Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,93
question might not have been resolved, but they were out of sight and, for an hour or so, out of mind too.
The audience stood and cheered. They even whooped with delight and put fingers in their mouths and whistled. Anything, it seemed, to make a noise. There was no decorum or restraint here. Unlike we British who sit and politely applaud, the Americans’ way of expressing their approval is to holler and shout, and to dance on their feet.
The orchestra smiled and the conductor bowed, repeatedly. The ovation lasted for at least five minutes with the conductor leaving the stage and reappearing six or seven times. Some in the audience even bellowed for more, for an encore, as if this was a pop concert. Eventually the conductor shook the hand of the orchestra leader and they left the stage together, putting an end to the acclaim and allowing the players to retire gracefully for the night.
I met Caroline outside the stage door and she was as high as a kite.
‘Did you hear them?’ she said breathlessly. ‘Did you hear the noise?’
‘Hear it?’ I said, laughing. ‘I was making it.’
She threw her arms round my neck. ‘I love you,’ she said.
‘You’re just saying that,’ I said, mocking her slightly.
‘I’ve never said that to anyone in my life before,’ she said rather seriously. ‘And yet it seems so simple and obvious to say it to you.’
I kissed her. I loved her too.
‘It made such a difference,’ she said, ‘to have you in the audience. But I spent the whole concert trying to find you in the sea of faces.’
‘I was behind the conductor,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t see you either.’
‘I thought you must have gone back to the hotel.’
‘Never,’ I said. ‘I really enjoyed it.’
‘Now, you’re just saying that,’ she said, mocking me a little too.
‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I loved it, and… I love you.’
‘Oh goodie,’ she squealed and hugged me. I hugged her back.
I stayed the night in Caroline’s room without telling the hotel or giving them my name. Even though it was very unlikely that anyone would have traced me, I took no chances and propped the chair from the desk under the door handle when we went to bed.
No one tried to get in, at least I didn’t hear anyone trying. But, then again, by the time we finally went to sleep at midnight, I was so tired that I don’t think I would have heard if someone had tried blasting their way through the wall with a hand grenade.
In the morning, we lay in bed and watched breakfast television, which wasn’t very good and full of far too many advertising breaks for my liking.
‘What do you have to do today?’ I asked Caroline while running my finger down her spine.
‘Nothing until four o’clock,’ she said. ‘We will have a run through of a couple of movements. Then tonight’s performance is at seven thirty, like last night.’
‘Can I come again?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I hope so.’ She giggled.
‘I meant to the concert,’ I said.
‘You can if you want to,’ she said. ‘Are you sure? It’ll be just the same as last night.’
‘You could surely eat the same dinner two nights running?’ I said.
‘Only if you cooked it.’
‘Well then,’ I said. ‘I want to come and hear you play again tonight.’
‘I’ll see if I can find you a ticket.’
‘So what do you want to do until four o’clock?’ I asked.
She grinned. ‘We could stay in bed.’
But we didn’t. We decided to get up and go and have some breakfast at the restaurant on the ninety-fifth floor of the John Hancock Building, which, according to the tourist guide in the room, was the second-highest building in the Midwest, after the Sears Tower.
I took the lift down to the lobby while Caroline went to put a note under the door of a fellow violist with whom she had agreed to go shopping, explaining that her plans had changed. As I waited for her, I asked the concierge for a map of the area and found the John Hancock Building clearly marked. I also found O’Hare airport to the north-west of the city centre. And something else on the map caught my eye.
Caroline arrived, having delivered her note.
‘Are you aware,’ I asked, ‘that the state of Wisconsin starts only a few miles north of Chicago?’
‘So?’ she said.
‘Wisconsin is where Delafield is, and that’s where Delafield Industries Inc. are based.’
‘But how far away?’ she said. ‘Some of the states are huge.’