Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,27
‘How about Friday? Lunch? At the Goring.’
‘Fine,’ I said.
‘Good,’ he said again. ‘One o’clock in the bar.’
‘Fine,’ I repeated, and he hung up.
I sat there for a while thinking about what the future might bring. There was no doubt that the Hay Net was becoming very well known in the area and, at least until Friday night, had been generally well respected. Indeed, so popular had we become that securing a table for dinner was a challenge that needed considerable forward planning, especially at the weekends. In the past year I had been featured in a few magazines and the previous autumn we had entertained a TV crew from the BBC. The Hay Net was busy, comfortable and fun. Maybe it had become rather too easy, but I loved being part of the world of racing, the world in which I had been brought up. I liked racing people and they seemed to like me. I was enjoying life.
Was I ready to give up this provincial cosiness to move to the cut-throat world of restaurants in the metropolis? Could I afford to walk away from this success and pit myself against the very best chefs in London? Could I afford not to?
The night was slightly less disturbed than the previous one, and with a few new variations of the dream. It was mostly MaryLou pushing the trolley and occasionally she became a legless skeleton as she pushed. More than once it was Louisa doing the pushing and she still had her legs. Thankfully, on these occasions the dream faded away peacefully rather than with the endless fall and racing heart. Overall, I slept for more hours than I was awake, and I was reasonably refreshed by the time my alarm clock noisily roused me at a quarter to eight.
I lay in bed for a while thinking about what Mark had said the previous afternoon. The prospect of joining the restaurant big boys was, at once, hugely exciting and incredibly frightening. But what an opportunity!
I was brought back to earth by the ringing of my telephone on the bedside table.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Max, is that you?’ asked a female voice. ‘It’s Suzanne Miller here.’
Suzanne Miller, the managing director of the racecourse catering company.
‘Hi, Suzanne,’ I said. ‘What can I do for you so early?’ I looked at my clock. It was twenty-five to nine.
‘Yes, sorry to call you at home,’ she said, ‘but I think we might have a problem.’
‘How so?’
‘It’s to do with last Friday,’ she said. I wasn’t surprised. ‘It seems that some people who were at the gala dinner were ill afterwards.’
‘Were they?’ I said in a surprised tone. ‘How about you and Tony?’ Tony was her husband and they had both been at the event.
‘No, we were fine,’ she said. ‘It was a lovely evening. But I always find these big evenings nerve-racking. I get so wound up in case anything goes wrong.’
And it wasn’t even her firm doing the cooking, I thought, although they had been responsible for the guest list and all the other arrangements.
‘So what’s the problem?’ I asked innocently.
‘I’ve had a letter this morning. It says…’ I heard paper being rustled. ‘Dear Madam, This letter is to give you advance warning of legal proceedings that will be initiated by our client against your company to recover damages for distress and loss of earnings as a result of the poisoning of our client at a dinner organized by your company at Newmarket racecourse on Friday 4 May.’
‘And who is their client?’ I asked.
‘It says “Ref: Miss Caroline Aston” at the top.’
‘Was she a guest on Friday?’ I asked.
‘She’s not on the guest list but so many of them weren’t named. You know what it’s like, Mr So-and-so and guest. Could be anyone.’
‘You said people. Who else?’
‘Apparently quite a few,’ she said. ‘I mentioned this to my secretary just now when I opened it and she says that lots of people were ill on Friday night. Her husband is a doctor and she says he had to see quite a few of his patients. And she said there was an article in the newspaper about it yesterday. What shall we do?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘At least, nothing yet. If anyone asks, tell them you’re looking into it.’ I paused. ‘Out of interest, what did you and Tony have to eat on Friday night?’
‘I can’t remember,’ said Suzanne. ‘What with all this bomb business I can’t think.’