CHLOE

For a moment I am frozen to the spot. I can feel sweat leaking out of my pores and my heart is beginning to thud furiously against the inside of my ribcage. I watch in horror as our waitress from breakfast appears, approaching the police officers with apprehensive curiosity. I duck around the corner of the bannister out of sight and strain my ears to listen to their conversation.

Please let this be a false alarm. Please let this be a routine call.

"Wondering if you have seen this man... wanted in connection with a murder in South London last week... last seen boarding a train northbound on this railway line..."

I daren't listen to any more, but take the remaining stairs silently, two at a time, hurtle along the corridor and shove my key into the door of our room, jiggling it impatiently until the door swings open and I practically fall inside and hastening to close it behind me to avoid being seen. Harry takes one look at my face and understands immediately. He gets to his feet, all colour draining from his face, and crosses the room to stand a couple of feet away from the window overlooking the road, close enough to be able to see out but far enough away not to be seen if anyone happened to be looking up at the window.

"Fucking police car outside," he croaks.

"They're looking for you - they asked about you at reception," I pant, clutching my chest to try and calm my heart that is now beating so hard it hurts. 

"I need to get out of here."

"How? They're downstairs in the lobby!"

I can feel the room starting to swim before my eyes as panic grips me in its iron fist, squeezing the breath out of me.

"Fire escape."

"Wh - where?" I wheeze, struggling to speak.

"At the back of the building. Get your bags. Come on. Come on, Chloe!" He hisses these last few words as he pulls the camping rucksack onto his back, forcing the straps impatiently over his shoulders before handing me my own backpack. "Fucking get your shit together. Now is not the time to have a meltdown!"

"I'm - I -"

My breath is coming in short, sharp gasps. Colours burst before my eyes. I reach for the wall to steady myself as Harry opens the door a crack and peers out into the hallway.

"The coast is clear, but we have to go now," he urges. His voice sounds echoey and strangely far away. "Chloe! If you don't snap out of this I'm going to leave you here. Don't make me leave you behind, you stupid cow! Fucking move!"

I feel a hard shove between my shoulder blades and I stumble into the door frame. It is enough to bring the room sharply back into focus, and Harry's face comes into view, inches from mine. "I'm going, Chloe. I mean it. Bye."

He turns away from me, but I reach out and grab the strap of his rucksack. "No - wait..."

With a last glance behind me at our now-empty room I manage to follow Harry back along the corridor towards the stairs I have just ascended, but instead of taking them back down to reception he turns right through a heavy fire door with wire-enforced glass that I have not noticed before, with a green sign above it that reads FIRE EXIT with an arrow pointing diagonally downwards. The door shuts behind us with a soft squelch, and beyond it is another door with a grey push-open handle, that will undoubtedly set off the fire alarm, alerting everyone - police and guests included - of our whereabouts.

A large window beside it sits ajar at chest height and Harry pushes it as wide as it will go, swinging it to about forty-five degrees and lowering his rucksack and holdall out onto the black metal steps below. They land with a gentle clink and he hauls himself up onto the frame on his hands, balancing for a second and then cocking first one leg and then the other over the windowsill with surprising grace. He drops to his feet before extending his hand to me. I pull my bag off my back and pass it out the window to him, before jumping up at the window just as he has done and climbing through. The fire escape runs alongside the first floor for approximately twelve feet, with a set of steps at the end which zig zags down to a small car park below. Once we are both on our feet with our bags on our backs we tiptoe as quietly as we can, Harry leading the way, taking each step quickly but carefully. My pulse is thundering in my ears, becoming louder and louder as we approach the ground. I want to look behind me to make sure we are not being followed but my imagination is full of clammy hands only inches behind, reaching to grab me, and I can't bring myself to turn around. I follow Harry at as calm a pace as I can manage, and by the time my feet hit the tarmac my heart is in my mouth.

The sun is out and the morning is warm, even in the shade of the hotel building. There is a rough stone wall running the full length of the car park, about five feet tall, concealing what looks like some trees and bushes beyond, and Harry crosses the short distance from the foot of the fire escape steps and peers over the wall. With a glance at me he says, "Here. Climb over."

"I can't -"

"I'll give you a leg up."

My palms scrape against the rough mortar holding the jagged stones together as I place them both over the top of the wall. Harry bends down beside me, links his fingers together and creates a stirrup for me to put one foot in. Transferring all my weight, I push off and haul myself to the top of the wall, grunting with the effort of lifting myself and the weight of my rucksack. I slither over, rocks scratching the skin of my stomach as I slowly drop to the ground with a soft thud. A couple of seconds later Harry's holdall hurtles over the wall and lands beside me, followed another second later by the rucksack from his back containing the camping supplies. I watch as his face appears, contorted with effort as he uses his arms to pull his weight up, his feet scrabbling on the other side of the wall. His top half tips over and he slides down sideways to land next to me, before standing up and brushing his hands together to remove the dirt from the wall. 

