The John Milton Series: Books 1-3 by Mark Dawson Page A

the live rail.
    The train drew nearer, a blast of warm air pouring out of the mouth of the tunnel.
    Milton knelt down by the woman.
    “No,” she said. “Leave me alone.”
    He slipped one hand beneath her back and the other beneath her knees. She was slight, and he lifted her easily. The train turned the final bend, its headlights shining brightly. Its horn sounded, shrill and sudden, and Milton knew it was going to be touch and go. He stepped over the live rail again and threw the woman up onto the platform. The train’s brakes bit, the locked wheels sliding across the metal with a hideous shriek, as Milton planted his hands on the lip of the platform and vaulted up, rolling away just as the engine groaned by, missing him by fractions.
    He rolled over, onto his back, and stared up at the curved ceiling. His breath rushed in and out.
    The train had stopped halfway into the station. The driver opened the door and sprinted down the platform towards him. “Are you all right, mate?”
    “Fine. Check her.”
    He closed his eyes and forced his breathing to return to a regular pattern. In and out, in and out.
    “I thought you was a goner,” the driver said. “I thought I was gonna hit you both. What happened?”
    Milton didn’t answer. The students had made their way down the platform, and the driver turned his attention to them. They reported what they had seen in singsong, broken English: how the woman had lowered herself from the platform and laid herself out across the rails, how Milton had gone down after her and pulled her away from danger.
    “You’re a bloody hero, mate,” the driver said.
    Milton closed his eyes again.
    A hero?
    He would have laughed if that wasn’t so ridiculous. It was a bad joke.

Chapter Four
    AN AMBULANCE arrived soon afterwards. Milton sat next to the woman on the bench as she was attended to by the paramedics. She had cried hysterically for five minutes, but she quickly stopped, and by the time the paramedics had arrived, she was silent and unmoving, staring fixedly at the large posters for exotic holidays and duty-free goods that were plastered across the curved wall on the other side of the tracks.
    One of the paramedics had taken the woman’s purse from her bag. “Is your name Sharon, love?” he asked. She said nothing. “Come on, love, you have to talk to us.”
    She remained silent.
    “We’re going to have to take her in,” the paramedic said. “I think she’s in shock.”
    “I’ll come, too,” Milton said.
    “Are you a friend?”
    Leaving her now would be abandoning her. He had started to help, and he wanted to finish the job. He would leave once her family had arrived.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you checked out properly.”
    Milton followed behind the ambulance as they took the woman to the Royal Free Hospital. They wheeled her into a quiet room and made her a cup of warm tea, full of sugar. “We’re just waiting for the doctor,” they said to her. “Get that down you; it’ll make all the difference.”
    “Thank you,” she murmured.
    The paramedic turned to Milton. “Are you all right to stay with her? He’s on his way, but it might be twenty minutes.”
    “Yes,” Milton said. “Of course.”
    He took the seat next to the bed and watched the girl. She had closed her eyes, and after a few minutes, Milton realised that she had drifted into a shallow sleep. Her chest rose and fell with each gentle breath. Milton regarded her. Her hair was of the deepest black, worn cut square and low on the nape of her neck, fanned out on the white hospital linen to frame a sweet almond-shaped face. Her eyes were wide under finely drawn eyebrows, slightly up tilted at the corners. Her skin was a perfect chocolate-brown and bore no trace of makeup save a light lipstick on her wide and sensual mouth. Her bare arms were slender, and her hands, folded beneath her breasts, were small and delicate. Her fingernails were chewed down, the red varnish