Straight

by Dick Francis

“Clear all those people farther away,” I said. I raised perhaps a twitch of a smile. “Ask them not to smoke.”

  He gave me a sick look and retreated through the rear window and soon I saw him outside delivering a warning which must have been the quickest crowd control measure on record.

  Perhaps because with more of the glass missing there was a through current of air, the smell of petrol did begin to abate, but there was still, I imagined, a severed fuel line somewhere beneath me, with freshly released vapor continually seeping through the cracks. How much liquid bonfire, I wondered numbly, did a Daimler’s tank hold?

  There were a great many more cars now ahead in the road, all stopped, their occupants out and crash-gazing. No doubt to the rear it would be the same thing. Sunday afternoon entertainment at its worst.

  Simms and I sat on in our silent immobility and I thought of the old joke about worrying, that there was no point in it. If one worried that things would get bad and they didn’t, there was no point in worrying. If they got bad and one worried they would get worse, and they didn’t, there was no point in worrying. If they got worse and one worried that one might die, and one didn’t, there was no point in worrying, and if one died one could no longer worry, so why worry.

  For worry read fear, I thought; but the theory didn’t work. I went straight on being scared silly.

  It was odd, I thought, that for all the risks I took I very seldom felt any fear of death. I thought about physical pain, as indeed one often had to in a trade like mine, and remembered things I’d endured, and I didn’t know why the imagined pain of burning should fill me with a terror hard to control. I swallowed and felt lonely, and hoped that if it came it would be over quickly.

  There were sirens at length in the distance and the best sight in the world, as far as I was concerned, was the red fire engine which slowly forced its way forward, scattering spectator cars to either side of the road. There was room, just, for three cars abreast; a wall on one side of the road, a row of trees on the other. Behind the fire engine I could see the flashing blue light of a police car and beyond that another flashing light which might betoken an ambulance.

  Figures in authority uniforms appeared from the vehicles, the best being in flameproof suits lugging a hose. They stopped in front of the Daimler, seeing the bus wedged into one side of it and the family car on the other, and one of them shouted to me through the space where the windshield should have been.

  “There’s petrol running from these vehicles,” he said. “Can’t you get out?”

  What a damn silly question, I thought. I said, “No.”

  “We’re going to spray the road underneath you. Shut your eyes and hold something over your mouth and nose.”

  I nodded and did as I was bid, managing to shield my face inside the neck of my jersey. I listened to the long whooshing of the spray and thought no sound could be sweeter. Incineration faded progressively from near certainty to diminishing probability to unlikely outcome, and the release from fear was almost as hard to manage as the fear itself. I wiped blood and sweat off my face and felt shaky.

  After a while some of the firemen brought up metal-cutting gear and more or less tore out of its frame the buckled door next to where Harley had been sitting. Into this new entrance edged a policeman who took a preliminary look at Simms and me and then perched on the rear seat where he could see my head. I turned it as far as I could toward him, seeing a serious face under the peaked cap: about my own age, I judged, and full of strain.

  “A doctor’s coming,” he said, offering crumbs. “He’ll deal with your wounds.”

  “I don’t think I’m bleeding,” I said. “It’s Simms’s blood that’s on me.”

  “Ah.” He drew out a notebook and consulted it. “Did you see what caused this ... all this?”

  “No,” I said thinking it faintly surprising that he should be asking at this point. “I was looking back at Mr. and Mrs. Ostermeyer, who were sitting where you are now. The car just seemed to go out of control.” I thought back, remembering. “I think Harley ... Mr. Ostermeyer ... may have seen something. For a second he looked horrified ... then we hit the wall and rebounded into the path of the bus.”

  He nodded, making a note.

  “Mr. Ostermeyer is now conscious,” he said, sounding carefully noncommittal. “He says you were shot.”

  “We were what?”

  “Shot. Not all of you. You, personally.”

