Decider - By Dick Francis Page 0,30

what should have been built, with some picture of stress points and weaknesses to look for. I’d studied ancient plans a great deal less trustworthy than these, and these grandstands weren’t ruins after all: they’d withstood gales and rot for well over half a century.

Basically, the front of the stands, the viewing steps themselves, were of reinforced concrete supported by steel girders, which also held up the roof. Backing the concrete and steel, solid brick pillars formed the weight-bearers for the bars, dining rooms and private rooms for the owners and stewards. Centrally there was a stairway stretching upwards through five storeys giving access outwards and inwards throughout. A simple effective design, even if now out of date.

The door of the office was suddenly flung open, and Neil catapulted himself inside.

‘Dad,’ he said insistently, ‘Dad…’

‘I’m busy, Neil.’

‘But it’s urgent. Really really urgent.’

I let a set of drawings recurl by accident. ‘How urgent?’ I asked, trying to open them again.

‘I found some white wires, Dad, going in and out of some walls.’

‘What wires?’

‘You know when they blew up the chimney?’

I left the plans to their own devices and paid full attention to my observant son. My heart jumped a beat. I did indeed remember the blowing up of the chimney.

‘Where are the wires?’ I asked, trying for calmness.

Neil said, ‘Near that bar with the smelly floor.’

‘What on earth is he talking about?’ Roger demanded.

‘Where are your brothers?’ I said briefly.

‘In the stands. Hiding. I don’t know where.’ Neil’s eyes were wide. ‘Don’t let them be blown up, Dad.’

‘No.’ I turned to Roger. ‘Can you switch on a public address system that can be heard everywhere in the stands?’

‘What on earth –’

‘Can you?’ I felt my own panic rising: fought it down.

‘But –’

‘For God’s sake,’ I half yelled at him, quite unfairly. ‘Neil’s saying he’s seen det cord and demolition charges in the stands.’

Roger’s own face went taut. ‘Are you serious?

‘Same as the factory chimney?’ I asked Neil, checking.

‘Yes, Dad. Exactly the same. Do come on.’

‘Public address system,’ I said with dreadful urgency to Roger. ‘I have to get those children out of there at once.’

He gave me a dazed look but at last went into action, hurrying out of his office and half running across the parade ring towards the weighing room, sorting through his bunch of keys as he went. We came to a halt beside the door into Oliver Wells’ office, the lair of the Clerk of the Course.

‘We tested the system yesterday,’ Roger said, fumbling slightly. ‘Are you sure? This child’s so young. I’m sure he’s mistaken.’

‘Don’t risk it,’ I said, practically ready to shake him.

He got the door open finally and went across to unlatch a metal panel which revealed banks of switches.

‘This one,’ he said, pressing down with a click. ‘You can speak direct from here. Let me plug in the microphone.’

He brought an old-fashioned microphone from a drawer, fitted plug to socket, and handed me the instrument.

‘Just speak,’ he said.

I took a breath and tried to sound urgent but not utterly frightening, though utterly frightened was what I myself felt.

‘This is Dad,’ I said as slowly as I could, so they could hear clearly. ‘Christopher, Toby, Edward, Alan, the grandstands are not safe. Wherever you’re hiding, leave the stands and go to the gate in the rails where we went through and down the course last Saturday. Go out in front of the stands, and gather by that gate. The gate is the rallying point. Go at once. The Bastille game is over for now. It’s urgent that you go at once to the gate where we went out onto the course. It’s quite near the winning post. Go there now. The grandstands aren’t safe. They might blow up at any moment.’

I switched off temporarily and said to Neil, ‘Do you remember how to get to that gate?’

He nodded and told me how, correctly.

‘Then you go there too, will you, so that the others can see you? And tell them what you saw.’

‘Yes, Dad.’

I said to Roger, ‘Have you the key to the gate?’

‘Yes, but–’

‘I’d be happier if they could go out through that gate and across to the winning post itself. Even that might not be far enough.’

‘Surely you’re exaggerating,’ he protested.

‘I hope to God I am.’

Neil hadn’t waited. I watched his little figure run.

‘We went to see an old factory chimney being blown up,’ I said to Roger. ‘The boys were fascinated. They saw some charges being set. It was only three months