right. We’re the ones – ”
“Surname,” barked his master, leaning angrily forward.
“Jezzard – You always blame the young, but we’re the ones who’ll have to correct the mistakes of the older generation.”
“My dear boy, don’t you see that you no longer possess the means for changing the world?” replied Bryant, adopting a tone of infuriating airiness. “You’ve been disempowered, old chap. It’s all over. The things you desire have become entirely unattainable, and you take revenge for that by being angry with your seniors all the time.”
Another boy, slender and dark, with feral eyes and narrow teeth, launched to his feet. “You’re accusing us when you know nothing about us, Mr Bryant – nothing!”
“
“Billings. It’s not us who’s the problem, it’s you. Everyone knows the police are corrupt racists – ”
Now several more pupils stood up together, all speaking at once. Their teachers continued to demand that they identify themselves, but were ignored. Sides were swiftly being taken. Bryant had managed to divide the hall into factions. He threw up his hands in protest as the pupils jeered him.
“You condescend to us because you don’t have a clue – ”
“You victimise those who can’t protect themselves – ”
“Why is it that young people never want to take responsibility for their actions?” protested Bryant, as students popped up from their chairs in every section of the hall.
“Just because you messed up your own society – ”
“Why should we be blamed for your greed when – ”
“We’re just starting out,” shouted Parfitt, “and you’re trying to make us sound as cynical as you.”
“I am not cynical, I simply know better,” Bryant insisted, trying to be heard. “And I can tell from experience exactly how many of you will fall by the wayside and die before you progress to adulthood, because the cyclical nature of your short lives is as immutable as that of a dragonfly.”
There were so many things wrong with this last sentence that the detective sergeant could not bear to reflect on it, and could only watch the response helplessly. The lanky boy, Gosling, was the first to kick back his chair and leave. His friends quickly followed suit. The distant authority of the teachers collapsed into panicked attempts at censorship as chairs fell across the centre of the audience, causing a clangorous ripple that quickly spread throughout the hall.
Longbright had been worried that Raymond Land might get to hear of the debacle. Now she was more concerned about getting Bryant out in one piece.
? Ten Second Staircase ?
3
Unlocking Doors
On the following Monday morning, the twenty-fourth of October, a few minutes north of the school where Mr Bryant had turned a peaceful assembly hall into a brawling dockyard, April stood before her front door with her hand on the lock, waiting for her heart to stop hammering.
“Don’t tell me all journeys start with a single step or I’ll hit you,” she warned, throwing her grandfather a sour look.
“How long is it since you’ve been outside?” asked John May.
“Four months, three days.”
“Then today is the day.” May placed a steadying hand on her shoulder as she twisted the doorknob, slowly drawing back the latch bolt. The world outside had lately become as distant and exotic to her as a rain valley seen from an aircraft window. Her friends assumed that agoraphobia was a way of hiding herself, but it was more than that; she feared the removal of certainty, the loss of safe parameters. To be outside was to be placed in an uncontrollable situation. If she stepped into the street, she would no longer be protected by the rain-streaked windows of her barricaded home.
She brushed translucently pale hair aside, revealing the fierce methylene blue of her wide irises. Her hand trembled faintly on the lintel, as though a thousand tiny muscles were correcting her balance. Everything about her was unsteady and, to May’s eyes, infinitely fragile.
Opening the door a crack, she looked out and took a deep breath, which was unfortunate as there was a truck going past. The air shook with engine soot.
“It’s no use, I can’t go through with this,” April told him, fanning away the fumes with a cough, but she could not resist watching the world through the door’s narrow gap. On the far side of the road, sodden shoppers mooched past with Safeway bags, unaware of the miraculous ease with which they negotiated the lurking horrors of the high street.
“April, if you don’t make it this time, you won’t get the job. Raymond isn’t prepared to hold it open any longer.”
“All right, you’ve made your point.”
She pushed the door wider, taking in the expanding view of the Holloway Road, one of North London’s grimmest thoroughfares. Opposite, a local newspaper placard read:
All John May saw was an ordinary London street.
An African shop, fortressed by a row of red plastic laundry baskets, its windows banked with fibre-optic lamps, mobile phone covers, signs promising Internet access and cheap fares to faraway townships. A dim, carpeted amusement arcade filled with pulsing bulbs, where a single elderly woman sat mechanically feeding coins into a machine as big as a telephone booth. A betting office with emerald windows depicting idealised race scenes, litter and losers framed in its dark doorway. A McDonald’s truck as vast as an ocean liner, with suppurating burgers the size of paddling pools printed along its sides.
Everywhere April looked, fierce colours jumped into her eyeline: cyans, scarlets, heliotropes, garish shapes trapped in the glare of the warm morning sun. Even the grey pavements were unnaturally bright. Rimes of dirt crusted the battered rooftops like dulled diamonds. The buildings looked old and exhausted with overuse.
“Well, here goes.” She took a deep breath and slipped her hand into his. Then she stepped out into the street.
Agoraphobia had been April’s latest response to the loss of her mother. Nearly six months earlier, following glimmers of improvement and a positive doctor’s report, she had been recommended as a candidate for a new law enforcement training initiative. The Chief Association of Police Officers was inviting non-professionals to work alongside detectives, in an exercise designed to bridge the widening gulf between police and public. It had seemed an ideal way for May to protect his granddaughter while allowing her to rediscover some independence, but she had suffered a relapse, retreating further into the shadows of her bleakly pristine flat. May sometimes felt that he was cursed; although his estranged son lived half a world away, his family suffered from similar phobias.
He released her hand and watched as she walked unsteadily to the centre of the pavement. “That’s it,” he encouraged, “keep going, don’t stop to think, you’re doing fine.”
Neither of them saw the running schoolboy.
He slammed into April, spinning her down onto the pavement, and skidded around the corner before either of them had time to react. As the detective loped forward and helped April to her feet, she looked around in confusion. “My bag, he’s taken it. My credit cards – everything.”
May reached the corner knowing that it was too late for him to catch up. The boy had dashed across the traffic-dense road, into a crowd of market traders gathered beneath a bridge. He was home free. May called in the theft almost without thinking, relaying the description of the stolen bag, keeping watch on April as her face crumpled and she doubled over.
“Please, April, you mustn’t let something like this beat you,” he pleaded, holding the phone to his chest and
