LITMIR.BIZ

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happened, Louise?

      I think she knows I have come here to find out. I think this is what she wants me to do.

      The flow of people carries on into the town. A fast-running river of humanity.

      I am looking for the narrow alley I have seen on Google Earth images that runs between two of the shops, to a pedestrian entrance at the side of the car park.

      Three woman cross the pavement in front of me, from one shop to another. I stop to let them pass.

      There is another skateboarder ahead, using a metal bicycle stand as an obstacle to perform tricks. The stand is outside a shop door that I have stared at in news articles.

      It is the door.

      The shop.

      Louise fell onto this pavement, in that place.

      I do not walk on. I can’t move. My feet are stone. The ground is thick mud to be waded through and my trainers are stuck in the sludge.

      There is no mark, no rusty iron-looking bloodstain to say she was here. Nothing. It is as if the fall that ended her life, and began mine, did not happen. The sky, the car park and pavement all cry out. It was not me! Nothing happened here!

      But something very wrong happened here. Women don’t just fall over car-park walls.

      This heart must have pumped the blood through her broken body while she lay here.

      The alley I have been looking for is on the left: a metre-and-half-wide rabbit-hole.

      The block paving carpeting most of the town centre doesn’t reach into the shadowy environment of the alley. This area of Swindon, that’s hiding behind the shops, must have been built in the 1970s concrete explosion.

      No one else is walking through here but there’s a man sitting on the floor a few metres ahead, on a filthy sleeping bag, with a dog; both have their legs stretched out. The man’s back rests against the wall, his hand repeatedly stroking the dog that’s lying flat beside him.

      The man’s dirt-stained jeans are torn and fraying at the knees.

      The dog is a small crossbreed that must include some sort of terrier DNA. Its brown eyes look at me, without any movement of its head.

      There’s a presence around the man, more than in his brown-shaded aura, that says he’s given up hope of being anywhere else but on the street.

      Three takeaway coffee cups stand beside the dog. I presume they’re empty and probably left there to say he doesn’t want gifts of coffee, just money. But money for what? He needs to feed the dog as well as himself and most hostels will not feed the dog.

      I have change in my pocket, left over from buying a coffee at Paddington Station.

      The dog’s gaze follows my approach.

      I hold out the coins even though the man hasn’t asked for money.

      He looks at me; the bit of his face I can see between hair and beard is tanned, leathery skin, tainted by a difficult life spent mostly outdoors.

      A shaky hand lifts, palm open, outstretched. ‘Thanks.’ A Special Brew beer can is tucked beside his hip; it is hidden when his arm lowers.

      ‘You’re welcome. Do you always sit here?’

      ‘Unless the police move me on.’ His fingers have fisted around the precious coins.

      ‘Were you here the day a woman fell from the car park a few weeks ago?’

      ‘No, love. I never saw anythin’. Did you know ’er? Don’t y’u think the police did their job?’

      ‘I – I just wondered.’

      ‘Well, I never saw ’er. I wasn’t ’ere at the time.’

      ‘Okay. Thank you anyway.’ I walk on because there’s nothing else to say.

      The air in the side entrance for the car park smells of mildew. I grip the cold metal handrail, which is covered in peeling green paint, and climb the steps. The doors into the parking floors have blue paint that is scarred by numerous initials carved into the wood. Just above the door to the second floor the smell of stale urine taints the air.

      The steps are made of bare concrete and the outer wall is constructed with green-painted metal bars that I can see between. The man in the alley is sifting through the coins.

      Did Louise climb these steps that day?

      The higher I climb, the more I have a sense of her in my chest.

      My heart, her heart, is racing with that heavy pulse that I can’t ignore. Listen. Listen. Listen.

      I know she wants to tell me something, or persuade me to tell someone else something.

      At the top I push the scarred blue door wide and step out on the top floor. I expect to walk into sunshine, but the horizon is grey now.

      There are about a dozen cars sprinkled across the space but no one else is up here.

      What a place to die. Why was Louise here? Was she alone?

      A full rainbow appears, arching over the buildings on the other side of the town.

      The side of the car park that hangs over the shops slightly is only a few metres away from the stairwell. The shop Louise fell in front of is under the corner there.

      I try to hear Louise’s voice as I walk to the corner where I know she stood. But I can’t make out any words. ‘What happened?’

      Beyond the rainbow, the horizon is blurred by the rainstorm.

      The wall is bare, rough concrete, like the rest of the car park. I imagined the wall would be waist-high but the top of the wall is chest height.

      Louise could not have fallen accidentally; she must have been picked up, or climbed up.

      My elbows rest on the wall as I look down. Even on my toes I can only just see the shops on the far side of the pedestrian area.

      A breeze tosses the hair away from my face and makes it dance as the air sweeps up from below.

      I want to see what Louise would have seen that day. I feel as though I should know why she was here. I’m hoping that being here will increase the connection I have with her. I look for images in my memory, memories that are not mine, but I can’t find them.

      My hands press on the wall and I scrape the toes of my trainers as I scramble and pull myself up. The rough concrete catches at strands of the fine wool in my jumper and scuffs my jeans while I manoeuvre my legs so I can sit on the wall with a leg dangling either side.

      The area below is flooded with people walking into the town centre.

      I have never been afraid of heights. Living with a weak heart that threatened to kill me any day meant nothing else scared me as a child. I was always reckless and careless, rather than cautious. I was either in hospital or pushing the boundaries and packing in as much enjoyment as possible before the next time.

      But my periods of enjoyment were manic. Out of control at times, as I tried to fill up the vacuum in me. I was scared and lonely for large parts of my life, even with Simon as a surrogate father, in his school and college days. He was so much older and there were times when I wanted him, and he wasn’t in reach.

      What about Louise? Was she scared that day?

      Surely someone must have been here with her? The wall is too high for it to have been an accident. Someone must know how she fell.

      I look down and see a vivid image of her broken body lying on the pavement. Louise would have realised she was falling and, in the next moment, hit the ground.

      I look up at the rainbow and the haze of the rain in the distance.

      The only reason Louise would have been here alone was if she had chosen to fall. Which means this heart must have been unbearably

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