Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Front Runner

‘And why would I do that?’ she asked.

I suddenly felt rather foolish. ‘I don’t know. I just wonder what you’re doing here.’

‘I’m here because I like you,’ she said, clearly taken aback. ‘You made me laugh at the races and I wanted to see you again. Is there something wrong in that?’

‘No. Of course not. It’s just...’ I tailed off, not knowing what to say next.

‘Don’t you like me ?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do. Very much. But...’

‘But what?’ she demanded.

‘You must have a string of rich boyfriends.’

I was saying all the wrong things.

‘And what do you mean by that?’

‘I’ve seen pictures of you with all those celebrities, famous actors and such. At fancy parties. You and I don’t fit into the same social strata.’

‘But that’s not real life,’ she said slowly. ‘That’s just fantasy.’

‘Is this real life?’ I asked.

‘It is for me,’ she said, with tears welling up in her eyes. ‘Do you think I’d spend several days looking for you just to swan off and never see you again?’ She was hurt. ‘But I will, if that’s what you want.’

‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘That’s not what I want at all.’ I smiled. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Please stop saying you’re sorry,’ she said. ‘Superheroes never have to apologize for anything.’ She leaned forward and kissed me lightly on my mouth. ‘Now, get out of that dreadful gown and put your new pyjamas on.’

Henri stayed until well after the official end of visiting time at nine o’clock.

She had also picked up some smoked-salmon sandwiches from Fortnum & Mason’s food hall and we ate those, washed down with hospital tap water from the jug on my bedside locker.

‘I should have brought some chilled white wine with me,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I’ll remember that next time.’

‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘how did you really find me?’

‘I called Gay Smith and asked her for help. She found your home address on the reply to her husband’s invitation.’

I nodded. ‘I gave it to him so he could send the badge for the Sandown box to my flat. I didn’t want it to get lost in the mailroom at BHA headquarters.’

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I went to your place on Monday evening but there was no reply, so I put a note through the door asking you to call me.’

‘I didn’t get it.’

‘I realize that now. But I wasn’t giving up. I tried ringing you at the BHA and someone told me you weren’t going to be in this week. I asked them if you were away on holiday. They said no, you were off sick. So I went back to your place yesterday morning and found the place crawling with men in white coveralls, wearing gloves and masks.’ She paused. ‘I was pretty upset. I thought you must have died of Ebola or something. One of the men eventually took pity on me and told me that you weren’t dead, you were in hospital, but he refused to say why or which one, so I spent most of yesterday afternoon and all of this morning playing the role of the distraught fiancée calling hospitals and asking after my lost lover who must either be dead or have amnesia.’ She laughed. ‘Do you have any idea how many damn London hospitals there are in the Yellow Pages? You could at least have been in one beginning with A . By the time I got down to U , I’d almost given up hope.’

I stared at her in disbelief.

‘You should come and work for me.’

My friend with the carving knife, and his taller chum with the red baseball boots, came a-calling sometime between one and two o’clock on Friday morning, well outside visiting hours.

Fortunately, I was awake.

In fact, I was more than awake, I was up and wandering around in my brand-new silk dressing gown and slippers.

When he’d said it, I hadn’t particularly agreed with Doctor Shwan that the itching in my chest was a good thing, yet it had been that itching, together with my desperate urge to scratch, that had woken me and driven me from my bed at the same time my unwanted visitors made their appearance.

The itching saved my life.

The duty night nurse had suggested that a cup of hot chocolate might help me sleep. Hence I was standing in the small ward kitchen with her, heating milk in a saucepan, when the buzzer sounded at the main door.

‘I wonder who that is?’ said the nurse. ‘The doors are locked at night, but all the staff have key cards. Can you manage a moment?’

‘Sure,’ I said. She went to open the main door while I was left to mind the milk.

Unexpected visitors in the dead of night? Alarm bells started ringing in my head. I flicked off the light and peered around the doorframe of the kitchen.

I recognized the two men as soon as I saw them. It was something about their heights and body shapes rather than their facial features, which, this time, were covered by dark balaclava masks.

One of them was holding the nurse from behind, his arm across her neck, while the other stood in front of her holding the long thin carving knife in his right hand.

Bugger, I thought. I should have asked for that stab-proof vest.

‘Where’s Hinkley?’ I heard the knifeman ask the terrified nurse.

She nodded towards my room.

The man with the knife disappeared but soon returned.

‘Where is he?’ he hissed at the poor woman, raising the knife towards her face.

She made an involuntary glance right at me.

I ducked back into the kitchen before the men could turn, and waited in the dark.

I saw the knife first, then the hand holding it as the man edged towards the doorway. But I didn’t wait for him to see me.

I picked up the saucepan from the hotplate, stepped forward and threw the boiling milk straight into his face, following it up with a swipe of the pan that made a satisfying clunk as it connected with his nose.

The man screamed, dropped the knife and tore away the balaclava from his burning face, but I wasn’t finished with him yet. I hit him again with the heavy base of the saucepan as hard as I could on the side of his head and he went down to the floor.

The knife? I thought, looking around me desperately. Where’s the bloody knife?

Meanwhile, the other man had tossed the nurse to one side and was now coming across to help his friend. Did he have a knife too?

I didn’t wait to check. Instead, I went for him, yelling loudly and wielding the saucepan high above my head. At first he wavered, then he turned on his red baseball boots and ran fast for the exit.

There was a sharp pain in my tummy. I’d done myself some mischief. I was sure of that. I reached down my front with my left hand and could feel wetness on my pyjama jacket.

Blood.

I’d burst some stitches, but I wasn’t ready to give up.

I turned back to the knifeman and was greatly dismayed to see that he was neither unconscious nor dead, as I had hoped. Indeed, he was beginning to get to his knees and he had recovered his knife from the floor.

Shit.

I was in no state to fight him off again. The way I was suddenly feeling, I’d have had some difficulty fighting off a fly.

He stood up and looked at me. I looked back, deep into his unfeeling dark eyes.

Underhand, I thought. He was holding the knife underhand, with the point facing up. Would it make any difference? I was not wearing a tweed jacket and thick overcoat this time to protect me, just a pair of striped pyjamas and a thin silk dressing gown.

The Grim Reaper was waiting in the wings, about to make his appearance.

The cavalry arrived suddenly in the shape of four scrubs-wearing medical staff running into the ward pushing a trolley. The knifeman took one look at these unexpected reinforcements and obviously decided that flight was the wisest course of action. He grabbed his discarded balaclava, pushed past the new arrivals and scarpered in the direction of the stairwell.