by Dick Francis
CHAPTER 16
My brain went numb.
A flush of fear zipped from my heels to my scalp in one of those dreadful physical disturbances that come with perceived irretrievable disaster.
I stood immobile, trying to remember the Gardners’ telephone number. Couldn’t do it. Squeezed my eyes shut and let it come without struggling, let it come subliminally, known as a rhythm, not by sight. Pressed buttons and sweated.
Roger’s wife answered.
‘Where are the boys?’ I asked her abruptly.
‘They should be with you at any minute,’ she said comfortingly. ‘They set off… oh… say, fifteen minutes ago. They’ll be with you directly.’
‘With me… where?’
‘Along at the big top, of course.’ She was puzzled. ‘Christopher got your message and they set off at once.’
‘Did Roger drive them?’
‘No. He’s around the course somewhere, I’m not sure where. The boys set off on foot, Lee… is something wrong?’
‘What message?’ I said.
‘A phone call, for Christopher…’
‘I threw the receiver to Marjorie and sprinted out of her drawing room, across her calm hallway, and out of her front door and into Dart’s car. Never mind that the sprint was a hobble, I’d never moved faster. Never mind that I knew I was heading for an ambush, for some thought-out fate. There was nothing to do but rush to it, hoping beyond hope that he’d be satisfied with me, that he would let the boys live…
I drove Dart’s car like a madman through the village, but just when I could have done with a whole police posse, there was no police car to chase me for speeding.
In through the racecourse gates. Round onto the tarmac outside Roger’s office. Keith’s silver Jaguar was there. Nobody in sight… Yes… Christopher… and Edward… and Alan. All of them frightened to eye-staring terror. I scrambled out of the car, driven by demons.
‘Dad!’ Christopher’s bottomless relief was not reassuring. ‘Dad, hurry.’
‘What’s happening?’
‘That man… in the big top.’
‘I turned that way.
‘He’s lit fires in there… and Neil… and Toby… and Neil’s screaming.’
‘Find Colonel Gardner,’ I shouted to him, running. ‘Tell him to turn on the sprinkler.’
‘But…’ Despair in Christopher’s voice, ‘we don’t know where he is.’
‘Find him.’
I could hear Neil screaming. Not words, nothing intelligible. High-pitched shrieks. Screaming.
How does one face such a thing?
I ran into the big top, into the centre aisle, looking for the fire extinguisher that ought to have been there at the entrance, and not seeing it, running on and finding Alan running beside me.
‘Go back,’ I yelled at him. ‘Alan, go back.’
There was smoke in the tent and small bright fires here and there on the floor; scarlet, orange and gold flames leaping in rivers and pools. And beyond, standing like a colossus with his legs apart, his weight braced and his mouth stretched wide in gleeful enjoyment… Keith.
He held Neil by the wrist, easily clamping the small bones in a vice grip, and lifting him halfway into the air, holding my son at almost arm’s length, the small body writhing and fighting to get free, but with only his toes touching the ground, giving no purchase.
‘Let him go,’ I yelled, beyond pride, into begging, into any craven grovelling needed.
‘Come and get him, or I’ll burn him.’
Beside Keith, in a tall decorative wrought-iron container, stood a long-handled torch flaring with a live naked flame, the sort designed for garden barbecues, for torchlight processions, for the evil firing of houses in raids; Neil on one side, torch on the other. In the centre, Keith held a plastic jerry can missing its cap.
‘It’s petrol, Dad,’ Alan yelled beside me. ‘He was pouring it on the floor and lighting it. We thought he might burn us… and we ran, but he caught Neil… don’t let him burn Neil, Dad.’
‘Go back,’ I screamed at him, frantic, and he wavered and stopped in his tracks, tears on his cheeks.
I ran towards Keith, towards his terrible grin, towards my terrified son. I ran towards certain fire, ran as fast as I could, ran from instinct.
If Keith wants to get rid of something, he burns it…
I would overrun him, I thought. I would crash down with him. He would go with me… wherever I went.
He hadn’t expected an onrush. He stepped back, looking less certain, and Neil went on screaming. One will do, I realised later, almost insane things in defence of one’s children.
