Dead Heat Part 4

I thought again about Robert and Louisa. I knew I should call someone to ask what had happened to them. I also knew that I didn't want to make the call because I was afraid of the answer. I went on lying on the floor.

I discovered from the television that, while I had been sitting obediently on my white plastic chair, wrapped in my red blanket, there had been much activity at the racecourse. The police had moved in en ma.s.se and had taken the names and addresses of all the thousands in the crowd. I had somehow been missed.

The racing had been abandoned and the 2000 Guineas had been declared void as half the horses had stopped during the final furlong while others had been driven hard for the line, their jockeys concentrating so intently on the race that they were unaware of the explosion until they pulled up after the finish. The television pictures clearly showed how one young rider's joy at winning his first Cla.s.sic had quickly turned to despair as realization struck that he had won a race that wouldn't be.

Speculation was rife as to who had perpetrated such murder, and why.

One television channel had a reporter situated near the Devil's d.y.k.e with the racecourse clearly visible in the background, the front of boxes 1 and 2 now covered by a large blue tarpaulin. He claimed that a police source had indicated to him that the bomb might have struck the wrong target. The racecourse manager, who was unavailable for comment due to ill health, had apparently confirmed to police that the occupants of box 1 had been switched at the last minute. The reporter, who I thought was rather inappropriately dressed in an open-neck striped shirt with no jacket, went on to speculate that the real targets had been an Arab prince and his entourage, who had originally been expected to be in box 1. The Middle East conflict has once again been brought to our sh.o.r.es, the reporter stated with confidence.

I wondered if MaryLou would feel better in the knowledge that she had lost her legs by mistake. I doubted it.

I called my mother, in case she was worrying about me.

She wasn't.

'h.e.l.lo, darling,' she trilled down the wire. 'What an awful thing to have happened.'

'I was there,' I said.

'What, at the races?'

'No, I mean right there when the bomb exploded.'

'Really? How exciting,' she said. She didn't seem the least bit concerned that I might have been killed.

'I am very lucky to be alive,' I said, hoping for some compa.s.sionate words from my parent.

'Of course you are, dear.'

Since my father died, my mother had become somewhat blase about death. I think she really believed that whether one lived or died was preordained and out of one's control. Recently, I thought that the collision with the brick lorry had been, in my mother's eyes, a neat way out of what was becoming a loveless marriage. Some time after his death, I had discovered that he had been having several minor affairs. Perhaps my mother believed that the accident was some sort of divine retribution.

'Well,' I said, 'I thought I would let you know that I was OK.'

'Thank you, dear,' she said.

She didn't ask me what had happened and I decided not to share the horror. She enjoyed her quiet world of coffee mornings, church flower arranging and outings to visit well-tended gardens. Missing limbs and mutilated torsos didn't have a place.

'Speak to you soon, Mum,' I said.

'Lovely, darling,' she said. 'Bye.' She hung up.

We had never been very close.

As a child, it had always been to my father that I had gone for advice and affection. We had laughed together at my mother's little foibles and joked about her political naivety. We had smiled and rolled our eyes when she had committed another faux pas, an all too regular occurrence.

I may not have actually cried when my father died, but I was devastated nevertheless. I worshipped him as my hero and the loss was almost too much to bear. I remember clearly the feeling of despair when, a few weeks after his death, I could no longer smell him in the house. I had come home from boarding school for a leave-out weekend and, suddenly, he wasn't there any more. The lack of his smell brought his demise into sharp reality he wasn't just out getting a newspaper, he was gone for ever. I had rushed upstairs to his dressing room to smell his clothes. I had opened his wardrobes and drawers, and I had held his favourite jumpers to my nose. But he had gone. I had sat on the floor in that room for a very long time just staring into s.p.a.ce, totally bereft but unable to shed the tears, unable to grieve properly for his pa.s.sing. Even now, I ached to be able to tell him about my life and my job, my joys and my sadnesses. I cursed him out loud for being dead and not being around when I needed him. I longed for him to be there to talk to, to soothe my hurting knee, to ease my troubled brain, and to take away the horrors in my memory. But still, I couldn't cry for him.

The one o'clock news programme started on the television and I realized that I was hungry. Apart from a couple of pieces of French bread at the racecourse and a chocolate bar at the hospital, I hadn't eaten since Friday night, and that meal hadn't got past my stomach. Now that I thought about it, hunger was a nagging pain in my abdomen. It was one pain that I could do something about.

I limped gingerly into the kitchen and made myself a Spanish omelette. Food is often said to be a great comforter, indeed most people under stress eat sugary foods like chocolate, not only because it gives them energy, but because it makes them feel better. I had done just the same at Bedford hospital. However, for me, food gave me comfort when I cooked it.

I took some spring onions from my vegetable rack, diced them into small roundels, then fried them in a pan with a little extra-virgin olive oil. I found some cooked new potatoes hiding in the rear recesses of my fridge, so I sliced and added them to the onions with a splash of soy sauce to season and flavour. Three eggs, I thought, and broke them one-handed into a gla.s.s bowl. I really loved to cook and I felt much better, in both mind and body, long before I sat down on my sofa to complete the experience by actually eating my creation.

