Dead Heat Part 24

Suddenly I was certain that the fire had been the second time someone had tried to kill me.

CHAPTER 15.

I was frightened. Very frightened. Twice I had cheated an a.s.sa.s.sin. I didn't like to think of 'third time lucky' or 'if at first you don't succeed try, and try again'.

'Who could it be?' I asked myself once more. 'Who on earth could want me dead, and why?'

It was six o'clock in the evening and I sat in the rented Mondeo in the empty car park of the Newmarket July racecourse. I didn't know why I chose there particularly, I just wanted to be somewhere away from anyone else and with enough s.p.a.ce to see someone coming. The car park was deserted, save for my Mondeo in the centre of it. I looked all around. There was no one about.

Who could I trust? Could I in fact trust anyone?

Caroline, I thought. I would trust her with my life. I suddenly realized that, indeed, it was my life I would lose if I made a mistake and trusted the wrong person.

The safest course was to trust no one. Not even my kindly neighbour, dear.

But I couldn't stay sitting here in this car park for ever.

Could I trust Carl? Was I safe to sleep in his house? Was he safe if I was sleeping in his house? I had witnessed only too clearly what a fire could do and how close I had come to joining my smoke detector as its victim. I really didn't want to take that risk again.

Should I now go to the police? But would they believe me? It all seemed so unreal, even to me. Would they take me seriously enough to give me protection? It was not worth going to the police if they simply took a statement and then sent me away to my death. It wouldn't help if they only believed me after I was dead.

I used my new mobile to call the Hay Net. Martin, my barman, answered and I asked him to get Carl for me.

'He's in the kitchen, chef,' said Martin. 'I'll get him.'

I waited.

'h.e.l.lo,' Carl said finally. 'Everything OK?'

'No, not exactly,' I said. 'I've got to go away for a few days.'

'Where to?' he said.

Where to indeed? I thought. 'Er, I'm not sure.'

'Are you all right?' he asked.

'Yes, I'm fine,' I said. 'My mother is unwell and I need to be with her. Can you cope without me for the rest of the week?'

'Sure,' he said rather uncertainly. 'Is there anything I can do to help?'

'No,' I said. 'I'll be fine. But has anything arrived for me, by courier?'

'Yes,' he replied, 'about half an hour ago. Do you want me to bring it somewhere?'

'No, it's all right. I'll come and collect it.'

'How about your stuff at my place?' he said. I had left my overnight bag and wash kit at his house.

'Don't worry about it,' I said. 'I'll buy myself a new toothbrush and razor.'

'I can fetch them if you like?' he said, still sounding a little unsure.

'No, it's fine,' I said. 'I have to go right now. Leave the package by the front door, will you?'

'All right, if you say so.' He clearly thought I was crazy.

I drove down the familiar road to the restaurant looking left and right for any danger. There was none, at least there was none that I could see. I left the engine running as I jumped out and dashed inside the restaurant. The package was where I had asked Carl to leave it and I grabbed it and went straight back out to the car.

'Max,' called Carl, following me outside. 'Max, wait.'

I stood by the open door of the car.

'I'm sorry, Carl, I've got to go.'

'Call me then,' he said.

'Later,' I said. 'I'll try to call you later.'

I climbed in and drove off, checking my rear-view mirror every few seconds to see if I was being followed. I wasn't. I was running away and even I wasn't sure where I was going.

The following morning I ran further away. I caught the 10.50 a.m. flight to Chicago.

After leaving the restaurant the previous evening, I had driven aimlessly down the A14 to Huntingdon and had stopped in the deserted car park of a closed carpet store.

Someone once told me that it was possible to trace the location from which a mobile phone call was made. I had taken the risk and first called my mother. Secondly, I called Caroline.

'Have you told the police?' she'd asked after I had told her everything.

'Not yet,' I'd said. 'I'm worried they won't take me seriously.'

'But someone has tried to kill you twice. Surely they will take that seriously.'

'Both attempts were designed to look like accidents. Maybe the police will think I'm irrational or something.' I was beginning to suspect as much myself.

'How could someone have got into your house to tamper with the smoke alarm?' she'd asked.

