The Chinese Takeout

by Judith Cutler

  I backed him out of the door, closing it quietly, and turned to Nick. ‘Just leave me on my own a few moments, will you? I want to shout and swear and kick and—’

  ‘You’d do better to get your Barbour and boots: the media aren’t going to go away, you know.’

  We opted for Nick’s 4x4, not a vehicle I would have chosen myself, but useful, I had to concede, for his job, which involved travelling lanes best described as tracks, and tracks best described as traces. He always drove well, much better than I, though surprisingly fast in lanes I tended to creep through. At last he pulled up about a mile from St Jude’s.

  He broke his silence. ‘Let’s take that footpath that skirts the village and brings us to the back of the graveyard. I always like seeing before we’re seen.’

  Even as we creaked our way over a stile about an inch too high for my legs, a BBC van shot past us. I allowed myself a short sharp swear-word. I’m sure Tony, who had wholeheartedly disapproved of foul language, in spite, or possibly because, of spending so much time in an environment where it was more or less compulsory, would have forgiven me. Because I employed young people, and because of the kids now living on the premises, I tried to maintain a no-swearing policy in the pub. It surprised a lot of people, it being generally thought that good chefs can’t boil an egg without seasoning it with the F word. It was probably a waste of effort, because even our sheltered village kids now used it as freely as manufacturers put salt in their crisps.

  ‘You handled that Corbishley situation very well,’ he conceded, helping me down.

  ‘Thanks. But maybe I should have been more gracious, more accommodating.’

  ‘What specifically did he have to apologise for?’

  ‘Calling me a whore – though he didn’t actually use that word, as I recall. But that’s how he thinks of me.’ I wished I could manage more than a mutter, but it was the first time we’d ever spoken openly about sex in any context. It had been a tacit agreement that we were strictly friends. OK, more a tacit acceptance on his part of my decision.

  ‘You’re a free agent, Josie. You can do what you like, when you like and with whom you like. Same as I can.’

  I was intrigued. What was he about to confess? He had plenty of opportunity to meet women, his job taking him all over southern England, with lots of overnight stops. If he was courting, I’d have to take him in hand – spruce him up even more.

  Meanwhile I continued uncontroversially, ‘So do you think Tim Martin will accept the flowers and the apology?’

  ‘I don’t know, Josie. I certainly don’t see how a vicar can work effectively knowing his church wardens respect him so very little. After a while there’ll have to be a quiet resignation on grounds of health or something.’

  ‘You think the wardens will go? Not Tim?’

  ‘The church isn’t into conflict, is it? First I see Tim mysteriously transferred to a new parish, probably something inner-city, with lots of “challenges”. But they can’t keep Malins and Corbishley in place, and risk having them treat a new incumbent the same.’

  I nodded, but came to a sharp halt. ‘Wow! It’s a good job you brought us this way, Nick: look at that lot!’

  Vans, satellite dishes, a seethe of unsuitably dressed young women. All whippet thin, no doubt.

  Nick permitted himself a word or two I rather envied. ‘Bloody circus,’ he concluded.

  ‘And it’s all Malins’ and Corbishley’s doing,’ I added. ‘I wish I’d told him to stick his flowers where the sun doesn’t shine.’

  ‘You were both firm and gracious,’ he insisted. Before I could argue he set off downhill from our vantage point, the only problem being the much bigger, steeper hill that awaited us.

  As I panted to catch up with him, he said, ‘Imagine deciding to put a church up here. All the building materials to be dragged up. Every last bit of wood and stone.’

  ‘And imagine how many people have died down in the village because of the graves polluting their water supply. Shades of Haworth.’

  Our entry into the graveyard and then the church did not go unnoticed, of course. Even as I was bashing the Morse knocks on the door, familiar faces were charging through the lychgate. Not just familiar from the TV set, familiar as regular patrons of the White Hart. It was a good job it was Monday, or the dining room would have been heaving with them that evening, all asking questions I had no intention of answering, despite their usual extravagant choices of food and wine. Robin was rostered for the bar tonight: I’d prime him to play mum.

  There was no sign of Malins, Corbishley or any flowers. Andy looked as if he might have been trying to take a nap, while Tang and Tim played another game of chess. There was a residual smell of food; unwashed plates lay in a neat heap by the door. I tutted. Surely there’d been enough water in the urn to wash them?

  Deduction or accusation? ‘No Annie?’

  ‘Hospital appointment. She didn’t want to go but since she’d waited three months we made her,’ Tim said, sacrificing a pawn to give the information.

  ‘That’s a pity. She seemed to be able to communicate better than anyone else and Nick here needs to talk to Tang. Nick Thomas, Andy – sorry, I’ve forgotten your surname. And are you known by it, or by the name of your diocese?’

  ‘That’s for bishops,’ he smiled. ‘Andy Braithwaite. But Andy’s quite enough. Hello, Nick.’

  As the men shook hands, I added, ‘Nick – he’s one of the St Faith and St Lawrence bell-ringers – was in the police force and now works for the Food Standards Agency. He’s got a take on Tang you ought to hear, and we all need to understand.’

  Tim sprang to his feet. ‘I know what he’ll say! He’ll say we should hand him over to the police. He’s bound to!’ He ended on something perilously like a sob.

  Nick turned. ‘Hi, Father Martin.’ He shook his hand firmly, laying the left on top to maintain the contact. ‘I’m afraid you’re right. But not because I believe in Law and Order at all costs. It’s because of the folk who are after him. Probably,’ he conceded. He repeated what he’d said to me. ‘And although one can’t guarantee his safety in custody, I suspect he’ll be a lot safer than here.’

  Andy nodded. Possibly with relief at being spared another night camping out.

  Nick pressed on. ‘At the very least talk to the police: someone senior. I’m surprised they’re not here yet.’

  ‘What good will it do when they do come? After all, it’s with Tang they have to talk, not us,’ Tim said. ‘If they find an interpreter who can say he’d be honest and trustworthy? That’s why Josie was trying to get hold of her contact.’

  ‘To be honest, now that the media have broken the story I don’t think you’ve got any time to play with. You need to get him into a safe house. Now.’

  ‘Then we’d have to get him out of here first,’ I said.

  ‘But how?’ Tim continued. ‘He’s liable to arrest the moment he leaves hallowed ground.’

  ‘I’d offer my own church,’ Andy smiled, ‘but unless he can fly…’

  ‘Josie’s got a helicopter licence,’ Tim said.

  I tried to look diffident and modest; mentally I was trying to work out the logistics of getting to Exeter Airport, borrowing a chopper, finding somewhere to land out of reach of the police, landing on the Deanery lawn and other Loony Tunes adventures. All with poor night vision, of course. Penelope Pitstop? More Josie Jetlag.

  ‘It sounds to me as if even arrest is safer than staying,’ I said firmly.

  Nick nodded with fervour. ‘While some people may consider the police brutal,’ he insisted, ‘believe me, they are mere puny beginners compared with the snakehead gangs we associate with bringing in illegal workers. And who are not bound by PACE, by Health and Safety at Work Acts and a fundamental belief in Habeas Corpus.’

  I raised my eyebrows, which Tony used to say were the most expressive part of my face.

  Tim turned on him passionately. ‘So what do we do? Betray his trust believing that it’s the best option? He
may never forgive us. Never forgive God.’

  ‘I think God can be relied on to forgive him,’ Andy said, putting a kindly arm round his shoulder. ‘How soon do you think they’ll track him down, Nick?’

  ‘They’re probably on to it now. Both the police and the folk who brought him here, who, incidentally, probably have agents in the police, possibly the Home Office. These people make the Mafia look like enthusiastic amateurs, Andy. Even if they didn’t know before, from the moment the media carried the story – “Illegal migrant in sanctuary bid” – his death warrant will have been written and ready for delivery.’ I’d never known Nick so passionate, so eloquent. ‘You have to persuade him to give himself up. And also convince the police of the seriousness of the situation. I’ll try to do that,’ he added, ‘though whether they’ll take kindly to a retired officer from a metropolitan force telling them what’s what, I very much doubt.’