  “No.” I must have sounded as bewildered as I felt. “Of course not.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Ostermeyer are very distressed but he is quite clear he saw a gun. He says the chauffeur had just pulled out to pass a car that had been in front of you for some way, and the driver of that car had the window down and was pointing a gun out of it. He says the gun was pointing at you, and you were shot. Twice at least, he says. He saw the spurts of flame.”

  I looked from the policeman to Simms, and at the chauffeur’s blood over everything and at the solidly scarlet congealed mess below his jaw.

  “No,” I protested, not wanting to believe it. “It can’t be right.”

  “Mrs. Ostermeyer is intensely worried that you are sitting here bleeding to death.”

  “I feel squeezed, not punctured.”

  “Can you feel your feet?”

  I moved my toes, one foot after another. There wasn’t the slightest doubt, particularly about the left.

  “Good,” he said. “Well, sir, we are treating this from now on as a possible murder inquiry, and apart from that I’m afraid the firemen say it may be some time before they can get you loose. They need more gear. Can you be patient?” He didn’t wait for a reply, but went on, “As I said, a doctor is here and will come to you, but if you aren’t in urgent need of him there are two other people back there in a very bad way, and I hope you can be patient about that also.”

  I nodded slightly. I could be patient for hours if I wasn’t going to burn.

  “Why,” I asked, “would anyone shoot at us?”

  “Have you no idea?”

  “None at all.”

  “Unfortunately,” he said, “there isn’t always an understandable reason.”

  I met his eyes. “I live in Hungerford,” I said.

  “Yes, sir, so I’ve been told.” He nodded and slithered out of the car, and left me thinking about the time in Hungerford when a berserk man had gunned down many innocent people, including some in cars, and turned the quiet country town into a place of horror. No one who lived in Hungerford would ever discount the possibility of being randomly slaughtered.

  The bullet that had torn into Simms would have gone through my own neck or head, I thought, if I hadn’t turned round to talk to Martha. I’d put my head between the headrests, the better to see her. I tried to sort out what had happened next, but I hadn’t seen Simms hit, I’d heard only the bang and crash of the window breaking and felt the hot spray of the blood that had fountained out of his smashed main artery in the time it had taken him to die. He had been dead, I thought, before anyone had started screaming: the jet of blood had stopped by then.

  The steering wheel was now rammed hard against his chest with the instrument panel slanting down across his knees, higher my end than his. The edge of it pressed uncomfortably into my stomach, and I could see that if it had traveled back another six inches, it would have cut me in half.

  A good many people arrived looking official with measuring tapes and cameras, taking photographs of Simms particularly and consulting in low tones. A police surgeon solemnly put a stethoscope to Simms’s chest and declared him dead, and without bothering with the stethoscope declared me alive.

  How bad was the compression, he wanted to know. Uncomfortable, I said.

  “I know you, don’t I?” he said, considering me. “Aren’t you one of the local jockeys? The jumping boys?”

  Mm.

  “Then you know enough about being injured to give me an assessment of your state.”

  I said that my toes, fingers and lungs were
OK and that I had cramp in my legs, the trapped arm was aching and the instrument panel was inhibiting the digestion of a good Sunday lunch.

  “Do you want an injection?” he asked, listening.

  “Not unless it gets worse.”

  He nodded, allowed himself a small smile and wriggled his way out onto the road. It struck me that there was much less legroom for the back seat than there had been when we set out. A miracle Martha’s and Harley’s legs hadn’t been broken. Three of us, I thought, had been incredibly lucky.

  Simms and I went on sitting quietly side by side for what seemed several more ages but finally the extra gear to free us appeared in the form of winches, cranes and an acetylene torch, which I hoped they would use around me with discretion.

  Large mechanics scratched their heads over the problems. They couldn’t get to me from my side of the car because it was tight against the bus. They decided that if they tried to cut through the support under the front seats and pull them backward they might upset the tricky equilibrium of the engine and instead of freeing my trapped legs bring the whole weight of the front of the car down to crush them. I was against the idea, and said so.

