Decider. Part 10

Nothing.

He had to be somewhere else, I thought. But where? Where? Where? There could be det cord festooned throughout the length of all the buildings; throughout the Club, through the Tattersalls enclosure where on race days the bookies had their pitches, through the cheapest of three enclosures where there were almost more bars than viewing steps. There could be det cord festooned throughout the length of all the buildings; throughout the Club, through the Tattersalls enclosure where on race days the bookies had their pitches, through the cheapest of three enclosures where there were almost more bars than viewing steps.

'Toby,' I yelled: and got silence.

There was no possibility that I could miraculously dismantle what looked like a thoroughly planned attack. I didn't know enough, nor where to start. My first priority, anyway, was the safety of my son, so with silence continuing, I turned to go back out into the open air, to run further down the sprawling complex and try again.

I'd already pivoted to run when I heard the tiniest noise, and it seemed to me it came from above, from somewhere up the stairs, over my head.

I sprinted up two levels, to the landing outside the Stewards' vantage point and yelled again. I tried the Stewards' room door, but like so much else, it was locked. He couldn't be in there, but I yelled anyway.

'Toby, if you're here, please please come out. This place can blow up at any moment. Please, Toby. come out. This place can blow up at any moment. Please, Toby. Please Please.'

Nothing. False alarm. I turned to go down again, to start searching somewhere else.

A wavery little voice said, 'Dad?'

I whirled. He was climbing with difficulty out of his perfect tiny hiding place, a small sideboard with spindly legs beside an empty row of pegs meant for the Stewards' hats and coats.

'Thank G.o.d,' I said briefly. 'Now come on.'

'I was the escaped prisoner,' he said, slithering out and standing up. 'If they'd found me they would have put me back in the Bastille.'

I hardly listened. I felt only urgency along with relief.

'Will it really blow up, Dad?'

'Let's just get out of here.'

I reached for his hand and tugged him with me towards the stairs, and there was a sort of crrrump crrrump from below us, and then a brilliant flash of light and a horrendous bang and a swaying all about us, and it was like what I imagine it must be like to be caught in an earthquake. from below us, and then a brilliant flash of light and a horrendous bang and a swaying all about us, and it was like what I imagine it must be like to be caught in an earthquake.

CHAPTER 6.

In the fraction of time when thought was possible, both knowledge and instinct screamed that the stairs themselves, wreathed and tied with explosive like a parcel, were the embrace of death.

Enclosing Toby in my arms I spun on the heaving floor and hurled us with slipping feet and every labour-trained muscle back towards Toby's hiding-place cupboard beside the Stewards' box door.

The core of Stratton Park racecourse imploded, folding inwards. The staircase ripped and cracked and crashed as its walls collapsed into the well, splitting open into jagged caverns all the rooms alongside.

The Stewards' door blew open, its gla.s.s viewing walls splintering and flying in slicing spears. The terrifying noise deafened. The stands shrieked as they tore apart, wood against wood against brick against concrete against stone against steel.

With Toby beneath me, I fell forwards, scrabbling and seeking for footing so as not to slide back towards the gutted stairs; and the high precarious tower atop all else, the Press and television vantage point, came smas.h.i.+ng down through the ceiling beams and plaster above us, plunging in sharpedged pieces at crazy angles across my back and legs. I seemed to stop breathing. Sharp stabs of pa.s.sing agony stapled me to the floor. Movement became impossible.

Billowing black smoke poured up from the stairs, lung-filling, choking, setting off convulsive coughing when there was no room to cough.

The thunderous noise gradually stopped. Far below, small creaks and intermittent crashes. Everywhere black smoke, grey dust. In me, pain.

'Dad,' Toby's voice said, 'you're squas.h.i.+ng me.' He was coughing also. 'I can't breathe, Dad.'

I glanced vaguely down. The top of his head, brown-haired, came up as far as my chin. Inappropriately, but how can one help the things one thinks, I thought of his mother's once frequent complaint 'Lee, you're squas.h.i.+ng me' and I would raise my weight off her by leaning on my elbows and I'd look into her gleaming laughing eyes and kiss her, and she'd say that I was too big and that one day I would collapse her lungs and break her ribs and suffocate her from love.

Collapse her lungs, snap her ribs, suffocate... dear G.o.d.

With a good deal of effort I levered my elbows up into the familiar supporting position and spoke to Amanda's twelve-year-old son.

'Wriggle out,' I said, coughing. 'Wriggle up this way, head first.'

'Dad... you're too heavy.'

'Come on,' I said, 'you can't lie there all day.' I meant, I didn't know for how long I could lift myself off him, so as not to kill him.

I felt like Atlas, only the world lay not on my shoulders, but beneath them.

Incongruously, sunlight fell all around us. Blue sky above, glimpsed through the hole in the roof. The black smoke funnelled up through there, slowly dispersing.

Toby made convulsive little heaves until his face came up level with mine. His brown eyes looked terrified and, uncharacteristically, he was crying.

