Dick Francis - Dead Heat

“Perhaps it’s for table polo.” She laughed out loud at her joke. It did look a bit like a metal table-tennis ball, but perhaps it was a fraction bigger than that. “Does it open, I wonder?” she said.

The ball had a slight seam around its equator, and Caroline took the ball in both hands and tried to separate the two halves. She tried to prize it open by pushing her thumbnail in the seam, but without success. She tried to twist one half off the other. In fact, it wasn’t difficult at all, when you knew how. The two halves screwed together with a counterclockwise movement.

I briefly looked at the two hemispheres sitting in Caroline’s hands.

“I’m none the wiser,” I said. “But I do know that it’s not a toy. It’s not easy to make those screw threads on a spherical object as thin as that. Especially one that fits so tightly together. Quite a piece of precision engineering is involved. If Mrs. Schumann is right about Rolf having a big box full of them, then they must have cost a packet to produce.”

“But what are they for?” said Caroline.

“Perhaps they are for putting something in that mustn’t leak out,” I said. “But I don’t know what.”

WE MADE it back to the hotel with five minutes to spare. Caroline grabbed her dress and viola and rushed away with a kiss. “See you later,” she said. “I’ll leave a ticket at the box office.” She skipped out of the hotel and into the waiting bus taking the orchestra to the hall. The door closed behind her and off they went.

I stood in the lobby and felt lonely. Would I ever get used to saying good-bye to her even for just a few hours? While she had rushed off with such excitement at the prospect of rehearsal and then performance, I was left feeling abandoned and jealous. How could I be so green-eyed about a musical instrument? But I shivered at the thought of her wonderful long fingers caressing Viola’s neck and plucking her strings when I wanted Caroline to do it to me. It was irrational, I knew, but it was real nevertheless.

“Pull yourself together,” I said to myself, and went in search of the concierge.

“Lake Country Polo Club?” he repeated, as a question.

“Yes,” I said. “I think it’s near Delafield, in Wisconsin.”

He tapped away on his computer for a while. “Ah,” he said finally, “here it is.”

His printer whirred, and he handed me a sheet of paper with the directions. The club was about five miles nearer to Chicago than Delafield. In fact, we had driven right past it twice today, since according to the directions it sat just off the interstate highway on Silvernail Road. I thanked him, and arranged to keep the rental car for another day.

I thought the Thursday concert was even better than the previous evening. For a start, I could see Caroline, and she knew it. The hall had been sold out completely, with not so much as a spare stool for me to be found in the auditorium. When I arrived at the box office at seven o’clock, there wasn’t a ticket for me, but there was a note.

“Come to the stage door and ask for Reggie,” it had said in Caroline’s handwriting. So I had done just that.

“Right,” Reggie had said. “So you’re the English guy she’s been yappin’ about all week.” He was a big, burly black man, and he spoke with a rhythmic lilt that made me want to boogie.

“You got it, man,” I replied, mimicking him.

He guffawed expansively, giving me a glimpse of a mouth full of gold-capped teeth. “You’re a dude,” he said. I wasn’t sure whether it was a compliment or not, but he smiled broadly. “I’ve got just the place for you. Come along with me.”

His place turned out to be a couple of metal chairs set out of sight of the audience behind black curtains in the wing of the stage. One of the chairs had a particularly fine view of the first desk of the viola section, a view of my Caroline. As I sat there, I could see her through the gap between the second violins and the French horns. In truth, I could only see the back of her shoulders and part of her right side, but it was enough.

On this occasion, I quietly hummed my way through “Nimrod” with hardly a tear. It still reminded me vividly of my father’s funeral, but I was now at peace with the mental image of that day, not that it didn’t remain a poignant and emotional memory.

Caroline came over and sat with me during the intermission while the rest of the orchestra disappeared down some concrete steps at the back of the stage.

“What do they all do during the intermission?” I asked as we watched them go.

“Same as the audience, I expect,” she said. “Some have a cup of tea. There’s usually some waiting for us in the dressing room. Others have something a little stronger, although they’re not supposed to. One or two go outside for a smoke. Believe it or not, some sit and go to sleep for fifteen minutes.”

“What do you normally do?” I asked her, taking her hand.

“All of the above.” She laughed.

“Do you want to go and have your tea, then?” I asked her.

“No. I want to stay here. I share a dressing room with twelve other women and I’d much rather be here with you.”

Good. I would much rather it too.

“I’m going back to Delafield tomorrow,” I said. “I’m going to have a snoop around the Lake Country Polo Club. Rolf Schumann was a vice president of the club, and one of those killed by the bomb at Newmarket was the president.”

“But I can’t come with you,” she said miserably. “There are some changes to the program for tomorrow night, and I have rehearsals at eleven and at three.”

“How about on Saturday?” I asked.

“We have a matinee on Saturday at two-thirty, as well as the evening performance,” she said. “You go tomorrow without me, but be careful. Remember, someone tried to kill Rolf Schumann, and that same person may have tried to kill you twice already.”

“You don’t need to remind me,” I said.

THE LAKE COUNTRY POLO CLUB was a very grand affair, with rows and rows of white-painted stables with brown roofs alongside four or five polo fields and a mass of club facilities. There were also dozens of horses in white-railed paddocks, their heads down as they chewed the spring grass. This was clearly a busy place, but also one where everything oozed money, and lots of it.

I pulled the Buick nose first into the visitors parking lot next to the club offices and walked in where it said RECEPTION on the door. There was a woman in a white crewneck sweatshirt and jeans sitting at a desk, typing on a computer. She looked up.

“Can I help you?” she said.

“I wondered if Mr. Komarov is anywhere about,” I said.

“No,” she said. “I’m afraid he won’t be back here now until next month at the earliest. For the Delafield Cup, I expect. He’s usually here for that.”

So they knew Mr. Komarov. In fact, they seemed to know him quite well.

“So he doesn’t own this club, then?” I asked her, feigning surprise.

“Oh no,” she said. “But he does own most of the ponies. His pony man is here, if you’d like to see him?” I wasn’t sure whether I did, but, before I could stop her, she lifted a phone and pushed some buttons. “What did you say your name was?” she asked me.

I hadn’t, in fact, said anything about my name. “Mr. Buck,” I said, looking out at my car. I very nearly said Buick.

Someone answered at the other end. “Kurt,” said the woman. “I have a Mr. Buck here asking after Mr. Komarov. He wants to know when he will be coming back to the club. Can you help?” She listened for a moment and then said, “Hold on, I’ll ask him.” She looked up at me. “Kurt says to ask you how you know Mr. Komarov.”

“I don’t,” I said. “But I want to ask him about something that happened in England.”