Read Online Breaking Point by John Macken - Free Book Online Page A

its doors open. Doton scratched his face wearily and stepped on. The woman stopped in front of a passenger who had failed to alight. She gesticulated with her hands as if to say, ‘There, that’s what I was talking about.’ Doton smiled at her and nodded. It was a common occurrence, although usually on the later trains. People out after work, or drinking on empty stomachs. The stop-start lull of the Tube, the warm air piped in, the chance to sit down and take the weight off weary feet. Doton had even heard stories of passengers doing laps of the Circle Line, utterly unaware that they had been all the way round and then some.
    Doton stooped to examine the female passenger. Black, possibly African, darker skin than his own. She was business-smart, her hair – probably extensions, although it was hard to tell for sure – was pulled back tight in a pony tail. White headphones were jammed in her ears, the music just audible, a woman’s voice wailing away over a slow drum beat. Her sunglasses looked expensive, the sort that wrapped around, thick stylized sides to them. She was leaning slightly to the right, her head propped on her shoulder, mouth open – the classic public transport sleeping position.
    Doton sighed and pulled out his biro. He prodded her gently with it. ‘Train terminates here, love,’ he said. He glanced back at the woman who had brought him down. She smiled, making a sleeping gesture with her hands pressed together tight against her tilted cheek. Doton smiled back. She was magnificent.
    The passenger didn’t move. The music from her iPod played on regardless, five thousand songs to shuffle through until the batteries gave way. He prodded her again in the shoulder, harder this time. ‘Love? We’re here, love. Time to wake up and shake up.’ She remained still, her sunglasses fixed, her slumber uninterrupted.
    Doton put his pen back in his pocket. He peered through the window. A train was pulling in at Platform 1. He needed to get back to the barrier. Doton shrugged at the woman next to him. She was chewing her top lip with a beguiling mixture of amusement and uncertainty. Really, he should just let the passenger sleep it off. But something was starting to unnerve him.
    He reached forward and touched her face, his fingers trembling slightly. Doton didn’t like touching the passengers, not skin to skin. She was cold, clammy even. He withdrew his hand, not quite believing what he had felt. And then, very slowly, he moved his hands into position, one either side of her sunglasses. He glanced at the Mediterranean woman. She had her hand in front of her mouth, and was biting on her knuckle. Doton gripped the glasses and slid them off.
    Her eyes. Wide open and startled. Staring blindly back at him. Red capillaries bursting and bleeding into the white. The pupils huge, the irises just visible around them. They told him everything he needed to know. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘Fuck.’
    A queasy feeling settled in his stomach. He turned and ran out of the carriage, pulling out his radio and barging through the crush of commuters.

16
    AT 6.05 P.M. , Navine Ayuk left the hospital pharmacy, took a side door marked Emergency Exit, and skulked around the back of the grey-brown building. He glanced miserably at a succession of recent No Smoking signs, which pointed the way to the nearest designated smoking shelter. This was a new addition to St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. It kept staff and patient smokers united and isolated from the rest of society. ‘Twenty-first-century apartheid,’ Navine muttered as he approached the sectioned-off area of perspex. He stepped inside and lit up, glancing along the road. It was like a bus shelter, with no prospect of going anywhere. To make matters worse, music entered through a speaker in the roof, piped from God knew where in the hospital . If they really wanted people to give up, they should just say so, Navine thought as he sighed through a smoky breath. This was verging on