by JJ Marsh
The morning exceeded Adrian’s expectations. They luxuriated in bed till nine and chose to have breakfast at the market – coffee and fresh bagels with cream cheese and salmon at a pop-up café. Appetites satiated, they wandered through the stalls, senses overloaded by the sights of glistening olives, steam rising off golden pies, pyramids of multi-coloured peppers and wafts of black garlic and truffle threading the air like lures. Will stopped to taste a selection of chillies while Adrian engaged the lady on the fish stall in conversation about the best cuts for New England chowder. The bump and jostle of dawdling bodies, which on the Tube or in the street would have been irritating, simply made him feel embraced and a part of things.
On their way back from Old Street station, the clouds thinned and a pale sun broke through to hint at spring. It lifted Adrian’s spirits from light to almost giddy. He caught Will’s hand as they turned into Boot Street towards home and pulled him close for a kiss. They continued, hand in hand, to their squat apartment block and stopped in surprise.
Someone was standing on the threshold. A tall woman in a leather jacket with an electric-blue bob was pressing one buzzer after another, waiting for a moment and pressing the next.
Adrian shot a quizzical look at Will, who shrugged and strode up the path.
“Hello there. Can I help?”
The woman swivelled to look over her shoulder. “Hello! Yes, I hope you can. I’m looking for Beatrice Stubbs.” Her accent was Southern European, perhaps Spanish or Italian. She was striking to look at, not necessarily a natural beauty, but well-groomed with a statement style. In Adrian’s opinion, few women over forty could get away with shocking blue hair.
A police officer to his bones, Will asked questions first. “Beatrice Stubbs? Can I ask why are you looking for her?”
The woman turned and came down the path, her hand outstretched. “My name is Isabella Lopez. I met Ms Stubbs a couple of years ago, in Spain. At the time, she told me she was a food writer. We had lunch together and I gave her as much information as I could about white Rioja. After the Castelo de Aguirre scandal broke, I recognised her face in the newspapers. Not a food writer at all, but a British detective!”
Adrian gasped. “I remember that! I was there, actually in that building!”
Isabella’s face broke into a dazzling smile. “You were? Really? So you do know Beatrice Stubbs?”
Will pressed his fingers to his brow and shook his head. “Yes, we do. My name is Will Quinn and Mr Lack of Discretion here is my husband, Adrian Harvey. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?”
Before the kettle had boiled, Isabella demonstrated she could fit more words into a minute than the fastest speed talker Adrian had ever met.
“At first I was shocked that someone would lie to me about being a food expert but then I said to myself, what else would an undercover detective do? Of course she lied because she had to get the information somehow. It never even occurred to me to suspect she was not who she said she was and that’s because I was so busy showing off about Spanish cuisine and impressing on her my expertise with wine ...”
Adrian lit up. “You’re the wine expert? Could this get any better? I’m the owner of Harvey’s Wine Emporium and I would love to pick your brains.”
Her eyes widened for a second then Isabella threw back her head and laughed with such abandon, Adrian and Will could not help themselves but join in.
“Pick my brains?” She dabbed underneath each eye with the first joint of her finger. “The things you British say. I must write that one down. ‘Pick your brains!’ That is wonderful and disgusting at the same time. Where was I? Yes, I am a wine expert and you can pick my brains as much as you want. I would like to visit your shop while I’m in London. Is it open today? Because I have a flight home on Sunday and if I can find Beatrice Stubbs, I will spend tomorrow with her, but tonight I have no plans so I ...”
Will interrupted. “Milk and sugar, Isabella?”
“No, thank you, black is fine.”
“The shop is open today. If you like, I could take you there?” offered Adrian, before she could resume her flow.
“Wonderful! I would love that! But first I must ask you how I can find Beatrice Stubbs. I had terrible trouble trying to locate her. She’s no longer in the police force, her mobile number doesn’t work and it was only by luck I discovered her address by means of some bribery at a hotel in Vitoria. Then after travelling all this way to visit her at home, there is no Beatrice Stubbs on the doorbell. Does she have another name?”
“No,” said Will. “She doesn’t live here any longer. There are new tenants in her old apartment. She moved to Devon to live with her partner.”
“Where is Devon? Is that far from here?”
“About five hours away. But ...” Adrian stopped, aware of Will’s warning glance. “But we might be able to track her down. In fact, Will could do that while we visit my Wine Emporium. Let’s just finish our tea before we go.”
“Oh yes, the tea. This is very nice. It is so important to me to find her. I need her to investigate a case of espionage and she is the only person who can help me. That much I am sure. No one else has such a combination of skills. No one I have ever met. It is not important if she is working for the police or working for herself. She is the right person for this job.” She took a sip of tea and Adrian seized the moment.
“Beatrice has retired, Isabella. She’s no longer solving crimes; she’s growing vegetables and writing a book. Obviously I can’t speak for her but I don’t think she’ll be interested in a case of spying in Spain.”
