Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,21

that without going into the kitchen.

‘How about the milk?’ he asked. It was in the cold-room.

‘Drink it black. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’

It actually took me twenty minutes to reach the restaurant, not least because my car was still at the racecourse and I had to phone for a taxi. By the time I arrived Richard had made it there as well, and he had brought with him the bad news about Louisa. Julie and Jean were in tears and consoling each other and Ray, Martin and Gary just sat in silence with their heads bowed. Louisa had been a very popular member of the team and was loved by us all.

Martin asked me about Robert and I was able to assure them that he was all right. But it did little to lighten the mood. Richard was expressing his anger at the ‘bastards’ who had done this. He kept banging his fist on the table and, in the end, I suggested it might be best if he went outside to cool off. I could see him through the window kicking a tree near the car park. He was in his mid-forties and was my maître d’, meeting and greeting the customers and taking their dinner orders as they enjoyed a drink in the bar. Louisa had been his own teenage daughter’s best friend at school and I knew that he thought of her as an extension of his family. It had been because of Richard that Louisa had come to work at the Hay Net and he now probably felt in some way responsible. His anger was directed not just at the ‘bastards’ who did this but at the whole situation that had led to her death.

Carl arrived to join this happy throng.

‘Hi,’ he said to me. ‘How’s the knee?’

‘I’ll survive.’

‘Pity.’ He forced a smile. I knew he slightly resented having a boss who was ten years his junior, especially one who took all the credit when Carl thought he had done the lion’s share of the work. But I paid him well so he stayed.

I convened a meeting in the dining room. Richard came in from the car park with red and tearful eyes, Julie and Jean still clung to each other with Martin fussing over them both, and Ray and Gary sat close together facing me. I suddenly wondered if they were, in fact, a couple. Our two kitchen porters had wandered off somewhere but I wasn’t so concerned about them.

‘It is absolutely dreadful news about Louisa and I know that we are all angry and disturbed by her death.’ Richard nodded furiously. ‘This has been an appalling weekend for everyone in Newmarket and especially for us who were involved with the event on Saturday.’

‘I feel so guilty,’ said Richard, interrupting.

‘Why guilty?’ I asked.

‘Because I was meant to be there on Saturday,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t go because I was so unwell on Friday night. Maybe I could have saved her if I’d been there.’ He started crying again.

‘Richard,’ I said, ‘you mustn’t blame yourself. If you were there you might have been killed too.’

He looked at me in a manner that suggested he knew that and still would have preferred to have been there just the same.

‘Martin and I were ill on Friday night as well,’ said Jean. ‘I called an ambulance because he was so bad.’

‘I was also meant to be at the racecourse on Saturday,’ said Martin, ‘but they didn’t let me out of the hospital until about one, and it was too late by then.’ He looked at me for reassurance.

‘It’s fine, Martin,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t have expected anyone to come to work after being so ill.’ He looked relieved.

‘I was ill as well,’ added Julie in her high-pitched manner.

‘And us,’ said Gary, indicating him and Ray. Perhaps I was right about them. Gary went on. ‘I should also have been there on Saturday, but I was too sick to make it. Sorry, Chef.’

‘It’s all right,’ I said, looking at him. ‘I think we were all food-poisoned on Friday evening, along with most of the guests who attended the function at the racecourse.’

The enormity of what I had said slowly sank in.

‘Is that why the kitchen is padlocked?’ said Gary.

‘Yes.’ I explained to them all I knew about the situation. I told them that someone had apparently died from the food poisoning, but that I didn’t yet know who it was. I told them that I would try to get