Felix Francis - Triple Crown

The walkway must go somewhere, I thought, as I continued to run down it. There surely had to be more than one way out of this roof.

I hurried on further, ever conscious that, as long as I stayed on the walkway, I was extremely vulnerable.

But dare I leave it? Was the skin of the roof below strong enough to take a man’s weight? It was a long way down to the viewing seats far below if I got it wrong.

My instinct was to stay as far away from the two special agents as I could. Distance between gun and target was my friend. All handguns have short barrels and are pretty inaccurate at anything over twenty-five yards, but these two were marksmen, Steffi had said so on my first day at the FACSA offices.

As if to confirm the fact, a bullet crashed into the ladder over my head, sending splinters into my hair. Too close. Much too close.

At last I came to the end of the walkway and that was all it was, a dead end. No door. Nothing. No way out. The walkway was only there to service the pipework and electrical fittings in the roof, not as an access to anywhere else.

I now had no choice other than to leave it but, before climbing over the handrail, I spent a second or two taking a mental image of the pattern of steel girders that held up the roof. Then I used the ladder to smash the last remaining light bulb, plunging the whole end of the roof space into near darkness.

I climbed away from the walkway using the girders like a climbing frame.

In a modern structure the steel beams would have had a circular cross section and be welded together like those visible in new airport terminals, but this roof had been constructed in the 1960s and was all made from H-beams held together with nuts and bolts, like a gigantic Meccano set.

But that was an advantage as it provided me with plenty of hand and foot holds as I quickly moved away from the walkway towards the back of the grandstand until I was up against the far edge of the roof.

The problem with the lack of light was that, even though Bob and Steffi were unable to see me, I couldn’t see them either.

So what was my plan?

Staying alive was uppermost, but I couldn’t stay here forever, waiting for them to find and shoot me. I had to get out.

I could hear the two of them talking but could snatch only the odd word.

I thought I heard something about a flashlight. That was not good news.

However, even with the broken bulbs, it was not totally black.

The lights were still on near the exit door, where I had run under them before finding the ladder. As far as I could tell, that was the only way out and my foes had clearly grasped that fact as well. In the pools of light beneath the remaining bulbs, I could see Steffi striding back along the walkway towards the exit door to cut off any escape bid.

Being as silent as possible, I started again climbing through the steelwork, also making my way back towards the door but keeping in the deep shadow close to the far edge, well away from the walkway. It was a dangerous strategy but I could see no alternative.

Where was Bob?

I looked back over my shoulder and strained my eyes looking for him in the gloom. I could just make out his shape on the walkway and he seemed to be standing on the stepladder that I had used to break the light bulbs.

A light came on above him. He had obviously moved an unbroken bulb from further along. I watched as he went back along the walkway, set up the stepladder and reached above his head to unscrew another, which went out. It came on again down the line.

At this rate, he would soon have enough light to see me, especially if he followed me into the girder maze. One advantage, however, was that with every bulb he moved, it got progressively dimmer near the door.

It began to rain. I could hear it beating on the upper skin of the roof.

It was quite clear that Bob Wade and Steffi Dean had no intention of giving up. They were determined to get me. Maybe I would have been too if I’d been in their shoes. Contrary to what I had told them, no one else knew. Silence me and they might very well get away completely undetected.

It was such a prospect that made me all the more resolute to get out of here alive. Of course I didn’t want them to kill me but I was absolutely damned if I would allow them to get away with it and to carry on undermining the work of their anti-corruption agency.

But how could I?

I edged closer to the door, making sure that I kept some of the larger girders between Steffi and me. My eyes were becoming accustomed to the dimness and there was enough light for me to plot a route in my head for the quickest way to the exit.

‘I still can’t see him,’ Bob called out from the far end. ‘He must be down here somewhere.’

His voice was partly drowned out by the noise of the rain and Steffi moved three or four steps down towards him before replying.

‘Maybe he’s hiding under the walkway,’ she shouted back.

I had thought of that and now I was glad I’d rejected it.

‘I wish we had a damn flashlight,’ Bob said, almost to himself.

‘I can’t hear you,’ Steffi shouted.

She moved forward another five paces.

I had to move. Not only was it likely to be my only chance to get to the door but, if she took another stride or two, she would be able to see me clearly.

I eased myself around the girder I was clinging to, trying to keep the metal between us.

The rain got harder, and louder.

Steffi walked forward another few paces.

‘Do you need any help?’ she shouted.

There was no audible reply.

She went further down the walkway.

‘Do you need any help?’ she shouted again.

She was now some thirty or forty yards from the door. Indeed, I was already behind her. It had to be now or never.

Once I started there would be no going back. My rapid movement would give me away, even in this light.

I swallowed hard and tried to generate some moisture into my mouth. This was it, and I was scared, bloody terrified in fact, but I was not petrified by fear. Indeed, it was the fear that drove me on.

I almost ran across the roof grid, giving a good impression of a monkey as I swung from girder to girder in a straight line for the exit.

I was almost back at the walkway before Steffi realised. Only five yards to go.

I leaped over the handrail and fairly sprinted for the door, yanking it open.

Something punched me hard in the right arm, almost knocking me off my feet. I’d been shot.

But I could still run — out through the door, along the corridor and back towards the lift.

I could hear Steffi shouting behind me.

My arm hurt like hell and I was dripping blood from my fingers, but I found I was laughing. I was out of that damn roof and I was still alive.

I pushed the lift button but the doors didn’t open. The bloody thing was down the bottom and I didn’t have the time to wait for it.

I’d be dead before it arrived.

I dived through a door marked ‘Emergency Exit Only’.

This was an emergency.

I bounded down the stairs, but they didn’t go all the way to ground level, rather they exited through double doors into one of the restaurants in the closed-off section of the grandstand. It was deserted.

The restaurant exit was at the far end of the room and I could already hear footsteps on the stairs behind me. So I went through the door into the kitchen only to be confronted with a mass of stainless steel — half a dozen rows of chef workstations with long preparation worktops interspaced with gas hobs and ovens below and extraction hoods and open storage shelves above. Even the ceiling was lined with stainless steel.

But there were no chefs. No kitchen staff at all. And no obvious route to an exit.