Free Being by Kevin Brooks Page A

guessed was Hayes – a third figure entered the hallway from the stairs. A dark-haired man in a suit. He passed directly in front of me, headed down the hallway and stopped outside room 624.
    I squatted down, out of sight, then turned round and started crawling away from the door. After I’d gone about ten metres or so, I got to my feet and started running - down the corridor, through another door, then along another short corridor to another door and a zigzag flight of stairs.
    As I hurried down the stairs – my footsteps echoing around the cold stone walls – I felt an empty sickness growing inside me. It wasn’t a physical sickness, it was just the sudden realization that what was happening was happening. I was running. I was being chased. I was being hunted. It was happening. And it wasn’t anything like a scene from a film or a book, or something from a dream. It wasn’t exciting. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t a game.
    It was just shit.
    At the bottom of the stairs was another door, this one marked PRIVATE . It was a drab-looking thing, barely painted, with a tarnished brass handle and a flap of frayed rubber fixed to the bottom edge. I shoved it open and found myself in a greasy little room with a bank of grey lockers around the walls. I guessed it was a staffroom.There was a table, chairs, a hot-water urn, a sink. Across the room was another door. As I headed towards it, I reached up and snatched an old trilby hat from the top of one of the lockers. I put it on. It was a good fit. A pathetic disguise, but a good fit.
    I was halfway through the door when a distant shout broke the silence: ‘Angela!’
    A man’s voice. It came from the corridor outside. I heard footsteps approaching, then the shouting voice again: ‘Angela! Where are you?’
    I hurried through the door, along another dim corridor, through another door, along another corridor… doors, corridors… doors, corridors… I just kept going. The further I went, the gloomier it got. Cheap linoleum flooring, stained and curled. Clammy-looking walls, dripping pipes, peeling paintwork…
    ‘Who are you?’
    The voice came from behind me. I stopped suddenly and turned round. A dark-eyed girl in a green uniform-dress was standing in a doorway, staring at me. She looked nervous and offended, rubbing a thumb into the palm of her hand. The name badge on her dress said ANGELA .
    ‘What are you doing here?’ she said.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered. ‘I’m lost. I’m a guest… I… uhh… got lost.’
    ‘This is staff only,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
    ‘I know, I’m sorry. I’m lost.’
    She closed the door behind her and stepped to one side, revealing a sign on the door that said ladies. She was very short, this Angela, just over five feet tall. She had a plain face and small features. Her dark-brown hair wasfastened with a plastic hairband. I didn’t like the way she was looking at me. She was looking at me as if she was trying to place my face, and it was making us both uneasy.
    ‘Where did you get that hat?’ she asked me.
    ‘What?’
    She was looking at the trilby on my head. ‘That’s Walter’s hat.’
    ‘Who’s Walter?’
    ‘That’s his hat. Why are you wearing his hat?’
    ‘I’m not… this is mine. I’ve had it for ages…’
    She stepped back a little more, glancing nervously over her shoulder. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she repeated. ‘This is staff only.’
    ‘Yeah, I know.’ I smiled at her. ‘Do you think you could show me the way out?’
    ‘Back there,’ she said, gesturing with her head, ‘the same way you came.’
    I smiled again. ‘Is there another way? Out on to the street? I was on my way out, you see. I have to meet someone.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    It was a good question.
    ‘Well… I’m late. I got lost. I have to meet someone.’ I shrugged. ‘I just thought there might be another way out. You know, a back exit.’
    I was doing my best, but it didn’t seem to be working. Angela