Being Read Online Free PDF

to the door.
    ‘We’re going to walk out of here,’ I told him. ‘You and me… we’re going to walk out to the car park, get in your car and drive away – OK?’
    He nodded.
    ‘You go first,’ I told him. ‘Walk in front of me. Not too fast and not too slow. Don’t say anything to anybody. The pistol’s in my pocket. I’ll use it if I have to – all right?’
    His brown eyes looked back at me. ‘I understand.’
    ‘OK,’ I said, gripping the pistol and nodding at the door. ‘Open it.’
    I watched him as he cautiously opened the door. He moved very slowly, as if this might be his very last moment, and just for a second I thought it might be mine too. We could both see it happening – the gunshot, the scream, therush of armed guards – and we both stopped breathing as the door inched open…
    But nothing happened.
    No sound.
    No movement.
    Kamal paused for a second, breathing out quietly and steadying himself, then he breathed in again, opened the door a bit wider and peered outside. He looked left and right, then left and right again.
    ‘Is anyone there?’ I asked him.
    He shook his head. ‘No one. It’s empty.’
    ‘OK, let’s go.’
    I followed him out into a low arched corridor. A bare light hung from the ceiling, showing white brick walls and a grey stone floor. The air was chilled. To our left, the corridor ran straight for about fifteen metres, then turned a corner. To our right, ten metres away, another corridor crossed at a junction.
    ‘This way,’ Kamal said, moving off to the right.
    I closed the door and followed him. At the junction, we turned right again into another brick corridor that led us down a gentle slope past several closed doors. ‘What is this place?’ I asked Kamal.
    ‘Mostly storage rooms,’ he said. ‘The laundry. There is a boiler room somewhere, I think.’
    His voice was soft and precise, tinged with an accent I couldn’t quite place.
    We walked on.
    My legs didn’t feel too steady, and I was leaning slightly to one side to ease the pain in my stomach. The hard soles of my shoes – Ryan’s shoes – were slapping unevenly onthe sloping stone floor. Sallap slap sallap slap. Ahead of me, Kamal was walking quietly.
    ‘How much further?’ I asked him.
    ‘Not far.’
    We’d almost reached the end of the corridor when a porter pushing a laundry basket came round a corner. A hefty blond-haired man with a stubbled jaw, he was smoking a cigarette and kicking irritably at one of the basket wheels, trying to make the trolley run straight.
    ‘Don’t stop,’ I whispered to Kamal. ‘Just keep walking.’
    When the porter looked up and saw us – doctor and anaesthetist – he snatched the cigarette out of his mouth and hid it behind his back. Kamal nodded his head at him, and the porter returned a false grin. I couldn’t do anything. I just stared straight ahead, trying to look like a doctor, my hand sweating on the grip of the pistol in my pocket.
    The laundry basket squeaked and rattled as the porter passed us by.
    At the end of the corridor, Kamal turned left and led me up a short flight of steps. At the top of the steps was a door.
    Kamal stopped.
    ‘Is this it?’ I asked him.
    He nodded. ‘The door leads out to the car park.’
    I looked at the door – it was closed, barred. FIRE/SMOKE DOOR , it said, DO NOT BLOCK OPEN .
    ‘Is it alarmed?’ I said.
    Kamal looked at me.
    ‘The door,’ I said. ‘Does it have an alarm?’
    He shook his head and shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
    I thought about it for a moment, but quickly decided it didn’t matter.
    ‘Open it,’ I told him.
    It was dark outside. Early evening. The darkness surprised me. A light rain was falling – misty and black, like spider silk. We were standing at the edge of a small rectangular courtyard at the back of the hospital. The main hospital building – a towering monolith of concrete and glass – stretched up into the night sky behind us. There were office buildings either side of us