Isabella set down her cup with such force, Adrian feared for the saucer. “She must! And it is not Spain but Italy. Let me explain because this is complicated and very emotional. I am now married since two years. My husband is a chef who owns a high-class restaurant in the centre of Naples. His food is the talk of the whole country. His cuisine earned him a Michelin star and the restaurant boasts a Tre Torte from the Gambero Rosso for our desserts. A table at Ecco is incredibly hard to get because there is a waiting list of three months and a table reservation fee. Last month, two rival restaurants revealed new specialities. Specialities they had STOLEN!”
Her shout startled Adrian, who dropped his teaspoon.
“Not only that, but they are taking our staff. When they cannot take or force our employees to spy for them, they ... they ...” She pressed her fingertips to the inside corners of her eyes and wiped away tears.
Will handed her a square of kitchen paper which she took but did not use, digging through her handbag instead. She brought out a photograph of a young man, laughing in the sunshine, wearing chef’s whites.
“This is Rami Ahmad, who was Ecco’s sous chef. Last month he was killed on his way home.” She pressed the kitchen paper to her eyes. “He was thirty-one,” she whispered.
“You think he was killed by a rival restaurateur? That’s going a bit far to stay one step ahead of the competition,” said Will, his disbelief evident. “I assume you reported this to the police?”
Isabella gave a dismissive snort. “The police? Useless. They said it had all the hallmarks of a drug-related killing. No imagination. Rami was killed because he would not defect or turn traitor, I am sure of it.”
Adrian gazed at the smiling face with eyes as brown and rich as figs. “That’s horrible. He looks like such a good person,” he said.
Isabella clutched his forearm. “He was the best person. A success story of a Syrian immigrant who everybody, EVERYBODY, loved. Listen to me. Someone is trying to break us. They have spies in our kitchen who know everything we do and sell the information to our enemies. We don’t know who to trust, the ambience in the kitchen is toxic and my husband is so stressed he cannot create. We have to fight back. We need a spy of our own. Someone who knows food, who understands human nature, who is a good liar and a brilliant detective. The only person I can think of is Beatrice Stubbs.”
Adrian clasped her hands. “Leave it to us. We will find her for you,
I promise. Come along, let’s go and talk wine.”
As they left, he gave Will a meaningful look.
Chapter 4
The sound of traffic on Clapham Common woke Beatrice just before eight. Used to countryside peace in Upton St Nicholas and little more than snores from man and dog indoors, London’s taxis, buses and motorcycles seemed like a horrendous discordant racket that could wake the dead.
She got up and showered, with a sense of freedom. Dawn and Derek had left for work over an hour ago. Once dressed, she cleaned up the kitchen, washing glasses, throwing away takeaway containers and reliving the warm conversational cosiness of the previous evening. The scent of Chicken Tikka Masala still hung in the room, so Beatrice opened the windows while she packed.
Her mind turned to her afternoon appointment with her counsellor. James would want an honest appraisal of her mental health. What exactly was she going to say? She switched on Radio Four to distract herself. It did such an admirable job she found herself shouting at a politician in less than five minutes.
After three rounds of the flat to make sure everything was spotlessly clean, windows closed, bed stripped and thank-you note propped on the kitchen table, Beatrice wheeled her case outside and closed the door behind her. Time to face the streets of London.
She walked up Cedars Road and took the No. 77 bus to Waterloo. It would take far longer than the Tube or train, but the pace suited her. That way, she could soak up the sights of what used to be her home; the Thames, Lambeth Bridge, MI6, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. A tourist in her own past. The sensation was both melancholy and elating. At Waterloo, she parked her case in Left Luggage, hopped onto the Tube to Charing Cross and went shopping.
“Shall we start with how you’ve been feeling since our last meeting?” James began.
Beatrice took a moment, although she had rehearsed at least a dozen replies. As so often happened when faced with her counsellor, her prepared spin and polish evaporated like warm breath in cold air. James would see through it all in a moment.
She inhaled and blurted it all out. “I am a failure, James. I cannot write this book and I don’t know what on earth persuaded me to try. It’s a daily misery, looking at what I’ve put on paper and cringing with embarrassment. Everything else in my life is a source of joy – Matthew and his family, my friends, our animals, and I love being in the village. I really do. That feeling of missing out on what’s happening in London has almost completely gone. There’s only one thing getting me down and it’s the bloody wretched book.”
James didn’t reply and made a few notes.
“Right. I appreciate your honesty on that score and would like to address it in a moment. As for your overall well-being?”
“I’m fine. I take my stabilisers, I see you once a month, I keep my mood diary religiously even though it’s rather boring because nothing massively up or down has happened since Christmas. The countryside is doing me good. It’s only now that I’ve changed down a gear I realise how much the pressures of the job and living in the city actually aggravated my mental health. Now there’s only one constant thorn in my side and it’s making me miserable.”
He wrote for a long time and Beatrice waited, fidgety and impatient. Eventually, he looked up.
“I am going to ask you a question and I will give you a full minute to think about it. Acknowledge your first response and question that with the mental rigour we agreed is necessary to get at the truth. The stronger your initial assertion, the harder you should examine its impulses. Please do not reply until I tell you the time is up. My question is this: Beatrice, we have often discussed your tendency towards displacement activity. To what extent are you placing responsibility for your dissatisfactions onto a particular endeavour? In this case, your book. Please, consider my question carefully.”
