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Darren embraced his happy, excited girlfriend when she got home. She had had the day off work to go and be part of the audience for a taping of Top Gear with some of her friends.
“They placed us right at the front for the news segment.” She was saying. “It was so funny, they were dressing Richard Hammond in all the Christmas tat from car companies, and he lost his balance and fell right into our group. It was the most hilarious thing!”
On the Sunday they settled in to watch Top Gear together as they usually did. Darren spotting his girlfriend in the front row next to the Christmas tree, and his blood boiled when he saw the good-looking Top Gear presenter almost head butting his girlfriend in the torso as he went flying off the stage.
A fight ensued. She insisted Darren was being ridiculous and he was furious with her for laughing it off. The relationship staggered on for another few weeks but Darren was so jealous and indignant he couldn’t let it go. By mid-January he was sleeping on a mate’s sofa, looking for places to rent as a single man once again.
Darren was possessed of a single-minded determination. He could have focused it on anything, it could have served him well and catapulted him to the top of a corporate ladder. Instead he focused it on Richard Hammond. He applied for tickets to Top Gear, repeatedly. Researched events Hammond was hosting, and then, about fifteen months later, he finally managed to get his hand on a ticket to a taping of Top Gear.
The taping was going well. They were enjoying the excitement of having their Snowbine Harvester taking pride of place in the studio. Richard and Jeremy had just finished putting the lap times on for BMW and the Mercedes, and Jeremy made his way over to interview their celebrity of the week.
Richard started doing his usual, hob nob with the audience thing. This was partly why people came to tapings, to meet the presenters, and it was a usual part of the taping that when the shots were being set up that the presenters would spend time doing meet and greets with the audience. He was chatting to a couple of young men in their early twenties about the modifications they had made to their cars when he was grabbed from behind and yanked backwards, a knife held to his throat.
On instinct, Richard grabbed the arm holding the knife and he pulled at it to try and get the blade away from his neck, but the bloke was built like a tank, he couldn’t budge it. Then the man’s other arm wrapped swiftly around his middle, capturing both Richard’s wrists in one enormous hand so he couldn’t move.
“Stay back!” The bloke was shouting. “Stay back or I will slit his throat.” Richard’s breath caught and he tried to tamp down on the fear he was currently feeling. They got crazies writing in occasionally, but aside from making sure only ticket holders came into the studio, they didn’t have any kind of security checking people for knives and the like. They had never needed to, and this one seemed sharp.
Richard saw a couple of the cameramen swing their cameras around and switch them on to capture the movement. They were probably thinking of evidence for the police rather than the show, but at that moment Richard just felt furious with them. What if that triggered the mad man to slice open Richard’s neck? They had probably increased the danger Richard was in by filming it.
Richard saw Andy approach, looking serious and level-headed, James appearing behind him, looking pale but calm. They both knew that something, anything, going even slightly wrong at this point could spell disaster.
“What the hell is going on?” That was Jeremy, not in sight yet but pushing his way through the crowd to see what all the commotion was. Jeremy arrived at the front, took in the situation, made eye-contact with Richard and swore very loudly before turning his attention on the man holding the knife.
“Let him go, mate. I know he can be an irritating, little, brummie idiot, but that’s not a capital offense.” Jeremy was going for matey. Friendly banter to diffuse the situation. Richard was not sure it would work, but it was better than anyone else seemed to do, they all seemed frozen in place. Richard couldn’t see any of their studio security, but they might be approaching from behind, if they were approaching at all, that is.
“Maybe I’m doing you a favour then? If he is an irritating, little, brummie idiot as you say.” The man spoke for the first time. He had a Newcastle accent and a higher than expected voice. “This monster cost me my relationship, he doesn’t deserve to live.”
Jeremy thought fast, trying to work out what the man meant. “So he’s good looking, big deal, so’s Tom Hiddleston. My wife has a crush on Hiddleston, it doesn’t mean an actor she’s never met ruined my relationship. Half the housewives in Britain think Hammond’s fit, that doesn’t mean it’s his fault. If he promised to get really fat would that make you let him go?”
A nervous, desperate laugh bubbled up in Richard’s chest, but he swallowed it. The hand around his wrists had already loosened slightly as the man was distracted talking to Jeremy. If Richard drew any attention back to himself now he would me more trapped. If Jeremy kept distracting the man, maybe, just maybe, Richard would be able to twist away.
“She did meet him!” The man was shouting now. “She came to a taping of a Christmas special, and then when the episode aired I watched it. And I watched it again until I was certain of exactly what had happened. No room for doubt, see. I watched as you were being silly, dressing him in all sorts of Christmas tat from car companies, then the way he went flying off the stage, and practically headbutted my girlfriend in the breasts! It was disgusting the way he took advantage. She couldn’t stop talking about it for days afterwards. How funny it had been. How he had been so nice afterwards and come to “apologise”. Yeah right, I bet by apologise what he was actually doing was flirting!”
