“Good thoughts, I hope,” I said.

“Mostly.” I wasn’t sure about her tone.

“Not regretting last night, are you?” I said.

“Oh, you know. All a bit sudden.”

“Yes,” I agreed. As far as I was concerned, all the best things in life were a bit sudden, and she was no exception. But I wasn’t going to push things. Who was it, I thought, who said, “Things may come to those who wait”?

“Have you had a good afternoon?” I asked.

“Wonderful,” she said. “I’ve played my viola for three whole hours. My fingers are tired, but I feel so alive. Music is like oxygen-without it, I’d suffocate.”

“I thought you would be packing,” I said.

“I’m not going now until Monday,” she said. “The first night in Chicago is not until Wednesday, and the rest of the orchestra are going off to see Niagara Falls for the weekend. I will join them in Chicago on Monday night.”

“Will you come back to Newmarket, then?” I asked.

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m having my hair done tomorrow at four, and I have to get ready for the trip.”

“Oh,” I said rather glumly. “When will I see you, then?”

“Don’t sound so miserable,” she said. “I said I can’t come to Newmarket, but you could come here if you want to.”

I did want to. “When?”

“Whenever,” she said. “Come tomorrow and stay until Monday morning. You can help me get to Heathrow with all my stuff and see me off to the States.”

I hated the thought of seeing her off to anywhere. “OK,” I said. “I’ll be at your place tomorrow around lunchtime.”

“No, later,” she said. “I’ve got to go shopping before my hair appointment. Come at seven, and we’ll go down the pub for dinner.”

“That’ll be lovely,” I said. “I’ll call you later.”

We hung up, and I sat at my desk, smiling. I had never been so eager to see someone in my life. Was this it? I wondered. It was all a bit sudden, and a bit scary.

I asked my computer who had said the quote. It came back with the answer: Abraham Lincoln. But his full quote was: “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” In the future, I resolved to hustle.

I SPENT another hour at my computer, hunting for anything that would give me a direction in which to look. I dug out the copy of the Cambridge Evening News that had listed the dead and searched the Internet for any lead for each name. Nothing. I did discover that one of the Delafield men who had died, Gus Witney, had been connected with the equine world, being involved with a polo club. The Lake Country Polo Club, to be precise.

I looked it up. The club had a very expansive Web site for what was clearly an expanding enterprise. Sure enough, Gus Witney was there, named as their president, and there was even a photograph of him smiling. They clearly were not very quick at updating their site, as nearly two weeks had now passed since their president had died and there was still no mention of it. The club was sponsored, not unexpectedly, by Delafield Industries, Inc., and Rolf Schumann himself was named in the list of patrons and vice presidents.

There was a link to the United States Polo Association, and I was surprised to see that polo was such a big activity over there. Obviously, it wasn’t in the same league as baseball or football, but there were more than four times as many polo clubs in the U.S. as there were Thoroughbred racetracks. And about ten times as many clubs as in England. Now, that was a surprise. I had always thought of polo as a minor sport, and a peculiarly British minor sport at that, played by British army cavalry officers on the plains of India to while away the boredom of a long posting far from home.

YOU’VE GOT MAIL, my computer said via a little blue box in the bottom right corner of the screen.

It was from Detective Inspector Turner. It was the Delafield guest list for 2,000 Guineas day. Good old D.I. Turner. However, it didn’t give me what I wanted. What he had sent was a scan of a piece of paper that had originally had the full invited list printed on it. However, someone had drawn a thick black line through the seven names of those who had failed to show up. Against sixteen of the remaining names, someone had placed a d, presumably for “deceased,” since there were d’s next to Elizabeth Jennings, MaryLou Fordham and the Walterses. Also, someone had handwritten “Louisa Whitworth” and “Elaine Jones” at the bottom of the list. They too had a d next to their names. I remembered from the Cambridge Evening News report that Elaine Jones had been the unfortunate woman killed by flying masonry.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I had asked for the list of survivors and D.I. Turner had given me exactly that, together with the names of those who had died. But what I still lacked was the names of the seven people who should have been there but weren’t.

I called the number I had used earlier.

“Is D.I. Turner there?” I asked.

I had to wait a few minutes before he came on the line. I thanked him for sending me the list, but could he help just one more time? He listened patiently to my explanation, that I would like to have the names of those who had escaped death only by a fraction, in order that they too might share in the benefit of the therapy group, did he have the seven missing names?

He seemed to hesitate, but then he agreed to try to find the original list.

“Can’t promise we still have it,” he said. “Not so important for us to keep a list of people who weren’t there, especially when they weren’t even the intended target.”

I thought about telling him my theory that, actually, they were the intended target, but it still seemed rather fanciful, and I had no hard facts to back it up. My afternoon’s searching on the Internet had hardly turned up anything of note, and I was beginning to seriously doubt my original thoughts that my car crash had been deliberately arranged. I simply thanked him again and said that I would be waiting for the list.

“I go off duty in half an hour,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

I hung up. Was I right or were the police right? Perhaps I should have shared my ideas with the policeman and then at least he could have shown me the errors in my reasoning. Maybe, as Caroline had said, the police had more information than I did, information from MI5 and the other intelligence services. Or maybe they were just sticking to the Arab prince theory because they didn’t have any other.

I thought about calling Neil Jennings, but it seemed too soon to intrude on his grief by asking questions about how and why he had been invited to the Delafield box. Instead, I called the Kealys.

“Hello, Max,” said Emma. “Are you checking up whether we’re coming tomorrow?”

I had to think about what she was talking about. “No,” I said. “I just assumed you were.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “I think there will be six of us, as usual.”

“Great,” I said. I decided not to mention that I wouldn’t be at the restaurant. I would be down the pub with Caroline. I couldn’t remember when I was last “down the pub” on a Saturday night. I was looking forward to it. “No, the real reason I called was to ask if you knew why you had been invited to that lunch on Guineas day.”

“Oh that,” she said. “We had a runner in the race. I think that was the reason.”

“But they couldn’t have asked all the trainers,” I said.

“I don’t know about that,” said Emma. “We were, and I know Neil and Elizabeth were invited as well. Elizabeth and I had discussed it.” She paused briefly. “Poor Elizabeth.”

“Yes,” I said. I waited a few seconds. “Emma, I’m sorry to be a nuisance, but can you remember when you received the invitation?”

“Oh.” There was a pause. “I can’t, I’m afraid. It was some time ago, I know that.”

“Was it a proper printed invitation, on stiff card?” I asked.

Another pause. “I don’t think it was,” she said. “I can’t remember it being on the mantelpiece. That’s where we put all our invitations.” I suspected that their mantelpiece was kept pretty full.