Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,69

failed to show up. Against sixteen of the remaining names someone had placed a d, presumably for ‘deceased’ as there were ds next to Elizabeth Jennings, MaryLou Fordham and the Walters. Also, someone had handwritten ‘Louisa Whitworth’ and ‘Elaine Jones’ at the bottom of the list. They also had a d against their names. I remembered from the Cambridge Evening News report that Elaine Jones had been the unfortunate woman killed by flying masonry.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I had asked for the list of survivors and DI Turner had given me exactly that, together with the names of those who had died. But what I still lacked was the names of the seven people who should have been there but weren’t.

I called the number I had used earlier.

‘Is DI Turner there?’ I asked.

I had to wait a few minutes before he came on the line. I thanked him for sending me the list, but could he help just one more time? He listened patiently to my explanation that I would like to have the names of those who had escaped death only by a fraction in order that they, too, might share in the benefit of the therapy group. Did he have the seven missing names?

He seemed to hesitate, but then he agreed to try to find the original list.

‘Can’t promise we still have it,’ he said. ‘Not so important for us to keep a list of people who weren’t there, especially when they weren’t even the intended target.’

I thought about telling him my theory that, actually, they were the intended target, but it still seemed rather fanciful and I had no hard facts to back it up. My afternoon’s searching on the Internet had hardly turned up anything of note and I was beginning to seriously doubt my original thoughts that my car crash had been deliberately arranged. I simply thanked him again and said that I would be waiting for the list.

‘I go off duty in half an hour,’ he said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

I hung up. Was I right or were the police right? Perhaps I should have shared my ideas with the policeman, and then at least he could have shown me the errors in my reasoning. Maybe, as Caroline had said, the police had more information than I did, information from M15 and the other intelligence services. Or maybe they were just sticking to the Arab prince theory because they didn’t have any other.

I thought about calling Neil Jennings but it seemed too soon to intrude on his grief by asking questions about how and why he had been invited to the Delafield box. Instead, I called the Kealys.

‘Hello, Max,’ said Emma. ‘Are you checking whether we’re coming tomorrow?’

I had to think what she was talking about. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I just assumed you were.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I think there will be six of us, as usual.’

‘Great,’ I said. I decided not to mention that I wouldn’t be at the restaurant. I would be down the pub with Caroline. I couldn’t remember when I was last ‘down the pub’ on a Saturday night. I was looking forward to it. ‘No, the real reason I called was to ask if you knew why you had been invited to that lunch on Guineas day.’

‘Oh that,’ she said. ‘We had a runner in the race. I think that was the reason.’

‘But they couldn’t have asked all the trainers,’ I said.

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Emma. ‘We were and I know Neil and Elizabeth were invited as well. Elizabeth and I had discussed it.’ She paused briefly. ‘Poor Elizabeth.’

‘Yes,’ I said. I waited a few seconds. ‘Emma, I’m sorry to be a nuisance, but can you remember when you received the invitation?’

‘Oh.’ There was a pause. ‘I can’t, I’m afraid. It was some time ago, I know that.’

‘Was it a proper printed invitation, on stiff card?’ I asked.

Another pause. ‘I don’t think it was,’ she said. ‘I can’t remember it being on the mantelpiece. That’s where we put all our invitations.’ I suspected that their mantelpiece was kept pretty full.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘Thanks anyway.’

‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask George when he gets in. He’s out at some damn committee meeting for the club he’s chairman of. I’ll call you if he thinks of anything more.’

‘Thanks. Bye now.’ I hung up. Another dead end.

I looked again at the list that Detective Inspector Turner had sent. Of the seventeen names not crossed out and without