by Peter King
“Excuse me—I’ll be back in a moment.”
It was too far away for me to hear the conversation, much as I tried. Paula’s presence brought the voices down to normality anyway and from what I could see of the faces of the diners, a happy settlement was quickly reached.
Paula returned and gave me a satisfied smile.
“All’s well.”
“A complaint?” I asked.
“One of the diners thought he had ordered a different dish than the one he was served.”
“An example of sloppy housekeeping?” I asked, ever the abrasive investigator.
It didn’t ruffle her in the least. “Carl is one of our best waiters,” she said. “He doesn’t make that kind of mistake.”
“How did you resolve it?”
“Carl apologised naturally and said he would correct his error at once. I told you he was one of our best waiters.”
We finished the wine and a simple but carefully selected fruit compote completed the meal. As the coffee arrived, I decided to try a shot in the dark.
“You know Roger St Leger?”
She inclined her head. “A little. I hear he’s taking over IJ’s programme.”
She knew more than I did but I wasn’t going to let it show. I wondered if she knew more than St Leger did.
“And Sally Aldridge?”
“She was here recently, I heard. I didn’t talk to her, she likes to talk to Raymond.” She sipped coffee. “Are you going to her book-signing tomorrow?”
“Is she having one?” I asked then I remembered. “I did get an invitation now that you mention it. I didn’t make a note of the date—I seldom go to them. Too many words about food and not enough food. Are you going?”
Paula laughed. “I don’t think so. I ought not to encourage her radical ideas—they’re bad for the restaurant trade. What was that last title of hers—Any Gourmet Meal in Thirty Minutes? We don’t want many people reading that—could put us out of business.” Her laugh died away and the import of her words hung in the air. She tried to go on as if it meant nothing. “What’s tomorrow’s title?”
“I forget,” I said. “But I’m sure it will be just as controversial. Maybe I’d better go along and find out. She is a busy girl though, isn’t she?”
“Is she?” Paula’s delicately traced eyebrows raised.
“She’s already at work on yet another book—the one she came here to talk to Raymond about.”
“Is that why she came? Raymond didn’t say. Another disturbing title?”
“Probably.”
The waiter placed a slip of paper before her. It could hardly be the bill so I supposed some vital matter had arisen. I rose too.
“Thanks for a magnificent meal. You probably have things to attend to.”
She led me to the door and took my hand, not in a handshake but in a soft warm clasp.
“I’ve enjoyed it too. I feel we got to know each other a little better, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“We must do it again—very soon.”
“Nothing I’d like better,” I told her.
Chapter Twenty
IT WAS TIME FOR some serious thinking. I took the tube to Waterloo, the bridge over York Road and walked past Festival Hall and the National Film Theatre. I passed the outdoor bookstalls which normally delay me but today there were sterner things on my mind.
Walking on, it was quiet with only the distant hum of traffic and the occasional lap of water from a barge or a pleasure boat. It’s one of my favourite places for walking and the weather was ideal, cool but a clear blue sky and a sun which shone as if it did it every day. “Rain? Me?” it seemed to be saying. “Never.”
I reflected on the chat at lunch. Raymond was lucky to have such an efficient general manager. He was lucky to have such a niece. He was also lucky to have someone defend him so vehemently for I realised that was why she had invited me.
She had heard about the events at Le Trouquet d’Or and she was astute enough to connect them with the famous feud and know that Raymond must be a suspect. She felt it necessary to protect him and I admired her for it. But what she had done inadvertently was to reinforce the growing conviction I had that Raymond was more deeply involved in this entire affair than he had appeared to be.
I had told Winnie I was “getting close” to having a suspect. Now I was more sure of it—oh, he didn’t look like a villain. I had been fooled there. The thought that I had to face up to now was a nasty one—was he also a murderer?