'I'm not sure,' I'd said. 'But I'm absolutely certain that someone did. My front-door key was on the fob with my car keys that went missing after the crash. Whoever removed the battery and set light to my cottage must have it.'

As I had told her the full story, it had all seemed less and less plausible. I had no firm idea who the 'someone' could be who was trying to kill me, or even why. Would the police believe me or dismiss it all as some crazed, circ.u.mstantial conspiracy theory? I would have had to tell them I believed that the 'someone' might be a Russian polo pony importer whom I suspected only because he hadn't turned up at a lunch to which he had been invited. If that was a crime, then half the population would be in court.

'You can go and stay at my flat if you like,' Caroline had said. 'My upstairs neighbour has a key and I can call her to let you in.'

'I'm not sure that's safe either. Suppose someone has been following me. They would have seen me go there last weekend. I'm not taking that chance.'

'You really are frightened, aren't you?' she'd said.

'Very,' I'd said.

'Then come here. Come to Chicago. We can discuss everything through. Then we'll decide what to do and who to tell.'

I had driven to one of the hotels on the northern edge of Heathrow and had booked myself in for the night under a false name, using cash to pay in advance for my room. The staff raised a questioning eyebrow but they accepted my, fictional, explanation that I had stupidly left my pa.s.sport and credit cards at home and that my wife was bringing them to me at the airport in the morning. Maybe I was being rather over-dramatic, but I was taking no chances that I could be traced through my credit card. If someone really had been in my house at three in the morning to start a fire at the bottom of my stairs, then it didn't stretch the imagination much further to realize they might have taken my old phone and credit cards from my blazer's pockets before striking the match, with all the access that the numbers could then bring to my accounts, and maybe to my whereabouts if I used them. I had turned off my new phone, just in case.

On Wednesday morning, I had left the hired Mondeo in the hotel car park where, according to the hotel reception staff, it would be quite safe but would incur charges. Fine, I'd said, and I had paid them up front for one week's parking with the remains of my cash. I had then taken the hotel shuttle bus to the airport terminal and had, reluctantly, used my new credit card to purchase an airline ticket. If someone could then find out I was at Heathrow buying a ticket, it was too bad. I just hoped that they wouldn't be able to get to the airport before my flight departed. If they could further discover that the ticket was to Chicago, well... it's a big city. I planned to stay hidden.

I had decided not to sit in some dark corner of the departure lounge while I waited for the flight. Instead, I'd sat in the open next to an American family with three small children who played around my feet with brmmm brmmm brmmm brmmm noises and miniature London black taxis, souvenir toys of their trip. It had felt safer. noises and miniature London black taxis, souvenir toys of their trip. It had felt safer.

Departure had been uneventful and I now dozed at forty thousand feet above the Atlantic. I had not slept particularly well in the hotel and three times during the night had checked that the chair I had propped under the door handle was still there. So, as the aeroplane rushed westwards, I lay back and caught up on my lack of sleep from the previous two nights, and had to be woken by one of the cabin staff as we made our final approach to O'Hare airport in Chicago.

I knew that Caroline would not be waiting for me at the airport. She had told me that she had a rehearsal all afternoon, ready for that evening's first night, and I had told her not to try to come anyway. I had somehow thought it might be safer. However, I still looked out for her when I emerged from immigration and customs.

She wasn't there. Of course, she wasn't there. I hadn't really expected her to be, but I felt a little disappointed nevertheless. There were several couples greeting each other with hugs and kisses, with I Love You I Love You or or Welcome Home Welcome Home printed helium-filled balloons attached to their wrists or to the handles of pushchairs full of smiling babies. Airport arrival halls are joyful places, good for the soul. printed helium-filled balloons attached to their wrists or to the handles of pushchairs full of smiling babies. Airport arrival halls are joyful places, good for the soul.

However, the source of my particular joy was not there. I knew that she would be deep into Elgar and Sibelius, and I was jealous of them, jealous of long-dead composers. Was that another example of irrational behaviour?

I took a yellow cab from the airport to downtown, specifically to the Hyatt Hotel, where I knew the orchestra were staying, and sank into a deep leather armchair in the lobby that faced the entrance. I sat and waited for Caroline to return, and promptly went straight back to sleep.

She woke me by stroking my head and running her hands through my hair.

