Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,120

know how much longer I can go on like this.’ He sounded almost manic.

‘I said I’ll call you,’ I replied, and hung up.

‘Problems?’ asked Caroline, who had only been able to hear my end of the conversation.

‘The ship is foundering on the rocks without the captain,’ 1 said. ‘One of the chefs has been fired for threatening another with a knife, and now the threatened one has caught chicken pox. Carl, my number two, is basically on his own.’ Julie, who prepared the cold dishes, wouldn’t be much use in the heat of the kitchen.

‘Can he cope on his own?’ she asked.

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘Not if the restaurant is more than half full.’

‘And is it?’ said Caroline.

‘I didn’t ask,’ I said. ‘But I hope so. And if it’s not tonight, it certainly will be towards the end of the week. But that’s not all. Carl has upset some of the other staff and I can imagine the undercurrents running through the place. They will all be waiting for me to get back before the volcano explodes, and the longer I’m away the worse will be the eruption when it finally happens.’

‘Then you must go back there now,’ said Caroline.

‘I couldn’t be much help one-handed,’ I said, holding up the cast.

‘Even a one-handed Max Moreton would be better than most,’ she said.

I smiled at her. ‘But is it safe?’ I said. ‘Or is it precisely what someone wants?’

‘Who?’ she asked. ‘Komarov?’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Or Carl.’

‘Carl? Don’t you trust your number two?’

‘I don’t know who I can trust,’ I said. I sat there thinking as I watched a boat chug upstream through the bridge with two pasty-white sunbathers lying on its roof. ‘Yes, I think I probably do trust Carl.’

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Then we go back to Newmarket and save your restaurant. But we don’t tell anyone we’re coming before we get there, not even Carl.’

Caroline took Viola for a walk down the riverbank into the meadow below the pub while I sat and made the rest of my calls. I could hear the mellow tones of her playing as I rang first my mother, to ensure she was all right, and then the police, the Metropolitan Police Special Branch to be precise.

‘Can I speak to DI Turner, please?’ I asked.

‘Can you hold,’ said a female voice. It wasn’t so much a question as an order. Eventually she came back on the line. ‘DI Turner is off duty until 2 p.m.’

I left him a message asking him to call me. I told him it was urgent. I was promised that he would get the message. I wondered if I should have spoken to someone else. But DI Turner knew who I was and he was less likely to dismiss my information with a laugh.

Caroline continued walking the riverbank tow-path and playing sweet music for about forty minutes before she returned, flushed, smiling and happy.

‘Oh that’s great,’ she sighed, sitting down. I looked envicusly at Viola. I wished I could make Caroline feel like that in the middle of the day, and with jet lag.

‘Don’t you need to read the music?’ I asked her.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not for this piece. I know it so well. I was just making sure my fingers knew it as well as my head does.’

‘I thought orchestras always have music,’ I said. ‘They have music stands, I’ve seen them.’

‘Well, we do. But soloists usually don’t, and often the music is there just as an aidemémoire rather than being absolutely necessary.’ She slipped Viola lovingly back into her case. ‘Are we staying here for lunch?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’d rather go. It’s been over an hour since I first used my phone here and it’s time to move on.’ And, I thought, the food wasn’t very inviting.

‘Can someone really find out where you are from your mobile?’ she asked.

‘I know the police can,’ I said, ‘from your phone records. I’ve heard about it in trials. I’m just not taking any chances that Komarov has someone at the phone company on his payroll.’

‘Do you want to go back to Newmarket?’ Caroline asked.

‘Yes and no,’ I said. ‘Of course I want to go to the Hay Net and sort out the mess, but I have to admit that I’m wary.’

‘We don’t have to go, you know,’ she said.

‘I can’t go on running for ever,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to go back there sometime. I’ve left a message for the policeman I spoke to at Special Branch, and I’ll tell him what