Free Being by Kevin Brooks Page B

kept edging away from me.
    ‘You have to go,’ she said.
    I pointed down the corridor. ‘Can I get out down there? Is there a back door?’
    She didn’t answer, she just stared at me, chewing on herlip, and I could see that she was losing it. Her eyes were blinking too fast. Her lips were quivering. Any second now, I thought, she’s going to start screaming. And I knew I couldn’t let that happen. I could feel my fingers tightening on the pistol in my pocket. I didn’t like how it felt. I didn’t like what I was thinking.
    But then, somewhere in the distance, a door slammed shut, breaking the silence, and Angela suddenly said, ‘Just down there, at the end of the corridor. There’s a door on the right.’
    And without another word she scuttled away.
    I watched her go, wondering if this was how it was going to be from now on – running all the time, lying to people, scaring people, not caring, just doing what had to be done.
    I didn’t like it.
    The door on the right at the end of the corridor was a fire door. I pushed down on the bar and stepped out into an alleyway lined with wheelie bins and piles of flattened cardboard boxes. Nothing happened. No gunshots, no blinding lights, no shouts to surrender. It was cold and wet. The sky was yellowy-grey. The air smelled of traffic fumes.
    I hitched the rucksack over my shoulder, pulled down my hat and headed for the street.

8
    A thin grey drizzle of rain was falling when I came out of the hotel alleyway on to the street. The roads were busy, packed with rush-hour traffic, and the narrow pavements were crowded with people on their way to work. I glanced down the street to my left. The hotel entrance was about twenty metres away. Two uniformed policemen were guarding the doors, and standing next to them was a man in a bulky black coat. The man in the coat was talking to someone on a hand-held radio. Police vehicles were parked on double-yellow lines in front of the hotel – two patrol cars, a Transit van, a Range Rover.
    I stepped back into the alleyway, wiped some sweat from my brow, then cautiously leaned out and took another look.
    The hotel doors were opening now. A familiar-looking head popped out and said something to the man in the coat. The man in the coat listened, then nodded, and the head popped back in again.
    Ryan.
    The man in the coat said something to one of the police officers, then he moved down the steps and started scanning the street. I waited until he was looking away fromme, then I stepped out of the alleyway and turned right, walking as confidently as I could. No faltering, no running, no looking back. I was just another body in the street. Same as all the rest. Going to school, going to work… just another human being.
    A short distance ahead of me, a single-decker bus was juddering to a halt at a bus stop. As the doors swooshed open and a ragged queue of people started shuffling forward, I joined the back of the queue and started shuffling along with them – just another passenger, going to school, going to work. Same as all the rest. We smelled of sweat and damp clothing. We slid our feet, taking tiny little steps, inching towards the bus doors. We were impatient and tired, cold and wet.
    Rubbing wearily at the side of my face, I risked a quick glance at the hotel.
    There were more men milling around the entrance now. More men, more searching eyes. More cars pulling up. As I watched, some of the men started running towards the alleyway.
    Passers-by were beginning to stop and stare.
    I heard a shout, the blip of a siren, street murmurings.
    ‘What’s going on?’ someone in the bus queue said.
    I kept my head down and kept shuffling. The queue was getting shorter. I was nearly there now.
    Another shout rang out from the hotel: ‘Round the back!’
    I stepped on to the bus.
    The man in front of me dropped some coins into the bus driver’s tray.
    ‘Stratford,’ he said.
    The driver pressed buttons.
    The man took his ticket.
    And now it was