  Tim was literally wringing his hands. Tang looked from face to face like a dog awaiting the vet’s final visit. Faces that had been kind, loving even, were now clouded with concern. They boded no good.

  Andy looked from one to the other, with a long appraising stare at Nick, when he thought Nick wasn’t looking. Then he turned his eyes to me.

  I didn’t submit to inspection, not even from deans, so I asked, ‘Did you have a visit from the church wardens just before we arrived?’

  He looked satisfactorily taken aback. ‘Should we have done?’

  ‘Corbishley turned up on my doorstep with enough flowers for a funeral.’ On reflection I wished I hadn’t used that image. I wrinkled my nose: Andy nodded as if he understood. ‘I told him to bring them here and ask Tim’s forgiveness.’

  ‘Did you give him yours?’

  ‘More or less. But it came at a price – I gave him an earbashing. I told him the church needed the flowers, though.’

  Did he stop himself saying something? I stepped backwards into the kitchen. ‘Andy, do you think we can shift him?’

  ‘I wish I knew. It all depends on Tim, who’s taking an idealistic or quixotic stance, according to your view. I’ll work on him. But he may see it as a desperate attempt on my part to sleep in my own bed!’

  ‘Couldn’t we get one of the younger men in the parish to take your place?’

  ‘Find one, Josie! What’s the average age of the congregation?’

  ‘Point taken. Look, Tim seems to be listening to Nick. He’s very good in senior officer to rookie mode, isn’t he? He might do better if we keep a low profile. Have you been up the tower yet?’ I asked. ‘No? Step this way. No, after you.’ I said, thinking about ladders and remembering that I was wearing a skirt. ‘The door opens very easily.’

  We looked down on the media mob, shielded from their gaze by the thickness of the castellation.

  ‘God’s own country,’ he said. ‘All this lushness – so different from Dartmoor.’

  ‘Dartmoor’s granite, isn’t it? And Exmoor sandstone?’

  He looked almost startled. ‘Is that why they have such deep lanes? They’ve been sort of cut into the earth?’

  ‘I suppose so. By countless generations of farmers. It’s a very old landscape. Where every prospect pleases,’ I suggested, ‘and only man is vile.’

  ‘The trouble is, nature needs help from man, no matter how vile, to look like this. And I never really buy the vileness of man theory. I like people too much, that’s the trouble.’

  Mine too. But at the moment, lest it remind him of Corbishley’s view of me, I’d just keep quiet about it.

  We stayed where we were a few minutes longer in companionable silence, and then turned as one for the ladder.

  When we got down, Nick was sitting beside Tang, sheets of paper on his lap and some of Annie’s felt pens in his hand. A peer over his shoulder showed me storybook chickens and people chasing them, Prince Philip-type slitty-eyed caricatures to be precise. One had a kind smile. Tang, presumably. One, hiding behind a stone, had a very nasty expression. In the next picture, the Tang character was running hell for leather, pursued by the nasty one. Picture three was Tang in a church, with both policemen and the nasty one lurking behind headstones. The nasty one had a knife. The picture sequence involved a great deal of animated gesturing from Nick, whose histrionic talents I’d never even guessed at. He’d given the police big kind smiles. The pursuing Chinese looked positively evil. Nick gestured throat-cutting.

  Tang nodded, but didn’t look convinced.

  In the next picture, the bad man was handcuffed, the picture of impotent rage.

  Another nod.

  Nick drew again, Tang and a policeman together, both smiling.

  Yes? Would he bite?

  For answer, Tang threw himself into Tim’s arms, sobbing a very decided negative.

  ‘You see: we can’t betray him!’ Tim declared. ‘Whatever the consequences.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Leaving Andy behind to try to reason with Tim, Nick and I scuttled back over the hills to the car, easily outstripping, despite our middle-aged lungs and legs, the last pursuing media kids – though that might have had something to do with the respective styles of our footwear and theirs. We even had just enough breath to agree, as Nick fired the 4x4 into action, that despite Tang’s obvious reluctance – OK, palpable terror – Nick must talk to the police. Since we couldn’t get a signal on either of our mobiles, we passed the time in pointless debate about whether we should simply ask for the duty CID inspector or use our limited inside knowledge.

