Front Runner (14 page)

M
y friend with the carving knife, and his taller chum with the red sneakers, came a-calling sometime between one and two o'clock on Friday morning, well outside the normal visiting hours.

Fortunately, I was awake.

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

When he'd said it, I hadn't particularly agreed with Dr. 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 night-duty 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 toward my room.

The man with the knife disappeared but soon returned.

“Where is he?” he hissed at the poor woman, raising the knife toward her face.

She involuntarily glanced 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 toward the doorway. But I didn't wait for him to see me.

I picked up the saucepan from the hot plate, 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 pan 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 sneakers and ran fast for the exit.

There was a sharp pain in my stomach. I'd done myself some mischief, I was sure of it. I reached down my front with my left hand and could feel wetness on my pajama top.

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 pajamas and a thin silk bathrobe.

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 cart of equipment. 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 scampered in the direction of the stairwell.

“Where?” one of the medics shouted at me urgently.

“Where what?” I asked.

“Where's the cardiac arrest?” he shouted again.

In my chest, I thought.

“What cardiac arrest?” I asked blankly.

“You pushed the
Cardiac Arrest
alarm,” he said accusingly.

“I did that,” said the night nurse, coming out from behind the nurses' station desk, where she'd taken refuge. “We needed help fast. It was the best I could think of.”

Good girl, I thought.

I sat down on the floor. I wasn't feeling at all well.

Oh God, not again.

—

I
ENDED
UP
back where I'd started, in the ER for repairs.

Doctor Shwan wasn't on duty, so it fell to one of the other doctors to tut-tut about not exerting oneself so soon after open-heart surgery when one is only held together with silk thread and catgut.

“And stainless steel wire,” I added helpfully.

I was sent for an X-ray on my breastbone, but nothing seemed to have moved in that department. It was the incision made to repair my bowel that had split open. The underlying muscle wall, thankfully, had remained intact.

“You nearly gave yourself a massive hernia,” the doctor said sternly by way of reprimand. “If you had split the internal sutures, as well as the external ones, you could easily have had your guts out all over the floor.”

“But I didn't,” I said, smiling at him.

My guts had nearly been all over the floor for another reason, I thought, courtesy of my friend with the carving knife.

—

A
UNIFORMED
POLICEMAN
came to see me as soon as the doctor had finished his stitching even though I was still feeling absolutely lousy and utterly exhausted.

“Call Detective Inspector Galvin,” I said.

“Why?” asked the policeman.

“Because I'm not well enough and too tired to tell the story twice.”

I closed my eyes.

Why was someone trying so hard to kill me? Three times now, in rapid succession, I'd escaped an untimely death.

I had been assuming that all three attempts were connected. But were they?

Clearly, the second and third had been, but shutting me into a sauna didn't follow the pattern of the other two. Had I simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time at Dave Swinton's house?

The two most recent attempts by the same two men had shown a certain determination to succeed on their part.

It had only been good fortune that I'd been awake and out of my room when they had appeared in the hospital, and I could hardly rely on my luck holding every time they came looking for me.

What was it I knew or had done that was so important it was worth killing me over?

—

D.I. G
ALVIN
came to see me at nine-thirty on Friday morning as I was snoozing, back in bed in my room on the ninth floor of the hospital.

“I told you I needed a guard,” I said to him before he even had a chance to speak.

“OK,” he said. “I agree. You were right.”

“So can I have one now? Those two guys have tried at least twice to kill me. In my book, that demonstrates an undeniable degree of persistence. I reckon they may well come back for a third try.”

“I'll see what I can arrange,” D.I. Galvin said. “Can you add anything to your description of the man with the knife?”

“He now has a scalded face,” I said. “I threw boiling milk at him.”

I told the detective everything that had happened from the moment the door buzzer was pushed until the time the knifeman ran for the stairs.

“It seems you gave rather better than you got,” he said.

“I had some catching up to do.”

“We are trying to establish how the men got in. There's nighttime security in the ER that's meant to prevent members of the public wandering through to the rest of the hospital.”

“Surely this place has closed-circuit TV?” I asked.

“All over. It's being looked at even as we speak. Any luck with the mug shots?”

“Not so far, but I'm only about halfway through and there's one or two I now want to go back and look at again. I had
a much better look at the knifeman last night than I did at my apartment. I have a vague feeling I've seen his face before.”

“I'll leave the iPad with you, then. Give me a call if you spot anyone familiar.”

“Talking about giving people a call, is there any chance someone could fetch my phone? I dropped it during the struggle in my apartment hallway and I feel totally lost without it.”

