Don’t panic.
They’re coming.
Not yet. Unfolding a black plastic rain cover, I hook it over the tartan trolley, changing its color.
Now I’m ready. I open the door glance down the corridor.
“Have you managed to fix it?” asks a voice.
I try to stay calm. A woman cleaner is standing in a nearby doorway clutching a wastepaper bin in her circled arms. She’s Polish. Heavyset.
“Blockage is clear,” I say in my gruffest voice, not making eye contact.
“Don’t forget your sign,” she says.
I pick up the OUT OF ORDER triangle and carry it with me as I pull the trolley towards the main lifts, consciously keeping my feet wider apart and my head angled down. I thought of giving myself a limp when I practiced my mannish walk, but a disability draws attention.
I can’t risk using the foyer, and the internal stairways will have fire doors and possibly cameras. On my earlier visit, I discovered a goods lift at the eastern end of the building marked STAFF ONLY. It leads to a loading dock on the ground floor. I press the button and watch it rise slowly from the basement. 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . .
Come on! Come on!
I’m about to step inside when the alarm explodes, making my heart somersault. The raucous bell clangs through the corridors and up the lift well. I have no choice but to go on. Descending, counting down in the same slow rhythm: 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
I have no idea what’s waiting. Armed police? Security guards? An angry father? The lift stops with a jolt. The doors slide open. I step into a darkened corridor with a concrete floor and pipes running along the ceiling. The alarm is still sounding, but the noise is muffled down here. Lights trigger above my head as I go, pulling the trolley behind me. My footsteps are too loud. The wheels of the trolley are too loud.
Around the next corner I see an exit sign above heavy fire doors with horizontal push handles. I put my weight behind the door and shoulder it open. Head down. Bracing myself for what awaits. The alarm is louder outside.
“Hold on, mate,” says a voice. A security guard in a high-vis jacket is standing in the loading bay talking into a radio clipped to his shoulder. He’s midthirties, Middle Eastern with a stubbled beard.
He’s holding up his hand, wanting me to wait. Grateful for the shadows, I ask him what’s wrong. He doesn’t answer. He’s still on the radio. I catch a few words: Baby. Nurse. I take a pack of cigarettes from my breast pocket and pull one out with my teeth before knocking it on the back of my hand. Letting it hang from the corner of my lips, I pat my lower pockets and take out a lighter, striking the wheel with my thumb and closing my eyes against the smoke. I crouch and pretend to tie the laces of my work boots, unsheathing the knife and holding it against the inside of my forearm.
The creature whispers:
Cut his throat and run!
No.
He won’t be able to scream.
Not yet.
Straightening again, I lean casually against a concrete pillar, keeping my right arm behind me. The knife is in my fist, the blade facing downwards. The guard turns back to me.
“What are you doing here?”
“Blocked toilet on the fifth floor.”
“You’re not hospital maintenance.”
“Private contractor. We work out-of-hours.”
He looks at the trolley. “That’s an interesting toolbox.”
“Bad back,” I reply.
He grabs the handle of the trolley, tipping it forward and rolling it back and forth as though feeling the weight.
“Did you see a nurse carrying a baby?”
“No. Why?”
He lets go of the trolley. The radio crackles to life. He answers. I wait. A bead of sweat rolls down my forehead and into the corner of one eye. Stinging. I try to blink it away. The guard gives me a final look and waves me away.
Pulling the trolley across the loading bay, I climb the sloping vehicle ramp, holding the knife against my stomach. The street outside is crowded with pedestrians, diners, revelers, and people heading home from work. I weave between them, moving farther from the hospital.
Run!
Act normally.
They’re right behind you.
Don’t turn around.
A church bell rings. Someone shouts for a taxi. I step over a smudged chalk drawing on the pavement and pass a pub with etched-glass windows. At the next corner I pause and dare to look back at the lights of the hospital. Nothing has changed. I put the knife in my pocket and continue walking. A police car speeds past me . . . then another . . . and another.
Gloucester Road station is ahead. I swipe my way through the ticket barrier and carry the trolley down the stairs. The platform is almost empty. A train has just gone. The next is due in four minutes. They are long minutes.
I stare at the electronic notice board while people seem to move in slow motion around me, turning their heads, blinking and talking. I remember seeing a TV program about a neurological condition where the brain alters the perception of time so that events appear to either slow down or pass in a blur. That’s what it feels like now, as though God has pulled the handbrake and the planet is decelerating.
Slipping my hand beneath the rain cover, I unzip the trolley and work my fingers inside until I touch the blanket. I bend my wrist and reach farther until I feel Rory’s head. Warm. Soft. Sleeping. I make sure nothing has fallen on his face. He has enough air.
The gust of hot wind signals an approaching train. The sound arrives and the carriages follow. Braking. Screeching. Stopping. I take a seat, holding the trolley between my knees. The doors close and we begin moving. The train enters the tunnel, but suddenly shudders to a halt. The lights blink off and on. My heart does the same.
A voice over the public address system: Due to an earlier signal failure at Manor House, eastbound Piccadilly line services are running approximately eleven minutes late. Transport for London apologizes for any inconvenience.
The lights blink again and the train jerks forward, slowly picking up speed, as though driven by noise rather than the live rail. At each stop I watch the carriage fill and empty with ever-changing faces, races, and mixtures—Polish, German, Pakistani, Senegalese, Bangladeshi, Russian, Chinese, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, English. I don’t often feel sentimental about London, but I love being another tile in this ethnic mosaic.
At Piccadilly Circus a gaggle of teenage girls invades the carriage, shrieking with laughter and tottering on ridiculous shoes. One of them bumps into my trolley.
“Mind yourself,” I say.
Her top lip curls. She pulls a face at her friends, making them laugh. Leaning forward, I press my ear to the top of the trolley, hearing a faint muffled cry. Rory has woken, but the noise of the train will keep him hidden.