Dead Heat

“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 cha

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.

4

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 begi

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.

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 Saturday. 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 ca

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 Je

I sat there, stu

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 on her examinations, she had been toying with the idea of going to college. In the meantime, she had worked for me since September, and had been saving to go away to South America with her boyfriend. How bloody unfair, I thought. Cut down, with her whole life ahead of her. How could anyone have done such a thing?