“Ah, yes, that reminds me,” said D.I. Galvin. “I have your front-door key.” He dug in his pocket and placed the key on the bedside table.

“Did you hear what I said? Could someone please fetch my phone?”

“We're finished there now,” the inspector replied, not properly answering the question. “Is there no one else who could go for you?”

“I suppose I could ask my sister to go.”

“Good,” he said, standing up. “You will need to make a formal statement about the incident here last night. Can you write it yourself?”

I nodded. Another bloody statement. And I still had to do the one for D.S. Jagger. “I'll do it later,” I said wearily.

“OK. But, in the meantime, keep looking at the mug shots. I'll be back later for the statement.”

“How about my bodyguard?” I said.

“I'll arrange for a uniformed officer to be present in the ward's reception area. The nursing staff are demanding it anyway.”

Good for them, I thought.

The detective went away and I went back to my snoozing. But about an hour later I came face-to-face once more with my would-be assassin.

—

H
E
WAS
YOUNGER
and had a mustache, but I was certain it was the same man—my friend with the carving knife.

Mug shot number 282.

He was indeed one of those I'd gone back to have another look at, having passed over him before. It was the dark, unfeeling eyes that gave him away, the same eyes I'd stared deeply into when I'd been convinced he was about to kill me. They were not eyes I would forget in a hurry.

Just the picture of him sent shivers of fear down my spine.

“Two-eight-two,” I said to D.I. Galvin when I called him using the hospital phone.

“Are you sure?”

“A hundred percent.”

“Two-eight-two, you say?” I could hear him tapping it in on a computer keyboard. “Right, got him.”

“What's his name?” I asked.

“Lawrence. Darryl Gareth Lawrence. Ever heard of him?”

“No,” I said with certainty.

“He was born sixteen July 1978. Originally from Port Talbot in Wales, his last-known address was in Streatham, south London. He's got previous—lots—mostly for violence, including wounding with intent.”

“With intent to do what?”

“Cause grievous bodily harm. Sentenced to seven years at Southwark Crown Court in 2008. He was released on parole in November 2012, having served two-thirds of his sentence. According to his record, he's been out of trouble since then, but that only means he hasn't been arrested for anything.”

“Well, you can arrest him now for wounding with intent to commit murder.”

“I'll get on it straightaway.”

He hung up.

In some strange way, I felt slightly safer knowing
who
was trying to kill me. All I needed to know now was
why
.

A
fter speaking with D.I. Galvin, I called Faye and asked her if she could fetch my cell phone from my apartment. She came to the hospital at noon to get the key.

“The phone should be on the floor in the hallway,” I said. “And the charger as well, if you can find it. That'll be on the countertop in the kitchen next to the microwave.”

“Nothing else? How about some clothes?”

“No. I'm fine. I have clothes.”

I did think about asking her to get my laptop, but I could do most things via the Internet with just my iPhone. Furthermore, my laptop was somewhere in my bedroom and I wasn't at all sure I wanted Faye exploring more of my home than was absolutely necessary. To be honest, I would have been much happier if the police had agreed to retrieve my phone. I knew that asking my sister to go there was a mistake.

Faye was a naturally tidy person. She had been since childhood, and she had unsuccessfully tried to instill into her younger brother the same culture of neatness and order. Hence, since Lydia's departure and the move to my new apartment, I had resisted all of Faye's attempts to come over to check up on me.

And now here I was sending her there unaccompanied. I must be crazy. But I really needed that phone. And surely whatever the state of the place, sending Faye was better than asking Henri to go.

Only after she had gone did I worry about her security.

What if Darryl Gareth Lawrence and his sidekick were waiting in the bushes outside my front door?

But why would they do anything to Faye? Lawrence had specifically asked the nurse,
Where's Hinkley
? It was me they wanted, not my sister.

Nevertheless, I was greatly relieved when Faye returned about an hour and a half later with my phone plus charger.

“How are things?” I asked.

“It's not very tidy,” she said in an accusing manner.

“That must have been due to my attackers. Or possibly the police forensic team.”

She looked at me. “I don't suppose either of those would be responsible for the stack of dirty mugs and plates in the sink, or for the washing hung on the back of your sofa, or even for the clothes lying on the floor of your bedroom.”

I looked rather sheepishly at her.

“And they surely wouldn't have packed up those moving boxes and left them in the hallway. How long have you been there now? Nearly a year? Isn't it time you unpacked?”

“I will,” I said.

And I would. I'd tidy the place too, especially if I was going to entertain a certain Miss Henrietta Shawcross there anytime soon, as I dearly hoped I would be.

