Dick Francis - Dead Heat

THE ONE O’CLOCK news program started on the television, and I realized that I was hungry. Apart from a couple of pieces of French bread at the racetrack 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 rounds, 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 flavor. Three eggs, I thought, and broke them one-handed into a glass 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 God 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 busy.”

“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 God.”

“I felt so bloody 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 racetrack.

“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 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 new to report and they had to fill the time somehow. Middle East experts were wheeled in to the studio to make endless, meaningless comments about a speculative theory about which they had no facts or evidence. It occurred to me that the TV networks 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 may 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 all 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 gurney, the windowless corridor, the legless MaryLou and the blood.

Oh God, I said to myself, not another night of this.

But, indeed, it was.

M aryLou didn’t make it.

On Monday morning, The Times was delivered, as usual, to my cottage door at seven o’clock. MaryLou’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 gray-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 assured 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 racetrack. Karl Marx stated in 1844 that religion was the opium of the people, but nowadays sport in general, and soccer in particular, had taken over that mantle. And so I waited through an analysis 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 soccer 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 center 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.