  In the end, working from inside the car in fireproof suits with thick flesh foam pumped all around, using a scorching acetylene flame which roared and threw out terrifying sparks, they cut away most of the driver’s side, and after that, since he couldn’t feel or protest, they forcefully pulled Simms’s stiffening body out and laid it on a stretcher. I wondered grayly if he had a wife, who wouldn’t know yet.

  With Simms gone, the mechanics began fixing chains and operating jacks and I sat and waited without bothering them with questions. From time to time they said, “You all right, mate?” and I answered “Yes,” and was grateful to them.

  After a while they fastened chains and a winch to the family car still impacted broadside on the Daimler’s wing and with inching care began to pull it away. There was almost instantly a fearful shudder through the Daimler’s crushed body and also through mine, and the pulling stopped immediately. A little more head-scratching went on, and one of them explained to me that their crane couldn’t get a good enough stabilizing purchase on the Daimler because the family car was in the way, and they would have to try something else. Was I all right? Yes, I said.

  One of them began calling me Derek. “Seen you in Hungerford, haven’t I,” he said, “and on the telly?” He told the others, who made jolly remarks like, “Don’t worry, we’ll have you out in time for the three-thirty tomorrow. Sure to.” One of them seriously told me that it sometimes did take hours to free people because of the dangers of getting it wrong. Lucky, he said, that it was a Daimler I was in, with its tanklike strength. In anything less I would have been history.

  They decided to rethink the rear approach. They wouldn’t disturb the seat anchorages from their pushed-back position: the seats were off their runners, they said, and had dug into the floor. Also the recliner-mechanism had jammed and broken. However, they were going to cut off the back of Simms’s seat to give themselves more room to work. They were then going to extract the padding and springs from under my bottom and see if they could get rid of the back of my seat also, and draw me out backward so that they wouldn’t have to maneuver me out sideways past the steering column, which they didn’t want to remove as it was the anchor for one of the chief stabilizing chains. Did I understand? Yes, I did.

  They more or less followed this plan, although they had to dismantle the back of my seat before the cushion, the lowering effect of having the first spring removed from under me having jammed me even tighter against the fascia and made breathing difficult. They yanked padding out from behind me to relieve that, and then with a hacksaw took the back of the seat off near the roots; and, finally, with one of them supporting my shoulders, another pulled out handfuls of springs and other seat innards, and the bear-hug pressure on my abdomen and arm and legs lessened and went away, and I had only blessed pins and needles instead.

  Even then the big car was loath to let me go. With my top half free the two men began to pull me backward, and I grunted and stiffened, and they stopped at once.

  “What’s the matter?” one asked anxiously.

  “Well, nothing. Pull again.”

  In truth the pulling hurt the left ankle but I’d sat there long enough. It was at least an old, recognizable pain, nothing threateningly new. Reassured, my rescuers hooked their arms under my armpits and used a bit of strength, and at last extracted me from the car’s crushing embrace like a breeched calf from a cow.

  Relief was an inadequate word. They gave me a minute’s rest on the back seat, and sat each side of me, all three of us breathing deeply.

  “Thanks,” I said briefly.

  “Think nothing of it.”

  I guessed they knew the depths of my gratitude, as I knew the thought and care they’d expended. Thanks, think nothing of it: it was enough.

  One by one we edged out onto the road, and I was astonished to find that after all that time there was still a small crowd standing around waiting: policemen, firemen, mechanics, ambulance men and assorted civilians, many with cameras. There was a small cheer and applause as I stood up free, and I smiled and moved my head in a gesture of both embarrassment and thanksgiving.

  I was offered a stretcher but said I’d much rather have the crutches that might still be in the trunk, and that caused a bit of general consternation, but someone brought them out unharmed, about the only thing still unbent in the whole mess. I stood for a bit with their support simply looking at all the intertwined wreckage: at the bus and the family car and above all at the Daimler’s buckled up roof, at its sheared-off hood, its dislodged engine awry at a tilted angle, its gleaming black paintwork now unrecognizable scrap, its former shape mangled and compressed like a stamped-on toy. I thought it incredible that I’d sat where I’d sat and lived. I reckoned that I’d used up a lifetime’s luck.

