Dick Francis's Gamble - Felix Francis [118]
“Mr. Foxton, you are an extraordinarily difficult man to kill,” Shenington said, smiling slightly. “You usually don’t turn up when you’re expected and yet you came here so sweetly, like a lamb to the slaughter.”
He almost laughed.
I didn’t.
I’d been bloody careless.
20
What do you want?” I asked, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.
“I want you dead,” Viscount Shenington said.
“So you can stop spreading your silly rumor that my brother was murdered.”
“But he was, wasn’t he?” I said.
“That is something you are not going to have to worry about anymore,” Shenington said.
“How could you have killed your own brother?” I asked. “And for what? Money?”
“My brother had no idea what it was like to be desperate for money. He was always so bloody self-righteous.”
“Honest, you mean.”
“Don’t give me all that claptrap,” he said. “Everyone’s on the make. I just want my share.”
“And is your share a hundred million euros?” I asked.
“Shut up,” he said loudly.
Why should I? Maybe I should shout as loudly as I could, to attract attention.
I took a deep breath, and the cry for help began in my throat. But that was as far as it got. The man with the gun punched me very hard in my lower abdomen, driving the air from my lungs and leaving me lying in a heap on the floor, gasping for breath. And then, just for good measure, the same man kicked me in the face, splitting my lip and sending my blood in a fine spray onto the carpet.
“Not in here, you fool,” Shenington said to him sharply.
That was slightly encouraging, I thought, through the haze in my brain. At least they weren’t going to kill me here. It might have been rather incriminating to leave a dead body in the corner of the box amongst the empty champagne bottles.
“It won’t do you any good,” I said through my bleeding mouth, my own voice sounding strange even to me. “The police know I’m here.”
“I somehow doubt that,” Shenington replied. “My information is that you’ve also been avoiding them over the past week.”
“My fiancée knows I’m here,” I said.
“Yes, so she does. When I’ve dealt with you, I’ll deal with her too.”
I thought about saying that Jan Setter also knew I was here, but that might have placed her in mortal danger as well.
I kept quiet. I’d opened my big mouth enough already.
I could hear the public-address system outside. The last race had started.
“Now,” said Shenington to the men. “Take him down now, while the race is running.”
The two men came over and hauled me to my feet.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“To your death,” Shenington said with aplomb. “But not here, obviously. Somewhere dark and quiet.”
“Can’t we . . .”
It was as far as I got. The man on my right, the one without the gun who had been standing by the door, suddenly punched me again in my stomach. This time I didn’t fall to the floor, but only because the two men were holding me up by my arms. My guts felt like they were on fire, and I was worried that some major damage may have been done to my insides.
“No more speak,” said the man who had punched me. English was clearly not his strong point.
“No more speak” seemed a good plan, at least for the time being, so I kept quiet as the two men walked me past my coat, through the door, across the corridor and into one of the deserted catering stations. The three of us descended in one of the caterer’s lifts. There was no sign of Shenington. I wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad. I suppose two against one was marginally better than three to one, but, on the downside, I’d have little or no chance of reasoning with these two heavies. Although I doubt if I’d have had any chance anyway, had Shenington been there with us.
The lift stopped, and I was marched out of it and then across the wet tarmac towards the north exit and the racetrack parking lots beyond. The facilities at Cheltenham were really designed for the Steeplechasing Festival in March, when more than sixty thousand would flock to the track every day. The parking lots were therefore huge, but on a night like this, with only a fraction of the crowd, most