Shadow of the Odin

Sneaking unseen out of the hotel and finding a policeman to whom to report the incident and gain protection seemed to be the better option. Slipping out of the foyer into the street proved to be the easy part. She headed west on Jeppe, but saw no police.

There must surely be police on the streets somewhere, she thought anxiously.

When she glanced back, she noticed the two men from the hotel who might be following her. The sidewalks were reasonably busy, but she saw them weaving their way through the other pedestrians, sidestepping and shoving people out of the way. Then she knew they were trying to catch up to her. She also knew she could not outrun them in her high-heeled shoes. They were gaining and panic started rising in her throat.

She remembered that the hotel was not far from the Witwatersrand Division of the Supreme Court. She tried to recall its location from when she had searched for the hotel on Google Maps. It was close by, she remembered, about two corners from where she was.

There must be police there, she thought.

She hoped she remembered the location correctly, and tried to increase her walking speed as best she could, without running.

‘Don’t show panic in an emergency’, her dad always advised. She gritted her teeth and kept moving as fast as she could. But the two were still gaining on her.

When she rounded the corner into Pritchard Street, she recognised the domed building on her right-hand side. It was the courthouse. The entrance, with high and wide granite steps leading up to large, open doors, was still about two hundred yards away.

She had no idea what the two men following her would do when they caught up with her, but she had no intention of finding out. She was not confident of reaching the inside of the courthouse before they got to her. She needed some sort of protection right now. She thought of a distraction that would stop them for the moment. It might give her time.

Coming right at her, she noticed a tall man among the pedestrians on the sidewalk. It was easy to distinguish him from the crowd as a result of his stature. He wore a dark suit that fit his broad shoulders and muscular frame perfectly. He had a handsome, youngish face, topped by a shock of blond hair with a fringe that hung slightly over the right side of his forehead, just short of touching his eyebrow. She took in all this in the split second before his easy stride brought him to just few paces in front of her.

She decided at that moment to act. Stepping sharply to her right, she placed herself right in his path. He stopped and looked at her in surprise. She knew she had to say something, but she did not know what. It would be easy for him just to step around her with merely an ‘excuse me’, and her moment would have passed. She knew she had not thought this through properly.

So she said, “Hi…”

He looked at her quizzically. She looked straight into his steely grey eyes. Then she said the first thing that came into her mind.