  The Ostermeyers had been taken to Swindon Hospital and treated for shock, bruises and concussion. From there, recovering a little, they had telephoned Milo and told him what had happened and he, reacting I guessed with spontaneous generosity but also with strong business sense, had told them they must stay with him for the night and he would collect them. All three were on the point of leaving when I in my turn arrived.

  There was a predictable amount of fussing from Martha over my rescue, but she herself looked as exhausted as I felt and she was pliably content to be supported on Harley’s arm on their way to the door.

  Milo, coming back a step, said, “Come as well, if you like. There’s always a bed.”

  “Thanks, I’ll let you know.”

  He stared at me. “Is it true Simms was shot?”

  “ Mm.”

  “It could have been you.”

  “Nearly was.”

  “The police took statements here from Martha and Harley it seems.” He paused, looking toward them as they reached the door. “I’ll have to go. How’s the ankle?”

  “Be back racing as scheduled.”

  “Good.”

  He bustled off and I went through the paperwork routines, but there was nothing wrong with me that a small application of time wouldn’t fix and I got myself discharged pretty fast as a patient and was invited instead to give a more detailed statement to the police. I couldn’t add much more than I’d told them in the first place, but some of their questions were in the end disturbing.

  Could we have been shot at for any purpose?

  I knew of no purpose.

  How long had the car driven by the man with the gun been in front of us?

  I couldn’t remember: hadn’t noticed.

  Could anyone have known we would be on that road at that time?

  I stared at the policeman. Anyone, perhaps, who had been in the restaurant for lunch. Anyone there could have followed us from there to Milo’s house, perhaps, and waited for us to leave, and passed us, allowing us then to pass again. But why ever should they?

&n
bsp; Who else might know?

  Perhaps the car company who employed Simms.

  Who else?

  Milo Shandy, and he’d have been as likely to shoot himself as the Ostermeyers.

  Mr. Ostermeyer said the gun was pointing at you, sir.

  With all due respect to Mr. Ostermeyer, he was looking through the car and both cars were moving, and at dif ferent speeds presumably, and I didn’t think one could be certain.

  Could I think of any reason why anyone should want to kill me?

  Me, personally? No ... I couldn’t.

  They pounced on the hesitation I could hear in my own voice, and I told them I’d been attacked and knocked out the previous evening. I explained about Greville’s death. I told them he had been dealing in precious stones as he was a gem merchant and I thought my attacker had been trying to find and steal part of the stock. But I had no idea why the would-be thief should want to shoot me today when he could easily have bashed my head in yesterday.

  They wrote it down without comment. Had I any idea who had attacked me the previous evening?

  No, I hadn’t.

  They didn’t say they didn’t believe me, but something in their manner gave me the impression they thought anyone attacked twice in two days had to know who was after him.

  I would have liked very much to be able to tell them. It had just occurred to me, if not to them, that there might be more to come.

  I’d better find out soon, I thought.

  I’d better not find out too late.

  13

  I didn’t go to Milo’s house nor to my own bed, but stayed in an anonymous hotel in Swindon where unknown enemies wouldn’t find me.

  The urge simply to go home was strong, as if one could retreat to safety into one’s den, but I thought I would probably be alarmed and wakeful all night there, when what I most wanted was sleep. All in all it had been a rough ten days, and however easily my body usually shook off bumps and bangs, the accumulation was making an insistent demand for rest.

  RICE, I thought wryly, RICE being the acronym of the best way to treat sports injuries: rest, ice, compression, elevation. I rarely seemed to be managing all of them at the same time, though all, in one way or another, separately. With elevation in place, I phoned Milo from the hotel to say I wouldn’t be coming and asked how Martha and Harley were doing.