Dick Francis - Under Orders

Definitely not a good solicitor.

‘She walked straight out of her lawyer’s office and under a number 15 bus. Funny,’ he said, ‘ever since I found that out, I’ve never been able to ride on a number 15 bus, just in case it was the one.’

He sat down on the edge of the bath. The longer he talked, the greater the chance that Muscles would come back with the girls and save my skin, but I would probably need to survive for another hour if the cavalry were to arrive in time.

‘The inquest said it was an accident, but I reckon she did it on purpose. My father killed her as sure as if he’d been driving the bus himself.’

He had tears in his eyes. I wasn’t sure whether it was for the loss of his mother or for the reaction the incident may have produced in Jonny Enstone. Peter’s relationship with his father was highly complex.

‘When I got older and bigger, he stopped hitting me. I told him that if he hit me again I’d hit him back. So he’s changed his tactics from physical to mental abuse. He puts me down at every opportunity. He belittles everything I do. He tells his friends that I am useless, and that I can’t be his true son as I am no good at business. I hate him. I hate him.’

Why then, I thought, don’t you go and shoot him instead of me?

‘And then when I find I am good at something, you go and wreck it. At last I discovered that it’s me that has the power, it’s me that’s in control, and it’s me that people are frightened of.’ He looked up at my face. ‘Everyone except you. You’re not even frightened now.’

Yes, I was. But I didn’t say so. I stood there in silence and watched him.

I began to sweat. In spite of the insulating effect of the towels against which I was leaning, I was getting very hot. I was worried that he should think that my skin was damp due to fear. But did it matter? Yes. It did to me.

‘You should be frightened,’ he said. ‘I am going to kill you. I’ve got nothing to lose now, thanks to you. I’ll get done for the other two murders so why not for three. Three life sentences are just as long as two. And in all those years ahead, I will have the satisfaction of knowing that it was me that beat Sid Halley. I won. I might be in jail but you will be pushing up the daisies. And then one day I’ll be out, but there’ll be no bringing you back from the dead.’

He smiled. I began to be more than frightened. I became angry.

Why, I thought, should this little worm use his father as his excuse for his actions? Yes, his father was an ogre and a bully, but Peter was thirty-two years old and there are limits to how much and for how long you can blame the parents.

The rage rose inside me as it had done in the hospital. I raged, also, at my predicament. Damn it, I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live. I wanted to marry Marina. I especially didn’t want to die like this, trussed up and at the hands of Peter Enstone.

‘I think I’ve talked enough,’ he said suddenly, standing up. ‘I get fed up with all those silly films where the gunman spends so long telling his victim why he’s going to kill him that someone finally arrives to stop it. That’s not going to happen here because I’m going to kill you now, then I’m going to wait and kill your girlfriend when she gets home. She can keep you company in hell.’

He laughed.

He leaned forward until his face was just six inches away from mine.

‘Bye, Sid,’ he said. ‘Now be a good boy and open your mouth.’

Instead, I hit him.

I hit him with all the pent-up anger and frustration of the last three weeks.

I hit him with the stump of my left arm.

The look on his face was more of surprise than hurt. But I had put every ounce of my considerable strength into that blow and he went backwards fast. The edge of the bath caught him behind the knees and he went over it. There was a satisfyingly loud thud as the back of his head hit the far rim of the bath near the taps. Thank goodness for old-fashioned values, I thought. This bathtub was not one of the modern flexible cheap plastic things; it was solid cast-iron and very hard.

Peter was lying face up in the bath but he was half turned, with his chin pushed into his chest. He groaned a little but he was unconscious. But for how long?

Now what?

My left forearm hurt.

I had been gradually easing it out of its false case for some time and the seal around the elbow had finally separated as I had cautiously flexed it back and forth without his noticing. Now I looked at the end of my stump. It was sore and bleeding, such had been the force of the blow.

The task now was to get out of the bathroom before Peter came round and finished off what he’d started.

I tugged at the handcuffs on my right hand. I twisted and pulled, I jerked and heaved but made no impression whatsoever on the metal, I simply tore and chaffed my wrist until I was bleeding on both sides.

I trod on my arm battery that was lying on the floor. How do I pick that up, I wondered? I kicked off my shoes and used my left big toe to pull the sock off my right foot. I tried to pick up the battery in my toes but it was too big to grasp.

Peter groaned again. I was getting desperate now. I bloody refused to be still attached to this bloody towel rail when he came round.

I went down on my knees and tried to get my mouth down to the battery but it was too far. I used my toes to pull the battery a little closer and, between my right foot and left stump, I managed to upend it so that it sat vertically on the floor. I hung down with most of my weight on my sore handcuffed right wrist, but I didn’t care. I stretched my body down and forward as far as I could reach and put my mouth over the end of the battery.

I could feel a tingling on my tongue as it touched the battery electrodes. I had freshly charged it the previous night.

Peter groaned again and this time more loudly. I looked at him in alarm. He was being sick. I could see the vomit as it came down his nose and out of the corner of his mouth. I hoped he’d choke on it.

I knelt on the floor again and tried to use my mouth to push the battery into its holder in the fibreglass shell that stuck out rigidly sideways from the mechanical hand that was firmly gripping the towel rail. It was simple really. Place the lower end of the battery under the lugs at the wrist end of the holder and snap the upper end in under the sprung plastic clip. A task I performed day in, day out, hundreds of times a year. But always with my dextrous right hand. It was not so easy with a tingling mouth and when my life depended on it. Eventually I positioned the battery at the correct angle under the lugs and used my nose and forehead to push the other end in. It snapped into place. Hallelujah!

Now I had to get my bruised and bloody stump back into the fibreglass shell before it swelled up too much to fit. I stood up and eased it in. Normally I used talcum powder to help as the fit was tight even at the best of times, and a little moisture can cause the real me to stick to the plastic, making things impossible. This time I had no available talcum powder and there was masses of moisture, both blood and sweat.

I managed it after a fashion although the elbow seal was far from perfect. I sent the impulses but the thumb refused to budge. Bugger. Maybe there was blood between my skin and the electrodes. I tried again and then again.

The thumb moved a fraction but still refused to swing open fully.

I kept sending the necessary signals and slowly, little by little, the thumb moved enough to allow my hand to unclasp the towel rail.

But I was still firmly attached on my right-hand side.

My normally strong mechanical left hand was letting me down. The hand that this morning could have crushed not only eggs and fingers, but also apples and tennis balls, would have had trouble now with a soap bubble. Nevertheless, I used it to attack the handcuffs. But I had no success. I wished I had a cutting tool on the hand like that character in the James Bond movie. I would have cut myself out of trouble in no time.