Even if I had never seen his body, I would have known how my son died. I can see it as clearly as if I had been there: as in one sense, perhaps, I was. I know because the same thing almost happened to me in the bleak and frigid waters of the fjord that until I die will be home to me.

My foot stretches again, futilely, my fingertips, white with pressure, crooked around the top of the rock slab. I must not stay here too long. Do that and I shall lose my nerve to move at all, shall hang helpless until cramp prises my grip from the rock and gravity sucks me hurtling downwards. Even now I can feel the ache building in my bent fingers, my outstretched arms.

I twist my neck and stare downwards. Six feet below, perhaps eight, a bush grows out of a rock. If I let myself drop … How securely is it rooted? If, as I suspect, Edward did the same it may prove strong enough, although Edward and I, of course, are not the same. I am not a heavy woman but heavier, I am sure, than a fourteen-year-old boy. Commit myself to the drop and there is no way back if the roots turn out to be insecure after all. Bush and human will fall helplessly together.

The sea surges, blue ringed with circles of white.

I doubt I have the strength to pull myself up. I open my fingers and let myself fall.

The rock face strips skin from my elbows, my knees. Branches score my legs with fire. I snatch, lose my grip, snatch again. The bush sways alarmingly. I cling, tight as a limpet. I can sense the strain my weight imparts to the roots: it is not a tree or even a very large bush. I doubt it will hold me for long. A foot away a shallow horizontal gash crosses the surface of the rock. I must not miss. I open my hands. As my body begins to fall I lunge at the gash. My fingers lock into the crevice. My body is a river of sweat but I do not care. I am safe.

Below the bush is a slope of earth. It is steep and treacherous, loose stones falling in a cascade as my feet touch them, but after the rock face it is nothing. I scramble down the last few yards and reach the lush carpet of grass at the foot of the cliff. I lie full length on my back on the moist cool grass. Far overhead the cliff top draws its stark line against the sky. My body is wracked with tremors.