Moments ticked by as Beatrice suppressed her indignation. She conducted a whole conversation with herself, staring at the reproduction of a David Hockney, a path leading away into a lurid forest. It gave her time to think and argue with herself. James too gazed at the print, not at her. A pattern they had repeated over years.
“Take all the time you want. I’m in no hurry, but the restriction of one minute is now up.” James’s voice, a cool hand on a hot forehead, unleashed the torrent.
“I’m not. Really, I am not dissatisfied and won’t tempt fate by saying so since the dramas of Christmas. I’m enjoying peace, routine and lack of life-threatening situations. That said, I am increasingly unhappy and defeated by this inability to turn my life experiences into fiction. Turns out I’m not half as interesting as I thought I was.”
“Who commissioned this book?”
Beatrice’s gaze snapped from the picture to James and his expression of mild enquiry.
“No one commissioned it, you know that. I just decided to write a fictionalised memoir for myself. I thought it would be fun and even more than that, therapeutic. But it isn’t. It’s the opposite.”
“So in effect, you are the commissioning editor. Let’s imagine for a second that your client comes to you and tells you the book you commissioned is not working. How would you react?”
Beatrice thought about it. “I suppose it depends why I wanted the book in the first place.”
“You mentioned a moment ago that the original objective was to entertain the client and perhaps provide her with a therapeutic activity. Yet the client describes the project as ‘a thorn in her side’ and ‘a daily misery’. Does that affect your viewpoint?”
Beatrice was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, she was hesitant. “If writing the book is making the client unhappy, she should stop. But ...”
James waited.
“But, my concern for my client would be this. If she has no project, what will she ... do with herself?”
“Many writers are procrastinators, finding any other task to do before sitting down at the desk. Might your client have any other activities she prefers over writing?”
“She certainly does. Cooking has always been an interest of hers, and since moving into the cottage, she has discovered the delights of gardening and walking the dog. She also has a great passion for books, so long as that is only reading them. She enjoys travelling to historical sites and trying out new restaurants and loves nothing better than pottering around an art gallery.”
James nodded slowly. “All of which are available to her now, because she has the time, financial means and if she feels like it, companions with whom to share her experiences.”
Neither spoke for several minutes.
“But that’s not enough, is it? She needs to feel useful.” As always, James put his finger right on the problem. “She could always volunteer as a community support officer. Still keeping the neighbourhood safe but no longer in the line of fire.”
“That’s a thought,” said Beatrice, although the idea of going from Acting DCI to a glorified lollipop lady was underwhelming. “So, in your view, should I tell my client to drop the book?” she asked, unable to keep the smile from her face.
James smiled back at her. “Do you think she will be dreadfully disappointed?”
“I think she’ll be bloody delighted!”
The cheesemonger was in full flow on the merits of Jersey cattle when Beatrice’s mobile rang. She instructed him to cut her four ounces of Llangloffan and answered the call.
“Hello, Will. If you want me to bring some fresh Parmesan for this evening, your timing is ideal.”
His laugh warmed her. “We don’t need you to bring anything, least of all cheese or wine. Farmers’ market all done and dusted before lunchtime.”
“Too late for the wine. Matthew smuggled two bottles of Châteauneuf du Pape into my suitcase while I wasn’t looking and if you think I’m lugging them all the way home to Upton St Nicholas, you can think again.” She inhaled deeply, all the competing odours of pungent cheeses filling her nostrils.
“In that case, it would be rude to refuse. No, the reason I’m calling is that
someone came here today, looking for you. Does the name Isabella Lopez ring any bells?”
“Hang on a sec.” Beatrice paid the cheesemonger and thanked him for his recommendations, then left the shop to devote her attention to Will. “Sorry about that, I’m still here. What was the name again?”
“Isabella Lopez. Apparently you met her in Spain while investigating the white Rioja fraud.”
Beatrice frowned in concentration. “The thing is, I met a lot of people at that time so it’s hard to recall each individual.”
“This one is a wine expert with blue hair. She said you had lunch together in San Sebastián.”
“Oh yes! I remember her. Fabulous smile and talked my ears off over one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Her hair was pink then, if I remember correctly. Isabella Lopez, yes, I’ve definitely not forgotten her. Lovely woman and a great deal of help. What is she doing in London?”
“Searching for you. She wants you to do a job for her and her husband in Italy. Adrian has taken her to his shop, sorry, emporium, but I wondered if we should invite her to dinner this evening.”
Beatrice crossed Seven Dials, dodging between two black cabs. “I’d say that’s a marvellous idea! She is quite fascinating and I think she and Adrian would get along famously. But I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble on my account. I can always bring extra provisions ...”
“No need. I’ll call Adrian and ask him to invite her for dinner at eight. But I suggest you get here early for a martini so we can catch up. Because when Isabella arrives, no one else will get a word in edgeways.”
“Excellent! See you at seven then! Have to go now or I’m going to be late for my hair appointment.”