'h.e.l.lo, my sleeping beauty,' she said.

'You're the beautiful one,' I said, slowly opening my eyes.

'I see you're keeping a good look-out for potential mur-cerers,' she said.

'Don't even joke about it,' I said. But she was right. Going to sleep in plain view of the hotel entrance and the street beyond was not the most clever thing I had done in the last twenty-four hours if I wanted to stay alive.

'Where's the rest of the orchestra?' I asked.

'Some are upstairs. Others boring boring- are still hanging around at the concert hall. And a few have gone shopping.'

I looked at my new watch. It read eleven thirty. Six-hour time difference, so it was five thirty in the afternoon. 'What time is the performance?' I asked.

'Seven thirty,' she said. 'But I have to be back, changed and ready by six forty-five and the hall is a five-minute taxi ride away.'

We had an hour and ten minutes. Was she thinking what I was thinking?

'Let's go to bed for an hour,' she said.

Obviously, she was.

I managed to stay awake for the whole concert. I remembered my father seriously advising me when I was aged about eight or nine, that you never ever clap at a concert unless others did so first. He didn't tell me, but there must have been an embarra.s.sing moment in his life when he had burst into applause, isolated and alone, during the silent pause between orchestral movements. I sat on my hands to prevent a repeat.

Caroline had worked a miracle to find me a seat. A single 'house' seat in the centre of the eighth row. It was an excellent position, only ruined by the fact that the conductor, a big man with annoyingly broad shoulders, stood between me and Caroline, and I couldn't see her.

Even though I wouldn't have admitted so to Caroline, I wouldn't have known which piece was by whom without the programme telling me that it was all Elgar before the interval and Sibelius after. But I did recognize some of it, especially Nimrod Nimrod from the from the Enigma Variations. Enigma Variations. Listening to it reminded me so much of my father's funeral. My mother had chosen Listening to it reminded me so much of my father's funeral. My mother had chosen Nimrod Nimrod to be played at the conclusion of the service, as my father, in his simple oak coffin, was solemnly carried out of East Hendred Church to the graveyard for burial, an image that was so sharp and vivid in my memory that it could have happened yesterday. Caroline had told me how powerful music could be and, now, I felt its force. to be played at the conclusion of the service, as my father, in his simple oak coffin, was solemnly carried out of East Hendred Church to the graveyard for burial, an image that was so sharp and vivid in my memory that it could have happened yesterday. Caroline had told me how powerful music could be and, now, I felt its force.

For the first time, I cried for my dead father. I sat in the Chicago Orchestra Hall surrounded by more than two thousand others and wept in my personal private grief for a man who had been dead for thirteen years, a condition unexpectedly brought on in me by the music of a man who had been dead for more than seventy. I cried for my own loss, and my mother's loss too, and I cried because I so longed to tell him about my Caroline and my happiness. What would we give to spend just one hour more with our much loved and departed parents?

By the time the interval came I felt completely drained. I was sure that those alongside me had no idea of what had taken place right next to them. And that was as it should be, I thought. Grief is a solitary experience and the presence of others can lead to discomfiture and embarra.s.sment for all parties.

Caroline had told me that she wouldn't be able to get out to see me during the interval as the directors frowned upon such behaviour and she wasn't in the mood for crossing them at the moment, not after missing the original flight. It was probably a good thing, I thought. Even though we had met only last week, Caroline knew me all too well already, and I didn't yet feel comfortable with every one of my innermost thoughts and emotions being open to her scrutiny. So I remained in my seat and decided against buying a cardboard pot of ice cream to eat with a miniature plastic shovel, as everyone around me seemed to be doing.

The second half of the concert was the Sibelius symphony and I didn't find it so dark and gloomy as Caroline had warned me to expect. In fact, I loved it. Somehow, as I sat there absorbing the music, I felt released from the past and fully alive for the future. I had no house, no car and precious few belongings to worry about. I was about to embark on two new and exciting journeys, one with a new London restaurant and the other with a new companion whom I adored. And someone was trying to kill me, either for what I knew or for what I had said, neither of which seemed that important to me. I had run away to America and was now enjoying the heady excitement of having left my troubles behind. The troubles in 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.