Free Chasing Innocence by John Potter

had asked. Then she spent anxious minutes waiting, trying to fathom why Simon was taking so long. She debated whether to turn back, maybe he had turned around. Or something even worse. Then headlights illuminated the road and the Rover swept past. She held back from turning the ignition as long as she dare, then rolled down onto the road as the first fat drops of rain burst across her windscreen.
    The rain quickly became a downpour that offered a welcome veil of anonymity as she followed the Rover through endless weaving lanes to a busy glistening junction, the two yellow signs working their way through the succession of lights onto a dual carriageway and then a motorway. The doubting voices in Sarah’s mind now spitefully changed tack. They no longer tempted her with whispered pleas to turn around, instead they warned her away with intricate flashes and promises of what might lie ahead.
    The south fell away and the northern shires made themselves known. Towns and cities counted down. Thirty-five, fifteen and one and then they were gone. Names she knew, places she had never been. A single wearing question constantly clamouring for attention: Where? The uncertainty of not knowing was exhausting. Are we there yet? Child voices in her mind.
    The oncoming headlights endlessly flared across the rain-spotted windscreen and the rhythm of the wipers became cathartic. Each blink of heavy eyes was an excuse for them to stay closed. Twice they had, jolting open to a surge of adrenalin. She opened the window but the rain peppered the side of her face and crawled down her neck. She settled for the air-con blasting cold across her body, uncomfortable but vital. The fuel gauge was now hovering precariously above the short stretch of red. Soon the amber light would glow on the console and her journey would be thirty miles from its end.
    A glimmer of hope as the Rover indicated and they finally left the motorway, turning down a slip road to a roundabout and onto a dual carriageway, her hands tightly gripping the wheel, shoulders hunched and eyes wide. The road’s surface changed, making the percussion of the tyres almost deafening
    The gauge dipped into the red and the console flashed orange as they crested a rise and Sarah’s destination did finally open before her like a vista from science fiction. A horizon of glowing sky made dirty pink by the dense landscape of shimmering lights beneath it. A line of high towering funnels spewing thick smoke that merged pink as it reached the cloudy haze. The vista grew in her windscreen, the funnels growing to giants before the Rover finally turned off. She indulged in closed eyes as they waited at lights beneath the arches of a viaduct. It was over two hours since the farmhouse and four since she’d left Delamere.
    Her Toyota was now one car behind the Rover as they edged through late night traffic, passing bars and restaurants into outlying suburbia, lone pubs on street corners, dormant warehouses and shuttered shops covered in graffiti, a brightly lit petrol station with a high red canopy. They filtered right and down a shallow descent beneath a bridge and out the other side, into streets of houses that led to streets of houses, winding roads, speed bumps and silent schools. They came to a T-junction and Sarah’s heart tripped giddily. She watched the Rover turn left and immediately right, passing a pub on the corner. She waited as the car in front dithered turning right. She pulled out and then right, past the pub, seeing his brake lights up ahead. He signalled and turned right again and she followed. Thinking to herself, this must be it. The car ahead turned onto a drive, but already her mind was registering something wrong. Sarah passed and pulled over several houses along, immediately turning in her seat to watch for Simon’s profile.
    A woman, short and round and partially lit by a porch light, climbed out of the car. A newspaper held above her head as she trotted to the porch. Where were