Shane was swinging too.

The knot dug hard into Jack’s neck. He tried to take a breath but couldn’t. Panic surged through him and he felt his chest strain when he couldn’t fill his lungs with air. He struggled and thrashed, but it was a reflex, and the rope just seemed to get tighter. The view of the room moved around as he swayed. He caught a glance downwards, saw his feet floating in the air, a couple of feet above the concrete floor. They banged against Shane’s feet, who was swinging next to him. His vision started to blur, the room began to vanish into white, the sounds outside fading, until the only sound he could hear was the creaking of the rope.

As the room went faint, he realised that he hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye to the people he loved.

Chapter Seventy-One

Laura ran for the front door. Carson and a uniformed officer were right behind her.

‘Jack!’ she shouted, and pushed on the door handle, her shoulder slamming into it at the same time. It was locked, wouldn’t budge. She kicked at the door. It was solid. There was shouting coming from inside. She turned around to the uniforms spilling out of the cars. There was another car coming along the road. ‘Two of you go round the back!’

She tried to give the door another kick, but it wouldn’t move.

Carson appeared on her shoulder and pushed her out of the way. He kicked at the lock. Still nothing.

Then there was a scream from inside.

‘Give me your baton!’ Laura shouted to the uniform stood next to her. He reached to his belt quickly and handed it over. She hit the window hard, not caring about flying glass, but the baton just bounced back. It was toughened glass, reinforced by a metal mesh. She hit it again. Still nothing. She looked around for something to throw through the window. There was some rubble by the wall, she could make it out in the glare from the headlights. She ran over and found a half-brick, some mortar still attached to it. As she ran back, she raised her arm and then launched it at the window when she got close.

It bounced off and back onto the floor, but this time Laura saw that there was a crack. She picked up the brick and threw it again. It bounced off the window once more, except this time the glass didn’t look as clear. The skin had been broken, and so she grabbed the baton once more and began to hit the window.

A hole appeared on the third strike. She was breathless but didn’t stop. A few more baton strikes and there was a hole big enough for her to get her shoulders through.

Laura threw the baton onto the floor and started to haul herself through the window. Shards of glass dug into her stomach, and she winced as her hands took her weight. She could see the shimmer of sharp fragments of glass scattered on a desk in front of the window. With a final effort she got herself through, sliding across the desk and onto the floor. She could feel something damp on her stomach, and she knew it was blood from the way her shirt stuck to it, but she didn’t have time to check herself. She rushed out of the small office and to the front door, expecting someone to shout from inside, but no one bothered her as she unlocked the bolts, top and bottom, the rest of the door just held with a Yale lock.

The uniforms ran through, shouting that they were the police, and Laura followed them, panting with exertion, scared of what she would find.

The building opened up into a large open space, and she saw that it was filled by two white vans. But it was what was in front of the vehicles that made her gasp and shout.

There were two people, their heads in nooses, swinging. One face was covered in blood and bunched against his noose, his hands behind his back, a chair behind him, toppled over.

But it was the other person that made her heart stop.

‘Jack!’

She ran forward, covering the ground fast even though every step seemed to be in slow motion. She grabbed him by the legs to take his weight, but she saw that the rope was tight against his neck.

‘Get a knife someone!’ she shouted.

There was banging from a nearby storeroom, someone looking for tools, and then she heard footsteps, someone moving towards her. Jack’s body bucked as the other person hacked at the rope with something. A hacksaw or a blade, she couldn’t tell, but too many seconds passed before the rope went slack and she went to the floor, Jack on top of her.

Her hands went straight to the knot at the back of his neck but it was too tight, too embedded into the skin. She heard someone next to her. She looked. It was Carson. There was the glint of a silver blade in his hand, the edge jagged. He was cutting into the rope around the neck, sawing madly, the blade turning red, but Laura didn’t care about that. And then Carson gave a shout as he was able to throw the rope to one side.

Jack flopped forward, and there were tears running down her face as she put her hands on his cheeks, willing some life into him.

And then he seemed to take a deep breath and cough, blood and spittle flicking on to her cheek. But that didn’t matter, and she held onto him, still underneath, as his chest began to rise and fall and his eyelids started to flicker.

She could hear the exertions of someone cutting at the rope that held Shane Grix, and then there was the sound of a body falling to the floor, the smack of dead flesh on concrete, like a pig carcass thrown onto a cold butcher’s slab.

Laura didn’t look over. Instead, she stroked Jack’s hair, held his head in her arms, tears rolling down her face. It was over, she kept on saying. It was over.

Chapter Seventy-Two

The next few days seemed to pass in a blur – from Jack’s time in hospital to the police statements and constant press attention.

Jack had been saved by Don’s impatience. Don had fashioned a proper fixed knot for Shane, spent time making sure that the knot was strong and wouldn’t come loose when he started to swing. Once Shane kicked his chair away, the rope had jammed under his jaw, the sudden jolt breaking his neck. He was dead before the police broke in. When it came to Jack, Don was getting angry, was working off-plan, and so he just threaded a slipknot, so that when Shane kicked away Jack’s chair, it throttled him, tight and hard.

Laura had just about got there in time and the knot slackened a touch when he was cut down, but they had to cut away the whole thing to get Jack breathing again.

Jack looked down at his hands. They were shaking, his palms slick with sweat. He tried not to think back to that time. He had recovered from the physical threat. It had been other things that came back to him more often, like the thoughts he’d had when on the chair. It had been the jolt he’d needed, as frightening as it was, the realisation that if he’d died, there wouldn’t have been too many people to scatter petals on his grave. He had friends, but they were casual, just good for a drink or a phone call. The circle of people who loved Jack was too small. The only people he’d had to say goodbye to were Laura and Bobby. He vowed to change that, to meet more people, to make his life a little less about writing articles not many people read.

His finger ran around his neck, and he felt the rough skin that still marked out the loop of the rope. He pulled his shirt collar away. It felt too tight.

Shane’s funeral had attracted more photographers than mourners. There were just two people who shed tears, Ida and Emma, on opposite sides of the grave, each in black, one crying because she blamed herself for what he had done, the other because she hadn’t been there to stop him. They left separately, each partly blaming the other. Bad upbringing. Bad genes. Maybe just a combination of the two.