When they pushed past her, running and talking too loudly for the confines of the concourse, she had her mouth open and an insult balanced on the tip of her tongue.

She checked herself, as she’d been taught: her breathing was fast and shallow, and inside she felt the cold rush of rage. Those that worked with her had lots of fancy names for it, but none of the labels meant anything to her, except a single off-hand comment that she seized on. The Red Queen was the one she recognised and owned: the terrible desire to give orders, to be obeyed, was deep inside her. Yet she knew she’d never be in charge of anything, let alone be a queen.

She counted to ten, and hoisted her bag back on to her shoulder. By then, they were gone, voices muffled in the depths. They were jerks. They probably hadn’t even seen her. She was better than to rise at their carelessness. She took a deep breath, and carried on.

She had a pass: a proper pass that she’d had to sign for, that carried her photo – God, she hated it because it made her look like this weird child-thing – that allowed her to access almost everywhere and everything. Losing it would mean instant dismissal. Losing it and not telling anyone she’d lost it would be enough to land her inside. They may as well have printed her details on a gold brick instead of a laminated piece of plastic, for all they went on about ‘the integrity of the system’.

The ticket hall was all but empty. A couple of stragglers tripped down the stairs from another entrance, stumbling and looking back the way they’d come, then hurried on to the barriers, wallets already out and in hand.

She followed them, touching in on the pad. The gates banged back, and she twisted to get her bag through.

Then it was the long ride down the escalator, down to the deep levels where it was hot and humid, and ever-so-slightly foetid. The advertising panels flickered their wares at her, five-second looped images, discordant and bright: enough to catch her attention and slam a message into her eyes, but not enough to seduce or explain.

One was for a holiday. How long was it since she’d had a holiday? They’d had day-trips from the home that had been, to quote one of the staff, a logistical nightmare. One of the other members of staff had said it was more like herding cats. It had been Southend, usually, and Eastbourne once.

That’d been a disaster. The M3 had locked solid, and they’d barely had time to eat fish and chips in some formica-countered sea-side shed before piling back in the minibus for the trip home. Eight teenagers with a broad spectrum of emotional and educational problems, four carers. It was a wonder that any of them made it back alive.