Dick Francis's Front Runner

3

For the second morning running, Dave Swinton woke me by calling before seven o’clock.

‘Jeff, I need to talk to you.’

‘That’s what you said yesterday,’ I replied.

‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry. But I do need to talk to you now.’

‘Talk to me on the phone,’ I said.

‘No. It has to be face to face.’

‘Then you’ll have to come to London to see me. You wasted my time yesterday and I have no intention of allowing it to happen again.’

‘I can’t come to London,’ he said. ‘I’ve got five rides later today and I need to take a spell in the sauna first. I celebrated the Hennessy with a steak last night and it’s made me fat.’

Whatever words that could have been chosen to describe him, fat was not one of them.

‘Look, Dave,’ I said, ‘there’s little point in me coming all the way to Lambourn again unless you’re going to tell me what’s going on. And I mean everything that’s going on. Yesterday was a total waste of time.’

‘You got to see me win the Hennessy — that wasn’t a waste of time.’ I could visualize him grinning at the other end of the line.

‘Yeah, OK. That was good,’ I agreed. ‘Well done.’

‘So will you come?’

I sighed.

‘Promise me you have something important to tell me.’

‘I have,’ he said. ‘For a start, I know who it is.’

‘Who who is?’ I asked.

‘You know, what we talked about yesterday. I know who it is.’

I assumed he meant that he knew who was blackmailing him.

‘Then tell me now, on the phone.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding, mate,’ he said. ‘I don’t trust these things any more.’

I suppose I couldn’t really blame him. Dave Swinton had been one of those whose phone had been previously hacked by a red-top Sunday newspaper.

‘OK,’ I said with resignation. ‘I’ll come, but you had better not be messing with me again.’

‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘I promise. But come right now. I’ve a ride in the first race at Towcester and that’s at twelve forty-five, so I have to be gone from here by half past ten, absolute latest.’

The trains on a Sunday were not as frequent or as fast as they had been the day before, and I had to change at Reading to catch a local stopping service that seemed to take for ever to get to Hungerford.

There was just one taxi waiting outside the station and I beat another would-be fare down the stairs from the platform to the road by only a little more than Integrated had won the Hennessy.

‘I’m going to Lambourn,’ I said to the loser, a white-haired man with a walking stick, whom I reckoned was in his early seventies. ‘Do you want to share?’

He shook his head. ‘No, thanks, I’m going the other way.’

I was half inclined to allow the older man to take the taxi, but I was in serious danger of missing Dave altogether if I was delayed any more. Rather ashamedly, I climbed in and slammed the door shut.

‘I’m the only taxi working in Hungerford today,’ said the driver as we drove away. ‘He’ll be there for quite a while — until I get back, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Was the driver trying to make me feel even worse? If so, he was succeeding.

The taxi pulled up in front of Dave’s front door, which was wide open.

I was tempted to ask the driver to wait for me but then I thought about the old man waiting at the station. So I paid the fare and the taxi hurried away, spinning its wheels slightly on the gravel driveway. Dave would have to give me a lift to a station on his way to Towcester races.

‘Anyone in?’ I called through the open door.

There was no answer.

I stepped through the door and shouted again. ‘Dave. It’s me, Jeff.’

No reply. Perhaps he hadn’t heard me. It was a big house that Dave had once shared with an attractive young wife and the hope and expectation of having children, but she had long ago left him, and now he lived alone in this mansion.

I went down the long hallway to the kitchen. That too was deserted.

‘Dave,’ I called again loudly.

Still no reply.

He must be in the sauna, I thought. That’s why he can’t hear me.

I opened the door from the back hall into the garage and I could instantly feel the heat, and the door to the sauna was open.

I took off my quilted anorak and hung it over the handlebars of a bicycle.

‘Dave,’ I called again. ‘It’s Jeff.’

I walked over and put my head through the sauna door. No one was in there.

I was just about to turn round when a heavy shove from behind sent me sprawling forward onto the hot wooden benches.

‘Hey!’ I shouted. ‘What are you doing?’

But no one answered. The only sound was of the wooden door of the sauna being slammed shut behind me.

I tried to push it open but it wouldn’t move.

‘Open the door,’ I said loudly, banging on it with my fist.

There was no response.

‘Dave, please open the door.’ I used a much more measured and reasonable tone, but there was still no answer.

I was hot. Damned hot.

I removed the cashmere sweater I had put on to ward off the late November chill, but it made no difference to the searing heat in my nose, mouth and chest.

The readout of the thermometer on the wall showed 110 centigrade, five degrees hotter than when I had been in this sauna the previous day, and that had been almost more than I could bear.

I pushed hard on the door but it wouldn’t move so much as a millimetre.

‘Open the bloody door,’ I shouted once more, but again there was no reply.

I could hear footsteps. Someone was moving about in the garage.

‘Dave,’ I shouted, ‘is that you? Let me out. It’s too damned hot in here.’