I was conscious then only of flames, of anger, of the raw smell of petrol, of a clear view of the outcome.
He would fling the petrol can at me and swing the torch, and to do that he would have to… have to let go of Neil. I would push him away beyond Neil, who would live and be safe.
Six paces away, running towards him, I gave up all hope of not burning. But Keith would burn too… and die… I would make sure of it.
A small dark figure launched itself in the shortening distance between us like a goblin from nowhere, all arms and legs, ungainly but fast. He banged into Keith and knocked him off balance, setting him reeling and windmilling backwards.
Toby… Toby.
Keith let go of Neil. I shoved my small son away from him in a frenzy. The petrol spilled out of the can and over Keith’s legs in a glittering stream. Staggering, trying to evade the fuel, Keith knocked into the stand containing the torch. It rocked; rocked back and forwards and then overbalanced; started the flame falling in a deadly arc downwards.
I lunged forward, snatched up Toby with my right arm, scooped Neil into my left, lifted them both off their feet and turned in the same movement to escape.
There was a great whoosh at our backs and a blast of heat and sizzling fire as if the whole air were burning. I caught a split-second glimpse, looking over my shoulder, of Keith with his mouth open as if he, this time, would scream. He seemed to take a deep breath to yell and fire rushed into his open mouth as if drawn by bellows into his lungs, and he made no sound at all, but clutched at his chest, his eyes wide, with white showing all round, and he fell face down in an accelerating fireball.
The back of my own shirt was scorching from neck to waist, and Toby’s hair was on fire. I ran with the boys in my arms, ran far enough down the aisle and tripped and fell over, dropping Neil, rolling onto my back and rubbing Toby’s hair with my hands.
Desperate moments. Neil smelled of petrol, Toby also, and there were fires, a maze of fires, to traverse on the way out.
I lay momentarily panting for breath, collecting some strength, my left arm curving round Neil who was crying. I struggled to reassure Toby; and then from far above fell a blessed mist of drizzling drops of water, cooling, life-giving, spitting and sizzling on all the small fires around us, blackening the flames to extinction and turning to a smoking ruin the humped shape of Keith.
Toby leaned on my chest, staring into my face as if he couldn’t bear to look anywhere else.
He said, ‘He was going to set fire to you, wasn’t he, Dad?’
‘Yes, he was.’
‘I thought so.’
‘Where did you come from?’ I asked.
‘Out of the dining room, where we had lunch. I was hiding…’ His eyes were stretched. ‘I was scared, Dad.’ Water ran through his singed hair and into his eyes.
‘Anyone would be.’ I rubbed my fist over his back, loving him. ‘You have the courage of ten thousand heroes.’ I fought for words. ‘It isn’t every boy who knows he saved his father’s life.’
I could see it wasn’t enough for him. There had to be more, something to give him a permanent feeling of self-worth, to steady him, keep him always in command of himself.
I thought of his little figure launching itself at an impossibly threatening target, arms and legs flying everywhere, but achieving the aim.
I said, ‘Would y
ou like to learn karate, when we get home?’
His strained face split into a blazing smile. He wiped the trickling water away from his mouth. ‘Oh yes, Dad,’ he said.
I sat up, still hugging both of them, and Christopher came running, and the other two also, all of them staring beyond me to the blackened and unimaginable horror.
‘Don’t go down there,’ I said, pushing myself to my feet. ‘Where’s Colonel Gardner?’
‘We couldn’t find him,’ Christopher said.
‘But… the sprinkler?’
‘I turned it on, Dad,’ Christopher said. ‘I saw Henry sticking all those labels on, the day you went on the train. I knew where the tap was.’
‘Brilliant,’ I said; but there weren’t any words good enough. ‘Well, let’s get out of here, out of the rain.’
Neil wanted to be carried. I picked him up and he wound his arms round my neck, clinging tightly, and all six of us, soaking wet, made our slowish way out to the tarmac.
Roger drove up in his jeep, got out, and stared at us.
We must, I supposed, have looked odd. One tall boy, one little boy, clinging, the three others close, all dripping.
