Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,49
then was more like a carthorse when you sent it out to run in a race, and it subsequently tested positive for dope. If you absolutely knew you hadn’t personally given it any substance to slow it down, then you would conclude that someone else must have done so. The same here. I absolutely know I didn’t put anything in that dinner to make people ill but tests have shown that there was a food-poisoning agent present, so someone else must have put it there. And that, I believe, could only have been done on purpose. And, I can assure you, I intend to find out who was responsible.’
I thought that I probably shouldn’t be telling them quite so much, but they were supporting me when others were deserting, so maybe I owed them.
‘Well, it did us a big favour anyway,’ said Emma.
‘How so?’ I asked.
‘We were invited to that lunch where the bomb went off,’ she said. ‘We didn’t go only because we had both had such a bad night. How lucky was that! Although I must admit that on the Saturday morning I was bloody angry with you.’ She poked me in the chest with her finger. ‘I had been so looking forward to that day at the Guineas. Anyway, it turned out to be a blessing in the end.’ She smiled at me. ‘So I forgive you.’
I smiled back, and put a hand on her arm. ‘That’s all right then,’ I said. I always responded positively when flirted with by female customers who were old enough to be my mother. It was good for business.
‘Come on, Emma,’ said George impatiently. ‘We must go. Peter and Tanya are waiting.’ He waved his hand towards their guests who were standing patiently by the front door.
‘All right, George,’ she replied, irritated. ‘I’m coming.’ She stretched up her five-foot-three frame to my six feet for a kiss and, leaning forward, I duly obliged. ‘Night, night,’ she said. ‘It’s been a lovely evening.’
‘Thank you for coming,’ I said, meaning it.
‘And you can poison us any time you like if it saves our lives.’ She smiled.
‘Thanks,’ I said, trying to think of an appropriate response.
George was hopping from one foot to the other. ‘Come on, my darling,’ he said with exasperation. Emma duly obliged with a sigh. I watched through the window as the four of them got into and drove away in a new top-of-the-range Mercedes.
That was three people that I now knew of who should have been in the bombed box but weren’t there because they had been made ill by the dinner. Poor old Neil Jennings had wished he had been there with Elizabeth but the Kealys certainly didn’t. They were perversely grateful for having been poisoned. Perhaps this particular dark cloud had a silver lining after all.
The smaller number in the restaurant had tended to make the service somewhat quicker than usual and the last few diners departed just before eleven. On some Saturday nights we could still be pouring ports and brandies after midnight and, once or twice, it had been after one in the morning before I had cajoled the stragglers out through the front door and into the night.
I sat at my desk in the office and silently hoped that the worst was over. If I could nip the lawsuit in the bud, and plead ignorance and forgiveness over the poisonous kidney beans, then maybe normality would return to the Hay Net, at least: for a few months until I was ready to announce a move to the big city. How wrong I could be.
I looked at my watch. Eleven fifteen. Time to go home, I thought. A nice early night for a change.
The telephone rang at my elbow.
‘Hello,’ I said into the receiver. ‘Hay Net restaurant.’
There was just silence at the other end.
‘Hello,’ I said again. ‘The Hay Net restaurant. Can I help you?’
‘Why did you tell me you were selling double glazing?’
‘Er.’ I sat there, not knowing quite what to say.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘I’m waiting.’
‘I don’t know why,’ I mumbled.
‘Are you a bloody idiot or something?’
Yes, I probably was. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Can I please explain?’
‘I’m waiting,’ she said again.
‘Not here, not now, not on the telephone,’ I said. ‘Perhaps we could meet?’
‘How did you get my number?’ she demanded.
‘Directory enquiries,’ I said.
‘I’m ex-directory.’
‘Oh. I don’t remember,’ I said. ‘Maybe it was through the orchestra.’