Break for Freedom

"Sir!" The ironic tone of the brawny policeman's voice was apparent
to everyone in the packed waiting room and heads turned. "You're to
stay where I can see you, right?"

"Right." Crispin Woolston blushed as he paced the floor of the casualty
department, feverishly planning his escape. They'd got no right to keep
him here, had they? This wasn't a ruddy police state, for God's sake.
Not quite yet, though it was going that way. It had been an accident,
everybody knew that. God, he thought, looking around him: it's like a
zoo in here.

Most of the motley collection of would-be patients were slumped
hopelessly in their seats, awaiting their turn with blank resignation,
while the more agitated and more inebriated harangued passing staff in
useless attempts to jump the ever-lengthening queues. A few, high on
various unknown substances, were making thorough nuisances of
themselves and threatening to overwhelm the hard-pressed security
staff.

Crispin hadn't wanted to find himself in this Dante-esque situation,
and he certainly hadn't expected it. It wasn't even as if he was used
to these NHS places - he demanded better.

He'd always demanded better, in fact: as a pampered infant, the only
child of Crispin Senior and his glamorous-but-dim wife, nothing had
been too much trouble. Crispin Junior had passed through a string of
expensive prep schools, few of which had done much to tame his
precocious but wayward spirit, and, after attending a well respected
public school and several crammers, he'd scraped into Bristol with the
aid of a few pulled strings. His doting father had counted it all as
money well spent, though Crispin had little need of impressive paper
qualifications. His father's pervasive influence in local business
circles had smoothed his entry into Cox and Walters, Solicitors.

He naturally possessed a wide variety of acquaintances, but few if any
real friends: most found him too arrogant, cold and superior to mix
freely with mere mortals. This attitude applied to his female friends,
too, and Crispin had never been able to find a woman who'd put up with
his assumptions for more than a limited period. More importantly (to
him), he'd never come across one who met every one of his demanding
criteria.

So, he'd been driving back from the Hendersons' dinner party, keeping
within the limit. He'd been tanking it back a bit, of course - it was a
party, after all, and he'd seen no pressing need for restraint. His car
was well known around town, and he shared a lodge with the Chief
Constable, so he counted himself as fireproof. But, of course, he'd
never been involved in one of these stupid accidents before, had
he?

Blasted stupid motorcyclist, Crispin thought. He hadn't meant to knock
him off, of course - the idiot had just appeared from nowhere, though
that pair of plods were insisting that the fool had been in the right
lane all along. What did they know, that pair of kids? He paid more
than enough rates to pay their overblown salaries, and what did they
do? Were they grateful? All they did was persecute honest taxpayers and
motorists because it was so damned easy.

God, Crispin thought, give 'em a stick and a uniform and it was like
the Gestapo all over again. The guy was stable, that Crispin did know,
so he'd actually been quite lucky. Broken leg, but what could you
expect if you whizzed round on one of those ruddy dangerous things? The
police were hanging round, waiting to see if they could get an
interview from the biker and, soon enough now, they'd all be off down
to the station to introduce Crispin to the dreaded breathalyser.

One of the coppers would have taken Crispin down earlier had it not
been for the blow to his forehead. He'd tripped climbing out of his
car, despite being perfectly compos mentis, and banged his temple on
the door. That was why he was still stuck here now, pacing the floor
and waiting to be checked. He patted his head gingerly, but the blood
appeared to have dried.

There seemed to be no way out - one of the plods was watching him like
a hawk, and would no doubt be able to bring him down if he attempted to
make a run for it. That would surely make everything look worse, and
yet.. if he could only get himself out of that hell-hole somehow. He
could lie low, round at a friend's perhaps, there was nothing illegal
about that. He could turn up at the station in the morning, full of
apologies, swearing that he'd only run because he'd panicked under
pressure. He wasn't used to this sort of thing. Drinking? Surely the
officer must have been mistaken? He'd not touched a drop all night - it
must have been the other chap. Yes, that would explain why he was all
over the road, right? The worst they could do him for would be careless
driving, and that would only be a minor temporary embarrassment. There
would be no risk to his licence.

Yes, he asked himself, but how? Crispin prowled back and forth,
avoiding the mumbling drunks, all too aware of the policeman's
suspicious eyes burning into his back.

"Officer," he said in as polite a tone as he could muster. "I need to..
you know."

"Okay, two minutes. It's round the corner."

"That's very kind." The officer turned back to his even surlier
colleague without a word, and Crispin sidled off. There was some
chance, surely? A window, perhaps? He was to be sadly disappointed -
the patients' toilets were equipped with internal ventilation
only.

"What you in for?" The patient at the next urinal asked brusquely.
Crispin hadn't even noticed the man come in after him.