"Go," he urges.

I look around for the first time to see we have landed in a small plot of land that doesn't seem to serve a purpose. It is overgrown with trees, weeds, nettles and bushes, with knee-high grass rearing in tufts from the dry, crumbling earth. Situated between two streets and accessible only by a dirt track at the opposite end (and this wall), it is a welcome escape route from the danger lurking behind us. We make our way through the undergrowth, hissing and cursing at brambles that scratch our legs and branches that catch our arms, and emerge via the dirt track into a residential road with modest houses on both sides that are entirely out of keeping with the mini-wilderness we have just scaled. Harry doesn't slow his pace, but turns sharply to the left, striding along the pavement with intent and purpose.

"Slow down," I pant, jogging to keep up with him, but he doesn't let up.

"Harry," I call to his back, "you're going to draw attention to yourself! Slow down!"

"I can't afford to slow down," he hisses at me without turning round. "We could be caught literally at any moment!"

"Do you have any idea where you're going?"

"No." 

We reach the end of the road and turn left and then right, apparently heading towards the town centre. Remembering the bus timetable I grabbed from the reception desk, I pull it out of my back pocket and open it out as I hurry along behind Harry. It takes me a minute to work out where we are using the tiny street map on the back page, and as we are passing a retail park with a large supermarket I grab Harry by the arm.

"Wait - there's a bus stop just up here I think. We can get on the next bus out of here."

"To where?"

"Does it matter?" I demand. "We just need to get out of this town! We might have to jump on a few different local buses to make any sort of good distance, but it's probably safer than attempting a national transport network at the moment, at least until we're far enough away from here to breathe."

He nods dumbly, and up ahead I can see a bus shelter with three plastic seats and route information attached to the glass wall. We make a beeline for it, and according to the times on the wall (and the leaflet in my hand) there is a bus due in a couple of minutes to Warminster, which by my reckoning is maybe ten miles from here. We stand beneath the shelter, eyes darting up and down the main road at the passing traffic, looking out for any sign of the police.

The last half hour feels dream-like and surreal. One minute I was plotting our next move slowly and methodically, believing our exact whereabouts were still unknown; the next we are sneaking down a fire escape only yards from two policemen searching for Harry. It feels like the little Chloe bubble I have been living in, as Harry put it so eloquently, has been violently popped. Although I am taking comfort in one small detail:

"They mustn't have known for sure you were there," I ponder, as Harry jiggles his foot impatiently. "At the hotel, I mean. They didn't come storming in with a search warrant. They just sort of ambled in, and started asking casual questions."

"Wow, that makes me feel a whole lot better," he answers sarcastically, rolling his eyes as he turns his head to scan the opposite end of the street.

"So it should," I tell him. "That means they don't have a location on you - yet. The officer said you had been spotted getting on a train heading this way. For all we know, they're checking every stop along that route on the offchance of someone seeing you. Which means they don't know as much as we thought."

"Great." (Again, with the sarcasm.)

"I wonder if there is CCTV at Frome station," I muse, and he turns to face me with a scowl.

"Do you have to talk so much? Can't you just shut up and let me think?"

I shut my mouth and keep quiet, choosing instead to mull my thoughts over in silence. I now realise that I need to start taking notice of any potential CCTV cameras that could give us away. Maybe we should start wearing hats, or sunglasses; anything to conceal as much of our identities as possible. I only spoke to two people at the hotel, and only one of them - the lady who checked me in - really took any notice of me. She never encountered Harry, and the waitress from the dining room barely looked at us. What are the chances of one of them recognising him from the recent photos the police seem to have? Harry looks a lot different, even just with a decent haircut and some colour to his skin from all the walking in the sun we have been doing. He looks worlds apart from the pale, unkempt individual in the police report.

In the distance, a single decker bus is crawling slowly along the road in the morning traffic. I fumble in my pocket for the change from breakfast, and as it draws near and Harry sticks his hand out to signal it to stop I drop a handful of coins into his palm and step in front of him, ready to board the bus as soon as it stops. 

"Warminster please," I tell the driver, and drop some money into his little tray as he prints me a ticket. Behind me Harry mutters, "same," and as the bus moves off with a hiss and a shake we take seats just by the door, no doubt both thinking we can make a quick getaway once we reach our destination. His arm brushes against mine, scratched from our trek through the undergrowth at the back of the hotel. He catches me looking at it, and then looks down at me with a slightly softer expression, before giving me a single nod. Whether it is acknowledgement, thanks, or even just for something to do, I take it as a ceasefire for now. 

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Midweek update, as promised! I'm aiming for another one this weekend :)