Carl called sometime during the afternoon.

'Thank G.o.d you're there,' he said.

'Been here all night,' I said.

'Sorry, should have called you earlier.'

'It's all right,' I said. 'I didn't call you either.' I knew why. No news was better news than we feared.

'What happened to you?' he asked.

'Hurt my knee,' I said. 'I was taken to Bedford hospital and then home by taxi late last night. And you?'

'I'm fine,' he said. 'I helped people to get down at the far end of the stand. Police took my name and address, then they sent me home.'

'Did you see Louisa or Robert?' I dreaded the answer.

'I haven't seen either of them,' he said, 'but Robert called me this morning. He's all right, although quite badly shaken up. He was asking if I knew what had happened to Louisa.'

'Wasn't Robert in the box when the bomb went off?'

'He said that the bomb was definitely in box 1 and he was behind the folded back dividing wall in box 2 when it exploded and that protected him. But it seems to have left him somewhat deaf. I had to shout down the telephone.'

I knew how he felt.

'How about Louisa?' I asked.

'No idea,' said Carl. 'I tried the emergency number the police gave out but it's permanently engaged.'

'Any news on anyone else?' I asked.

'Nothing, except what's on the TV. How about you? Heard anything?'

'No, nothing. I saw the American woman organizer, you know, MaryLou Fordham, just after the bomb went off.' I could see the image in my head. 'She'd lost her legs.'

'Oh G.o.d.'

'I felt so b.l.o.o.d.y helpless,' I said.

'Was she still alive?' he asked.

'When I saw her she was, but I don't know if they got her out. She had lost so much blood. I was finally led away by a fireman who told me to go down.'

There was a pause as if both of us were reliving the events at the racecourse.

'What shall we do about the restaurant?' Carl asked at length.

'I haven't even thought about it,' I said. 'I suppose the kitchen's still sealed. I'll start sorting it out tomorrow. I'm too tired now.'

'Yeah, me too. Didn't get much sleep last night. Call me in the morning.'

'OK,' I said. 'Call me tonight if you hear anything.'

'Will do,' he said, and hung up.

I spent the afternoon sitting in an armchair with my left leg supported by a cushion on the coffee table. I seemed unable to turn the television away from the news channels so I watched the same, not-new news, repeated time and time again. The Arab prince theory gained more credence throughout the day, mostly, it appeared to me, because there was nothing else to report and they had to fill the time somehow. Middle East experts were wheeled into the studio to make endless meaningless comments about a speculative theory for which they had no facts or evidence. It occurred to me that the TV companies were simply allowing several of these so-called 'experts' the opportunity to postulate their own extremist positions, something that would do nothing to calm the turmoil that existed in their lands. Violent death and destruction were clearly nothing out of the ordinary to many of them, and some even appeared to justify the carnage, saying that the prince might have been seen as a legitimate target by rebel forces in his homeland and the fact that innocents had died by mistake was merely unfortunate... you know, casualties of war, and all that. It made me very angry but I still couldn't switch it off, just in case I missed some new item.

At some point around five o'clock I drifted off to sleep.

I woke suddenly with the now familiar thumping heart and clammy face. Another encounter with the hospital trolley, the windowless corridor, the legless MaryLou, and the blood.

Oh G.o.d, I said to myself, not another night of this.

But, indeed, it was.

CHAPTER 4.

MaryLou didn't make it.

On Monday morning The Times The Times was delivered, as usual, to my cottage door at seven o'clock. Mary Lou's name was clearly there in black and white along with six of the others known to have died. The remaining victims had yet to be identified, or their next of kin informed. The current police estimate was that fifteen people had perished in the bombing, but they still weren't absolutely sure. They were still trying to piece together the bodies. was delivered, as usual, to my cottage door at seven o'clock. Mary Lou's name was clearly there in black and white along with six of the others known to have died. The remaining victims had yet to be identified, or their next of kin informed. The current police estimate was that fifteen people had perished in the bombing, but they still weren't absolutely sure. They were still trying to piece together the bodies.

I was amazed that anyone near those boxes could have survived, but apparently half of them had, although, according to the paper, many of the survivors had been badly injured and more deaths were expected.

As for me, my knee was definitely getting better and I had managed to hop upstairs to bed on Sunday evening, not that being more comfortable had been any more restful for my unconscious brain. I was beginning to expect the return of the windowless corridor like the proverbial bad penny. Perhaps now, the sure knowledge that MaryLou was dead would get through to wherever grey matter dreams originate.

I sat on my sofa in my dressing gown and read the reports through from start to finish. They ran to six pages but the information contained in them was sketchy and thin. The police had obviously not been willing to give journalists too many hard facts until they, themselves, were sure of the details. Sources close to the police were quoted without names. A sure sign of a reporter fishing in the dark for information.

I made myself a coffee and flicked on the BBC breakfast news. More names had been released overnight by the police and a press conference was expected at any time. We were a.s.sured that it would be covered in full but, meantime, 'here is the sports news'.

