Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,57
you can manage. I also need the names of those invited to the Delafîeld box on Guineas day. If you can get me all that, then I will happily say that you had nothing to do with the food at the dinner.’
‘But I didn’t have anything to do with it,’ she wailed.
‘I know that,’ I said. ‘And I will say so. But get me the lists.’
‘I’ll try,’ she said.
‘Try hard,’ I said, and hung up.
I called the newsroom of the Cambridge Evening News and asked for Ms Harding.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Are you checking to see if I’ll still be coming to dinner at your restaurant?’
‘Partly,’ I said. ‘But also to tell you some news before you near it from somewhere else.’
‘What news?’ she said, her journalistic instincts coming firmly to the fore.
‘I am to be prosecuted by the local authority for serving rood likely to be hazardous to health,’ I said in as deadpan I manner as I could manage.
‘Are you indeed?’ she said. ‘And do you have a quote for me?’
‘Not one you could print without including a warning for young children,’ I replied.
‘Why are you telling me this?’ she asked.
‘I assumed that you would find out eventually and I thought it better to come clean,’ I said.
‘Like your kitchen,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, and put you down as on my side.’
‘I wouldn’t necessarily say that. My business is selling newspapers and I don’t know whose side I am on until I see the way the wind is blowing.’
‘That’s outrageous,’ I said. ‘Don’t you have any morals?’
‘Personally? Yes,’ she said. ‘In my job? Maybe, but not at the expense of circulation. I can’t afford that luxury.’
‘I’ll do a deal with you,’ I said.
‘What deal?’ she replied quickly. ‘I don’t do deals.’
‘I will keep you up-to-date with all the news I have about the poisoning prosecution, and you give me the right of reply to anything anyone says or does to me or the restaurant, including you.’
‘That’s not much of a deal for me,’ she said.
‘I’ll throw in a guaranteed exclusive interview at the end of the proceedings,’ I said. ‘Take it or leave it.’
‘OK,’ she said, ‘I’ll take it.’
I told her about the letters that had arrived at the racecourse catering company offices. I also told her that I intended to mount a determined defence to the allegation.
‘But people were made ill,’ she said. ‘You can’t deny that.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t deny that people were ill. I was one of them. But I vehemently deny that I was responsible for making them ill.’
‘Then who was?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But it wasn’t me.’ I decided not to mention the kidney bean lectin. Not yet. Was that breaking my deal? No, I thought. It was just bending it a little. ‘If I do find out who was responsible, I promise you I’ll definitely tell you who it was.’ I’d tell everyone.
‘What am I meant to write in the meantime?’ she pleaded.
‘I would prefer it if you wrote nothing,’ I said. ‘But if you must, then write what you like. But I get the chance to reply.’
‘OK,’ she said, sounding a little unsure. Time, I thought, to change direction.
‘Do you have any further news about the people injured in the bombing?’ I asked. ‘I read in your paper that most of the Americans have gone home but two of them are still here in intensive care.’
‘Only one now,’ she said. ‘The other one died yesterday. From her burns.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘How many is that now?’
‘Nineteen,’ she said.
‘You don’t happen to know what became of a Mr Rolf Schumann, do you? He’s the chairman of Delafield Industries.’
‘Hold on a minute,’ she said. I could hear her asking someone else. ‘Apparently, he was air-ambulanced home to America over the weekend, out of Stansted.’ And I hadn’t yet been paid for the Guineas lunch.
‘Do you know what his injuries were?’ I asked.
I could hear her again relaying the question. ‘Head injuries,’ she said. ‘Seems he’s lost his marbles.’
‘I hope you don’t write that in your paper,’ I said.
‘Good God no,’ she said. ‘He’s suffering from mental distress.’
‘How about the others who were injured, the non-Americans?’ I asked.
She relayed the question again. ‘There’s a couple from the north who are still in hospital with spinal injuries or something. The others have all been discharged from Adden-brooke’s, but we know of at least one who has been transferred to Roehampton.’