Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Front Runner

Thankfully, my throat was nearly back to normal and the oxygen mask over my face had been replaced by two little tubes that jutted up into my nostrils. Hence two-way communication was much improved.

‘Mr Hinkley,’ one of the policemen said, ‘I’m Detective Inspector Galvin of the Metropolitan Police Homicide and Serious Crime Command, and this is my sergeant, DS Gibb.’

They sat down on two chairs, one either side of the bed.

‘You’ve been causing quite a stir,’ said the detective inspector. ‘The Commissioner has been getting calls from the chairman of the horseracing authority demanding to know who tried to kill his senior investigator.’

Blimey, I thought. I hadn’t had that sort of response the previous week. Probably because I’d played it down. And also because of the death of Dave Swinton.

‘I’m glad somebody cares,’ I said.

‘Tell me what happened on Sunday evening,’ said the detective.

I went through the whole thing as best I could remember, from the moment I turned the key in the lock of my front door, right up to the time of the arrival of the ambulance, and the sergeant wrote it all down in his notebook.

‘According to the constable who attended the scene, you told him you didn’t know your attackers,’ said the inspector. ‘Is that correct?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Quite correct.’

‘But you were unable to give him a description of the men.’

‘I became too ill.’

‘Can you give me one now?’

I had thought of little else for the preceding twenty-four hours. Over and over again, I had gone through the whole thing in my head trying to conjure up the image of the two faces, but with very limited success.

‘I was concentrating on the knife,’ I said. ‘I know that the men were white and I must have seen their faces well enough to realize I didn’t recognize them, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.’

‘Did they say anything?’

‘Not that I remember. It all happened so quickly. One of them grabbed me and the other started stabbing as soon as I walked through the door.’

‘So they were waiting for you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I am sure they were. I was careless. I checked the bushes in the front garden and never imagined that anyone would be inside.’

The sergeant looked up at me from his notebook. ‘Were you expecting to be attacked?’ he asked.

‘Not exactly expecting it, no. I’m just naturally vigilant. And it isn’t the first time. Someone tried to kill me only a week ago.’

Both the policemen looked at me in surprise.

‘Was it the man with the knife?’ the inspector asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not unless he’s risen from the dead.’

I told them all about being shut in the sauna, my escape, and the subsequent discovery of Dave Swinton’s body in the burning car. They’d heard about that.

‘You can speak to Detective Sergeant Jagger from Thames Valley Police if you need to. He’s the investigating officer.’

DS Gibb wrote it down.

‘How did the men get into my flat?’ I asked.

‘They forced open a window in your kitchen,’ said the sergeant. ‘It’s now been screwed shut.’

They must have come down the lane that ran along the back of the garden.

‘Was anything stolen?’ I asked.

‘You’ll have to answer that yourself, Mr Hinkley, when you go home. There certainly wasn’t the usual mess we find when villains have been searching for valuables. No drawers turned out or anything.’

That seemed to confirm that it had definitely been me they were after, not my meagre worldly goods.

I leaned back on the pillow and closed my eyes. I was getting tired.

‘We will leave you now to rest,’ said the inspector, standing up, ‘but we’ll be back with some mugshots for you to look at when you’re a little better. Is there anything you need?’

‘You could contact my sister for me,’ I said. ‘She’ll be wondering why I didn’t call when I got home on Sunday, as I usually do.’

I gave them Faye’s phone number.

‘No problem,’ said the inspector. ‘I’ll call her as soon as I’m outside.’

‘Please don’t worry her,’ I said. ‘Ask her to come in tomorrow.’

They started to leave.

‘Hold on a moment,’ I said, opening my eyes again. ‘There were some telephone calls.’

‘What calls?’

‘On Saturday night and Sunday morning, I received four calls on my landline but no one spoke. I am sure there was someone on the line because I could hear noises in the background, but they didn’t say anything, they just listened for a few seconds and then hung up. I now wonder if the calls were made simply to find out if I was there.’

‘Are you ex-directory?’ the inspector asked.

‘I don’t really know,’ I said. ‘I hardly ever use the landline. It was my former girlfriend who liked it. I just transferred the number to my new flat when we sold the old one. I need the broadband that comes with it.’

‘We’ll check your phone records,’ DI Galvin said.

‘I dialled 1471 each time to get the numbers. I tried to call back but none of them would receive incoming calls.’

‘Phone boxes, I shouldn’t wonder,’ said the inspector. ‘Those don’t accept incoming calls any more.’

‘I wrote down the numbers,’ I said. ‘They’re on the back of the envelope that my gas bill came in. I left it on the counter in my kitchen.’

‘We’ll look into it,’ the inspector assured me.

Fine, I thought. Let someone else do the work. I was too tired.

Doctor Shwan came back to see me the following morning. The forty-eight hours was up and I hadn’t developed a fever. No infection.

‘What day is it?’ I asked him.

‘Wednesday.’

‘Where, exactly, am I?’

‘Critical Care Unit, University College Hospital, Euston Road.’

‘When can I go home?’

‘Soon.’ He smiled. ‘Good.’

‘What’s good?’ I asked.

‘You,’ he said. ‘You didn’t ask me questions like that on Monday because you were only interested in your body. Now you are well enough to think outside that. I think it’s time to remove all the monitors and tubes and send you to a regular ward.’

‘I want to go home,’ I said.

‘Not just yet,’ replied the doctor. ‘We still need to keep an eye on you for a while longer. Your body has suffered a considerable trauma and your breastbone needs to heal some more before you go running around, undoing all my handiwork.’

‘My breastbone?’

‘I had to saw it in half to get to your heart. I joined it back together with stainless-steel wire but the bone needs time to begin to bind naturally before you can put any stress on it.’

No wonder it hurt so much.

‘So when can I go home?’ I asked.

‘The earliest would be at the weekend.’

‘Friday?’ I said.

He laughed. ‘Saturday, maybe, but only if you continue to make good progress. And you must promise not to do anything strenuous for at least another three or four weeks. And no lifting anything heavier than a cup of tea. Your abdominal wall needs to heal as well.’

The doctor went away still chuckling to himself and, presently, a couple of nurses arrived to disconnect the mass of tubes and wires that sprouted out of various points on my body.

‘What are they all for?’ I asked.

‘Those in your neck include a monitor for measuring the blood pressure actually in your heart and lungs, a tube for taking antibiotics direct to the heart, and some pacemaker wires just in case your heart needed an electrical stimulus to make it pump. Then there are three separate tubes in your chest to drain away any excess fluid, a line in each elbow for intravenous infusions, a nasogastric tube that goes through your nose and down your throat to feed you, and a catheter in your bladder to assist urination.’