by Dick Francis
‘What time did you get it?’ I asked him.
‘About half past ten this morning,’ he said. ‘My old Morris is quite slow on the motorway these days.’
Radcliffe had already been in the witness box at half past ten. The message had to have been sent by Julian Trent.
‘I thought I told you not to tell anyone where you were.’
‘I didn’t,’ he said, sounding pained. ‘No one knew where I was other than you, but I still don’t see why it was so important.’
‘But who else knew the number of that phone?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I called and gave it to Beryl and Tony on Saturday,’ he said. ‘They’re my neighbours. Just in case anything happened to the house.’
I could just imagine Julian Trent turning up to find the place deserted and asking the neighbours, in his most charming manner, if they knew where Mr Mason had gone. He probably told them he was Mr Mason’s grandson, come to surprise him. Of course they would have given him the phone number.
‘Dad,’ I said quite urgently. ‘Please go back out and get in the car and drive anywhere, but get away from your house. Or go next door to Beryl and Tony’s. Just please get away from the house.’
‘What on earth for?’ he said, annoyed. ‘I’ve only just got back.’
‘Dad, please just do it, and do it right now.’
‘Oh, all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll just make my cup of tea. I’ve put the kettle on.’
‘Please, Dad,’ I said more urgently. ‘Leave the tea. Go now.’
‘All right,’ he said, his annoyance showing again. ‘You’re a strange boy.’
‘Dad, take the phone with you. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.’
Eleanor pulled up in the car outside the court buildings, and I hobbled out to her as quickly as I could.
‘Drive,’ I said urgently as I struggled in. ‘Straight on.’
‘I can’t,’ she said pointing at the sign. ‘Buses and taxis only.’
‘Ignore it,’ I said. ‘I think Julian Trent is somewhere around my father’s bungalow.’
She looked at me, then back to the road. ‘But surely your dad is still in Devon.’
‘I wish,’ I said. ‘He’s gone home. Trent sent him a text message this morning as if it had come from me, telling him to go back home as soon as possible.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said, putting her foot down on the accelerator.
‘I’m calling the police,’ I said.
I dialled 999 and the emergency operator answered almost immediately.
‘Which service?’ she said.
‘Police,’ I replied.
Eleanor dodged a few shiny metal bollards and then drove straight down Cornmarket Street, which was usually reserved for pedestrians, but it was the best short cut through the city. A few people looked at us rather strangely, and some shouted, but no one actually stopped us and we were soon racing down St Giles and away from the city centre northwards.
I heard the police come on the line and the telephone operator gave them my phone number. ‘Yes,’ said a policeman finally. ‘How can we help?’
I tried to explain that my father was alone in his house and that he was in danger from a potential intruder. I should have lied to them but, stupidly, I told them the truth.
‘So there isn’t actually an intruder in the house at the moment?’ the policeman said.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘But I think that he might be outside, watching and waiting.’
‘And why is that, sir?’ he said.
What could I say? ‘I just do,’ I said unconvincingly.
‘We can’t send police cars as an emergency all over the country just because people think they may be troubled at some time in the future. Now can we, sir?’
‘Look,’ I said. ‘I am a barrister and I have been acting at the Crown Court in Oxford and I’m telling you that I have very good reason to believe that my father may be in great danger. I am on my way to his house right now, but I will be at least another twenty minutes getting there. Will you please send a patrol car immediately?’
‘I’ll do what I can, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll record the incident as a priority, but it will take some time to get a car to that part of Northamptonshire.’ It was his way of saying that the police wouldn’t actually be there for quite a long while. ‘Perhaps you could give us another call when you arrive, sir.’
‘Hopeless,’ I said to Eleanor, hanging up. ‘Mind the speed camera!’
She slammed on the brakes and we crawled past the yellow box at exactly thirty miles an hour. Then we were off again, considerably faster.
I dialled my father’s mobile number again.
‘Are you out of the house?’ I said when he answered.
‘Nearly,’ he said.
‘What have you been doing?’ I asked him in exasperation. It had been at least ten minutes since I had first called him. I wondered if everyone’s parents became so cantankerous and obstinate as they neared their eightieth birthdays.
‘I’ve been looking for the little present I bought Beryl and Tony in Sidmouth,’ he said. ‘I know it’s in my suitcase somewhere.’
‘Dad, please,’ I almost shouted at him. ‘Just get yourself out of the house right now. Get the present for them later.’
‘Ah,’ he said triumphantly. ‘I’ve found it.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Now get out of the house and stay out.’
‘Hold on a minute,’ he said. ‘There’s someone at the door.’
‘Don’t answer it,’ I shouted urgently into the phone, but he obviously didn’t hear me.
I hoped that it might have been Beryl and Tony coming round from next door to welcome him home, but, of course, it wasn’t. The phone was still connected in his hand and I could faintly hear the exchange taking place on my father’s front doorstep.
‘What do you want?’ I heard my father say rather bossily. There was something that I didn’t catch from his visitor, and then I could hear my father again, his voice now full of concern. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t want any. Please go away.’