A helicopter clattered overhead but it didn’t break my train of thinking. I tried to piece it all together … Raymond and François were continuing—or perhaps renewing?—their feud. I had unwittingly co-operated in it by unmasking the secret of Oiseau Royal. Raymond had arranged the sabotage at Le Trouquet d’Or—I felt that “arranged” was the best word, he could hardly have done it all himself. François had begun retaliating.
In poisoning the lamprey served at the Circle of Careme dinner, Raymond had over-reached. The words that had been among IJ’s last came to me, “Two of them are in it together…” IJ, while investigating restaurant scandals, had discovered that Raymond was using an accomplice.
The death of IJ? The Yard had concluded that it must be murder, which meant that IJ was uncovering Raymond’s scoundrelly plot and he had over-dosed him with the botulism. Out of character? Well, all the famous poisoners had had unblemished reputations—the doctors, vicars and cabinet ministers. Why not a restaurateur?
It wasn’t a perfect re-construction—after all, I wasn’t Miss Marple. But it wasn’t bad and Scotland Yard could fill in the gaps.
The sky had clouded and a cold breeze swept across the Thames. Drops of rain were falling. The weather was as deceptive as people.
I had come this far, I might as well go on. I hurried over Blackfriars Bridge towards the station, wishing I had a raincoat even one as ancient as Columbo’s. He might be dumb but he knew enough not to go out without one even in Los Angeles.
Back at the office, there was a message from Nelda Darvey, asking me to call her. Before doing so, I pulled out the guest list for the Circle of Careme dinner. There was no Dr F. There was only one person with the last initial “F” and I knew him slightly. He was not a doctor of anything.
I called Nelda and her strong voice echoed on the line.
“How’s the gourmet detection going? Found a good cure for a hangover yet?”
“I haven’t had much time to work on that—”
“So I hear—”
“What have you heard?” I asked.
“Meet me for a drink and we’ll talk about it.”
“Fine. When?”
“I’m just going into a meeting with the editor. After that, I’ll be dying for some reviving fluid. Say about six?”
“The Bishop’s Mitre?”
“Where else?” she said.
The pub is at the Ludgate Circus end of Fleet Street and one of the hang-outs for columnists and name journalists. The prices are kept high so as to force the lower echelons—the mere reporters and computer operators—to patronise the better-known Red Lion, the George and the Cheshire Cheese.
I enjoyed walking in this area, once the larder of London. The names were evocative of raucous Cockney voices, piercing smells and bartering and selling—Bread Street, Milk Street, Honey Lane, Poultry and even Cornhill. Meat was sold on flesh days and fish on lean days and when the sunset bell rang, the frantic scramble to pack and leave began, for penalties were severe for those not complying.
Nelda was only ten minutes late. The demanding pressures of Fleet Street probably enforce punctuality until it becomes a habit.
“God, I need a drink!” she gasped. “I swear I’m going to strangle that bloody editor. I’d pull her blonde hair out by its black roots except it’s grey—”
“Please, Nelda,” I said. “Don’t be so conventional. Every journalist I’ve ever known has hated their editor.”
“She’s a bitch,” said Nelda pas
sionately.
“You don’t like her. It’s just a guess but—”
Given suitable provocation—and quite often without it—Nelda could be as foul-mouthed as a professional tennis player but she was on her good behaviour today. She must be after a story.
“My editor,” said Nelda, “has a great personality—but not for a human being.”
“I admire your restraint,” I told her. I also admired her appearance. She was wearing a yellow silky sort of suit with a flared skirt and several loops of pearls. She had one of those large bold faces in which every feature was large and bold—from the flashing eyes to the prominent nose and the wide slash of a red mouth. Her gestures and body language were as uninhibited as the rest of her, making Nelda a stand-out in any crowd. She was also tough, shrewd and every inch as good a columnist as she claimed.
“Thanks Brian,” she said as the waiter put a drink before her. “You’re a mind-reader.”
“Since when did you drink anything but double Famous Grouse?” he asked. He looked inquiringly at me.
