In this particular case, Bill McKenzie was already well aware that I was suspicious of his riding of Wisden Wonder and so I reckoned that no further damage would have been done by Paul’s intervention.
We discussed a few of the other outstanding cases that were sitting on my desk, some of which were waiting for me to produce a report, but we kept coming back to Dave Swinton.
“Do you know which race he purposely didn’t win?” Paul asked.
“I think so,” I said, and I told him about Garrick Party’s run at Haydock. “The horse is a well-known front runner with no great finishing speed, but, on this occasion, Dave held him up for a late run that the horse, predictably, was unable to produce. He finished third out of eight.”
“At what price?”
“He started as favorite at thirteen-to-eight.”
“Did the stewards on that day have him in?”
“Yes. They questioned both Dave and the trainer, Jason Butcher, but they accepted the excuse that the horse had been held up due to the heavy going. But I don’t buy it. The horse had previously won twice in the mud, both times from the front.”
“Difficult to prove,” Paul said.
“Impossible.”
—
MY LAST VISITOR of the day arrived at six o’clock as I was lying in bed having a snooze. Paul’s visit, in particular, had tired me out, probably because it had been me who had done most of the talking.
I woke to find myself staring at the beautiful face of Henrietta Shawcross.
My first thought was that I must be dreaming, but I wasn’t.
“You are a very difficult man to find, Mr. Hinkley,” she said. “And I should know—I’ve been looking for you ever since you disappeared without a trace on Saturday afternoon.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“I should think so too.” She pulled a cross face that did nothing to diminish her beauty. “Fancy leaving me without even saying good-bye.”
“Sorry,” I said again.
“And so you should be. I’m not used to men suddenly vanishing without at least asking for my number.”
“And do you give it to them?” I asked.
“No. Not as a general rule. But I might have given it to you. If you had bothered to ask.”
“Sorry,” I said once more.
She removed her coat, placing it over the back of one of the chairs, then she sat down on the other one and looked around her. “What are you doing in here anyway? What’s wrong with you?”
What should I say?
“I was attacked,” I said.
“Who by?”
“I wish I knew. A couple of heavies with a carving knife.”
She suddenly looked concerned. “Were you stabbed?”
“Thirteen times,” I replied rather indulgently.
She was shocked and it put her off her stride, but only for a moment.
“Then why aren’t you dead?” she asked.
“Luck,” I said. “That and a thick coat. Fortunately, I managed to throw them off me and run for help.”
“See, you are a superhero after all.” She smiled.
“How did you find me?” I asked, but what I really wanted to ask was Why did you find me?
“The usual method,” she said jokily. “I tried the Internet, you know, on Google, but that failed. I tried those people-finding websites and none of them came up trumps. So I resorted to plan C.”
“Which was?”
“I called one of Uncle Richard’s racing contacts to find out who, exactly, you worked for. And then I slept with the chairman of the Horseracing Authority and blackmailed him into telling me your whereabouts.”
“That seems a tad excessive,” I said.
“It worked, though.” She grinned.
“Do you ever tell the truth?” I asked.
“Not if I can help it.”
“So why did you bother?”
“What?”
“To find me,” I said.
She cocked her head sideways. “Maybe I just wanted to.”
“Does Uncle Richard know?” I asked.
“Uncle Richard doesn’t own me,” she said icily. “I do what I want.”
I wondered just how true that was. According to what I’d discovered on my computer, Sir Richard Reynard was the sole administrator of her trust fund and the holder of the purse strings—at least, until her thirtieth birthday the following February.
“I’m flattered,” I said.
“Don’t be,” she said, standing up and walking over to the window. “I just wondered what you looked like in a hospital gown.” She smiled at me. “Disappointing, to tell you the truth. Dirty pale blue is obviously not your color.”
She, meanwhile, was wearing black pants, calf-high boots and a white roll-neck sweater that touched her in all the right places.
“If I’d known you were coming, I’d have worn a clean one,” I said. And, I thought, something that did up properly at the back and didn’t leave my arse hanging out.
“Don’t you have any pajamas or a bathrobe?”
“Nope,” I said. “I have absolutely nothing. It seems that everything I arrived wearing was cut off and bagged as potential evidence. I even had to get my sister to go to the hospital gift shop to buy me a toothbrush.”
“Isn’t there someone who could go and get you something from your home?”
“Are you offering?” I asked.
“Yes, OK,” Henri said with enthusiasm. “Give me a list.”
“Ah,” I said. “There’s a problem. The police have the key.”
And that was just as well, I thought.
I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted Miss Henrietta Shawcross, heiress to a multimillion-pound shipping fortune, letting herself into my tip of a apartment to rifle through my Ikea drawers looking for a long-neglected pair of pajamas.
“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll go and buy you something. What do you need?”
“You can’t go now,” I said. “It’s too late. Everything will be closed.”
“You’re joking. It’s Thursday. Late-night shopping, and only two weeks before Christmas. Everywhere will be open until at least nine. What do you want?”
She was clearly excited by the prospect.
“A pair of pajamas, then,” I said. “Thanks. And something to go home in would be nice. And maybe a pair of cheap running shoes.”
“Shoe size?”
“Nine.”
“How about the rest of you?” She raised her eyebrows in questioning amusement.
“Waist thirty-four, chest forty-two, neck sixteen.”
“Right,” she said. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back.”
She disappeared.
I laid my head down on the pillow and I was laughing.
Never mind Prozac, a dose of Henrietta Shawcross was the perfect antidote for depression.
—
HENRI RETURNED just after eight and she was heavily laden with smart black-and-gold shopping bags.
She laid out her purchases on the end of the bed: a pair of striped pajamas, a silk bathrobe, some slippers, two shirts, a pair of beige chinos, a double-breasted blue blazer, crewneck sweater, socks, pants, a pair of fine-grain black leather shoes and a full-length navy cashmere overcoat.
Even a tie.
“Where did you get all this from?” I asked.
“New and Lingwood in Jermyn Street,” she said. “It’s where my father went for all his clothes.”
“But I only needed some jeans and a T-shirt from Walmart,” I said forlornly, fearful of what this lot would do to my bank balance.
“Nonsense,” she replied with a grin. “We can’t have you wandering around in just a T-shirt in mid-December. You’ll catch your death.”
“Fewer reference
s to death, please, if you don’t mind. Now, how much do I owe you?”
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s a gift. My pleasure. And I got you these as well.” She handed me yet another smart bag that contained a leather shaving kit, complete with a hairbrush.
“I could do with a shave,” I said, rubbing my chin. “It’s been four days.”
“I actually like your sexy designer stubble,” Henri said. “Very George Michael.”
I looked right at her and she looked straight back at me. All the right vibes were seemingly in motion.
“Are you playing with me?” I said. “Because I won’t take kindly to you waltzing in here, buying me all these things and then swanning off, never to be seen again.”
“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 pajamas 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 the Fortnum & Mason food court and we ate those, washed down with hospital tap water from the jug on my bedside table.
“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 apartment. 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 the 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.”
19
My 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 w
as 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.
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