Free Bolt-hole by A.J. Oates

I’m subjecting myself to risk and potential capture.  Within sixty seconds I reach the distinctive red bin for dog waste at the side of the path, and shove in my rubbish bag while trying to avoid getting my hand covered in canine crap.
     
    With the early morning sunlight beginning to cut through the darkness and illuminate the path ahead, I can just make out the outline of a dog-walker approaching me a hundred metres or so in the distance.  A knot immediately forms in the pit of my stomach and, with the taste of baked beans lingering in my mouth, I have an almost overwhelming feeling of nausea.  I’ve mentally rehearsed this particular scenario; should I walk past without acknowledgement or nod briefly by way of greeting and then move on.  The social convention that requires two passing strangers to acknowledge each other in some contexts but not in others has always been a slight mystery to me, but in the current scenario, breaching convention and in anyway drawing unwanted attention would have greater significance than ever before.  Ultimately I decided on the latter, and to my relief the crossing is uneventful, the dog-walker giving a similarly brief nod, showing nothing in the way of recognition, and we go on our respective ways.  I feel disproportionately relieved, almost elated, that I’ve not been recognised, though in reality, in the semi-darkness, the chance of discovery is remote and I know there’ll be far greater risks ahead.
     
    As the crow flies, from the bolt-hole to the boundary of the park is a little over a mile – or exactly 1.1 miles, as I’d measured with a ruler on the Ordnance Survey map.  To dissuade night-time vandals, the entire periphery of the park is surrounded by a barrier, either a ten-foot stone-built wall or metal railings topped with spikes, with the exits limited to six formal crossing points.  I head for the closest of the exits a little over 1.2 miles away.
     
    Many times as a child I’d seen Sebastian Coe, the legendary middle-distance athlete, training on these very hills.  In his autobiography, he didn’t forget his adopted home city of Sheffield, and he referred to the isolation of his training sessions through the numerous parks of the city and then on to the Peak District beyond.  It is of course this very isolation that I now crave, and I suppose I try to tap into the fortitude and determination he showed to become Olympic champion in order to reach my own goal, albeit one far less honourable than his.
     
    Continuing up through the woods, within a few minutes I reach a fork in the path; to the left are the cricket fields and the duck ponds beyond, but I take the branch to the right, leading me past a couple of bowling greens, a pitch-and-putt golf course, and then four tennis courts.  A popular area with dog-walkers, I’ve walked the path hundreds of times as a teenager with my own dog, and even now, some twenty years on, I can still remember some of the distinctive features of the massive oak and horse chestnut trees that line the route.  Other than a couple more dog-walkers, the area is quiet and I continue without incident, apart from a Jack Russell developing a friendly but, for me, unwanted attachment to my right leg. 
     
    As I stride past the tennis courts, deserted of even the most enthusiastic of players at this early hour, I can just see the park gates and immediately beyond them the headlights of the early-morning traffic on Meadowhead Road, a main access road into the city centre from the suburbs.  Continuing on, I gradually begin to make out the form of a stationary car, pale-coloured and maybe a Ford Focus, partially obscured by the massive stone gateposts of the park entrance.  As I move closer I can see a fluorescent yellow stripe down the side with dark-coloured lettering above it.  My anxiety levels escalate as I try to make out whether it’s a police car, possibly forming some kind of cordon ?  Confident that I’ve not been spotted