Dick Francis's Front Runner

16

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.’

Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked.

‘Plus, of course, the ECG electrodes that are stuck on your torso.’

Of course.

Everything was removed other than the single IV line in my right arm. According to the nurses, that was so I could receive any fluids and medication without the need for separate injections. I was all in favour of that.

‘Now it’s time to get you up and walking,’ said one of them.

They helped me first sit on the edge of the bed and then to stand up, one of them hovering on each side of me in case I keeled over. I didn’t, and I was soon walking around without any real problems other than the continuous throbbing that went all the way down my front where both the doctor and the knifeman had made their various incisions.

I was moved from the Critical Care Unit to a regular surgical ward on the ninth floor, where I was allocated a single room close to the nurses’ station.

‘For better security,’ I was told.

Security.

Thankfully, murder on a London street has not yet become so commonplace as to be unworthy of reporting. Therefore, with nothing in the media, I had to assume that my two assailants must be aware by now that they had failed to deliver a fatal blow.

They knew they had failed and, furthermore, they must believe I had seen their faces. So would they try again to complete the job and dispose of the witness?

I wasn’t at all sure that being in a single room was the most secure arrangement, especially as the door had no lock. I asked the nurses to leave the door open so I could see them at their desk and, more importantly, they could see me.

I also asked them to ensure that any visitors were announced and then accompanied unless I agreed otherwise, although, in fact, the nurses were all so busy that anyone could wander into my room unseen if they were careful to wait for the desk to be clear, as it was for at least half the time.

Indeed, my first visitor waltzed into my room, unannounced and unaccompanied, about an hour after I’d moved in.

‘It’s normally you visiting me in hospital,’ she said. ‘Not the other way round.’

‘Hello, my darling big sister,’ I said, smiling at her.

‘I told you to move away from Harlesden. It’s dangerous up there. Too many robberies. Can’t you live somewhere safer, like Richmond?’

‘Flats in Richmond cost more than twice those in Harlesden,’ I said.

‘There can be no price placed on one’s safety,’ she said with gravitas.

How true.

I decided against telling her that I wasn’t actually robbed of my wallet and watch, and that my attackers would have likely followed me all the way to Timbuktu if I’d lived there.

‘Nice room,’ Faye said, standing by the window and looking out at the spectacular view over London. She turned. ‘So what happened exactly? The policeman who called just said you’d been mugged.’

‘I was attacked by two men,’ I said in a deadpan voice, trying to play down the drama. ‘One of them held me while the other one stabbed.’

‘How many times?’ she asked.

I would have preferred not to tell her any of the grisly details as it would only make her worry, but I knew she wouldn’t stop asking until she got the answers she was after, and they would be better coming from me than from the doctors or the police.

‘Thirteen.’

‘Thirteen! Good God, Jeff, that’s unbelievable.’

‘You should see my chest and tummy. There are more stitches than in a fisherman’s jersey.’ I laughed.

‘It’s no laughing matter,’ Faye said sternly.

‘Yes, it is,’ I said. ‘Be happy that I’m still here to laugh at all.’

She didn’t look very happy.

‘Have the police caught the men?’

‘Not that I’m aware of,’ I said. ‘I hope they’re still looking for them.’

I wondered just how hard they were looking. After all, it was only an attempted murder, not the real thing. But my attackers had done their best to send me on a journey that would end six feet under, and they weren’t to know that Doctor Shwan would be on hand to open my chest in the nick of time to prevent it.

Surely they were equally culpable whether I had lived or died.

According to the law, as Quentin had said, the maximum term of imprisonment for attempted murder was life, the same as for succeeding, but, in reality, both the effort expended to apprehend and the sentences passed down on the guilty were usually much less.

‘How long are you going to be in here?’ Faye asked.

‘I should be out at the weekend. As long as I don’t develop an infection.’

‘Come and stay with us.’

‘Thank you, Faye, dear, but I’ll be fine at my own place.’

She tilted her head sideways and looked at me. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘If this affair has taught me anything, it’s that life is more precious than I’d realized. When I thought I was dying, I was in total despair, and now that I’ve survived, I have every intention of living my life to the full. The moment has arrived to move on from Lydia.’

‘Hallelujah!’ she said, lifting her hands and eyes to the heavens. ‘And about time too.’

‘Has it been that bad?’ I asked with a smile.

‘Worse,’ she said. ‘Since she left, you’ve been about as cheerful as a fatted calf at an abattoir.’

‘Oh, thanks.’

‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘Do you realize that you sigh all the time?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you do. It’s like being around a penitent monk, but less fun.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Henceforth I will be happy and jolly. I promise.’

‘There’s no need to go that far. Just be your normal self.’

We laughed out loud, and we hadn’t done that together for a long time.

Faye departed just as DI Galvin arrived, this time without his sergeant sidekick.

‘Any news?’ I asked. ‘Any arrests?’

‘Sadly, no,’ replied the inspector. ‘But we have done a check on those telephone calls and, as I suspected, they were all made from public telephones. The first was made from Waterloo Station at 8.27 p.m. on the evening before you were attacked. The second was from a call box on the corner of Parliament Square at 11.32 p.m. the same evening. The other two, on the Sunday morning, were made from the only remaining phone box in High Street Harlesden.’

‘But that’s only round the corner from my flat.’

‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘And I suspect you are right in thinking they were checking up to see if you were in. Three more calls were made to your line from that number, one at 11.50 a.m., another at twelve noon and the third some ten minutes after that.’

‘I’d gone out by then.’

‘As they would have known.’

‘Is there any CCTV coverage of those public phones?’