  It was a good job the police were waiting for us at the White Hart.

  Actually, it wasn’t ‘the police’ so much as ‘a policeman’ – our neighbourhood bobby, Ian Strand. If that term implied that every day of the week we saw him walk slowly along greeting one and all, or shovelling kids across the road into school, it shouldn’t have. It meant we were one spot on a massive map, which he careered over tackling everything from cars burnt out at beauty spots to dogs worrying sheep.

  ‘Hi, Ian – just the person we need to talk to,’ I greeted him, aunt to favourite nephew style.

  He always looked at me sideways, as if I were about to ask him to spit in the street. ‘What might that be about then?’

  ‘The sanctuary case up at St Jude’s.’

  ‘Abbot’s Duncombe? They’ve got a problem way up there?’

  All of four miles away. But he was a local lad. ‘Yep. Serious, I’d say. But before you get on that radio thing, could you come in and give me a couple of minutes to explain?’

  ‘I suppose it’s not baking day?’ He sniffed despondently in the direction of the extractor fan, which pumped cooking smells into the air, just like those at some supermarkets. The only difference was that mine were genuinely the result of baking, not some chemicals designed by scientists to tantalise and then disappoint.

  ‘Monday: day of rest. But I’m sure Robin’ll find you something. Now, come in and sit down and then you can give me your advice about a senior police officer…’

  While I waited for Ian’s choice of senior officer to appear, I decided to make a few enquiries of my own. Most of the restaurateurs in the area had banded together in a mostly social group, the irony being that when we had our occasional get-togethers – which was where I’d hooked up with Nigel Ho – we endured far worse meals than any of us would dare to serve. Maybe my colleagues would have a few ideas about Tang and his chicken phobia. Were there dodgy birds about? I sent out a general enquiry to everyone on my email address list. Not wishing to lead them, I left it as general as that. Apart from adding a little urgent tag.

  There was time for a little sprucing up. And then I remembered what Malins and Corbishley thought of me, and spruced down again.

  It turned out that the senior officer responding to Ian’s summons was a woman, Detective Inspector Claire Lawton. She was stern faced, in her later thirties, and could probably transform her face into something like beauty if she smiled. I’d have loved a girlie day out with her, making sure she bought a more f
lattering cut and colour next time she bought a business suit. And suggesting a good hairstylist.

  There were days I really wished I’d had a daughter. Or a son, for that matter. And it wasn’t just for the Mother’s Day cards.

  But I should be concentrating on the matter in hand. ‘So you see, Ms Lawton, the complexity of the situation,’ I summed up.

  ‘I do. But unless we get him out of the church and into custody – even protective custody – I can’t see that we can do very much. If he won’t come out voluntarily, and Father Martin doesn’t want us to go in and snatch him, what can we do? Especially as far as I can see there’s no evidence to link him with any reported crime. Not even an overdue parking ticket.’

  ‘A suspected immigration violation?’

  ‘Suspected! That wouldn’t be enough to generate the bad publicity we’d get if we went mob-handed into a church.’

  ‘Especially with all the TV cameras outside.’

  ‘It’s as bad as that, is it? I’d better go and have a look.’

  ‘Why don’t I come along too? See if Tang will talk to you? He might find you less threatening than a man, especially as you’re in plain clothes.’

  ‘Still one problem though, Mrs Welford,’ she grimaced. Those poor frown lines! ‘I don’t speak a word of Chinese.’

  Getting back into the church wasn’t as easy as getting out had been. But it wasn’t the gauntlet of media people we had to run that was the problem. It was smaller, more vocal and distinctly hostile. A pair of geese.

  ‘What the hell do we do?’ I demanded, locking my car, never having come across anything like them back in Birmingham, on a roasting dish apart, that is.

  ‘Charge them,’ Nick said. He’d come along, he said, on the off chance. He didn’t say of what. But he hadn’t reported any useful news from his mates. ‘And flap your arms and hiss back!’

  ‘Will that work?’

  ‘Can you think of anything else?’

  So, no doubt to the delight of the media mob, the three of us hurtled up the path, pretending to be bigger, better birds.