Old Porters

Chapter Twenty Seven

Twenty Seven

The fact that Kate had know his secret since six the previous evening and it was almost ten pm now was a good sign in Roger’s opinion. The N.C.U had not kicked in his front door at dawn this morning so he guessed she had not told anyone last night. She had not spoken to him all day either which was not a brilliant sign and maybe the police were just biding their time. He did not know. Frankly if he thought about it too long he started to freak out.

The only thing keeping him sane was focusing on his run across the city rooftops. With the mist and his long coat fluttering around behind him, the vigilante felt like he was on a moors in Yorkshire during the 1800’s running towards his sinister but passionate lover.

Puzzled by his train of thought Roger asked himself if he was Catherine or Heathcliff in that situation. It was a worrying part of his brain which took his mind off the obstacle course ahead of him so much so that instead of jumping off the ledge of the next rooftop, he simply ran off and fell painfully onto the phone box in the street below.

The phone box received only one broken pane of glass, but that did not really matter because the phone had stopped working years ago and people had stopped using it for its original intention years before that.

Having belly flopped onto the flat roof of the red telephone box, the vigilante groaned and fell to the pavement. The only people about on this Friday night were the ones smoking outside the pub across the street. After they had cheered, or rather jeered at Roger’s pain and taken some photos on their phones, they went inside.

He slowly sat up. Maybe Kate was right to be avoiding him, he was nothing more than one disaster waiting to happen after another.

As the teenager dusted himself off, he realised that he was only a few streets away from The Golden Clock office. He had missed seeing them last. Maybe he could pop in, see if they needed any help.

“Move!”

The vigilante looked up the street. Charging towards him was a large guy with a woolly hat and a scarf pulled up high. He saw the glinting gold around the guy’s eyes. “Alex?”

Alex sprinted past, shoving Roger aside ever so slightly unnecessarily. “I said move.”

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” the teenager asked, jogging along side Alex who was running as fast as he could.

“Someone broke into the office, Rhyana was in there, I can’t get her on the phone anymore,” Alex said between deep breaths.

“Meet me there,” the vigilante shouted as he took off at full speed.

It made Alex feel very slow indeed.

Roger blurred through the street and through the open door on the ground floor of the Golden Clock office. He climbed the stairs and came to a sudden stop in the reception area of the office. It appeared that nobody was home and a hurricane had blown through the building scattering the furniture.