I kissed his cheek, which normally he didn't like. This time he seemed not to notice and didn't wipe it away.

'It's all right,' I said. 'It's over. We're both all right. All we have to do is get out. Keep on wriggling. You're doing fine.'

He inched out with difficulty, pus.h.i.+ng bits of masonry out of his way. There were some sobs but no complaints. He made it onto his knees by my right shoulder, panting quietly, coughing now and then.

'Well done,' I said. I let my chest relax onto the floor. Not an enormous relief, except for my elbows.

'Dad, you're bleeding.'

'Never mind.'

A few more sobs.

'Don't cry,' I said.

'That man,' he said, 'the horse kicked his eyes out.'

I moved my s.h.i.+rt-sleeved right forearm in his direction. 'Hold my hand,' I said. His own fingers slid slowly across my palm. 'Look,' I said, gripping lightly, 'dreadful things do happen. There's never going to be a time in your whole life when you won't remember that man's face. But you'll remember it less and less often, not all the time, like now. And you'll remember us being here, with all the stands blown inwards. A lot of people's memories are full of truly awful things. Any time you want to talk about that man, I'll listen.'

He squeezed my hand fiercely, and let it go.

'We can't just sit here for ever,' he said.

Despite our fairly disadvantaged state, I was smiling.

'It's quite likely,' I remarked, 'that your brothers and Colonel Gardner will have noticed the stands have been rearranged. People will come.'

'I could go and wave out of those broken windows, to tell them where we are '

'Stay right here,' I said sharply. 'Any floor might collapse.'

'Not this one, Dad.' He looked around wildly. 'Not this one, that we're on, will it, Dad?'

'It'll be all right,' I said, hoping I spoke the truth. The whole landing, however, now sloped towards where the stairs had been, and I wouldn't have cared to jump up and down on it with abandon.

The pressures of the chunks of ceiling, roof and Press tower were unremitting across my back and legs, pinning me comprehensively. I could, though, move my toes inside my shoes, and I could certainly feel. Unless the building subsided more from acc.u.mulated internal stress, it looked possible I might escape with a clear head, an intact spinal cord, both hands and feet and an undamaged son. Not bad, considering. I hoped, all the same, that rescuers would hurry.

'Dad?'

'Mm?'

'Don't shut your eyes.'

I opened them, and kept them open.

'When will people come?' he asked.

'Soon.'

'It wasn't my fault the stands exploded.'

'Of course not.'

After a pause, he said, 'I thought you were kidding.'

'Yep.'

'It's not my fault you're hurt, is it?'

'No.' He wasn't, I saw, rea.s.sured. I said, 'If you hadn't been hiding right up here I could have been lower down the stairs when the explosion happened, and would now very likely be dead.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes.'

It seemed very quiet. Almost as if nothing had happened. If I tried to move, different story...

'How did you know the stands would explode?' Toby said.

I told him about Neil seeing the det cord. 'It's thanks to him,' I said, 'that all five of you weren't killed.'

'I didn't notice any cord.'

'No, but you know what Neil's like.'

'He sees sees things.' things.'

'Yes.'

In the distance, at what seemed long last, we could hear sirens. One, at first, then several, then a whole wailing orchestra.

Toby wanted to move but again I told him to stay still, and before very long there were voices on the racecourse side, outside and below, calling my name.

'Tell them we're here,' I told Toby, and he shouted with his high voice, 'We're here. We're up here.'

After a brief silence a man's voice yelled, 'Where?'

'Tell them beside the Stewards' box,' I said.

Toby shouted the information and got another question in return.

'Is your father with you?'

'Yes.'

'Is he talking?'

'Yes.' Toby looked at me and spontaneously gave them more news. 'He can't move. Some roof fell in.'

'Stay there.'

'OK?' I said to Toby. 'I told you they would come.'

We listened to clanging and banging and businesslike shouting, all far away and outside. Toby was s.h.i.+vering, not with cold, as the midday sun still warmed us, but with acc.u.mulated shock.

'They won't be long,' I said.

'What are they doing doing?'

'Putting up some sort of scaffolding, I should think.'

They came up from the racecourse side, where the reinforced concrete viewing steps on the steel girders had, it transpired, survived the onslaught pretty well unscathed. A fireman in a big hard hat and a bright yellow jacket suddenly appeared outside the broken windows of the Stewards' box and peered inwards.

'Anyone home?' he cheerfully called.

'Yes.' Toby stood up joyfully and I told him abruptly to stay still.

'But, Dad '

'Stay still.'

'You stay there, young 'un. We'll have you out in no time,' the fireman told him, and vanished as quickly as he'd come. Returning, he brought with him a colleague and a secure metal walkway for Toby to cross on to the window, and almost in no time, as he'd promised, he'd picked the boy out of the window and out of danger. As Toby disappeared from my view, I felt weak. I trembled from relief. A lot of strength seemed to drain away.

The colleague, a moment later, stepped through the window and crossed the walkway in reverse, stopping at the end of it, some several feet from where I lay.