing laboured and exaggerated.  Did he even
know John was there?

"You won't talk me out of it."

Briefly, John considered retreating into the dark
and abandoning his plan.  This was an unexpected and
an unwelcome development.  He hadn't wanted any
witnesses for his first time, and he didn't want a
suicidal nut to bring police and reporters.  But the
man went on.

"You shouldn't try to grab for me. I mean it."

"I won't.", he said.  "I'm not even here for you.  I
didn't think anybody would be up here."

The man's head flicked round nervously.  "Come round
the side, so I can see you.  But don't get too close.
I don't know what you're after but if you grab at me,
you'll end up going over with me."

John walked round to the left in a semi-circle,
keeping a few yards away from the man perched on the
edge.  The roof was edged with a low wall a foot high
and the same wide.  It was on this the man stood, and
John sat down on the wall, keeping his weight awkwardly
to the inside when he saw how high up they were.  The
street below was quiet and well lit.

"I suppose it's stupid of me to ask if you plan to
jump?"

The man turned to face him and smiled.  "Of course I'm
going to jump.  I was just working up to it when you
arrived.  So if you don't mind, can you just go?"

"Can I ask why?"

"Don't try to talk me out of it, I told you.  You're
not interested in me, you just don't want a mess, like
all of them."

John shook his head.  "I told you, I'm not here for
you."

"Yeah, sure.  Just a coincidence."

"I'm not.  I was here this morning to scope out this
building for something of my own.  I came up here 
tonight expecting the place to myself.  But now that
you're here, I would rather you didn't jump.  But if
you're going to, can you give me a bit of time to get
clear of here?  I don't want to get caught up with
police and stuff."

The man laughed.  "You're alright."

John shrugged.  "Just selfish, I suppose.  You've got
your problems, and all that.  I probably can't help
you with them.  I came here to do something else,
something that would be hard to explain to the police.
If you go over now, there will be questions.  I'd
rather you didn't."

"What's your name, man?"

"John.  John Topley."

"Well John, I'm Tony, and every day I'm getting better
and better.  Only I'm not."

John could tell that the man called Tony was unstable,
and he felt a genuine desire not to get wrapped up in
another city statistic.  "Well Tony, nice to meet you
and all that.  But I think I'll go fnd myself another
roof."

Tony laughed again, this time more warmly.  "You are
really not here to talk me down?"

John shook his head.

"Then what in hell's name are you doing up here?"

John shrugged and pulled his large padded jacket
around him in the chill.  "It doesn't matter."

"Ah, secrets.  You've got secrets, I've got secrets.
Secrets are good.  Secrets are what separate us from
...them.  But tell me anyway, I'm going to be dead in
a minute, so humour a walking corpse."

"You wouldn't believe me anyway, or you would think I
was having a sick joke at you.  I really wish you
wouldn't jump.  Surely things aren't that bad?"

Tony laughed.  "For people like me, things don't need
to be bad to be bad."  He looked at John's puzzled
expression.  "I'm broken in here." he pointed to his
head.  "When I feel sad and happy, it's got nothing to
do with what's happening outside.  The chemicals in
my brain are all shot to hell."

"And there's nothing the doctors can do?"

Tony shook his head.  "They can pump you with stuff
that takes the edges off.  You don't feel sad, and you
don't feel happy.  You just get squeezed in the middle
and you don't feel anything.  I don't take that shit,
it's worse than death.  I need the real deal, the snap.
I need black and calm and nothing.  If you've never
wanetd to die, you can't understand.  I'm scared of the
act, but not of the after.  That's the only reason I'm
talking to you.  I'm scared."

John paused, looking out over the buildings, and
could find no answer.  "So why tonight?"

"What?"

"Why jump tonight?  Why not next week, next year?"

"Oh I jump every night.  In here." he pointed to his
head again.  "It's just that tonight I plan to do it
for real too before I hurt anybody else."  His voice
cracked at that.  "There's a girl... oh never mind."

"Don't you think she would hurt more if you died?"

Tony ignored it.  "So that's my secret, man.  You
have to tell me yours now, that's the deal."

John almost told him.  "No secret really.  I just like
it up here, the night and the quiet.  That's why I
have my big jacket on."  He puffed his shoulders to
demonstrate.

"Looks warm."

"It is.  Here, you want to put it on?"

Tony laughed.  "You can't keep a corpse warm, and I'm
going to be down there in a minute and won't need it.
Keep it, man."

John unzipped the jacket.  "I'd like it if you put it
on.  I'm not going to try to stop you, you do what you
have to.  I'll put it down on the ledge and walk away.
You put it on.  I won't try to stop you."

Tony smiled.  "You're alright, John man, you really
are.  You're worried about me being cold, that's just
fucked up enough to make sense to me."

John took off the jacket and fumbled with a pin badge
on the front breast.  He hoped he'd worked the height
out correctly, but was sure he had.  It could still go
badly wrong.  He put the jacket down on the ledge and
retreated back to the trap door.

Tony hopped down and picked up the jacket.  "What kind
of jacket is this, it weighs a ton!"  He slipped it on
and did up the zip, much to John's relief.  There were
no guarantees, especially if it wasn't zipped.  Tony
stepped back up to the ledge, facing backwards towards
where John was waiting.

"Thanks, man."  He stepped off backwards into the night.