Dick Francis's Front Runner

14

Twice more my home phone rang and no one spoke from the other end. And twice more I dialled 1471 to get the number. Each time it was different. My gas-bill envelope now had all three numbers written on it and each of them, when called back, produced the no incoming calls message.

The second call was made as I was getting into bed on Saturday evening and the third woke me at seven o’clock on Sunday morning. Each time I was convinced someone was there listening because the line didn’t sound completely dead and, at one point, I was sure I could hear some traffic in the background.

The calls made me feel a little uneasy, as if someone was stalking me.

And it wouldn’t be the first time. Over the years I had investigated a number of less than agreeable characters, some of whom had taken against me personally for exposing their own wrongdoing. I had been threatened, beaten up and, on one occasion, knocked down by a speeding car.

Most had been attempts to prevent me from carrying out an investigation, but a couple had been out of revenge for getting someone banned from racing.

I couldn’t think of anyone in particular that I had recently upset by getting them disqualified or excluded from the sport. There might be, however, somebody who’d ended up in prison as a result of their fraud, and was now released and bent on settling an old score.

I would have to just get on with my life as usual, and watch my back, as I always did, avoiding dark alleyways and dimly lit multi-storey car parks.

My phone rang once again just after ten o’clock as I was putting on my overcoat to leave for Richmond and my waiting duties at Faye and Quentin’s house.

‘Hello?’ I said.

No reply.

‘Who are you?’ I asked.

No reply.

‘What do you want?’

No reply.

The line went dead. I again dialled 1471 and, this time, the number was the same as for the previous call. Again, I tried to call it back but, as before, there was nothing but the disembodied message: this number does not receive incoming calls.

Annoying, I thought.

If I’d had more time, and it hadn’t been a Sunday, I might have contacted the phone company to have my number changed. But it was so irritating to have to go through the whole rigmarole of informing everyone of the change in number. Although, come to think of it, not many people knew my number in the first place.

I’d had the number transferred from the flat I’d shared with Lydia but, nowadays, the only person who called me on that line was Faye. I tended to use my mobile for all work calls, incoming and outgoing, and the only friends who had used the landline phone had departed from my life at the same time Lydia had.

Could it be Lydia? Pining after the sound of my voice?

I thought it most unlikely. The last I’d heard, she and her new man were blissfully happy together. But that had been from a friend of hers who had seemingly wanted to rub my nose in the fact that she had left me, so it might not have been very accurate.

I had a careful check outside as I locked my front door. There was no one hiding in the bushes waiting to attack me.

I was intending to take the train from Willesden Junction to Richmond but I set off in a direction directly away from the railway station, doubling back along two side streets and retracing my path twice, just to check that there was nobody intent on following me.

There wasn’t.

I smiled at myself. I must be getting paranoid.

The buffet lunch went off without a hitch and I even found I enjoyed it.

It was a revelation to me to discover that not all the Queen’s Counsel in Quentin Calderfield’s chambers were as stuffy, bigoted and boring as he. In fact, some of them turned out to be fun, and they were far more proficient at taking the mickey out of their host than I had ever dared to be.

‘Come on, Quentin, give us a song, show us your yang side,’ one of them said, laughing loudly. ‘All we ever see is your yin.’

From the look on his face, I’m not sure that Quentin had ever heard of yin and yang, which was somewhat of a surprise considering he always saw things distinctly as right or wrong, white or black, dark or light, just like Paul Maldini.

Needless to say, Quentin didn’t break into song.

‘Do you think it’s going all right?’ Faye asked when I went to the kitchen to fetch yet another bottle of red wine.

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I never realized lawyers could drink so much and still speak so eloquently.’

‘Practice,’ she said. ‘All those liquid lunches they have, then back into court to argue for a man’s freedom, or his life. Most lawyers’ livers were given a welcome rest when the old Wig and Pen Club closed down. Q used to have lunch there almost every day. He was distraught when it shut.’

It was totally dark by the time the last of their lunch guests departed.

Faye collapsed into a deep armchair in the sitting room. ‘I’m pooped,’ she said.

‘What a great lunch,’ said Quentin, slumping down onto the sofa and putting his feet up.

‘Thank God it’s not our turn every year,’ Faye said with her eyes closed.

‘Right then,’ I said, ‘I’ll leave you two and get back home.’

