Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,96

…’ She tailed off, unable to continue.

The 2000 Guineas excursion had obviously been a last-ditch effort to try to find a new market for the ailing giant. The resulting carnage, with the loss of key personnel, might prove to be the final nail in the company’s coffin.

‘Is there much unemployment around here?’ I asked her.

‘No, not at the moment,’ she said. ‘But three thousand still work at the tractor factory. No small community can absorb that number laid off at once. Many of them will have to leave and go to Milwaukee to make beer or motorcycles.’

‘Beer or motorcycles?’ I asked. It seemed a strange combination.

‘Miller beer and Harley-Davidsons,’ she said. ‘Both are made in Milwaukee.’

‘And how far away is that?’ I said.

‘About thirty miles.’

‘Maybe they will be able to continue living here and commute,’ I said, trying to cheer her up. ‘It won’t be so bad.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ she said, clearly not believing it.

‘I wonder what will happen to the Schumanns,’ I said during a pause.

‘Don’t you worry about them,’ she said. ‘They’ve got pots of money. Just built themselves a new house. More like a mansion. It’s never the bosses who end up broke. They’ll make sure they get their bonuses and pensions sorted before the plant closes. You watch.’

She obviously wasn’t as keen on the Schumanns as she had originally implied. After her husband and son are made redundant, I thought, she probably won’t have a good word left for anyone to do with Delafield Industries Inc.

Only one person we spoke to knew of MaryLou Fordham. It was the man in the novelty sculpture shop.

‘Nice legs,’ he’d said with a knowing smile. I had smiled back at him but it was not her legs I remembered. It was the lack of them.

We drove slowly along Lake Drive, staring at each of the impressive residences. This was millionaires’ row for Delafield. Each house sat in the centre of its own large garden, with impressive fences, walls and gates to keep out the unwanted. From the road it wasn’t very easy to see the buildings due to the many pine trees and the bountiful rhododendrons, but Caroline and I had previously driven over to the far side of the lake and had looked back to identify the Schumann home. As the cushion lady had said, it was quite a mansion: a modern three-storey house in grey stone with a red roof set above a sweeping well-tended lawn that ran down to the water and a dock, complete with boat.

Was this the home of the true target of the Newmarket bombing? Was this the home of a victim or a villain? Was this the home of a friend or a foe?

Only one way to find out, I thought, and I pushed the button on the intercom beside the eight-foot-high wrought-iron security gates.

CHAPTER 16

Dorothy Schumann was a slight woman. Although she was not more than five-foot eight, she looked taller due to her slender shape. She had long, thin hands that were ghostly white, almost transparent, and they shook slightly as she rested them in her lap. Caroline and I, and Mrs Schumann, sat facing each other on two green and white sofas in her drawing room, the view down to the lake as spectacular as I had imagined.

‘So you met my Rolf in England,’ said Mrs Schumann.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘At Newmarket racetrack.’

‘On the day of the bomb?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was at the lunch.’

She looked at me closely. ‘You were very lucky then.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. I explained to her that I was staying in Chicago on business and had decided to come and see how Rolf was doing, now that he was home.

‘How kind,’ she said, somewhat despondently. ‘But Rolf is not home here. He’s still in the hospital in Milwaukee having treatment.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought I had heard that he was well enough to go home.’

‘He was well enough to be flown back last week,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid he’s not very well at all.’ She was having difficulty holding herself together. ‘He has some kind of brain damage.’ She swallowed. ‘He just sits there staring into space. He doesn’t even recognize me. The doctors don’t seem to know if he will ever recover.’ She shook with sobs. ‘What am I going to do?’

Caroline went across and sat next to Mrs Schumann. She put an arm around her shoulder.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dorothy said. She took a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed