Little Boy Blue

120

She sprinted across the store, scattering shoppers in her wake. The Staff Only door was fifty feet away and Helen charged towards it, glancing around for someone to help her open it. But there was no one to hand and she couldn’t delay, so she launched herself at it. Her shoulder hit the cheap door hard, wrenching the lock from its socket.

Two alarmed faces stared at her as she hurried inside – two employees who were about to return to work, dumbfounded by Helen’s dramatic entrance.

‘Where are the lockers?’

For a moment they were speechless.

‘The lockers,’ Helen barked.

One of the workers now pointed to a door on her left. Helen was off again, eating up the yards to the door and pushing through it. To her dismay, the dingy locker room was empty, but Helen sensed movement and now saw the fire exit at the far end of the room swinging gently to a close. Had he heard her coming and taken flight? If so, he was only a few seconds ahead of her.

Helen burst out into the night, scanning desperately left and right for signs of her quarry. And there he was. Not forty yards away from her down a narrow alley, sprinting as if his life depended on it. Helen took off in pursuit, pounding the concrete as she pushed herself to narrow the gap between them.

It looked as though the alleyway would lead them back into the main shopping precinct where most of the big stores were to be found. Was that Robert’s plan? To lose himself in the crowds? Helen couldn’t allow that so, even though her lungs were burning, she upped her speed again. The bitter irony of her pursuit wasn’t lost on her – she’d been searching for her nephew for so long and now here he was, intent on escaping her.

He had now reached the end of the alleyway and darted round to the left. Helen couldn’t afford to let him out of her sight, but she was only fifteen feet behind now. Reaching the end of the alley, she tore around the corner in the same direction as Robert – running smack into a middle-aged man laden with shopping bags. She cannoned off him, falling to the ground, jarring her frame nastily on the concrete floor as she did so. Pain seared through her, but she was already clambering to her feet. Holding her hand up in apology, she sidestepped the concerned shoppers hurrying to help her.

She ran her eye over the sea of shoppers but couldn’t see Robert. Had he taken advantage of her accident to disappear into one of the main shops? No, there he was. Helen glimpsed his deep-red hoodie, bobbing as he hurried north towards the precinct exit. Shaking herself down, Helen tore off in the same direction.

The chase was on.