I shook my head. “Not at the moment.” I had ordered a vodka and tonic on arriving.
Nelda looked at me curiously.
“What’s this? Cutting down on earthly pleasures now that you’re coming up in the world?”
“Am I? Coming up in the world, I mean?”
“That’s the way I hear it. Assisting Scotland Yard in their inquiries, special advisor to the Food Squad—”
“Where did you hear that?” I asked, alarmed.
She patted my hand, the one reaching for the vodka and tonic.
“Don’t worry. Only a newspaperwoman with my unerring instincts and unparalleled resources would know about it.” Her pat turned to a squeeze. “Now tell me—what’s the real story?”
I disengaged my hand but only long enough to take a sip.
“Nelda, I think there are lots of stories. More than enough to keep you going for a while—or at least until the next ten day sensation comes along.”
Nelda shook her head. “They don’t last even that long any more. Goddam television! You may be right about lots of stories though and the big one at the moment is IJ. Tell me now—did he fall or was he pushed?”
“Your delicacy does you great credit, Nelda. Must derive from your early days on the Mile End Courier.”
“Don’t side-track me,” said Nelda firmly. “What did happen to IJ—I mean, really?”
“Really, I don’t know for sure. In fact, I don’t think I know much more than you—or anyone else who was there at the time.”
“I don’t know anything from being there,” said Nelda. “I learn things from asking questions—like I’m asking right now.”
She finished the Scotch in one swallow and waved a long arm at the waiter. Then she swung it in my direction and pointed a finger.
“But you—you are in a position to know all the inside goodies,” she said.
“Not at the moment,” I said. “I may soon.”
“And when you do—you are going to remember all the wonderful times we have had together and out of gratitude, you will—”
“Give you an exclusive so that you can stop the presses and splash the story all across the front page of the early edition, thereby scooping all Fleet Street and most of Wapping too.”
“Your terminology is decades out of date but what else can you expect from those trashy crime novels you read?”
The waiter arrived with another double Scotch and Nelda drank half of it before he had left the table.
I was still trying to avoid dropping any clues which might be in tomorrow’s paper. I admired Nelda’s professionalism—maybe it was because I had such a healthy regard for it that I was being so cautious. But it was not the right time to print anything and certainly not anything attributable to me.
Mainly to divert her, I said:
“You may be in a better position to know something than me.
Nelda raised her strong dark eyebrows.
“How is that?”
“If a dastardly deed was done at the Circle of Careme, it may have been one of the members who was responsible.”
She studied me for a moment.
“I had considered that. What a story, eh! And by the woman who was there.”
“If it is a story,” I said, “you’ll be remembering all manner of things you didn’t know you knew.”
She chose to disregard that.
“Why do you say I’m in a better position to know something than you?”
“You’re a champion digger of dirt, a rattler of skeletons in closets, the Queen of Gossip—”
“I never repeat gossip,” said Nelda.
My mouth opened and Nelda chuckled. It sounded like a boiler about to overflow. “I don’t need to,” she said, “I’m always the one who starts it.”
She laughed out loud and drained her Scotch. The waiter evidently knew her drinking frequency for he came over and looked at me, not bothering to ask Nelda.
“All right,” I agreed.
“I know I’m a great columnist,” said Nelda. “But I wish you’d get to the point. What do you think I know and about who?”
Her large shining eyes were fixed on me and her breasts jutted out audaciously beneath the silky suit as she leaned in my direction. Nelda was all woman.
“We’ve already raised the possibility of the members of the Circle being suspects,” I said. “Which of them seem suspicious and why? You always know who’s doing what and to whom. Anybody stand out?”
The waiter brought the drinks. Nelda dived into her purse and came out with a pack of king-sized cigarettes, a long ivory holder and a gold-plated lighter. When Nelda smoked, there was nothing surreptitious about it.
