I called him back with the suggestion that cutlery might be useful. He apologised, fetched a set and left me to eat. To my surprise, the fritters were amazing—golden-brown, crispy and deliciously, but not overwhelmingly, fishy. I savoured every mouthful, made an appreciative note in my book and sat back to await the main course.
It took another half an hour to arrive and, though my professional eye suggested a little more finesse in the layout would not have gone amiss, I’d seen worse, and a mouth-watering, spicy aroma rose from the plate.
I cut a chunk of chicken and impaled it on my fork as a sudden hubbub in the street outside drew my attention. People were marching with banners, shouting slogans against the proposed housing development on Sorenchester Common, and handing out flyers.
Distracted, I poked the chicken into my mouth and bit. The texture was slimy, and it was ice cold in the middle. Far worse was the nauseating taste that overwhelmed my taste buds as soon as my teeth were through the chilli coating. I gagged. Desperate, I was on the point of spitting the gunk into my hand when an attractive young woman glanced through the window. For reasons I never could fathom, I gulped and swallowed, which, at least, removed the foul flavour from my mouth. I dissected the chicken portion—beneath the spice it was quite raw. Worse, it looked greenish.
‘Is everything satisfactory with your meal, sir?’ asked the waiter, appearing at my shoulder.
I very nearly nodded, a childhood of being told not to make a fuss asserting its malign influence.
But I was no longer that child, and this was too much. Besides, there was no one to judge me if I wanted to make a fuss.
‘No, it is not satisfactory.’
‘Perhaps it’s a little too spicy for you?’ suggested the waiter with a complacent smile.
‘The spice is fine, but,’ I pointed at my plate, ‘the chicken is raw.’
He peered down and shrugged. ‘Perhaps it is a little on the rare side, sir. I’ll ask the chef to put it back on the grill.’
‘Thank you,’ I said before coming to my senses. ‘Actually, no, that’s not good at all—it’s rotten.’
‘I can assure you we only use fresh chicken.’
I thrust the plate toward his nose. ‘Take a sniff.’
‘Smells all right to me,’ he said.
He gulped.
His face paled.
He turned and rushed for the door, his hand clamped to his mouth.
I gargled with the rest of the horrible vinegary wine in a futile attempt to dilute the disgusting taste that was rising up my throat and settling in my mouth.
Without wasting another moment, I walked out, appalled by the restaurant’s reckless incompetence, though at least I’d got a zinger of a review to sink my teeth into. Papa’s Piri-Piri Palace was a health hazard, and would fully deserve the salvos of righteous fury I intended to launch at it.
I checked my watch—twenty-five past one already! And Ralph had asked me to report on a council meeting at two. The meeting was about the proposed new housing development, and since it was open to the public, would take place at Redvers Hall instead of the tiny Council Offices. It would take about twenty-minutes to walk there, which gave me only fifteen minutes to cleanse the putrid taste from my mouth and grab a bite of lunch. Having decided on fish and chips, I headed towards The Fat Frier near the bottom of The Shambles, only to be repelled by the length of the queue. With time running out, I resorted to the old routine that I’d followed until acquaintance with Mrs Goodfellow’s cookery had turned me into a gourmet—I picked up a pack of sandwiches and a can of ginger beer from the convenience store. Trying to make the most of the sunlight, I took my meal to the bench at Pansy Corner, sat down, popped the can, and took a huge swig to wash away the foulness. A gingery froth erupted in my mouth, shot up my nose and poured out all over me. I choked, spluttered and burped.
Mrs Nutter, a blue-haired, older lady who’d taken a dislike to me following a misunderstanding over a church leaflet she, rightly, thought I’d stolen, happened to be coming out of the flower shop carrying a potted peace lily. ‘You disgusting pig!’ she said.
I was in no state to argue until the volcanic disturbances had settled, by which time she’d walked away, still muttering. At least the ginger beer had diluted the appalling taste in my mouth and I felt able to eat. Opening my sandwiches, I took one, raised it to my mouth, and cursed as a glob of tuna mayo plopped into my lap. Still, waste not, want not, I picked up the mess, poked it into my mouth and licked my fingers clean.
