Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,72
having a head full of fairly useless information, I came up with no answers to my questions. However, I did find out that the final of a tournament was taking place on the coming Sunday at the Guards Polo Club, near Windsor. Perhaps I would go. Even better, perhaps I would take Caroline.
‘Are you crazy?’ said Caroline when I phoned her. ‘I haven’t got time to go to a bloody polo match. And you’re meant to be resting. You’re still concussed, remember?’
‘It’s only for the afternoon,’ I said. ‘And concussion affects memory.’
‘You’re really serious about going, aren’t you?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said.
‘But I know nothing about polo,’ she complained.
‘So what?’ I said. ‘Neither do I.’
‘Then what on earth do you want to go for?’ she said.
‘Well, you know my mad theory about the bombing and the poisoned dinner?’ I said. ‘I have an itching feeling that it might have something to do with polo. I know it sounds daft and I might be barking up the wrong tree, but I want to go to a polo match and ask a few questions.’
‘Why didn’t you say so?’ she said. ‘Of course I’ll come. Shall I wear my deerstalker and bring a magnifying glass?’
‘Do I detect a degree of scepticism?’ I asked, laughing. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m very doubtful as well, but I have nowhere else to look.’
‘So what do I wear?’ Caroline asked.
‘Tweed suit and green wellies,’ I said.
‘I don’t have a tweed suit,’ she said.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Something fairly smart and warm, the forecast is not great for Sunday.’
‘Do I need a hat?’ she said.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied.
‘You’re no bloody good,’ she said. ‘I thought you knew about the horsy world.’
‘Racing,’ I said, ‘not polo.’
‘Same thing. Both messing about on horses.’
She had lots to learn.
I spent most of Saturday kicking my heels around the cottage and studying the hands of my watch as they swept ever so slowly round and round, wishing they would hurry up so I could be on my way to Fulham; on my way to Caroline.
But the day wasn’t a complete waste. During the morning, I called Margaret Jacobs at the saddlery shop. She wasn’t very friendly.
‘What do you want?’ she demanded in a rather cross tone.
‘What’s wrong, Margaret?’ I said.
‘You made Patrick and me so ill after that dinner,’ she said. ‘I thought we were dying.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘If it is any consolation, I was desperately ill as well. And I didn’t make everyone ill on purpose.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ She mellowed, but only a bit. ‘But it said in the paper that your restaurant was closed for decontamination. There must have been something wrong for them t3 do that. And we’d been eating there only the week before too.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with the restaurant,’ I told her. ‘We have been inspected by the Food Standards Agency and given a clean bill of health. There never was anything wrong with it.’
‘There must have been,’ she said. ‘Otherwise, why were we so ill?’
I decided not to tell her about the kidney beans and my belief that someone had poisoned the dinner on purpose. Instead, I changed direction.
‘Margaret,’ I said. ‘I know that you and Patrick were invited to the lunch given by Delafield Industries on 2000 Guineas day. Was your illness the reason why you didn’t go?’
‘Yes,’ she said fïrmly. ‘I was really looking forward to that day but we had both been up all night.’
‘I suppose, in the end, it was a good job you didn’t actually go,’ I said.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Don’t you know?’ I said. ‘The box where the bomb went off at the races was the box where that lunch was held. All those people who died were the Delafield staff and their guests.’
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
‘Margaret,’ I said. ‘Are you still there?’
‘I didn’t realize it had been that box that had been bombed,’ she said, sounding very shocked. ‘My God. We could have been killed.’
‘But you weren’t,’ I said, trying to be reassuring.
‘I was so cross we couldn’t go,’ she said. ‘In fact, I still wanted to in spite of feeling so lousy. It was Patrick who insisted we shouldn’t and we had a huge row about it.’ She paused. ‘Those poor people.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was there. I cooked the lunch.’
‘Did you?’ she said, somewhat surprised. ‘If I’d known that, I might not have been so keen.’
‘Oh thanks,’ I said.
‘Sorry,’ she said. But she didn’t add that she didn’t mean it.