Suddenly there was a crash and the phone line went dead.
I quickly called the house landline number, but it simply rang and rang until, eventually, someone picked it up. But it went dead again before I had a chance to say anything. I tried it again, but this time there was nothing but the engaged tone.
‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘I think Julian Trent has just arrived, and my father is still there.’
Eleanor floored the accelerator as we swept onto the A34 dual carriageway north. Fortunately, the rush hour had yet to get into full swing and we hurtled up to the motorway junction and onto the M40 at breakneck speed.
I tried my father’s landline once more, but it was still engaged.
‘Call the police again,’ said Eleanor.
This time I was connected to a different policeman and he now recorded the incident as an emergency. He promised to dispatch a patrol car immediately.
‘How long will it take?’ I said.
‘About twenty minutes,’ he said. ‘At best. Maybe longer.’
‘Twenty minutes!’ I said incredulously. ‘Can’t you get someone there sooner than that?’
‘Kings Sutton is right on the edge of the county,’ he said. ‘The patrol car has to come from Towcester.’
‘How about Banbury?’ I said. ‘That’s got to be closer.’
‘Banbury is Thames Valley,’ he said. ‘Kings Sutton is Northamptonshire Constabulary.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ I said. ‘Just get someone there as soon as you can.’
Throughout the call, Eleanor had been driving like a woman possessed, overtaking a lorry around the outside of a roundabout when turning right, and then causing a group of mothers and toddlers crossing the road to leap for their lives. But we made it safely to Kings Sutton in record time and she pulled up where I told her, round the corner and just out of sight of my father’s bungalow.
‘Wait here,’ I said, climbi
ng out of the car and struggling with the crutches.
‘Why don’t you wait for the police?’ she said. She came round the car and took my hand. ‘Please will you wait?’
It had only been about seven or eight minutes since I had last spoken to them. And they wouldn’t be here for ages yet.
‘Eleanor, my darling, my father’s in there on his own with Julian Trent,’ I said. ‘Would you wait?’
‘I’ll come with you, then,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You must wait here and speak to the police when they arrive. Show them which is the right house.’
Eleanor grabbed me and hugged me hard. ‘Be careful, my Barrister Man,’ she said. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you more,’ I said, but then I pushed her away. I had things to do.
I made my way gingerly through an herbaceous border and along the side of the bungalow to my father’s front door. It was standing wide open. I peeped inside but could see nothing unusual, save for the mobile phone, which lay on the floor with its back off, the battery lying close by. I reckoned my father must have dropped it as Trent had forced his way in.
I stepped through the doorway into the hall, rather wishing that the crutches didn’t make so much of a clink when I put them down on the hard wood-block floor. But I needn’t have worried about the noise. As I moved across the hallway I could clearly hear Julian Trent and his baseball bat systematically doing to my father’s home what he had previously done to mine. He was down the far end of the corridor causing mayhem in the bedrooms.
I looked into the sitting room. My father lay face down on the carpet, with blood oozing from his head. I quickly went over to him and bent down, using one end of the light blue sofa for support. He was not in great shape, not at all. I turned him over slightly and saw that he had been struck severely at least once across his face, and also that there was a nasty wound behind his right ear. I couldn’t really tell if he was breathing or not, and I tried unsuccessfully to find a pulse in his neck. However, the cuts on his head were still bleeding slightly, which gave me some hope. I checked that his mouth and airway were open by tilting his head back a bit and laying him more on his side.
Where were those damn police? I thought.
The noise of destruction in the bedrooms suddenly ceased and I could hear Trent’s footsteps coming back along the corridor. I struggled up and hid behind the open sitting-room door. Perhaps he would go past me. Perhaps he would go away.
My father groaned.
In truth, it was not much more than a sigh, but Trent heard it and he stopped in the doorway.
I looked down at my father on the floor and realized with horror that I’d left one of my crutches lying right next to him on the carpet.
It was too late to retrieve it now.
Trent came into the sitting room. I pressed myself back tight against the wall behind the door and sensed rather than saw him, but there was no doubt he was there. I could see the end of the baseball bat as he held it out in front of him. From where he stood, he would be clearly able to see my father, and the crutch.
‘OK,’ he said loudly into the silence, making me jump. ‘I know you’re here. Show yourself.’
Oh shit, I thought. I was hardly in any shape to fight a twelve-year-old cripple, let alone someone twice that age who was very fit and healthy, and who was holding a baseball bat to boot. I stayed exactly where I was.
The door was pulled away from me, exposing my hiding place. And there he was, in blue denim jeans and a short-sleeved dark green polo shirt, swinging his baseball bat back and forth. And, once again, he was smiling.
‘Time to complete some unfinished business,’ he said with relish.
‘It won’t do you any good,’ I said defiantly. ‘Your godfather was arrested in court this morning and the police are on their way here to arrest you.’
He hardly seemed to care. I glanced out of the window. Where were those wretched police?
‘I’d better make it quick, then,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘That’s a shame. I was planning to take my time and enjoy killing you.’
‘No handy pitchfork for you to use this time,’ I said.