“So, are you getting out tomorrow?” Faye asked.

“I'm not sure,” I said. “I had to have some of my stitches redone this morning.”

“Why?”

“A few of those on my abdomen split open.”

“You haven't been doing those push-ups again, I hope,” Faye said with a laugh, but she must have seen something in my face because she stopped laughing. “What happened?”

“I had some unexpected and unwanted visitors in the night.”

“Not the same men?”

I nodded.

“But that's dreadful. How did they know you were here? And how the hell did they get in?”

“That's what the police are trying to find out,” I said. “But at least we now know who one of them is. I recognized him from a police photo.”

“Who is it?”

“Someone called Darryl Lawrence.”

She stared at me with a blank expression.

“I've never heard of him either,” I said. “But he's had lots of previous convictions for violence and has spent time in prison.”

“Why is he coming after you?”

“I don't know. I can only imagine that someone is paying him to kill me. The police are searching for him, so we might find out more when they find him.”

Faye was distressed.

She had been under the erroneous impression that the attack at my home had been as a result of a random burglary somehow gone terribly wrong. To discover her little brother was being specifically targeted by a hired killer came as an unwelcome shock.

“But who would want to kill
you
?” she asked desperately like a mother wondering how anyone could harm her beloved child.

“That is exactly what I've been trying to figure out.”

“It's that bloody job of yours,” she said angrily. “Why can't you do something safer? Q has connections and you're smart. I am sure you could get a nice safe banking job in the City.”

What Faye meant by the
City
was the
City of London
, the financial square mile at the heart of the metropolis.

“I don't want a safe banking job in the City,” I said. “I'd be bored to death. I like what I do.”

“It's so dangerous.”

Maybe that's why I liked it, but I wasn't going to say so.

Not today.

—

F
AYE
STAYED
FOR
most of the afternoon, sitting quietly reading a book, while I wrote out two formal statements, one for D.I. Galvin concerning the previous night's events and the other for D.S. Jagger about my conversations with Dave Swinton and my twin excursions into his sauna.

“Can I read them?” Faye asked when I'd finished.

“I don't think you should,” I said, but I knew I had little or no chance of preventing it. Throughout my life since I was eight, Faye had always been the one
in charge
. And while I might not always do as she wanted—especially in the employment department—she usually got her way. If she was determined to read my statements, she would.

I meekly handed over the handwritten sheets and lay awkwardly on the bed while she sat on the chair next to it, reading them through from start to finish.

“Jeff,” she said eventually, “I just can't believe all of this. Is it really true?”

“Every word,” I said.

I was prevented from having a further ear bashing by the arrival of the detective constable from the Thames Valley Police.

“I've already written my statement,” I said, and I took it from Faye to give to him.

He stood reading it through, then asked me to sign it in his presence. “I'll need to get this typed up properly on a Section 9 form. You'll have to sign again, but this will do for now.”

The policeman departed with the folded sheets of paper in his pocket.

“
Please
, will you come and stay with Q and me when you get out of here,” Faye implored, almost in tears. “I don't want you going back to your apartment. It's not safe.”

“OK,” I said, giving in gracefully, “I will. But only until the police catch Darryl Lawrence.”

That seemed to satisfy her.

“Anyway,” I said, “how are
you
feeling? It should be me looking after you, not the other way round.”

“I'm fine,” she said. “I'm just tired all the time. It's the bloody drugs.”

“You don't have to stay,” I said, knowing full well that she believed she was acting as my bodyguard. “There should be a uniformed policeman outside in the reception area to keep me alive and well.”

She stood up and went to have a look.

“He's chatting up the nurses,” Faye said in a tone that expressed disapproval.

“Sensible man,” I said. “At least he's here.”

I hadn't altogether believed that he would be.

“I'll go, then,” Faye said. “I need to get home and make up the bed in the spare room.”

“I don't want to be any trouble,” I said.

“It's no trouble.” She smiled and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Now, you be careful.”

It was a serious instruction.

—

H
ENRI
CAME
to see me soon after six o'clock, wafting in wearing a full-length camel-colored coat with a hood. She looked gorgeous.

“Sorry I'm so late,” she said. “I had to finish something at work.”

I just beamed. I was so pleased to see her.

Henri removed her coat to reveal a stunning black-and-red tartan dress, with a wide black leather belt, and knee-high black suede boots with stiletto heels.

My heart went all a-flutter. Where was Dr. Shwan when you needed him?

“Wow!” I said.

“Do you like it?” She smiled and did a twirl. “It's all new.”

“It's lovely,” I said. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. I wore it for you.”

Wow! again.

