Free Then and Always by Dani Atkins Page B

spun around in my seat as though electrocuted, imagining the strange man from before standing directly behind me. There was no one there. The carriage held only myself and two other occupants, both of whom appeared to be asleep.Cautiously I stepped away from my seat, terrified the bald man was somehow lying in wait behind one of the banquettes. As I hesitantly moved down the gangway, I kept aware of the location of the nearest emergency cord. Screw the £250 fine for misuse, if anyone had so much as said “boo” to me at that moment, I was ready to bring the train to a halt in an instant.
    Of course there was no one there. And by the time I was halfway down the carriage, I had already begun to feel more than a little ridiculous. I had convinced myself that what I thought I had seen in the mirror was most likely a flash of orange reflection from a passing streetlamp. It was just my overactive imagination that had made a quantum leap to the wrong conclusion. No one was lying in wait and unless I intended to search every last carriage on the train—which I most
certainly
did not—I just had to let go of the crazed-stalker notion.
    With relief I heard the loudspeaker announce the next stop was Great Bishopsford, which left me only a minute or two to retrieve my case from my first seat and my other belongings from my second one. I was waiting with impatience by the automatic doors and was one of the first people to alight from the train when it eventually slowed to a standstill at the station. I was pleased to see three other people disembarking from a carriage further up the platform, and trotted as quickly as my suitcase would allow to keep pace with them.
    Climbing the long flight of stairs dragging my case behind me caused me to lose ground, so I’d lost sight of the other commuters when I heard, or thought I heard, someone on the platform below me, someone out of sight of the pool of light from the staircase. Someone who had got off the train after I had.
    I ran up the remaining stairs, my suitcase bouncing over the concrete treads. When I reached the small ticket office, I looked around for either the other commuters or a guard. There was no one, but I could hear a car pulling away from the station entrance. I could only assume that my fellow passengers had already departed. But surely the guard should still be here? It was only just ten o’clock; did they really leave the station unmanned this early?
    “Hello?” I called out shakily, my words a quivering echo in the empty foyer. “Is there anyone on duty?”
    Silence was my answer. Suddenly aware of my vulnerability at the top of the stairs, I quickly stepped far away from the stairwell. Whoever had got off the train after me would certainly be in the ticket area in a matter of moments. I strained my ears to hear their footfalls on the stairs but could make out no sound.
    There were two options here: either I had imagined hearing someone on the platform below me, or whoever had got off the train was now lying in wait on the darkened stairs rather than revealing themselves in the foyer. I preferred my first option—better to be paranoid than a potential crime statistic. There was no virtue in staying to prove I wasn’t going crazy, so I turned and hurried across the ticket office and out into the winter night.
    The taxi rank was sited to one side of the station, and I was grateful for the bright security lighting that illuminated my way as I followed the building around. I was in luck—there was just one cab parked in the bays, its engine idling, the yellow beacon on its roof glowing brightly in the frosty chill of the air. I raised my arm to claim the driver’s attention at the precise moment the engine increased its revs and the cab pulled away from the curb.
    “Wait!” I cried out helplessly. “Please stop!”
    Abandoning my case in the middle of the pavement, I ran after the departing taxi, my arms windmilling crazily overhead in an attempt to get the