I said to Christopher, ‘Run and turn off the tap,’ and to Roger, ‘We had a fire in the big top. Bits of petrol-soaked matting and floorboards burned, but Henry was right, the canvas didn’t.’
‘A fire!’ He turned towards the entrance, to go and see for himself.
‘Better warn you,’ I said. ‘Keith’s in there. He’s dead.’
Roger paused for one stride and then went on. Christopher came back from the errand, and all of the boys and I began shivering, as much, I supposed, from shock and anxiety as from standing wet in the light April breeze, in air too cold for comfort.
‘Get into the car,’ I said, pointing at Dart’s beaten up wheels. ‘You need to get dry.’
‘But Dad…’
‘I’m coming with you.’
They piled in as Roger came out of the tent looking worried.
‘Whatever’s happened?’ he said urgently. ‘I’ll have to get the police. Come into the office.’
I shook my head. ‘First, I get the boys into dry clothes. I’ll not have them catching pneumonia. I’ll come back.’
‘But Lee –’
‘Keith tried to burn the big top,’ I said. ‘But…’
‘But,’ Roger finished, ‘people who try to start fires with petrol can end up by burning themselves.’
I smiled faintly. ‘Right.’
I walked over to Dart’s car and drove the boys down to the bus, where everyone, myself emphatically included, showered and changed into dry clothes down to the skin. My check shirt, its back blackened as if pressed by a too-hot iron, went into the rubbish bin, not into a laundry bag. Underneath I felt as if sunburnt: a first-degree soreness, nothing worse. Dead lucky, I thought, that the shirt had been thick pure wool, not melting nylon.
When the boys were ready I marched them over to Mrs Gardner and begged her to give them hot sweet drinks and cake, if she had any.
‘My dears,’ she said, embracing them, ‘come on in.’
‘Don’t leave us, Dad,’ Edward said.
‘I have to talk to the Colonel, but I won’t be long.’
‘Can I come with you?’ Christopher asked.
I looked at his height, listened to the already deepening voice, saw the emerging man in the boy and his wish to leave childhood behind.
‘Hop in the car,’ I said and, deeply pleased, he sat beside me on the short return journey.
‘When you went up to the big top,’ I asked him, ‘what did Keith Stratton say to you?’
‘That man!’ Christopher shuddered. ‘It seemed all right at first. He told us to go into the big top. He said you would be coming.’
‘So then?’ I prompted, as he stopped.
‘So we went in, and he came in behind us. He told us to go on ahead, and we did.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then…’ he hesitated, ‘it got weird, Dad. I mean, he picked up a can that was lying there and took the cap off, and we could smell it was petrol. Then he put the can down again and picked up that rod thing, and flicked his lighter, and the end of the rod lit up like those torches in Ku Klux Klan films.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then he poured petrol onto the floor and trailed the torch into it and of course it went on fire, but just in one place.’ He paused, remembering. ‘We began to be scared, Dad. You’ve always told us never to put fire near petrol, and he had a big can of it in one hand and the torch in the other. He told us to go up further into the big top and he came along behind us and started another fire, and then another, and lots of them and we got really frightened, but all he said was that you would come soon. “Your father will come.” He gave us the creeps, Dad. He didn’t behave like a grown-up. He wasn’t sensible, Dad.’
‘No.’
‘He told us to go on further in, past that sort of stand thing that was there, and he put the torch into it so that it just burned there, and wasn’t swinging about, and that was better, but we still didn’t like it. But he put the petrol can down too, and then he just looked at us and smiled, and it was awful, I mean, I can’t describe it.’
‘You’re doing well.’
‘He frightened me rigid, Dad. We all wanted to be out of there. Then Alan darted past him suddenly and then Edward, and I did too, and he yelled at us and ran about to stop us and we dodged him and ran, I mean, pelted, Dad… and then Toby didn’t come out after us, and Neil started screaming… and that’s when you came.’
I stopped the car beside Roger’s jeep. Keith’s Jaguar stood beyond, and beyond that, a police car.
‘And he didn’t say anything else?’ I asked.