Somehow, the weekend's sports results seemed somewhat inappropriate, sandwiched as they were between graphic reports of death and maiming at Newmarket racecourse. Karl Marx stated in 1844 that religion was the opium of the people, but nowadays sport in general, and football in particular, had taken over that mantle. And so I waited through an a.n.a.lysis of how City had defeated United and Rovers had trounced Albion before a return to more serious matters. Apparently a minute's silence had been observed before each of Sunday's games. This was not unexpected. A minute's silence might be observed at a football match over the death of the manager's dog. In fact, any excuse will be good enough for a bit of head bowing around the centre circle.

Did people really care about unknown victims? I suppose they cared that it was not them or their families who had been blown up. It is difficult to care about people one hasn't met and never knew. Outrage, yes, that such an act had been perpetrated on anyone. But care? Maybe just enough for a minute's silence ahead of ninety further minutes' shouting and singing at the match.

My wandering thoughts were brought back to the television as the Chief Constable of Suffolk Police was introduced at the televised press conference. He sat, in uniform, in front of a blue board bearing the large star and crown crest of Suffolk Constabulary.

'Our investigations,' he began, 'are continuing into the explosion at Newmarket races on Sat.u.r.day. I can confirm that, as of now, eighteen people are known to have lost their lives. Whereas next of kin have been informed where possible, there are still some victims whose families have, as yet, been impossible to contact. I cannot therefore give a full list of victims. However, I have the names of fourteen of those known to have died.'

He read them out slowly, pausing dramatically after each name.

Some I didn't recognize but others I knew all too well.

MaryLou Fordham, as expected, was on the list. So was Elizabeth Jennings, the tease. There was no mention of Rolf Schumann and, just when I was beginning to hope that Louisa had survived, the Chief Constable said, 'And, finally, Louisa Whitworth.'

I sat there stunned. I suppose I should not have been greatly surprised. I had seen the devastation in that room for myself and the surprise was that so many had lived, not that Louisa had died. But with Robert being alive, I had hoped against reason that Louisa was too.

The press conference continued but I wasn't really listening. I could picture Louisa as I had last seen her in a white blouse and black skirt, hurrying around the tables, doing her job. She had been a smart girl with, at nineteen years old, a great future. Having achieved better than expected results in her examinations, she had been toying with the idea of going to university. In the meantime, she had worked for me since September and had been saving to go away to South America with her boyfriend. How b.l.o.o.d.y unfair, I thought. Cut down with her whole life ahead of her. How could anyone have done such a thing?

Another policeman on the television was holding up a diagram, a map of the boxes in the Newmarket Head-On Grandstand.

'The bomb was placed here,' he said, pointing, 'inside the air conditioner in box 1 just above the main window at the front of the room. Consequently the bomb was between those people inside the room and those on the viewing balcony outside. We estimate that some five pounds of high explosive was used and this was sufficient to cause considerable structural problems within the building. The majority of those killed or injured were subject to blast damage, although one person lost their life as a result of being hit by flying masonry.'

In the wrong place at the wrong time, but so were we all.

The Chief Constable took over again.

'There has been some media speculation that the bomb was planted in an attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate a foreign national.' He paused. 'Whereas it is too early for us to comment, I can confirm that the occupants of box 1 were switched with box 6 down the corridor. This switch had been made at the request of the new occupants of box 1 as they would then be able to accommodate a larger party in boxes 1 and 2 with the dividing wall folded away between them instead of having two separate rooms as originally allocated. The switch was made early last week. It would appear that the explosive device was detonated by a timing mechanism. We have as yet been unable to establish for how long the device had been in situ and therefore we have to consider the possibility that it was intended for a different target than that actually hit.' He paused again before adding, 'as part of the security check for the foreign national, the air conditioner in box 6 was opened and inspected early on Sat.u.r.day morning and found to be clear.'

Oh great, I thought.

The press conference went on for a while longer but it was clear that the police had no idea who was responsible, and seemingly no leads to act on.

My phone rang.

'h.e.l.lo,' I answered.

'Chef?' said a voice. 'Gary here. Are you coming to work?'

Gary was my sous-chef, my under-chef. My apprentice.

'Where are you?' I asked.

'At the Net,' he said. He always referred to the restaurant as 'the Net'. 'But I can't get into the kitchen.'

'I know,' I said. I looked at my watch: ten fifteen. Our normal start time was ten. 'Who else is there?'

'Ray, Julie and Jean are here, and the kitchen porters are somewhere around,' he said. 'Oh, and Martin's here too,' he added.

Martin, my barman, must have recovered, I thought. It was he who had gone to the hospital on Friday night.

'How about Richard and Carl?' I asked.

'No sign of them,' he said. 'Nor of Robert and Louisa.'

He obviously hadn't heard about Louisa.

'Tell everyone to go into the dining room and wait for me,' I said. 'Tell Martin to make some coffee in the bar machine.' He could do that without going into the kitchen.

'How about the milk?' he asked. It was in the cold-room.