Дик Фрэнсис: High Stakes

Owen and I went back to London. I drove, with him sitting beside me fitfully dozing and pretending in between times that he didn’t have a headache.

‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘I know what it feels like. You’ve got a proper thumper and notwithstanding that snide crack to the doctor about your boss not letting you take a couple of days off, that’s what you’re going to get.’

He smiled.

‘I’m sorry about your head,’ I said.

‘I know.’

‘How?’

‘Charlie said.’

I glanced across at him. His face in the glow from the dashboard looked peaceful and contented. ‘It’s been,’ he said drowsily, ‘a humdinger of a day.’

It was four in the morning when we reached the house and pulled into the driveway. He woke up slowly and shivered, his eyes fuzzy with fatigue.

‘You’re sleeping in my bed,’ I said,‘ and I’m taking the sofa.’ He opened his mouth. ‘Don’t argue,’ I added.

‘All right.’

I locked the car and we walked to the front door, and that’s where things went wrong.

The front door was not properly shut. Owen was too sleepy to realise at once, but my heart dropped to pavement level the instant I saw it.

Burglars, I thought dumbly. Today of all days.

I pushed the door open. Everything was quiet. There was little furniture in the hall and nothing looked disturbed. Upstairs, though, it would be like a blizzard...

‘What is it?’ said Owen, realising that something was wrong.

‘The workshop door,’ I said, pointing.

‘Oh no!’

That too was ajar, and there was no question of the intruder having used a key. The whole lock area was split, the raw wood showing in jagged layers up and down the jamb.

We walked along the carpeted passage, pushed the door wider, and took one step through on to concrete.

One step, and stopped dead.

The workshop was an area of complete devastation.

All the lights were on. All the cupboard doors and drawers were open, and everything which should have been in them was out and scattered and smashed. The work benches were overturned and the racks of tools were torn from their moorings and great chunks of plaster had been gouged out of the walls.

All my designs and drawings had been ripped to pieces. All the prototype toys seemed to have been stamped on.

Tins of oil and grease had been opened, and the contents emptied on to the mess, and the paint I’d used on the census notices was splashed on everything the oil had missed.

The machines themselves...

I swallowed. I was never going to make anything else on those machines. Not ever again.

Not burglars, I thought aridly.

Spite.

I felt too stunned to speak and I imagine it was the same with Owen because for an appreciable time we both just stood there, immobile and silent. The mess before us screamed out its message of viciousness and evil, and the intensity of the hate which had committed such havoc made me feel literally sick.

On feet which seemed disconnected from my legs I took a couple of steps forward.

There was a flicker of movement on the edge of my vision away behind the half-open door. I spun on my toe with every primeval instinct raising hairs in instant alarm, and what I saw allowed no reassurance whatsoever.

Ganser Mays stood there, waiting like a hawk. The long nose seemed a sharp beak, and his eyes behind the metal-rimmed spectacles glittered with mania. He was positioning his arms for a scything downward swing, which was the movement I’d seen, and in his hands he held a heavy long-handled axe.

I leapt sideways a thousandth of a second before the killing edge swept through the place where I’d been standing.

‘Get help,’ I shouted breathlessly to Owen. ‘Get out and get help.’

I had a blurred impression of his strained face, mouth open, eyes huge, dried blood still dark on his cheek. For an instant he didn’t move and I thought he wouldn’t go, but when I next caught a glimpse of the doorway, it was empty.

Whether or not he’d been actively lying in wait for me, there was no doubt that now that I was there Ganser Mays was trying to do to me what he’d already done to my possessions. I learned a good deal from him in the next few minutes. I learned about mental terror. Learned about extreme physical fear. Learned that it was no fun at all facing unarmed and untrained a man with the will and the weapon for murder.

What was more, it was my own axe.

We played an obscene sort of hide and seek round the wrecked machines. It only needed one of the ferocious chops to connect, and I would be without arm or leg if not without life. He slashed whenever he could get near enough, and I hadn’t enough faith in my speed or strength to try to tackle him within slicing range. I dodged always and precariously just out of total disaster, circling the ruined lathe... the milling machine... the hacksaw... back to the lathe... putting the precious bulks of metal between me and death.

Up and down the room, again and again.

There was never a rigid line between sense and insanity and maybe by some definitions Ganser Mays was sane. Certainly in all that obsessed destructive fury he was aware enough that I might escape through the door. From the moment I’d first stepped past him into the workshop, he gave me no chance to reach safety that way.

There were tools scattered on the floor from the torn-down racks, but they were mostly small and in any case not round the machines but on the opposite side of the workshop. I could leave the shelter of the row of machines and cross open space to arm myself... but nothing compared in weight or usefulness with that axe, and chisels and saws and drill bits weren’t worth the danger of exposure.

If Owen came back with help, maybe I could last out...

Shortage of breath... I was averagely fit, but no athlete... couldn’t pull in enough oxygen for failing muscles... felt fatal weaknesses slowing my movements... knew I couldn’t afford to slip on the oil or stumble over the bolts mooring the base plates to the floor or leave my hands holding on to anything for more than a second for fear of severed fingers.

He seemed tireless, both in body and intent. I kept my attention more on the axe than his face, but the fractional views I caught of his fixed, fanatical and curiously rigid expression gave no room for hope that he would stop before he had achieved his object. Trying to reason with him would have been like arguing with an avalanche. I didn’t even try.

Breath sawed through my throat. Owen... why didn’t he bloody well hurry... if he didn’t hurry he might as well come back tomorrow for all the good it would do me...

The axe crashed down so close to my shoulder that I shuddered from imagination and began to despair. He was going to kill me. I was going to feel the bite of that heavy steel... to know the agony and see the blood spurt... to be chopped and smashed like everything else.

I was up at one end, where the electric motor which worked all the machines was located. He was four feet away, swinging, looking merciless and savage. I was shaking, panting and still trying frantically to escape, and it was more to distract him for a precious second than from any devious plan that I took the time to kick the main switch from off to on.

The engine hummed and activated the main belt, which turned the big wheel near the ceiling and rotated the long shaft down the workshop. All the belts to the machines began slapping as usual, except that this time half of them had been cut right through and the free ends flapped in the air like streamers.

It took his eye off me for only a blink. I circled the electric motor which was much smaller than the machines and not good cover, and he brought his head back towards me with a snap.