Some By Fire

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The ferocity of the blast shocked him. He'd barely started to stuff the burning newspaper under the door when, with a roar like a jet engine, a blade of flame scythed his feet and hands, sending him staggering backwards down the stone steps and out on to the pavement.

His gloves and plimsolls were on fire, his bare ankles stinging with pain. He jumped up and down in a wild dance, slapping the flames until they were extinguished, and swung a still-smoking leg over the Claud Butler racing bike that had cost him most of his first year's grant.

Panic is a defence mechanism given to us by nature, in spite of protestations that we should never succumb to it, and it had served him well. The paint on the door was already bubbling with heat and the glass panel cracking as he turned out of the cobbled street and on to the main road, expertly spinning the pedals to locate his toes in the clips.

Duncan Roberts was twenty years old, a student of chemistry at Leeds University, and in trouble. Correction. He had been in trouble. Now, hopefully, his tribulations were behind him. He snicked the Derailleur gears up five sprockets and stood on the pedals, swooping down towards the city centre on the traffic-free road, the cool morning air chilling the sweat of fear that had drenched him in that terrifying moment when it looked as if his well-laid plan had gone wrong.

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