‘You’re very welcome to stay,’ said Faye. ‘We’re only going to veg out in front of the telly with some cheese and biscuits. That’s if you’d like the company.’

‘Thanks for the offer but I should be getting back. I have things I must do before tomorrow morning.’

Did I have things to do? Not really. It was just my silly subconscious telling me that, for some reason, I would be better off on my own — like a leper.

‘Suit yourself,’ Faye said, and she started to get up.

‘Don’t move,’ I said. ‘I can find my own way out. Thank you for a great lunch.’

‘Thank you for your help.’

I leaned down and gave her a kiss. ‘Look after yourself, Sis. Getting this tired is not good for you.’

‘Tell me about it.’

I waved at Quentin who was already half asleep. He briefly lifted a hand in response.

I let myself out into the cold night and walked to Richmond town centre across the green. Only when I started down Brewers Lane did I remember about not walking down dark alleyways on my own.

I spun round. No one was following me. Why should there be?

I turned up my coat collar and dug my hands deep into the pockets against the icy northerly wind and made it safely to the station to catch the train to Willesden Junction. Once there, I decided against taking the shortcut home along the gloomy trackside path, rather keeping to the longer but well-lit streets. I did it not out of any worry that it would be me in particular that might be targeted, but because there had been reports of several recent muggings on the path during the dark winter evenings and I had no real wish to be added to those statistics.

I checked the deep shadows around the bushes outside my front door for lurking rogues and villains and, of course, there were none, so I let myself in.

The rogues and villains were already inside.

There were two of them and they were not making a social call.

It was their haste that saved me.

They were waiting for me just inside the front door. One of the men grabbed my arm as soon as I stepped through and slammed me up against the wall, sending my mobile phone spinning out of my hand, while the other one tried to make mincemeat of my insides with a thin, sharp carving knife, stabbing repeatedly at my abdomen and chest.

If they had just waited until I’d removed my overcoat, I would have been far more vulnerable. As it was, the thick woollen folds and the twin rows of large bone buttons of my double-breasted, military-style greatcoat, together with my tweed jacket underneath, dampened or deflected the lethal thrusts to the extent that the blade seemed to barely make it through to my skin.

And I fought back with all the strength of the condemned and terrified.

I kicked out at the knifeman, catching him hard in the crotch. Then I flung his accomplice off my arm across the hallway, where he tripped over one of the still-packed cardboard boxes, falling halfway through my bedroom door.

I don’t think they had expected such resistance. They must have hoped to catch me by surprise and deliver a mortal wound before I had a chance to respond.

I may not be that big in either height or bulk, but I was once a serving officer in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces and I had enjoyed, more than most, the gruelling physical regime of my year at Sandhurst. I had tried to sustain a fairly high level of basic fitness ever since. Even during the recent dark months of my life I had still managed to maintain a daily routine of fifty press-ups and a hundred crunches before bed every night.

So I was strong and agile. And I was angry — bloody angry.

Who did they think they were, breaking into my home and attacking me?

However, in the face of superior numbers, I decided that retreat was probably the best policy, so I ran for my still-open front door. But my two would-be murderers were not giving up that easily and I could both hear and feel them right behind me as I ran out into the street.

I ran down the centre of the road, shouting for assistance.

‘Help! Help!’ I screamed at the top of my voice. ‘Murder! Murder! Somebody help me.’

Not one of my neighbours came to my aid. Not even a curtain twitched. Perhaps I would have had more response if I’d shouted, ‘Money! Money! Get some free money.’

A car turned into the road at the far end and came towards me, its lights shining brightly. I ran straight down the middle of the road towards it, waving my arms wildly above my head until it slowed and finally stopped with my legs up against the bonnet.

The assassins wavered in their pursuit and then took off in the other direction, disappearing into the shadows.

‘Call the police,’ I called breathlessly to the driver of the car.

‘Call them yourself,’ he replied bad-temperedly through his open window. ‘And get out of the bleeding way, will you? I could have knocked you down, easy. Running down the middle of the road in a dark coat is asking for trouble.’

‘Someone is trying to kill me,’ I said.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said in obvious disbelief, ‘and I’m the Queen of Sheba.’

I stepped back a pace then unbuttoned and opened the front of both my coat and jacket. The white shirt beneath was blood red and glistening wet in the light from the car’s headlights.

‘Fuck me,’ he said.

‘Now will you call the police?’