‘We’re looking into that but I wouldn’t hold your breath. Waterloo Station or Parliament Square are our best bet — at least we can assume that the cameras will work there. Even if there are any cameras in High Street Harlesden, they will probably have been vandalized.’

Maybe Faye had a point.

‘So what else?’ I asked.

‘Have you remembered anything new about the assailants?’ he asked.

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Was the one that stabbed you the bigger or the smaller of the two?’

‘The smaller.’

I stared at him. ‘How did I know that?’

‘The subconscious mind often knows lots of things that the conscious mind doesn’t register until it receives a trigger. How much smaller was he?’

‘At least a couple of inches but he was stocky and made up for his lack of height with width. The other guy was taller but leaner.’

‘Taller than you?’

‘About the same. The knifeman was shorter but he was also crouching. I remember looking down at his face.’

‘Glasses? Beard? Moustache?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘He did have some stubble, as if he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. He was also wearing a dark woollen hat, like a beanie, that covered his head and the top half of his ears.’

‘Wide face, or narrow?’

‘Neither one,’ I said. ‘Just normal.’

I was stunned that I could now remember so much after all those hours of nothing.

‘How about the other one?’

I thought hard. ‘I didn’t get to see his face properly.’

‘Did he also have a hat?’

I tried to picture in my mind the image of him tripping over the boxes in my hallway as I threw him off me.

‘I don’t know, but he was wearing trainers, you know, those ones with high ankles and lots of laces.’

‘Baseball boots?’

‘Yes. Exactly. With white laces.’

‘What colour were the boots?’

‘There was not enough light. I think they were a fairly dark colour, maybe red, with white soles. I remember seeing them as he was lying over the boxes.’

‘How about coats?’ he asked.

I tried to recall. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It all happened so fast.’

‘And the knife? Can you describe that? We didn’t find it at the scene.’

‘It was like a carving knife with a long thin blade. I’ll not forget that in a hurry. It was very frightening.’

‘Overhand or underhand?’

‘Eh?’

‘When he was holding the knife, did it point up or down?’

‘Up to start with, but then he shifted it to stab at my chest above my coat.’

‘Can you remember anything else?’

I tried going over everything once again in my head. ‘No. Sorry.’

‘Here,’ he said, pulling an iPad from his bag. ‘There are literally thousands of mugshots stored on this. I’ll leave it with you. Go through them and see if any of them are your friend with the knife. I’ll come back and collect it on Friday but call me sooner if you find him.’ He gave me a business card with his number on it. ‘Otherwise we’ll try and get a videofit sorted.’

He stood up to go.

‘Can I do anything for you?’

‘How are things at my flat?’ I said. ‘It is OK?’

‘As far as I’m aware. We have forensics in there today doing a scene of crime search for dabs and DNA, although I’m not expecting much. These guys obviously came prepared but, you never know, perhaps the one you threw over the boxes spat out some saliva, or maybe a spot of phlegm was coughed up by one of them while they were waiting for you to get home.’

Nice, but at least the police were trying. Perhaps I had been a bit unfair in thinking they wouldn’t bother.

‘What about my flat key?’ I said. ‘I left it in the lock.’

‘We have that. The forensic boys took it this morning to get in and they’ll lock up again afterwards. I’ll bring it with me on Friday.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes. I don’t feel particularly safe in here. I’ve asked the nurses to try and vet my visitors but you were able to walk straight in unannounced. How about if my friend with the knife comes back to finish off what he started? If those two thugs were prepared to wait all afternoon in my flat for me to get home before trying to kill me, don’t you think it’s quite likely they might just wander in to this hospital to have another go? Especially at night when it’s quiet. I’d be happier with a twenty-four-hour police guard.’

I’d be even happier still with a whole posse of guards, and a stab-proof vest.

‘I’ll have a word with hospital security.’

‘Hospital security is more concerned about people parking their cars in the ambulance bays than they are about assassins on the loose with carving knives.’

‘It’s the best I can do. I’m afraid I don’t have the manpower.’

Police budgets are set more to solve crimes than to prevent them. They would happily mobilize a hugely expensive team of detectives if I was murdered in my hospital bed, but they couldn’t afford a single man to thwart it happening in the first place. It was madness.

Third time lucky? Not if I could help it, I thought.

‘Have you spoken yet to DS Jagger at Thames Valley?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ DI Galvin said. ‘As a matter of fact, I have.’

There was something about his tone of voice that set alarm bells ringing in my head.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘What is what?’

‘You have something to tell me.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘No.’

‘I think you have. What is it?’

He lowered his voice as if that made it better. ‘Their forensics have thrown up something that may indicate that things are not as straightforward as first thought.’

‘What something?’ I said.

‘You will have to talk to DS Jagger. It’s his case — at least, it is at present.’

‘At present?’ I echoed. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘It might be allocated to someone more senior, probably a DCI.’

Detective chief inspectors didn’t usually get called in for routine suicide cases, not even those involving high-profile personalities.

‘What did the forensics discover?’ I asked him again.

‘Ask DS Jagger.’

‘I’m asking you,’ I said. ‘I think I have a right to know. After all, he nearly took me with him.’

The detective inspector hesitated. There was no way I was going to let him go away now without telling me.

‘Tell me,’ I insisted. ‘After all, you and I are in the same business. I am a member of horseracing’s police force. We’re both detectives.’

‘All I know is that the Thames Valley forensic team discovered evidence of bodily fluids in the unburned section of the boot of the Mercedes, including traces of blood from Mr Swinton.’

‘In the boot?’

‘Yes.’

One couldn’t drive a car from the boot.

Someone else had to have been there, and suicide is a solitary affair.

So if it wasn’t suicide, was it murder?