Chapter 15
2.30 p.m.
David had stayed curled in the corner of the phone box for nearly an hour. People who wanted to use it had banged on the glass, some shouting obscenities at him. Only when a group sprayed some indecipherable word on the door and then threatened to spray paint his face had his brain returned from shut-down.
He’d walked then, for miles. When he’d got close to home, he walked and walked the wrong way, down the length of Inglemire Lane and past the rear entrance to the university, down past the custard-coloured Georgian terraced houses in Cranbrook Avenue, up Endike Lane and past the school which was dead to the world because it was Saturday. A few of the kids were in the street, playing in coats and gloves.
It had stopped snowing and begun to sleet. It clung to his ju
