Tunnels 03, Freefall

surprise. "Highfield?"
    "Yes, the roads, they are clear tonight," the driver commented.
    "I used to live here," she replied, as they sped past the turn off which would have taken her to
    Broadlands Avenue
    .
    "Used to?" the driver inquired. "No more home?"
    "No," she said.
    She'd sold the house at the peak of the market, and it had provided her with a tidy sum to live on. Although she no longer owned the property, she felt an unexpected tug to see it, to go back and look at the old place for one last time. Even though that chapter in her life had ended, there was so much left unresolved. "No more home," Mrs. Burrows whispered, telling herself that it wasn't the time to indulge herself with a visit. She had more pressing matters to attend to.
    As they drove down High Street, there were the shops she knew so well. She saw the dry cleaner's, and the newsagent's where they had got their papers. Then she spotted that the window of Clarke's had been boarded up, as if it was no longer in business. The old-fashioned fruit and veg shop had been a firm favorite of Rebecca's, something Mrs. Burrows always thought rather odd when there was a perfectly good supermarket that would do home deliveries. Finally, they passed the museum where her husband had worked, but Mrs. Burrows looked in the opposite direction. For her it was a place of failure, a monument to her stifled expectations.
    Then they left Highfield and very soon had reached the junction with the North Circular road. A battered white car with the stereo at an impossible volume drew up beside them as they stopped for the lights. It was crammed full of passengers, and through one of the open windows a young girl fixed Mrs. Burrows with an insolent stare. Probably only two or three years older than Rebecca, the girl looked tired with dark smudges under her eyes, and her shoulder-length hair was limp, as if badly in need of a wash. Her cold eyes were still fixed aggressively on Mrs. Burrows as she spat out a piece of chewing gum, which hit the door of the minicab.
    "What you do, dirty pig!" the driver exclaimed loudly, flicking his hand at the girl. He revved the engine furiously. "I wouldn't let my little girl be doing thing like that."
    The girl was still trying unsuccessfully to stare Mrs. Burrows down. "No, I wouldn't either. I always know exactly where my daughter is -- at home, safe and sound," she declared.
    "Me, took, but these people have no respect," the driver said, leaning forward over his steering wheel to glare at the other car. "No respect," he repeated, as he floored the accelerator and cut up the white car, sounding his horn as he did so.

    * * * * *

    Forty minutes later, they had crossed the river and were several blocks from the council estate where three massive tower blocks dominated the landscape. Mrs. Burrows thought she could see which of the three Auntie Jean's flat was in, but every road they went down only seemed to take them further away from it. The drive had given up using his A to Z , and was relying entirely on Mrs. Burrows to remember the way.
    "This looks vaguely familiar," she said.
    "South London. It all looks the same," the driver chuckled, shaking his head dismissively. "You can keep it."
    "Wait a minute -- I remember this -- take a left here," Mrs. Burrows instructed him. "Yes, I'm pretty certain this is it," she said as she spotted the tower block was indeed MandelaHeights. Then they turned down a cul-de-sac, and the minicab squealed to a halt.
    "We are here," he announced.
    Mrs. Burrows got out of the minicab and collected her bags from the boot. Then she gave the driver a hugely over-generous tip.
    "God bless you and all of your family," he called after her as she lugged her bags into the entrance. She looked at the bank of buttons for the flats, most of them vandalized, but then saw that the main doors were open anyway. She went straight in, and found, miracle upon miracle, that the lift was working, but no less smelly than she remembered it to be. It shuddered up to the thirteenth floor and the doors scraped back.
    "For God's sake!" Mrs. Burrows grumbled as she stepped over a pool of vomit directly outside the lift.
    She pressed the doorbell and waited. Then she tried again, ringing for longer this time. After a while there was a scuffling sound from behind the door and Mrs. Burrows noticed that someone was looking at her through the spyhole.
    "Open up, will you, Jean!" Mrs. Burrows said to the spyhole. Still the door remained