Dead Heat Part 21

'No.' I laughed. 'I'm just someone who knows little or nothing about the game but I want to learn. I've inherited pots of money from my grandmother and I thought I might spend some of it having fun playing polo with the n.o.bs.'

He quickly lost interest in us, no doubt believing that we were ignorant proles who should go and spend our money elsewhere, just as I intended. I don't exactly know why, but I didn't really want either Peter or Pyotr Komarov to hear that I had been asking after him at the Guards Polo Club.

There were two matches played, each lasting a little under an hour and we stayed for them both. We watched the second from the tables and chairs placed in front of the clubhouse. The sun shone more strongly through the high cloud and it became a delightful spring afternoon, ruined only slightly by the continuous stream of noisy jetliners overhead in their climb away from Heathrow airport. I didn't want to think about the one that would take Caroline so far away from me the following day.

We chatted to half a dozen more people and all of them had heard of Peter Komarov, although not all of them were as positive about him as our man in the grandstand.

'He's not a good influence,' said one man. 'I think he has too much power in the game.'

'How come?' I asked him.

'He not only sells horses, he leases them too, especially to the top players,' he said. 'That means that some of the best international players are beholden to him. Doesn't take an Einstein to work out the potential for corruption.'

'But surely there's not a lot of prize money in polo?' I said.

'Maybe not but it's getting bigger all the time,' said the man. 'And there's been an increase in gambling on the matches. You can now wager on polo with some of the betting websites. And who knows how much is gambled overseas on our matches, especially in Russia. I think we would be much better off without his money.'

'Does he put money into the game then?' I asked.

'Not half as much as he takes out,' he said.

No one had heard of either Rolf Schumann or Gus Witney, but I didn't mind, I had reaped a wonderful amount of information about the elusive Mr Komarov, including a gem from the clubhouse caterer, who also provided the food for the Royal Box. She was certain of it. Both Pyotr Komarov and his wife, Tatiana, were vegetarians.

'Why are you so excited?' asked Caroline as we stood on the platform waiting for the train back to London. 'Apart, of course, from the fact that you are with me again tonight.'

'Did you hear what that catering woman said?' I asked.

'Something about the Komarovs being vegetarians,' she said. 'So what's exciting about that?'

'It means that even if they were at the gala dinner at the racecourse, they couldn't have been food-poisoned because I'm pretty certain the poison was in the sauce that was on the chicken.'

'So?' she said.

'They didn't turn up at the Delafield box on the Sat.u.r.day when they were expected to,' I said. 'And they couldn't have missed that lunch because they had been ill the night before, at least not like everyone else, because they hadn't eaten the right stuff. So why didn't they turn up? Was it because they knew there would be a bomb going off?'

'Hold on a minute,' she said. 'That's a h.e.l.l of a conclusion to suddenly jump to, especially when you've claimed in the past that the poisoning was to stop someone being at the lunch and now you're saying that maybe the bomber wasn't poisoned at all but still didn't turn up.'

She was right, of course. It was confusing.

'But suppose there was someone else the bomber didn't want to be at the lunch,' I said. 'Then both could be true.'

'You need more than "suppose",' she said. 'Suppose the bomb was aimed at the Arab prince after all. You can make anything you like sound sensible with "suppose".'

Our train arrived and we sat in a carriage surrounded by a party of children on their way home from a theme park. It had been a birthday outing and they were all so high on the experience, describing with screams and laughter how frightening the rides were and how much fun it had been to survive them.

Caroline leaned on my shoulder. 'I want lots of kids,' she said.

'That's a bit sudden,' I said. 'We're not even living together yet and you want kids?'

For an answer, she just snuggled down closer to me and hummed. I don't think it was Nimrod Nimrod by Edward Elgar. by Edward Elgar.

I cooked dinner in Caroline's white and chrome kitchen, and she played her viola for me as I did. We had stopped at the supermarket in Waterloo station and bought some ingredients and a bottle of wine. I prepared a beef stroganoff while Caroline played the first movement of Bach's Violin Concerto in E major Violin Concerto in E major, her favourite piece. She was right. It sounded great on the viola.

'Is that the piece you're playing at the Cadogan Hall?' I asked.

'No, sadly not,' she said. 'I would have to play the violin to ever play this at a concert.'

'But surely you could play a violin too?' I said.

'Oh yes, I could,' she said. 'But I don't want to. I'm a violist not a violinist, and it's out of choice. Violins are so tinny compared to the mellow tones of a viola. Most of the orchestra think that we violists are failed violinists but it's not true. That's like saying trombonists are failed trumpeters, or flautists are failed oboists. It's ridiculous.'