‘No,’ he said, still smiling. ‘That is a pity, but this will do instead.’
He swung the baseball bat at my head so fast that he almost caught me unawares.
At the last moment I ducked down and the wooden bat thumped into the wall, right where my head had been only a fraction of a second before. I dived away from him, hopping madly on one leg. I would just have to put the other foot down, I thought, and hope my knee would carry my weight. I tried it as I made my way across the room and without too much of a problem. But I was too slow, and Trent had time to turn and swing the bat again, landing a glancing blow on my left biceps, just above the elbow. It wasn’t a direct hit but it was enough to cause my arm to go completely dead, numb and useless.
I leaned up against the wall by the window, breathing heavily. Two months of inactivity since the races at Cheltenham had left me hopelessly unfit. This battle was going to be over much too soon for my liking.
The feeling and movement in my left arm began to return slightly, but I feared it was too little, too late. Trent advanced towards me, grinning broadly, and he raised the bat for another strike. I stood stock still and stared at him. If he was going to kill me he would have to do it with me watching him. I wasn’t going to cower down and let him hit me over the back of the head, as he had clearly done to my father.
I dived down to my left at the last instant and the bat thumped again into the wall above my right shoulder. I grabbed it with my good right hand, and also with my nearly useless left. I clung on to the bat for dear life. I gripped it so tight that my fingers felt as if they were digging into the wood.
With both hands up above my shoulders, my body was completely unprotected by my arms. Trent took his right hand off the bat and punched me as hard as he could in the stomach.
It was a fatal error on his part.
While, to him, myabdomen may have appeared to be defenceless, he clearly didn’t know, or perhaps he had forgotten, about the hard plastic body shell that I still wore out of sight beneath my starched white shirt.
He screamed. Along, loud, agonizing scream.
It must have been like punching a brick wall. The bones in his hand would have cracked and splintered from the impact.
He dropped the baseball bat from his other hand and went down on his knees in obvious agony, clutching at his right wrist.
But I wasn’t going to let him get off that easily.
I picked up the bat and hit him with it, audibly breaking his jaw and sending him sprawling on to the floor, seemingly unconscious.
I sat down on the arm of the sofa and looked out of the window. There was still no sign of the boys in blue, but now I wasn’t so worried, I was even a little bit pleased.
I leaned down to the telephone, picked up the dangling handset and used it to call for an ambulance. Then I went across to my father. He was definitely alive, but only just. His breathing was perceptible but shallow, and I still couldn’t find a pulse in his neck but there was a faint one in his wrist. I moved him properly into the recovery position and he obligingly groaned again. I stroked his blood-matted hair. I may have been a strange boy, and he was definitely a strange and stubborn father, but I still loved him.
Julian Trent moaned a little, so I went back and sat on the arm of the sofa and looked down at him lying on the carpet in front of me, the young man who had brought so much misery to so many innocent people.
He began to stir, pulling his knees up under him so he was kneeling on the floor facing away from me. He cradled his right hand in his left, and his head was bowed down in front. As I watched him, his head came up a fraction and he tried to slowly reach out with his left hand towards the baseball bat that I had put down on the sofa beside him.
Would he ever give up? I asked myself.
I leaned down quickly and picked up the bat before he could re
ach it. Instead, he used his left hand to push down on the blue upholstery, as if he were about to try and stand.
No, I suddenly realized. He would never give up, not ever.
Eleanor and I might make our life together but there would always be three of us in the relationship, the spectre of Julian Trent hovering nearby in the darkness, forever waiting for the chance to settle the score in his favour. Even if he was convicted of Scot Barlow’s murder, and past form gave no guarantee of that, I was under no illusion that a lengthy term of imprisonment would reform or rehabilitate him. He would simply spend the time planning the completion of what he thought of as his ‘unfinished business’.
Just like Josef Hughes and George Barnett, we would never be free of the fear. Not for as long as Julian Trent was alive.
In common law, self-defence is called an ‘absolute defence’, that is, it doesn’t just mitigate a crime, it means that no crime exists in the first place. But in order for a justification of self-defence to succeed, certain conditions needed to apply. I knew this because I had recently defended someone accused of causing grievous bodily harm to a would-be mugger.
The conditions were a two-stage test, one of which was subjective and the other objective. First, did the accused genuinely believe that force was necessary to protect himself? And, secondly, if he did have that belief, then was the degree of force reasonable to meet the threat as he saw it?
The degree of force used was always the key. The law demanded that the force used should not have been excessive or, if it had been, then the perpetrator was making an honest, even if over zealous, attempt to uphold the law rather than taking the law into his own hands for the purposes of revenge or retribution.
In a landmark case in 1971 Lord Morris, the Lord of Appeal, stated, ‘If there has been an attack so that self-defence is reasonably necessary, it will be recognized that a person defending himself cannot weigh to a nicety the exact measure of his defensive action. If the jury thought that, in a moment of unexpected anguish, the person attacked had only done what he honestly and instinctively thought was necessary, that would be the most potent evidence that only reasonable defensive action had been taken.’
