Читать книгу A Taste of Death: The gripping new murder mystery that will keep you guessing - H.V. Coombs - Страница 15

Jess, needless to say, was delighted by the previous night’s events.

‘I told you so,’ she crowed.

I rolled my eyes and carried on kneading sourdough, or rather I weighed the sourdough starter (a gloopy natural yeast mixture that is mixed in with the flour to produce the carbon dioxide which inflates the dough). It had taken me ages to make; even though it was mainly just flour and water, it had kept going off until I used some recipe that involved adding some rhubarb in to get things kick-started. I had wasted kilos of flour. Only mulish stubbornness had kept me going. I’m a bit like that, once I start something I feel compelled to finish it.

I put the flour, starter, sugar and salt into the mixer, fixed the dough-hook on and started it. The battered old machine (another thing that could do with replacing) clanked and whirred into life. It was deafeningly loud.

Jess was pressing butter into small ramekins ready for service.

‘Did you enter those figures on that worksheet in Excel?’ she asked.

‘Errrm, not as such …’ I said evasively. I didn’t really understand Excel, and I certainly couldn’t touch type like Jess. She shook her head in exasperation. I changed the subject.

‘So,’ I asked, ‘she’s the ex-Mrs Whitfield?’

‘She is indeed.’ Jess squinted at the ramekin, wiped a bit of stray butter off with a napkin. ‘It was all very beefy at the time I believe.’ She inspected her work and started on another ramekin. ‘She was a stripper/pole dancer at Caramel Rosa – that’s a strip club outside Slough – before he whisked her off in his Ferrari and she blew his brains out – well, whatever mush passes for brains in that man’s skull – with her Tantric sex.’ She looked at me meaningfully.

‘Tantric sex!’ I said scornfully.

Jess shrugged. ‘You have been warned … anyway and then he put a ring on her finger,’ she paused, ‘or so people say. Well, my mother, anyway.’

She’s an unreliable witness, I thought, judiciously, what with Mrs Turner’s suspicions about Naomi and Jess’s father.

‘I cannot believe that Naomi was an ex-stripper,’ I stated firmly. I haven’t met many strippers, in fact, I’ve never met a stripper or seen one in action, but I found it hard to believe that Naomi had been one. She looked, well, demure, for want of a better word. But then again, it was equally hard to believe that she was married – had been married – to Dave Whitfield.

Mind you, life is full of unlikely pairings.

Scallops and black pudding, for one.

She had struck me as sweet, and somehow vulnerable. These are appealing qualities. Unlike her ex.

I moved on to inspecting the sandwich fillings. Every day before service you need to check that you have everything you need to make what’s on the menu. It’s called the mise en place list, MEP for short. Even in an outfit as small as mine, this can run to a hundred odd items, from the simple, grated cheese for example, to the complex, langue de chat biscuits or lemon mousse. This was a problem for me; in reality it was my biggest problem. I had too much to do and I couldn’t really afford to employ anyone to help me. Not another chef anyway. So I was still working eighteen-hour days, like in London.

I noticed that I’d need to roast off some more topside of beef and make some more horseradish. I added them to the list and groaned mentally. More work.

‘And you beat him up!’ Her tone was admiring.

‘I didn’t beat him up, I defended myself with reasonable force,’ I said. I wasn’t keen, given what had happened in my past, to get any kind of reputation for violence. Food, yes, but nothing else.

‘I heard you beat him up.’ She had obviously made her mind up. ‘Beefy!’ Seemingly that was good, in this context.

‘It was a fracas,’ I added, ‘a minor fracas.’

‘He’s supposed to be really hard.’ She looked me up and down, dubiously. Obviously I was not the kind of man who had impressed her with my virile physique. But maybe I was better with my fists than a keyboard and bloody Excel with its incomprehensible formulas.

‘It’s sooo simple,’ she had fumed. ‘Look, sum equals … How can you not get it?’

‘Well,’ I put a little oil in a pan, waited until it was hot, and then started searing off the beef, ‘Tao in enlightenment seems obscure …’ I commented. As does bloody Excel.

‘Does it indeed?’ Jess looked far from convinced. ‘Is that another pearl from the Tao Te Ching?’

‘Yep.’ I winced as hot fat spattered me.

‘Beating up Whitfield wasn’t obscure,’ she commented, ‘far from it. It’s all over the village now. You’re famous.’

‘Hooray.’ I was far from enthusiastic. The shouting, the car alarm, the general pandemonium, had drawn a small crowd of neighbours wondering what on earth was going on. A half-naked, traumatised Whitfield being led back to his house with the vandalised car (not forgetting the charred obelisk) by the local yoga teacher. The new restaurant owner retreating to the Old Forge Café. Speculation had presumably run riot.

A threesome that had got seriously out of hand?

A food related debate that had become heated?

Was I the kind of man you’d want to do your catering after last night’s lurid scene?

‘Well,’ she said, looking through the door into the restaurant, ‘now’s your chance to put theory into practice. Dave Whitfield’s just come in. You’d better go and spread some enlightenment.’

I wondered what Whitfield wanted. I hoped it wasn’t revenge. I have to confess that nothing heartwarming sprang to mind. Unless it was maybe the remoulade recipe that he wanted, after all. But he wasn’t a dog, he wouldn’t have been licking his balls after he had got home.

It was momentarily tempting to arm myself with the enormous plastic rolling pin that I had. It was the weight of a baseball bat; it would be like a Trident missile, a highly visible deterrent. I didn’t want any more brawling, particularly in my restaurant.

I went through to meet him with a sinking heart. ‘Good morning,’ I said breezily, ‘and what can I get you?’

