Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,35

his little joke. He was clearly enjoying himself hugely and was still chuckling as he hung up the phone.

I wish I felt like laughing with him.

Gary came into the office. ‘There’s a bird here to see you. Says you would be expecting her.’

‘Did this bird give you her name?’ I asked.

‘Harding, I think she said. From some newspaper.’

The news editor of the Cambridge Evening News. Since having received the information from Angela Milne, I was not sure if this was now such a good idea. Perhaps a low profile would have been the best approach. If I made too much of how clean and hygienic my kitchen was, would I be setting myself up for an even bigger fall if and when the papers reported that I had been cautioned, fined or imprisoned for ‘rendering food injurious to health’ as section 7 of the Food Safety Act 1990 so concisely defined it. Well, it was too late now. If I didn’t see her after making the arrangements, then she would probably write something nasty about me or the restaurant and even more damage would have been done.

She was waiting for me in the bar, thirtyish, with shoulder-length dark hair tied back in a ponytail. She was seriously dressed in a dark skirt down to her knees with a white blouse above, and she carried a black, businesslike briefcase. I bet she would just love to be referred to by Gary as ‘a bird’.

‘Ms Harding,’ I said, holding out my hand. ‘I’m Max Moreton.’

She looked at my hand for a moment, then shook it gingerly. Clearly she believed that her health was in danger anywhere near me or my restaurant.

‘Would you care for a cup of coffee?’ I asked.

‘Oh no, no thank you,’ she said, with just a touch of panic in her voice.

‘Ms Harding,’ I said, with a smile, ‘my coffee is quite safe, I assure you. Perhaps you would like to see the kitchen to satisfy yourself that it’s clean. I assure you it is, but don’t take my word for it. Ask the local authority, they inspected it on Monday and the inspector told me it was the cleanest and most hygienic kitchen he had ever visited.’ It was a little bit of an exaggeration, but so what?

She didn’t seem totally reassured, but she did reluctantly agree to come with me into the kitchen.

‘Did you bring a photographer?’ I said over my shoulder as 1 led her through the swing door from the dining room.

‘No,’ she said. ‘There wasn’t one available at such short notice, but I brought a camera. These days all our reporters carry their own digital cameras. If they take enough shots, then one of them usually turns out to be good enough to print.’ She looked from side to side as we went past the servery, where the plated meals were kept under infra-red lamps to keep warm before being collected by the waiters and waitresses and taken out into the dining room. She walked with her free hand up near her face as if she might touch something and be contaminated if she let it down.

Oh dear, I thought, this is going to take more persuasion than I had imagined.

‘This is the point at which the kitchen and dining room meet,’ I said, ‘kitchen staff on one side, waiters on the other.’

She nodded.

‘Perhaps you might want to take a picture,’ I prompted.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s fine. But what I really want to do is talk to you about the bombing.’

‘OK,’ I said, ‘we will, but I want that coffee first.’ I could have made the coffee in the bar but I was determined to take her through to my kitchen, even if she wouldn’t take a picture.

We went on right to the back where I had purposely placed the coffee machine that usually sat on the sideboard in the dining room. ‘Are you sure you won’t have a cup,’ I said. ‘It’s freshly brewed.’

She spent a moment or two looking around her at all the shining stainless steel. The work surfaces were so bright she could have fixed her makeup in them, and the cooker tops around the gas rings positively gleamed. I noticed her relax a fraction.

I held out a mug of steaming coffee. ‘Would you like milk and sugar?’ I asked.

‘Just a little milk,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ I smiled. Round one to Moreton.

‘Is all this stuff new?’ she asked, putting her briefcase on the floor and taking the mug of