Richard could feel disgusting little flecks of spit land on his cheek and ear as the man ranted. He did remember the occasion, and nothing untoward had happened. He certainly didn’t recall headbutting anyone in their sensitive areas. The women he apologised to afterwards had been pretty, yes, but there was no flirting going on, and they were really gracious about the whole situation.
“I pushed him.” Jeremy was saying. “I remember the segment. Dress Richard Hammond in 30 seconds in all the MG branded clothing? We were part way through, and I thought we were losing the audience, so I thought it would be funny and I pushed him into the audience. If his head landed somewhere untoward I promise you it was my fault for aiming him there. We checked in with the audience members in question afterwards and they said they were fine, so if you have an issue with what happened. Don’t blame Richard, blame me.”
This was selfless and entirely uncharacteristic of Jeremy. He wasn’t usually the one to accept blame, even if it could only be laid, by any reasonable person, squarely at Jeremy’s feet. What had happened was an accident. Jeremy was probably trying to diffuse the situation. Get the man to let Richard go and get security to jump him before anyone else got hurt. This was not the outcome.
Darren was quickly regretting his choices, but everything he had done in the past eighteen months had let up to this moment. The moment when he would make Richard Hammond pay. Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought past what to do once the moment arrived. People were in a wide circle around him, and there was Jeremy Clarkson, a man Darren had idolised for over a decade, telling him that what happened had been Clarkson’s fault not Hammond’s?
Darren’s hands felt clammy and cold and he reacted by tightening his grip on Hammond’s wrists, feeling the bones grind together, and pressing the blade more firmly into the side of the man’s neck. Hot blood started to dribble out and coat the hand holding the knife. He hadn’t nicked an artery, he still had time.
Clarkson now looked terrified.
“Say you’re right.” Jeremy continued, doing everything in his power to get the madman to let Hammond go. “Say Richard did ruin your relationship. He’s sorry. He’s clearly sorry. I’ve never seen him look more apologetic. If you kill him now, that punishes you. You will go to prison for the rest of your life, because no cheating, however bad, warrants a death sentence.”
Jeremy was holding eye-contact with the man but he was very aware of the blood now seeping from Hammond’s neck and his colleague’s pallor. They had dealt with crazy fans before but this was on another level.
Something gave in the man’s eyes and Jeremy chanced a half-step forward. Then another. They were only about four feet away from him now. The man was taking in deep panicked breaths and the air was so thick with tension you could hardly move.
Then the light in the man’s eyes seemed to go out, and he shoved Hammond away in Jeremy’s direction, raised the knife high, and attempted to bring it down into his own stomach, only to be stopped by their head of security and a couple of others. Ex-special forces and experts in their field.
Richard drew in a gasping breath, folding his shirt cuff over his hand and pressing it to the thin cut on his neck. He could feel Jeremy’s steadying hands on his upper arms as Jeremy helped him recover from the shove and stand back on his feet.
“Thanks mate, that was… close.” Richard said.
“Yeah.” Jeremy replied. “Come on, let’s get a medic to look at the cut in the greenroom, and give you a chance to calm down a bit.”
Richard shook his head. “We need to keep taping, we still have some more links to do.”
“I need a breather after that, and I’m sure you do, taping can wait.” Jeremy insisted. Now Andy and James were there, so Richard turned his attention on them.
“I’m fine to keep taping.” Richard grinned, trying to hide his shakiness. “Just need to get a plaster on this and then we can keep going.” James folded his arms and Andy raised an eyebrow.
“You might be okay to keep going straight away but I am not. Aside from anything else we need the police here to take statements, and you need that cut treated, and if you’re feeling anywhere near as shaken as I am then you need a cup of tea. Go to the green room with Jeremy and James. We’ll get the police here and then discuss continuing the taping. And call Mindy.”
Then Jeremy was leading the way out of the hangar and James was bringing up the read. A medic jogged up to them with their medical bag, and quickly assessed the cut as entirely superficial. A dressing was placed over the top and Richard was given strict instructions not to pick at it, then the three presenters were alone.
Jeremy moved first, enveloping Richard in a hug.
“I’m okay, really.” Richard said, hugging back.
“That was terrifying.” Jeremy said, before releasing Richard and going to sit down. James came in and gave Richard his own hug. He wasn’t the most touchy feely bloke so he must have been shaken by the whole thing.
“Don’t do that again.” Was all James said.
“I didn’t do anything!” Richard was incredulous. “Why is it that I’m the one who seems to attract all the crazies, because it really isn’t fair!”