She lit up, puffed furiously for a while, took a big gulp of Scotch and said:
“There’s that bastard Tarquin Warrington. I’d believe him capable of anything.”
“Specifically though?”
Nelda puffed hard, drank some more whisky.
“Businesses he’s busted, people he’s humiliated and bankrupted… I know of at least one suicide.”
“The Warrington chain is that active in the market?”
“Sure,” she said. “Buying up competitors left and right.”
“Is that the truth?”
Nelda smiled. “I never tell a lie. I don’t have to—I can always do more damage with the truth.”
“Who else does your evil eye rest on?”
“There’s Roger St Leger. Since he lost his TV show, he’s been all over town like a blue-arsed fly trying to get another. The Beeb said no and ITV weren’t interested. Sky talked to him—or rather let him talk to them. Result—zilch. He’s getting desperate.”
I looked at her sharply.
“How desperate?” I asked.
She caught my look.
“Ah… maybe not that desperate…”
“Trapped in a web of events?” I suggested. I was just fishing but Nelda was a good source—one of the best. If there were things to know, she knew them.
“He’s been keeping some very strange company and, of course, it’s well-known that he’s been brown-nosing IJ.”
“Who couldn’t help him?”
“Wouldn’t, more likely. IJ wouldn’t hand you a glass of water if your house was on fire.”
“There’s a rumour going around that St Leger has latched on to a programme,” I said.
Nelda exhaled a cloud of smoke from a magnificent pair of lungs. “What kind of a programme?”
“IJ’s.”
She drank some Scotch. “H’m, haven’t heard that… who told you?”
“Nelda, do you reveal sources?”
She chuckled.
“Do you think he can do IJ’s programme?” I asked her.
“He’s not the ruthless son-of-a-bitch that IJ was, that’s for sure. St Leger could do a programme, but it would never be IJ’s or anything remotely resembling.” She drank more Scotch, inhaled strongly and added, “Nor can
I see him killing IJ to get the chance.”
“I understand he’s quite a drinker. What about if he were under the influence?”
“St Leger?” Nelda looked surprised. “He’s not a drinker.”
“That’s not what my information says.”
“Malicious chatter,” Nelda chuckled. “You know how I detest it.”
“Any other candidates?”
She took a studied look at her now-empty glass.
“Well, there’s one of your old girl-friends.”
I signalled to the waiter this time. It also gave me a chance to assimilate her remark.
“Oh, really? Which one?”
Nelda smiled, enjoying herself. She took her time to answer.
“Sally Aldridge,” she said.
I was surprised. I must have looked it for Nelda smiled wider.
“What’s suspicious about Sally? It’s true she writes books which upset a few people but—”
“Any Gourmet Meal in Thirty Minutes?” Nelda pulled a face and there was a lot of it to pull. “That’s like a carving knife to the heart for real food-lovers!”
“At least she was smart enough to get accepted by the Circle of Careme before she came out with any of those outrageous titles,” I said.
Nelda shrugged. “Would have made no difference. The Circle’s too powerful to bother about gnat-bites. What’s this new book she’s coming out with next? Signing’s tomorrow, isn’t it?”
“I’m sure you know the title, Nelda. You took up half a column in blasting the last one. You’ll no doubt do the same to this.”
Nelda smiled again, looking like a cat that has just swallowed a very large canary, stuffing, gravy and all.
“The new one’s called Why Eat Out?” I reminded her.
“Oh, yes,” Nelda nodded as if she had just recalled it. “Sub-titled ‘How to Cook Any Restaurant Meal at Home’. The restaurant trade will love it.”
“If you’re tossing suspicion around, Nelda, it won’t wash. Sally may be getting herself detested in the business but that’s no motive for her to take any action against them.”
“Supposing,” said Nelda, “the restaurants put pressure on her publisher. Then he might want to dump her. Might that not make her furious?”
“A cute theory,” I said, “but I don’t buy it. Any other ideas?”