"Fun," he growled. "I come here every week."

"Yeah?" The man looked genuinely astonished. "Takes all sorts."
Sighing, he left without even swilling his hands and Crispin wrinkled
up his nose in disgust.

Increasingly desperate now, Crispin burst out into the
brightly-illuminated corridor. Peering round the corner, he could see
the policemen talking earnestly to a harassed-looking young black
doctor. One of them was checking his watch now, glancing suspiciously
back towards the toilets. Crispin knew that he had to act quickly or
not at all..

Yes! It was almost too good to be true.. opposite the toilet door was a
small rest-room of some sort. Visible inside it was a chair, and a
coat-rack: this was precisely what he needed. Taking the chance that it
would be unoccupied at that time of night, Crispin leaned in and
grabbed a white coat from the rack. There was a name on the plastic
strip, but he had no time to read it. He slipped it on over his own
coat, in full view of the passing throng; guessing correctly that
no-one would have time to question what he was doing or exactly who he
might be.

Striding into the casualty waiting room with new-found confidence, he
snatched up a handy file from a desk and buried his face in it. Thus
equipped, and utterly unconcerned by the severe medical problems that
he would be causing to some unlucky unknown patient by simply waltzing
off with his medical record, he looked sideways and dodged nimbly round
an approaching trolley to dash, unchallenged, out into the ambulance
bay. The staff there were, as he'd expected, pre-occupied with problems
of their own and he was able to dash past, unchallenged, into the
shadows.

Elated at his near-miraculous escape, glancing back every few seconds,
Crispin wound his way across the car park; through the scruffy strip of
verge, along the still-busy ring road. Seldom had he felt so excited,
so delighted with his own cunning and good fortune. Nevertheless, he
needed somewhere to lay low as a matter of urgency. Tom Fox, one of his
juniors at the firm, had a flat in one of the Georgian terraces along
the river: it was only a couple of hundred yards away as the crow flew,
and Crispin decided to head in that direction.

He paused, wisely, as the traffic whizzed heedlessly past, waiting for
his chance. Seeing a gap, he lowered his head and charged blindly
across the dual carriageway, the stolen coat flapping wildly behind
him. In his panicky haste, he didn't see the white Transit - but,
luckily, its driver saw him. Weaving round the reckless pedestrian in a
flurry of blaring horns and unrepeatable expletives, the driver
accelerated away.

"You stupid prat!" Crispin yelled, halting in the centre of the
carriageway. "You could have.." In his frustration, he ripped his coat
off and flung it after the van in a vain gesture of anger.

Some two hundred yards behind the quick-witted Transit driver, Don
Franklin was returning home from his late shift astride his beloved
Yamaha. And, for the second time in one evening, Crispin failed to see
an oncoming motorcycle. Don had seen the ghostly white figure dash
across the road like some apparition, then vanish as the Transit
rounded it - he was still braking violently as the face appeared dead
ahead of him.

"No!" Don shouted vainly, helplessly, as his bike lurched and the
figure went spinning away across the hot tarmac like a rag doll.
Screeching to a halt, Don ran back, fumbling for his phone and
desperately flagging the remaining traffic to a halt.

xxxxx

"Lucky one, eh?" the paramedic shouted to his colleague, flicking on
the lights and siren as the ambulance thundered out of the bay.
"Couldn't be much closer, could it?"

Cutting up the wrong lane on to the ring road, scattering lesser
vehicles to left and right, the driver hauled the big American-style
vehicle round the traffic island and headed off down the now-deserted
wrong carriageway.

"I..I couldn't help it!" Don stammered as the ambulance pulled up and
the crew jumped out onto the road beside the prone figure. "He was like
a ghost, all in white, and he just vanished. The next I knew, he was
right in front of me. I had no chance.."

"It's all right, mate," the paramedic assured him, kneeling beside the
groaning casualty. "Okay, we'd better get him in. Can you hear me,
sir?"

"Mm," Crispin moaned. "I'm all right, honestly, don't take me.."

"No, sir, you've had a nasty knock to your head, though it looks as if
it's dried remarkably quickly. And.. yes, I think we have a fracture to
your right lower leg." Crispin was too dazed, too shocked, to resist
further. Don, meanwhile, was running his bike off the road. That done,
he jumped nimbly in after the stretcher.

"It'll be a police matter," Don gasped. "I'll tell them everything. Oh,
God, he was wearing white.. he'll be able to back me up, won't
he?"

"No problem," the paramedic assured him as the ambulance bucked into
life and lurched away, dramatically wreathed in flashing blue light,
siren emitting an ear-splitting shriek. "In fact, you're in luck. There
are a couple of coppers in casualty already, looking for some drunk
driver who's done a runner. They'll soon sort everything out."