Again, no reply, but I knew someone was there. I could hear the garage door being opened.

‘Let me out,’ I shouted again, this time banging my fist on the wooden wall of the sauna.

A car engine was started close by, the noise of it suddenly filling the space around me. The smooth hum of the Mercedes, I thought, not the roar of the Jaguar. The volume of it diminished as the car was reversed out of the garage, and then dropped considerably more as I heard the garage door being closed again.

‘Let me out,’ I shouted once more while banging on the sauna door, but nobody did.

My anxiety level rose considerably when I heard the car being driven away — whoever had shut me into this furnace was leaving me here.

I patted my trouser pockets, hopeful of finding my phone, but I knew it was in my coat, and that was hanging on the bicycle outside in the garage.

By this time I was sweating profusely and my clothes were becoming wet and clinging to my body. I peeled off my shirt, trousers, shoes and socks so that I was wearing only my underpants but it did nothing to cool me down. If anything, the effort required made me feel even hotter.

I needed to get out of this heat, and soon.

I could already feel my heart pumping rapidly in my chest as it sent blood to my extremities to try to cool my core temperature. Sadly, far from cooling me, the heat from the sauna was making the blood under my skin even hotter and the circulation was taking that heat back to my heart, further warming my core and causing the heart to beat yet faster.

It was a positive feedback loop that would be broken only when my heart gave up the no-win struggle and ceased to pump at all, or my brain started to cook. Either way, I’d be dead.

I threw myself against the door, striking it with my shoulder but, again, it refused to budge. I tried kicking it but to no avail. All that happened was that I became hotter still.

And I was thirsty.

There was a small wooden pail about a quarter full of water on the floor, together with a wooden ladle. I went down on my knees and used the ladle to drink some of the hot liquid. It did little to diminish the dryness of my mouth.

I had been in the sauna for only five minutes or so, but time was already running out. If I didn’t get away from this heat soon, it would be too late.

OK, I thought, time for some strategy.

If I couldn’t get out, I had to disable the source of the heat.

An open-topped metal box stood in the corner of the sauna, about a foot square and thirty inches high. It was full to the brim with grey rocks, each about the size of a clenched fist, and they were far too hot to touch.

I searched around the side of the box, looking for an electric cable, but it was fitted tight to the corner, the power coming straight through the wall.

I tried to move the box but it was too hot to touch, so I kicked at it as hard as I could, which made no impression whatsoever.

And still it poured out heat.

Using my shirt and sweater as oven gloves, I took the rocks out, stacking them on one of the bleached wooden benches. There were twenty rocks and, underneath them, there was a flat metal tray. I tried to get my fingers around the edge of the tray to lift it up but it was much too hot to touch unprotected, and my fingers were too big and cumbersome when covered with material.

I grabbed my house key from my trouser pocket and used it to lever the tray up.

Below were four spiral heating elements much like those found on some electric stoves, except that these were positioned vertically as opposed to horizontally, and each of them was glowing red-hot.

Try as I might, I couldn’t touch them even with my clothes acting as gloves. The heat cut instantly through the material and one leg of my trousers even caught fire. I used my shoe to beat out the flames on the floor.

By now, I was desperate.

If anything, removing the rocks and the tray had made things worse as I was now feeling the radiant heat directly from the elements.

I was tempted to throw the bucket of water over the elements in a hope of causing a short-circuit but I might need that water to drink.

I picked up one of the rocks and threw it hard at the elements. One of them bent slightly but it continued to glow.

I tried another rock and then a third. It wasn’t enough.

The heat was beginning to overwhelm me and I was getting close to panic.

Calm down, I told myself, take some deep breaths.

I tried to take my own advice but the air was so hot it made me cough violently.

I went back to taking small slow shallow breaths. Somehow, the coughing fit had helped me to refocus on the matter in hand rather than on the fearsome outcome that awaited me.

I put my socks and shoes back on, stood on one of the benches and tried kicking down on the three rocks that were now sitting on top of the elements. As I did so, I could smell the rubber soles of my trainers melting.

One of the elements went out and that gave me heart to continue.

I jumped onto the rocks with both feet, bending all the elements down.

There was an almighty flash in the box beneath me and everything went dark. I had clearly caused a short and a fuse must have blown. The elements went out but, unfortunately, the light fitting on the wall went out too, plunging the sauna into darkness. But that worry was more than offset by the relief of cutting off the heat.

Not that my troubles were over — not by a long way. For a start, my right leg was being burned by something inside the metal box, my core temperature remained extremely high and my heart was beating so fast it felt in danger of bursting out of my chest.

And I was still sweating buckets.

I quickly climbed out of the box, feeling my way back onto the bench and then onto the floor where I lay down on the wooden slats. It was the coolest spot.

Gradually the temperature began to drop.

I noticed it because, unbelievably, I began to shiver.

I searched around in the darkness for my shirt and put it on.

It was now time to get out of this prison.