The Notorious Inmates of Broadmoor

From the safety of my aunt and uncle’s garden, my cousins and I played cricket on a Sunday afternoon on the flat patio area of their Bracknell Forest home in England. In the distance, there was a familiar sound I’d heard many times before, and the hairs on my arms bristled.

It was the Broadmoor siren. An inmate had escaped.

We were quickly ushered into the house and the doors were promptly locked. Normally in this situation, an adult would close the blinds and curtains, but my aunt’s home had neither. The large, single-glazed windows were the…