'Like saying waiters are failed chefs,' I said, although I knew quite a few waiters who were just that.

'Exactly,' she said. It was clear to me that this wasn't the first time she had built up a head of steam over the issue.

'Caroline,' I said seriously, 'you don't have to prove your worth, certainly not to me. Be confident in your role as a violist. You don't have to apologize for not being something else.'

She stood next to me and leaned back against the worktop.

'You are so right,' she said in a determined tone. 'I'm a violist and pleased to be so.'

We laughed and drank a toast to Miss Caroline Aston, violist and proud of it.

'So what are you playing at the Cadogan Hall?' I asked 'Concerto for violin and viola by Benjamin Britten,' she said. by Benjamin Britten,' she said.

'Can you play it for me?' I asked.

'No,' she said. 'It would sound silly.'

'Why?'

'Because it needs to be played by two people, one with a violin and one with a viola. It would be like listening to only one person while they were having a conversation with someone else that you couldn't hear, as if they were on the telephone. You wouldn't get the full meaning.'

'Does music always have a meaning?' I asked.

'Definitely,' she said. 'Playing a musical score is like telling a story using notes and harmonies, instead of letters and words. Music can invoke huge pa.s.sion and symphonies should carry the listener through the full range of emotion from antic.i.p.ation and sadness and melancholy in the early movements, to delight and joy at the climax.'

I couldn't claim that my dinner would tell a story but I hoped that it might provide a share of delight and joy, albeit briefly, on the taste buds.

I trimmed the beef and cut it into strips before seasoning and then searing it in a hot frying pan. Then I fried a sliced onion and some mushrooms until they were tender and added them to the beef with some plain flour. I poured a generous measure of cognac over the mixture and, much to Caroline's horror, flamed off the alcohol.

'You'll set the whole b.l.o.o.d.y building on fire,' Caroline shouted as the flames leapt towards her ceiling, and I laughed.

Next I carefully poured in some sour cream and a small amount of lemon juice, and sprinkled some paprika over the top. I had previously taken a large potato and, as Caroline didn't have a kitchen mandolin, I had grated it on the large-hole side of her box cheese grater to produce long thin strips of potato which I now fried briefly in a deep-fryer to produce crisp brown potato straws, while my beef mixture warmed on a low heat.

'I thought beef stroganoff was served with rice,' she said, watching me. 'And I didn't expect a chef to use my deep-fat fryer.'

'I use one all the time,' I said. 'I know that fried food is not considered very healthy but it tastes so good and it's fine if you use the right oil for the frying and eat it only in moderation. I certainly wouldn't use lard like they used to.' I lifted the basket of potato straws out of the oil. 'It's traditional in Russia to serve beef stroganoff with potato straws, although lots of people like serving it with rice.'

We sat together on the sofa in her sitting room and ate off trays on our laps.

'Not bad,' she said. 'Why is it called stroganoff?'

'After the Russian who invented it, I think.'

'Another Russian,' she said. 'Is that why you chose it for tonight?'

'Not consciously,' I said.

'It's nice.' She took another forkful. 'What gives it such a distinctive flavour?' she asked with her mouth full.

'The sour cream and the paprika,' I said, laughing. 'This dish used to be on lots of restaurant menus, but unfortunately, these days, it tends to be made without the beef, is called mushroom stroganoff and is served up for vegetarians.'

'Like the Komarovs,' she said.

'Indeed,' I said. 'Just like the Komarovs.'

Monday morning was full of contradictions and wildly different from the evening before.

Caroline was eager to leave for the airport and could hardly contain her excitement at the prospect of jetting to Chicago to join the orchestra. She kept complaining at how slowly the time was pa.s.sing as we waited for the taxi she had ordered to take us to Heathrow.

I, meanwhile, was dismayed at how quickly the hours were rushing by. I was sickened by the thought of her being so far away from me, while, at the same time, I was trying to share her pleasure at going.

We arrived at the terminal more than two hours before her plane was due to leave and she checked in with no problems.

'I've been upgraded to business,' she exclaimed with a squeal, clutching her viola case to her chest.

'The check-in man must have fancied you,' I said.

'It was a woman,' she said, poking me in the ribs with her finger.

We sat on high stools and had a coffee. There was an unease between us. I wanted to spend every last moment with her while she was desperate to get through to departures as if, by doing so, her plane would leave more quickly. Neither of us wanted to express our eagerness to the other, as we both understood the situation.

'Do you want another coffee?' Caroline asked.

'No thanks,' I said. 'I think you ought to go through now in case the queues for security are long.' I didn't want her to. I wanted her to stay with me for ever.

