Dick Francis - Dead Heat

“OK,” I said with a sigh, “I’m coming.”

I dragged myself up, pulled my fingers through my hair to straighten it and went across the corridor.

They applauded. I smiled. Being a chef was being a showman, an entertainer. Taking one’s bow was what made it worthwhile. The heat of the kitchen is forgotten in the glow of appreciation from others.

Even Rolf Schumann smiled broadly. Elizabeth Jennings sat on his right and positively beamed. Reflected glory, I thought rather disingenuously. She stroked his arm and whispered in his ear in a manner that made me think that it was she who was the tease, not he.

Having milked the applause for all I could, I retreated to the kitchen to find Carl had stirred and was starting to clear up and load the wire cages for returning to Stress-Free. I really didn’t feel like I had the energy to help him, so I went back across the corridor to find myself some strong coffee.

The lunch party was breaking up, with some of the guests going to place their wagers on the first race, which was due off any minute. Many decided to sit out the race at the tables, drinking their coffee and watching the action on the television sets placed high in each corner of the room. Others drifted out onto the balcony to watch it live.

Louisa poured me some coffee, and I stood, drinking the hot black liquid, and hoped that it would wake me up a bit.

MaryLou came over. “That food sure was terrific,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said. “Glad you enjoyed it.”

“Certainly did,” she said. “Mr. Schumann really liked it too.”

I could tell that his approval was the most important thing. Mr. Schumann clearly intimidated her too. A successful lunch might mean her job was safe for a while longer.

The first race was over, and the guests drifted back from the balcony and many sat down again at the tables. I realized it would be some time before we could clear everything away and have a decent rest. Louisa and Robert, my other waiter, were busy refilling coffee cups and passing out chocolate mints. Everyone was in good humor and enjoying themselves.

THE 2,000 GUINEAS was the third race on the card, due off at three-fifteen. The excitement of the afternoon built towards the big event, with jazz bands and street entertainers helping to raise the pulse of the crowd. I could have done with a jazz band in the kitchen just to keep me awake.

As the time of the big race arrived, I went back to the boxes where Louisa and Robert were clearing the tables. Finally, all the guests had left their chairs and were crowding onto the balcony, or standing inside up against the windows, trying to get a good view of the horses as they approached along Newmarket’s famous Rowley straight mile.

I picked up some dirty coffee cups and glanced up at the television set on the wall. The horses were running down into the dip, and the jockeys were jostling for position, ready for their final effort up the rise to the finish. So tired was I that I decided not to stay and watch. I could always see it later on the replay. I turned to take the cups out to the kitchen.

That decision unquestionably saved my life.

T he bomb went off while I was crossing the corridor.

I didn’t understand immediately what had happened.

There was a great blast of heat on my neck, and it felt like someone had hit me in the back with a sledgehammer.

I crashed into the kitchen door upright and fell, half in and half out of the room.

I still couldn’t understand what was going on. Everything seemed to be in silence. I couldn’t hear. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t hear myself either. I shouted. Nothing. All I could hear was a high-pitched hissing that seemed to be in my head; it had no direction, and was unchanged when I turned my head from side to side.

I looked down at my hands, and they seemed to be all right. I moved them. No problem. I clapped. I could feel my hands coming together, but I couldn’t hear the sound. It was very frightening.

My left knee hurt. I looked down and noticed that my black-and-white checked trousers had been torn where they had hit the doorframe. The white checks were turning red with my blood. What’s black and white and red all over…? My brain was drifting.

When I felt with my hands, my knee appeared to be in the right place, and I could move my foot without any increase in pain. It seemed that the blood was from superficial damage only.

My hearing came back with a rush, and suddenly there was a mass of sound. Someone close by was screaming. A female, high-pitched scream that went on and on, breaking only occasionally for a moment as the screamer drew a breath. An alarm bell was ringing incessantly somewhere down the corridor, and there were shouts from some male voices, mostly pleading for help.

I lay back, and rested my head on the floor. It seemed that I was like that for ages, but, I suppose, it was only for a minute or two at most. The screaming went on; otherwise, I might have gone to sleep.

I became aware that I wasn’t very comfortable. As well as the pain in my left knee, my right leg was aching. I was lying on my foot, which was tangled up underneath my rear end. I straightened the leg and was rewarded with pins and needles. That’s a good sign, I thought.

I looked up and could see daylight between the walls and the ceiling where a large crack had opened up. That was not such a good sign. Water was pouring through the crack, I thought lazily, probably from some burst pipe above. It was running down the wall and spreading across the concrete floor towards me. I turned my head and watched it approach.

I decided that, lovely as it was to lie there and let the world get on without me, I didn’t fancy lying in a puddle. The floor was cold enough without being wet as well. Reluctantly, I rolled over and drew my knees up under me so that I was kneeling. Not a good idea, I thought. My left knee complained bitterly, and the calf muscle below it began to cramp. I pulled myself up to a standing position using the doorframe and surveyed the kitchen.

Not much seemed to have changed, except everything was covered in a fine white dust that also still hung in the air. I was wondering what had happened to Carl when he appeared next to me.

“Bloody hell,” he said, “what happened?”

“Don’t know,” I replied. “Where were you?”

“Having a pee in the gents’.” He pointed down the corridor. “Nearly shit myself when that bang went off.”

I clung on to the kitchen door and felt unwell. I didn’t particularly relish going to see what had become of my other two staff and the guests in the boxes, but I knew I must. I couldn’t just stand here all day while others might need help. The screaming had lessened to a whimper, as I gingerly made my way across the corridor and looked in.

I hadn’t expected there to be so much blood.

Bright, fresh, scarlet red blood. Masses of the stuff. It was not only on the floor but on the walls, and there were even great splashes of it on the ceiling. The tables had been thrown up against the back wall by the explosion, and I had to pick my way over broken chairs to get through the door and into the room that I had so recently vacated with ease.

When I had been a child, my father had regularly complained that my bedroom looked like a bomb had gone off in it. Like every other little boy, I had tended to dump all my stuff on the floor and happily had lived around it.

However, my bedroom had never looked like the inside of the two glass-fronted boxes at Newmarket that day. Not that the boxes had remained glass-fronted. The glass in the windows and doors had now completely vanished, and, along with it, large chunks of the balconies and about a third of the end wall from the side of box number 1.