Whitfield looked terrible. He had a half-closed eye, swollen and bruised, from where I had hit him but that wasn’t really the problem. I am sure in a lifetime devoted to rubbing people up the wrong way he had faced worse things than a damaged face. Rather, he looked like a man who has had the stuffing knocked out of him by life. He seemed depressed and shambling and hesitant. I could suddenly see what Whitfield would look like when he was old.

In some ways I preferred the other, brasher version, even if he was hard work. He sat down heavily at a table.

‘Could I have a coffee, please, Americano?’

‘Sure.’ I busied myself behind the machine.

Whitfield looked at me. ‘I just called in to apologise,’ he said.

‘That’s OK.’ I was extremely surprised, to say the least. Whitfield was not the kind of man who looked remotely like he was given to apologies.

‘No.’ He shook his head, the red and blue ink of his tattoos was very visible on his neck. ‘No, it’s far from OK. I was bang out of order. I was a bit pissed last night. But I’ve been under a lot of pressure. First of all someone sets my house, well, my obelisk, on fire …’

It was probably the only time I had ever heard the word obelisk used in conversation. I was strangely impressed.

‘Then the next thing is, just as I’m going to bed, some c—’

‘Language!’ I warned him. ‘There’s a lady present.’ Jess had appeared behind the counter, hoping I rather suspect for Round Two of the Whitfield/Hunter match. She looked disappointed that no blows had been traded. She retreated to the kitchen.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Well, some – muppet – throws paint over my Ferrari.’ He shook his head. ‘How can you do that to such a beautiful car? I mean, Jesus.’

I nodded sympathetically.

‘Well, I ran after them, but they disappeared through Naomi’s gate. To be honest I thought it might be her. Or someone she’d put up to it.’

‘Why would you think that?’ I asked.

Naomi didn’t look like the kind of woman to chuck paint over a car. Whitfield looked shifty. ‘Well, I do owe her a bit of alimony … I’ve had cash flow problems. We had a well – words were exchanged. So when I saw you there, I put two and two together and made five.’

He sounded remarkably defensive, even though I hadn’t made any comment.

‘Anyway, I’m sorry I tried to hit you.’

‘That’s OK,’ I said, again.

‘I just wanted to say …’

‘No, it’s fine. Really.’ I carried on reassuring him. ‘Lots of people have tried to hit me over the years, it’s not that uncommon. I’m not sure why, I’ll work it out one day. Maybe I’ve got an annoying face.’

DI Slattery certainly thought so.

He shook his head, ‘Look, I know this sounds weird but I was well impressed with how you handled me, it was very, umm—’ he grasped for a word ‘—professional.’

Everyone seemed more impressed with my ability with my fists than my ability to cook. It was kind of depressing. I’m a chef, not a bare-knuckle fighter.

‘Thing is,’ he adopted that kind of wheedling tone that people use when they are about to ask you for a favour that they know you don’t want to do, ‘I’m in a bit of trouble at the moment and I could do with some back-up …’

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘if it’s not cooking, I’m not interested.’

‘I’d pay.’ He paused. ‘Top dollar.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said, ‘and I’d have to pay too. Violence can have a very high cost.’ That sounded a bit sententious, hoity toity as Whitfield would probably put it. But it was true.

I should know. It had cost me two years of my life and the destruction of all I held dear. I didn’t want to be Whitfield’s minder, I didn’t want to be anybody’s minder.

Then another two customers walked in and our conversation ended.

Jess and I watched through the Old Forge Café’s window as Whitfield walked back across the village green to his house which was beginning to look like a home counties war zone, the charred plastic pillar like a melted blue popsicle in his front garden, the car on his tarmacked drive now streaked with red. Some of it had splashed across the outside of the windows of his house. It looked quite sinister, the colour of blood. He moved slowly, stiffly, head bowed.

‘I feel a bit sorry for him.’

‘I don’t,’ said Jess, her eyes narrowing. ‘Prick.’

He must have really cocked up that conservatory of her uncle’s.

I went back to the beef and getting other things ready. I thought about Whitfield and wondered what sort of trouble he might be in that he required professional muscle to back him up. It must have been serious. I didn’t think he was the kind of man who would need help in that department. I was determined to keep out of any trouble.

The morning started slowly – some teas, coffees and cakes – then about twelve o’clock we started to get busy. It was shaping up to be a pleasant, if uneventful lunch, may be twenty to thirty covers, all fairly straightforward.

At half one, Jess came in to the kitchen, deposited some used crockery in the pot-wash area and leaned across the pass. She looked quite excited.

‘There’s a woman out there who wants to speak to you …’

‘But of course,’ I said, nonchalantly, wondering who it might be, ‘when you look like I do, Jess, you get used to it …What does she want?’

Jess said, ‘She says it’s personal.’

‘That sounds alarming.’ I slid a sea bream fillet on to a plate and carefully spooned over some beurre noisette and sprinkled chopped dill over it. Sometimes the simple things are best.

‘Table two please …’

As Jess picked up the plate, I asked, ‘What does she look like?’

‘Beautiful,’ she said.

Well, I thought, turning my attention to a dessert cheque, that was descriptive but unhelpful.

‘That’s a bit vague, Jess,’ I replied.

‘She’s very well-dressed, dark, kind of Italian looking. Great shoes.’

Perhaps it was Grazia magazine, perhaps it was Italian Vogue come to do a piece on England’s hidden villages. I doubted it. Faint alarm bells started to ring.

When I looked up, there was my ex-girlfriend on the other side of the pass.

‘Hello, Ben,’ said Claudia, ‘it’s been a while.’