'I'll stay a little longer,' she said, but I don't think she really wanted to. She was trying to please me.

'No,' I said. 'You go now and I'll get the train back to London, then on to Newmarket.'

'Perhaps you're right,' she said, clearly relieved.

I waved to her until the very last second, until she and Viola finally disappeared into the security area and the departure lounge beyond. I then stood there for a while waiting just in case they came back, just in case they needed something. But, or course, they didn't.

How was it, I thought, that she could be so close to me, just through a door or two, and yet so far away? I even spoke to my overnight bag. 'How could she go without me?' I asked it. It didn't reply. I thought of my pa.s.sport sitting in the side pocket. Why didn't I just fly to Chicago? Would Caroline be pleased or embarra.s.sed by my arrival? What would Carl say if I didn't go back to the Hay Net for another week?

'Stop being so silly,' I said to the bag, and received some strange looks from those around me.

I caught the Heathrow Express train to Paddington and felt very lonely. It wasn't so much that I was not with her, it was also the fact that I couldn't even call her on the telephone if I wanted to, and wouldn't be able to do so for at least the next nine hours. I couldn't tell her how much I was missing her already, how much I was hurting. Perhaps it was just as well, I thought.

By the time I got to King's Cross station I reckoned that her flight must have surely departed. She would be sitting comfortably in her business cla.s.s seat, sipping champagne and deciding which movie to watch. She was coc.o.o.ned in an aluminium tube, rushing away from me at six hundred miles an hour, and I felt dreadful.

Carl collected me from Newmarket station at three o'clock and drove me to the Hay Net. I didn't want to go home and sit alone in my cottage.

'We did sixty-five lunches yesterday,' said Carl.

'Good,' I said. 'Perhaps we can now say we're back to normal.'

'Still down a bit on dinners,' he said. 'We only had twenty last night and that's low, even for a Sunday.'

'Perhaps we should close on Sunday evenings,' I said. 'What do you think?'

'It would give us all Sunday evening off,' he said. Fixing the weekly staff rota to provide for time off was always a headache.

'How many lunches did we do today?' I asked him.

'It was quite good,' he said. 'At least thirty-five. But we're the only place that does lunches on Mondays.'

We arrived at the Hay Net to find that Gary was busy with the kitchen porters cleaning the kitchen. They had moved all the stainless-steel worktop units and were scrubbing the floors beneath.

'What's all that about?' I asked Carl as we went into the office. 'Gary seems very industrious all of a sudden.'

'I think he's trying to impress,' said Carl with a laugh. 'He's had his nose put out of joint a bit by Oscar.'

'Oscar?' I said.

'You know, the temporary chef from the agency.' I nodded, remembering. 'Seems that Gary thinks that Oscar is muscling in on his life and he doesn't like it.'

'But that's ridiculous,' I said. 'Oscar will only be here for a few more days.'

'Ah, but it's not just in the kitchen,' said Carl. 'Seems that Oscar has designs on Ray as well.' Ray and Gary, the couple. 'Gary is jealous.'

'I'm keeping out of it,' I said. 'As long as it doesn't affect the running of the kitchen.'

'Are you working tonight?' Carl asked. 'I could let Oscar go now if you're going to be back full-time.'

'No,' I said. 'Keep him here for a while longer. I don't feel fully back to normal yet.' Also, I thought, I might need to be away more for the next few weeks as I looked for a London site. And I had been thinking of having another chef in the kitchen anyway to help with the workload. Having Oscar around for a bit longer might help me decide if it was really necessary. Staff salaries were the biggest of my overheads and I certainly didn't want to employ more chefs than I needed.

In the end, I did work in the kitchen that evening although it wasn't because I was needed. It was more to take my mind off Caroline's flight. We did more than fifty dinners which, while not quite at pre-poisoning levels, was a huge improvement over last week.

I immersed myself in my cooking, pan-frying fillets of Scotch beef and roasting sea ba.s.s, glazing racks of lamb and braising pork medallions. It felt good to be back in the groove even if the numbers were still down.

Twice I found Jacek standing watching me work. His job involved coming into the kitchen to collect the used pots and pans for washing in the scullery and then returning them to the chefs for re-use. The first time, I thought he was just waiting for me to finish with the pan I was using, but on the second occasion I was sure he was observing me cook. I dismissed him back to the scullery with a wave.

'You want to mind that one,' said Gary, who had witnessed the exchange. 'I don't trust him.'

I think I agreed with him and I resolved that, in the morning, I would try to find out more about our new kitchen porter.