I finished lunch without further mishap, relaxing in the spring sun and observing my fellow citizens as they went about their business. Although Sorenchester was a small market town, it struck me how few people I recognised. It was different for Hobbes, who seemed to know many of the town folk by name, as well as their family histories. Most of them knew him, too, though I didn’t think they were all criminals.
The church clock struck the quarter hour—I was going to be late!
I jumped to my feet, brushed the crumbs from my lap and used the inadequate napkin that came with the sandwiches to mop up the fishy mayonnaise stains on my groin. If anything, it spread the mess and made it worse. Plus, it was typical that I was wearing new, pale grey trousers that showed every greasy mark as a stain of shame. Though, normally, I stuck to darker colours, Daphne had said they looked sexy on me and I’d succumbed to flattery.
I broke into a run. Sweat soon rolled down my face, my stomach gurgled, and the foulness of putrid chicken bubbled back into my mouth. Knowing I had no chance of keeping up the pace, I slowed to a jog and then to a walk. In truth, I felt rotten and wanted to go home, but the intrepid reporter in me kept heading in the right direction and I was just a few minutes late on reaching Redvers Hall. Anti-development protesters milled around outside, holding up placards and looking determined. I wound my way through them and slipped into the building.
The meeting had not yet started but, to my surprise, the hall was full—very different to the last one I’d attended while deputising for Basil who’d been on holiday. On that occasion, the meeting had taken place in the council chamber, with six unsmiling councillors around a table to discuss the annual budget, and me perched on a hard chair in the corner with a notebook. One after another, they’d rambled on about matters unrelated to finance, and my eyelids had become increasingly heavy as the interminable afternoon continued. Only the arrival of a bewildered young man who wandered in thinking it was a job interview alleviated my boredom. After they’d pointed the poor sap in the right direction, the meeting had come to a decision: it would not make any budgetary decisions until the next session.
Since it was standing room only for latecomers like me, I made my way to the back and propped myself against the wall. The chair of the meeting, Councillor Ethel Fishlock, a bony, grey-haired, bespectacled woman in a smart business suit, called us to order. Taking out my reporter’s notebook and pencil, ignoring the subterranean rumblings of my guts, I prepared for action. The move proved premature, for the next half-hour was taken up with procedural matters, bureaucratic nonsense, apologies for absences, and pointless points of order, while the hall grew hotter and stuffier. My head swam and my stomach gurgled so much that people kept turning to stare at me.
When all hope and energy had drained from the attendees, Councillor Fishlock got round to the principal topic—the proposed development. She introduced the protagonists. Speaking for the scheme was Colonel Toby Squire, the owner of Sorenchester Common, and Mr Valentine Grubbe, a property developer. A local engineer called Trevor Baker, leader-elect of Sorenchester Opposes the Development, the SODs as they were known, was to speak against it.
At the chair’s invitation, Valentine Grubbe, a tall, slim, distinguished-looking man in his late-forties, took the microphone. He spoke with passion and used a PowerPoint presentation, showing marvellous artist’s impressions of the development and all the happy, healthy people who would soon be privileged to live there. It impressed me, and I could imagin
e moving with Daphne from our rather rundown old house into one of the palatial new residences, where we could enjoy all the great new facilities and amenities, only a gentle walk from the centre of Sorenchester.
Mr Grubbe had moved on to extolling the amazing benefits the development would bring to local businesses, to the public, and to the environment when my stomach cramped. My mouth filled with saliva.
I had to get out of there.
Fast!
I ran towards the gents’ toilets.
I got there just in time.
As soon as I was in the cubicle, I assumed the position, and threw up my lunch. In the aftermath, drained and exhausted, I sprawled on the cold white tiles and sweated, cursing Papa’s Piri-Piri Palace with every spare breath. A bout of shivers set me shuddering and groaning.
Someone knocked on the door. ‘Are you all right?’