‘No, only something about not being blackmailed by you. I mean, it was silly, you wouldn’t blackmail anyone.’
I smiled inwardly at his faith. Blackmail wasn’t necessarily for money.
‘No,’ I said. ‘All the same, don’t repeat that bit, OK?’
‘No, Dad, OK.’
Feeling curiously lightheaded, I walked across to the office with Christopher and told the police, when they asked, that I had no idea why Keith Stratton had behaved as irrationally as he had.
It was Friday before I left Stratton Park.
All Wednesday afternoon I replied ‘I don’t know’ to relays of police questions, and agreed that I would return dutifully for an inquest.
I said nothing about rushing at Keith to overbalance him. It didn’t sound sensible. I said nothing about Neil.
When asked, I said I hadn’t used a fire extinguisher to try to save Keith’s life, because I couldn’t find one.
‘Four of them were lying out of sight in the bar area,’ Roger told me.
‘Who put them there?’ the police asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
Christopher told the law that Keith was a ‘nutter’. They listened politely enough and decided he was too young to be called as an inquest witness, as he had anyway not himself been present at the moment of the accident.
The Press came; took photographs; asked questions, got the same answers.
A policewoman, in my presence, asked the younger boys later, down at the Gardners, what they’d seen, but in the manner of children with questioning strangers they clammed up into big-eyed silence, volunteering nothing and answering mainly in nods. Yes – nod – there had been fires in the tent. Yes – nod – Keith Stratton had lit them. Yes – nod – Toby’s hair had got singed. Yes – nod – Christopher had turned on the sprinkler, and yes – nod – their father had looked after them.
The Strattons, I thought ironically at one point, had nothing on the Morris family when it came to keeping things quiet.
On Thursday the clips came out of my mostly-healed cuts and, with Dart chauffeuring, I took Toby to Swindon to see what Penelope could do with his unevenly burned hair.
I watched her laugh with him and tease him. Watched her wash the still
lingering singe smell out, and cut and brush and blow-dry the very short remaining brown curls. Watched her give him confidence in his new appearance and light up his smile.
I spent the whole time wondering where and how I could get her into bed.
Perdita came downstairs behaving like a mother hen defending her chick against predators, as if reading my mind.
‘I told you too much, dear, on Tuesday,’ she said a shade anxiously.
‘I won’t give you away.’
‘And Keith Stratton is dead!’
‘So sad,’ I agreed.
She laughed. ‘You’re a rogue. Did you kill him?’
‘In a way.’ With help from my twelve-year-old, I thought, whether he realised it or not. ‘Self-defence, you might say.’
Her eyes smiled, but her voice was sober. She used only one word for an opinion. ‘Good.’
Penelope finished the twelve-year-old’s hair. I paid her. She thanked me. She had no idea what I felt for her, nor gave any flicker of response. I was six boys’ father, almost double her age. Perdita, seeing all, patted my shoulder. I kissed the cheek of the mother and still lusted for the daughter, and walked away, with Toby, feeling empty and old.
Dart returned Toby to his brothers at the Gardners and willingly took me on to see Marjorie.
The manservant, aplomb in place, let us in and announced us. Marjorie sat, as before, in her commanding armchair. The smashed looking glass had been removed, the torn chairs were missing. Rebecca’s shot at me had left no permanent traces.
‘I came to say goodbye,’ I said.
‘But you’ll come back to Stratton Park.’
‘Probably not.’
‘But we need you!’
I shook my head. ‘You have a great racecourse manager in Colonel Gardner. You’ll have record crowds at the next meeting, with Oliver Wells’s flair for publicity. You’ll commission superb new stands – and what I will do, if you like, is make sure any firms submitting proposals to you are substantial and trustworthy. And beyond that, as regards your family, you have more power than ever to hold things together. You don’t have Keith, so you don’t need any way of restraining him. You have control of Rebecca, who aimed – probably still aims – to run the racecourse herself. She has probably done herself in there, as, even after you’re gone, Conrad and Dart can both hold blackmail and attempted murder over her head, enough to out-vote her at Board meetings.’