Dick Francis's Gamble - Felix Francis [70]
Mr. Patel looked down at me.
“Mr. Patel,” I said urgently, “please do not look down. The man might see you and come back into the shop.”
“What number Regent’s Park Road?” said the voice on the phone.
“Near the corner of Lichfield Grove,” I said. “Please hurry.”
“Your name, sir?” said the voice.
“Foxton,” I said into the phone. “Mr. Patel, what is the man doing now?”
“He is walking away. No. He has stopped. He is looking back. Oh, goodness gracious, he is coming back this way.”
Mr. Patel leaned down, grabbed some keys from a hook under the counter and walked out of my sight.
“What are you doing?” I called after him urgently.
“Locking the door,” he said.
I didn’t have time to think whether it was a good idea or not before I heard Mr. Patel turn the key in the lock. Now the gunman would be sure where I was. And I could hear the door being shaken.
“Mr. Patel,” I shouted, “get away from the door. The man has a gun.”
“It is all right, Mr. Foxton,” he said with a laugh. “It is not him shaking the door, it is me. The man has gone past. I cannot see him anymore.”
It didn’t mean he wasn’t there so I stayed exactly where I was. My heart rate may have come down a few notches, but, as far as I was concerned, it was still no laughing matter.
“Now, Mr. Foxton, why is a man with a gun chasing you? It is like a film, no?”
“No,” I said. “This was very real life. He was trying to kill me.”
“But why?” he said.
It was a good question. A very good question.
I remained sitting on the floor behind Mr. Patel’s counter until the police arrived. It took them nearly forty minutes, and I had telephoned 999 again twice more, before two heavily armed and body-armored officers finally made an appearance at the shop door. Mr. Patel let them in.
“About time too,” I said, standing up from my hiding place.
“Mr. Foxton?” one of the officers asked, his machine pistol held at the ready position with his finger over the trigger.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s me.”
“Are you armed, sir?”
“No,” I said.
“Please put your hands on your head,” he said, pointing his gun towards me.
“It’s not me who’s the gunman,” I said, slightly irritated. “It was the man who was chasing me.”
“Put your hands on your head,” the policeman repeated with a degree of menace. “And you, sir,” he said, pointing his gun briefly towards Mr. Patel.
We both put our hands on our heads. Mr. Patel smiled broadly as if he thought the whole thing was a huge joke.
The second officer came forward and searched me, making sure he didn’t get between my chest and the muzzle of his colleague’s weapon. He then did likewise to Mr. Patel. Then he went through the shop and out of sight through a plastic curtain into the room behind. He soon reappeared, shaking his head. Only then did they relax a little.
“Sorry about that, sir,” said the first officer, securing his gun across his chest with a strap. “We can’t be too careful.”
I put my arms down. “What took you so long to get here?”
“We had to seal off the whole area,” he said. “Standard practice when there’s a report of a gunman.” He put his finger to his ear, clearly listening to someone on his radio earpiece. “Now, sir,” he said to me, “my superintendent wants to know if you have a description of this gunman.” His tone suggested that he didn’t altogether believe that a gunman had been stalking the streets of Finchley on a sleepy Tuesday afternoon in late April.
“I think I may have better than that,” I said. “Mr. Patel, does your closed-circuit TV system have a recorder?” I had passed some of my time waiting for the police by looking up at the small white video camera situated above the racks of cigarettes.
“Of course,” Mr. Patel replied. “I need to have it to catch the young scoundrels who steal my stock.”
“Then, officer,” I said. “please would you kindly inform Detective Chief Inspector Tomlinson of the Merseyside Police that we have the murderer of Herb Kovak caught on video.”
But how had he known where to find me? And why?
12
In the end,