Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,97
at her eyes, smearing her makeup and causing her to cry even more.
‘Come on,’ said Caroline. ‘Let’s go and sort you out.’
Caroline almost pulled Mrs Schumann to her feet and guided her gently into the master bedroom suite, which, like in many modern American homes, was on the ground floor.
I looked around the drawing room. There were masses of family photographs in silver frames sitting on a table near the window. I looked at the pictures of Rolf Schumann in happier times, many with a much healthier-looking Dorothy at his side. There were also images of him at dinners in black tie, and at a building site in a bright yellow hard hat and muddy steel-tipped boots. There were two of him dressed for polo, one of him mounted smiling broadly with his mallet in the air, and another dismounted receiving a silver trophy from a man who even I recognized as a senior American politician with presidential aspirations.
But there was little else in the room that could give me much insight into the man that Rolf Schumann used to be.
I opened a door on the far side of the room from where the women had disappeared and found myself in Rolf’s study. In contrast to the brightness of the white-decorated drawing room, his study was dark with heavy wood panelling and a great oak desk in the centre. On one wall was a ‘map’ of Africa in which each of the countries was depicted by a different animal hide. Above and behind the desk, a huge stag’s head leaned out from the wall with its magnificent multi-pointed antlers almost reaching up to the impressively high ceiling. There were more photographs here too: Rolf Schumann in a safari suit and wide-brimmed hat in the African bush with rifle in hand and his left foot resting on a huge downed elephant; Rolf Schumann in waist-high waders, with a fishing rod in one hand and a salmon held high in the other; Rolf Schumann in hunting pink jacket and hard hat on horseback, sipping a stirrup cup before the chase. Rolf Schumann was clearly a man of many sports, many blood sports. I felt slightly uneasy, and it wasn’t solely due to the lifeless stag’s glass eyes that I illogically sensed were somehow following me as I moved around the room.
I went back to the drawing room, and just in time. Mrs Schumann and Caroline came back from the makeup repairs as I sat down again on one of the green and white sofa.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Dorothy said to me. ‘I don’t seem to be myself at the moment.’
‘That’s quite all right,’ I said. ‘We shouldn’t have disturbed you. I’m sorry to have caused you so much distress. We should go.’ I stood up.
‘No, no,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to have some company. Please stay a little longer. You’ve come such a long way. And I would really like to hear more about what happened at the racetrack.’
I sat down again. I explained to her as much as I thought was prudent about the bombing at Newmarket, leaving out the gory details, and the blood. She sat bolt upright on the sofa, listening intently to every word. Once or twice the tears welled in her eyes but, this time, she was able to maintain her composure.
‘Thank you for telling me,’ she said. ‘It has been very hard not knowing anything.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. She smiled wanly at me and nodded.
‘Will you have something to drink?’ she said. ‘I have some iced tea in the kitchen.’
I looked at my watch. It was just after twelve. ‘We’d love some,’ I said.
All three of us went through to her kitchen and Dorothy poured three tall glasses of golden liquid over slices of lemon. I had always preferred my tea hot but I had to admit that the iced version was tasty and very thirst quenching. Caroline and I sat on stools at what Dorothy called ‘the bar’. The kitchen was spectacular, with a great view down to the lake and the ‘city’ beyond. The bar was, in fact, one side of a large island in the centre of the huge room.
‘Dorothy,’ I said. ‘Can you think of any reason why Rolf would be a target for a bomber?’
She stopped in the middle of pouring more tea and looked at me. ‘The local police told me that Rolf wasn’t the target. They said he was bombed by mistake.’