Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,41

about Newmarket,’ said Mark, getting us round to the real reason for our dinner. ‘It’s time you came to London to run a place like this. Time you made your name.’

We were in the restaurant of the OXO Tower, on the eighth floor overlooking the City of London skyline. It was one of my favourite venues and, indeed, if I was to run a restaurant in the metropolis, then this would be the sort of establishment I would create, a combination of sophistication and fun. It helps, of course, to have an interesting and unusual venue, and this was it. According to the brief history printed on the menus, the restaurant sat atop what had been a 1920s warehouse built by the Liebig Extract of Meat Company, who made OXO stock cubes. When the company was refused planning permission to put up the name OXO in lights on the front of the building to shine across the Thames, an architect incorporated the word in the window shapes on all four sides of a tower built above the warehouse. The meat extract company has long gone from the site which now contained design shops and residential accommodation, as well as four different cafés and restaurants, but the tower remained, with its OXO windows. Hence the name.

‘Well?’ said Mark. ‘Lost your tongue?’

‘I was thinking,’ I said. ‘It’s quite a change.’

‘You do want to make your name, don’t you?’ he said earnestly.

‘Yes, absolutely,’ I replied. ‘But I’m more worried at the moment of making it in the tabloids as a mass poisoner.’

‘In a week it will be forgotten about. All anyone will remember will be your name and that’s an advantage.’

I hoped he was right. ‘What about the girl that’s suing me?’ I asked.

‘Don’t worry about her,’ he said. ‘Settle out of court and it won’t be reported. Give her a hundred quid for her trouble and move on. Stupid idea anyway, suing over a bit of food poisoning. What does she hope to get? Not much loss of earnings through the night anyway, not unless she was on the game!’ He laughed at his own joke and I relaxed a little.

We were sitting in the round-backed blue leather chairs of the restaurant at the OXO, and I was enjoying allowing some-one else to do the cooking for a change. I chose the foie gras ballantine with a fig chutney and brioche to start, and then tie rack of lamb with sweetbreads for my main course, while Mark went for the lobster to start and the organic Shetland cod for his main. In spite of his choice of fish, Mark was a red wine man so we sat and took pleasure from an outstanding bottle of 1990 Château Latour.

‘Now then,’ he said, once the first courses were served, ‘where shall we have this restaurant and what style do you fancy?’

Why did those questions ring alarm bells in my head? Mark had stuck absolutely to his deal over the Hay Net. He had provided the finance but given me a free hand in everything else: venue, style, menus, wines, staff, the lot. I had asked him at the time to give me an indication of an overall budget for the setting up and for the first year of operation. ‘More than half a million, less than a million,’ is all he said. ‘And what security?’ I had asked him. ‘The deeds to the property and a gentlemen’s agreement that you will work at the venture for a minimum of ten years unless we both agree otherwise.’ In the end I had used nearly all his million but his 50 per cent of profits for the past five years had paid back far more than half of it, and he still held the deeds. Over ten years, at the pre-poisoning turnover, the Hay Net would provide a very healthy return on his investment. I, of course, was delighted and proud that my little Newmarket establishment had proved to be such a success, both financially and in terms of ‘standing’ in the town. However, what had been more important to me than anything was my independence. It may have been Mark’s money that I had used to set it up, and he ultimately owned the building in which it was housed, but it was my restaurant and I had made all the decisions, every one.

Did I detect in Mark’s questions his intent to have a more hands-on role in any new London venture? Or was I