‘No.’
‘Are you going to be long?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and returned my attention to the great white bowl before me.
I may have passed out. I certainly missed the rest of the meeting, and came close to being locked in the hall. Fortunately, the caretaker, a conscientious woman, found me and helped me upright. I turned down her offer to call an ambulance, and tottered homewards. It was gone seven o’clock when I reached it, and I spent the next few hours alternating between bed and bathroom. Daphne made sympathetic noises, stroked my forehead and supplied fresh water whenever I felt I might hold it down.
It was a long night.
But, by morning, I was feeling much better, though a pale shadow of my usual self. Daphne brought me tea and a slice of dry toast for breakfast. The tea soothed and revitalised, but the toast was a problem—my poor throat felt as if someone had sandpapered it. Still, I forced it down and kept it down. When Daphne left for work, I slept and did not wake until well after lunchtime. I got up, made myself more tea and toast, and felt living might be an option.
No one should suffer like that. So, burning with indignation, I opened my laptop and banged out an excoriating review of Papa’s Piri-Piri Palace. I was particularly proud of ‘Salmonella City’, ‘purveyors of putrid poultry’, and ‘abandon hope all ye who enter there’, though, admittedly, I could not claim the last as original. I emailed my piece to Ralph with an explanation of why I’d failed to report the council meeting.
The rest of the afternoon, I slumped in front of the television, too lethargic to do anything else. Eventually, I got to watching a black-and-white film from the nineteen-thirties, going by the name of ‘Cotswold Capers’. Although billed as a comedy, it made me wonder if anyone had ever found it amusing, though it was fascinating to see how much or, sometimes, how little had changed in the region over the intervening years. One scene in particular caught my attention—a laughable attempt at a comic car chase through Sorenchester. I was almost certain a police constable standing in the background of a crowd scene was Hobbes.
As the film came to its inane and obvious conclusion, Daphne returned. ‘How are you?’ she asked.
‘Much better,’ I said. ‘I think I could eat properly again, and my tummy muscles don’t hurt so much. I was able to do a bit of work—I think I wrote my worst ever restaurant review.’
‘That’s because of how you were feeling. You can make it better when you’re a bit more yourself. What was wrong with it? Your spelling or your grammar?’
‘I mean it was a damning review of the piri-piri restaurant.’
‘Good,’ she said.
I continued. ‘The only thing that worries me is that Ralph has a down on negative articles. He feels we should keep the public happy.’
‘You’ll just keep them ignorant unless you also report bad things—or is that his point?’ She shrugged. ‘You’re right to give that place a bad review. It shouldn’t be allowed to poison people, not even you.’ She smiled and kissed me.
‘You’re right. I guess it’s okay to look for the positives, but when there are none, I have a duty to write the truth. After all, I have principles.’
‘And if you don’t like them … well, I have others,’ said Daphne with a smile. She paused. ‘Who said that?’
‘Umm … you just did, didn’t you?’
She laughed. ‘I mean, who said it first?’
I shrugged. ‘Oscar Wilde? Shakespeare? It’s usually one or the other.’
Daphne went over to my laptop and tapped in a query. ‘Groucho Marx.’
‘Good for him.’ I said and asked about her day.
‘Well, to start with, it was much the same as usual—I was trying to discover the provenance of a collection of bronze-age artifacts that had fallen behind a cupboard in the stores. Eventually, I unearthed the relevant documents—they came from a nineteenth century dig in Hedbury. I was just sorting them out when Mr Hobbes came round to ask a few questions.’
That surprised me—he rarely showed much interest in the past unless it had a bearing on something he was working on. ‘What sort of questions?’
‘You know I studied that module on cryptids last year?’
‘How could I forget?’ I said, trying to remember.
‘Well,’ she continued, ‘he asked about that and wanted to know if the museum had records of any living around here.’
‘Cryptids being?’ I asked, giving up on memory.
‘Creatures whose existence is doubted or disputed.’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘Like the Loch Ness Monster.’