“But I had expected
you
to be a bit smarter,” she said. “What happened to the jammies I bought you?”

I was again wearing a faded blue hospital gown.

“They're in the wash,” I said.

“Had a little accident, did we?”

“Something like that, but not what you're thinking. A few of my stitches burst open and I bled on them.”

She looked concerned.

“Surely that shouldn't happen.”

“No,” I said without elaboration.

“I should have bought you two pairs. Shall I go and get you some more?” She reached for her coat.

“No,” I said again, this time more decisively. “Please stay. Unless, of course, you can't speak to anyone wearing a hospital gown.”

“I'll make an exception,” she said, smiling. “Just this once.”

She stayed for two hours, at one point delving into her copious handbag to find a half bottle of Chablis and some glasses, together with some freshly packed sushi.

“Red Cross parcel,” she said, giggling.

“The food here's not too bad, except everything is overcooked. And it's pretty bland, as they use little or no salt.”

Henri turned up her pretty nose. “I like my salt,” she said. “And I can't live without freshly ground black pepper.” She produced a small silver cylindrical object from her purse and proceeded to grind black peppercorns from it onto her food. “I'm fed up with going to those big lunch and dinner events at swanky London hotels and not being able to get hold of a pepper mill. They all think you're mad asking for one. So I bought myself this to carry with me.”

“Handy,” I said.

She popped another piece of raw fish into her mouth and washed it down with some wine.

“I see you got your phone back,” she said, nodding at it on my bedside table. “I can call you again now.”

“Yes, please do. My sister fetched it for me.” I picked it up and used it to take a photograph of Henri sitting on the edge of my bed, looking fabulous in her red tartan dress.

“Let's see,” she said. I showed her. “Not bad for an old one.”

“Old one?” I said. “You're not old.”

“Thirty,” she said. “Can you believe I'm going to be thirty in
February? I remember thinking that people aged thirty must be so old they were nearly dead and now I'm almost there myself.”

She studied the picture. “At least I can't see any wrinkles yet.”

She started flicking through the other pictures on my phone.

“Hey,” I said in mock complaint, “that's private.”

“Good God, that's Martin and Bentley,” she said, looking closely at the screen. “How come you have a photo of my cousin on your phone?”

She didn't ask it in an accusatory manner, she was just interested. I leaned forward and peered at the image. It was the photo of the two men who'd been arguing at Newbury, taken through the window of the Hennessy hospitality area with the racetrack in the background.

“I was snapping the view,” I said. “They just happened to be in the shot. It's at Newbury races.”

“What a coincidence.”

“Who's Bentley?” I asked.

“Bentley Robertson. He's a creepy little lawyer,” she said, screwing up her nose again. “He's all work and no play. A bore. Worse, he's a bore who thinks I'm in love with him. I keep telling him that I'm not, but he just winks at me and refuses to believe it. He's a letch. At least, he is toward me. I once quite liked him, now he makes my skin creep.” She shivered. “But enough about him. Tell me more about you.”

We sat in happy harmony talking about everything and nothing—where we grew up, schools, jobs, likes, dislikes, even our families and our dead parents.

“It was such a dreadful time,” Henri said. “Mom and Dad were on their way to pick me up from the sports field at my boarding school. We were going to a family wedding in Lincoln. I can remember being so excited about going in a helicopter.”
She paused, and there were tears in her eyes. “They never arrived. I waited and waited for hours, but they never came. Eventually, the headmaster came out to where I was standing to tell me.”

A tear ran down her cheek. I reached over and held her hand.

“They clipped a tree in the garden during takeoff. The official report said it was the pilot's fault. He was also killed in the crash, so I suppose it's easy to blame him.”

She was silent for a while.

“Sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes with a tissue. “I don't do that very often anymore.”

“There's no reason to be sorry,” I said. “I still cry sometimes over my mother and she's been dead now for twenty-four years. Sometimes, I have difficulty recalling her face. And I haven't been able to ‘hear' her voice in my head for longer than I wish to remember.”

“What about your dad?” she asked.

“I don't usually talk about him much. He went off the rails after my mother died. He couldn't cope without her. Everything in the house—cooking, washing, cleaning and so on—he left for my sister to do. He started drinking too much and lost his well-paid job with the council because of it. He ended up as an assistant gardener in a local park, but he was usually drunk. He was only kept on due to the kindness of his old council chums who felt sorry for him.

“I actually remember him really well. He
was
drunk a lot of the time, yet he was always kind and loving toward me, even if he wasn't ever particularly happy. He drank himself to death, in the end, although the official cause was pneumonia.”