She nodded. ‘I’d always assumed they were creatures from people’s imaginations, but I’ve not been so sure since I moved here. This place is a little weird, isn’t it?’
‘More than a little, but does Hobbes really think there’s something like the Loch Ness Monster around here? It would have to be miniscule to live in the River Soren, or in Church Lake.’ I laughed.
‘It wasn’t that,’ she said. ‘He was especially interested in the Sorenchester Common area, though he was a little vague about why.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Nothing much yet, but I did uncover an old filing box from the nineteenth century that looks promising. I’d have liked to go through it tonight, but the thought of my poor sick husband wasting away for lack of food made me come home. The box can wait—Mr Hobbes said he was in no great hurry.’
‘You are so kind to an invalid,’ I said.
‘You’re welcome. What do you fancy tonight?’
‘Nothing with chicken,’ I said with a grimace.
‘I could order a pizza.’
‘That,’ I said, ‘would be perfect.’
Had it been an option, I would have preferred to go round to Hobbes’s for one of Mrs G’s meals, but as it wasn’t, a pizza was acceptable and, though I would never have told her, better than anything Daphne might have conjured up.
When it came, our hot and spicy pizza lived up to its promise and slipped down well enough, assisted by a glass or two of some of the excellent red wine that Hobbes had given us for Christmas. We’d just finished when something came through the letterbox. Daphne went to see what it was.
‘It’s for you,’ she said, coming back and handing me a gold-edged envelope.
3
I opened the envelope, pulled out a card, and grunted in surprise as I read it. ‘It’s from Colonel Squire. He’s invited me to a reception at Sorenchester Manor tomorrow evening. It looks like I’m moving into higher circles of society! You too, if you’d like to come—it says Mr Andrew Caplet plus one.’
The Colonel was the wealthiest man in the region, and I was astonished he even knew of my existence, though Daphne and I had once, at great personal risk, thwarted one of his dodgy business schemes.
Daphne shrugged. ‘Don’t get too excited—it’s all part of his effort to butter up local people so they accept his development without too much fuss. He’s inviting anyone with local influence.’
‘Why do you say that?’ I asked, peeved by her lack of enthusiasm.
‘Because I got one la
st week, as did all the museum staff.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I wasn’t interested, and didn’t think you would be either. Don’t forget, Squire nearly got us killed.’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ I said with a shudder. ‘I’ll reply that we can’t make it … umm … but if he’s inviting those with influence, why me?’
‘Because, my love, you write for the local newspaper.’
‘But Ralph is hardly likely to ask me to report on the development—that would be Basil’s job.’
She smiled. ‘Squire probably doesn’t know that. Admit it, you were flattered to receive an invitation.’
‘Maybe a little. Besides, I have sometimes wondered what the manor looks like inside.’
I put the card to one side as Daphne turned on the television to watch a documentary about Viking culture. Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have been interested, but she’d almost convinced me that the past was a universe of infinite amazement, and I looked forward to watching. Anyway, I’d once overheard Pinky, her astonishingly beautiful friend, telling Sid Sharples, her vampire lover and our bank manager, that she thought I had a touch of the Norseman about me. She might have been right—a couple of red hairs had sprouted in the ill-advised and short-lived moustache I’d cultivated the previous November. I could picture myself as Andy the Red, standing proud in the prow of a Viking longship—providing I ignored my tendency to seasickness.
On waking the following morning, I’d changed my mind and decided to accept the invitation. After all, where was the harm? I held firm to the principles of honest journalism when I could get away with it, and I was not the sort to be bought off with a few drinks and nibbles. I would go, satisfy my curiosity, gather facts and write an article in any case. Although unconvinced, Daphne agreed to accompany me, if only to keep me out of trouble. I emailed our acceptance and spent the rest of the day mooching about the house, watching daytime telly, and still not back to my sparkling best. By early evening when Daphne returned, I’d revived enough to be looking forward to the evening.
Inspector Hobbes and the Common People: Comedy Crime Fantasy (Unhuman Book 5) Page 2
