The Chinese Takeout

by Judith Cutler

  At least it broke the ice with those inside the church. Especially when I turned back and pointed to the journalists and hissed to the geese, ‘Kill!’

  ‘Samson and Delilah,’ Andy Braithwaite said, though it couldn’t be classed as a formal introduction.

  Once again it was Nick who took the initiative, trying to explain to Tang that Lawton was a good kind lady and a good kind cop. While he talked and drew, I strolled the few yards down into the sanctuary itself, to be joined almost immediately by Andy.

  ‘Until Tang threw himself at this, I’d never realised that altars were made of stone,’ I said, as the silence started to weigh.

  ‘Not all by any means. Indeed, they’re quite a rarity. According to the guidebook,’ he said, withdrawing a folded leaflet from his inner pocket, ‘there’s a cross incised on it somewhere. I’ve explored every other corner,’ he said, apologetically. ‘Plenty of time on my hands.’

  With what I hoped looked like reverence, I bent to lift the skirt of the altar cloth someone had ironed into box folds. More used to being on his knees than I, Andy crawled from one side to the other, peering as I hitched up fabric for him.

  ‘Eureka!’ he said, progressing from his knees to his haunches. ‘Look.’

  If I got down beside him, it wasn’t impossible that I should need a crane to get me upright. Still, if God wanted me down there, He’d no doubt provide me with the steam power to get up again.

  I traced an incised cross with my index finger. ‘And that’s how old?’

  ‘Twelfth century. The idea was that the bishop made the cross in holy oil, not unlike a baptism, I suppose, and then a mason would make the exact spot permanent.’

  ‘So eleven hundred years ago, there’d be all the solemnity of a dedication service and then some guy in a leather apron would squat down and hammer away. And then someone would come and clean up. A woman like those T S Eliot referred to as the scrubbers of the cathedral, no doubt.’

  ‘I doubt if anyone living his rarified life would know the implications of the term,’ he said, suddenly skipping back from any conversational brink.

  I touched the marks in the stone one last time, and let the linen fall. ‘I suppose they keep it covered so that other curious index fingers don’t erode it.’

  ‘I can’t see many people bothering to touch: Tim tells me the congregations aren’t huge.’

  ‘Are they in any country church? In many respects, it’s ludicrous to have so many tiny churches functioning in one benefice when people have transport and could get to a central one. It isn’t as if the Church has money to burn, not after those huge investment losses when the Commissioners misread the stock market. But—’ I patted the altar. I forced myself upwards, hoping the creak wasn’t audible.

  ‘But indeed.’ He didn’t exactly spring upwards himself.

  ‘It would look nicer with some flowers on it.’

  He didn’t reply. I had a sense of a bitten lip, as if I’d committed some solecism. I rattled on, ‘Which is what I had in mind when I told Mr Corbishley to bring round here the flowers he’d bought as an apology for – for earlier. He wasn’t best pleased.’ I waited. ‘What am I saying wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Come on, Andy. I’m a grown woman. Is there some sort of shibboleth here?’

  He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Exactly that. You’re not a Gideanite, clearly. The thing is, Josie, some churches don’t have flowers in church in Lent.’

  ‘The church’s version of my giving up chocolate?’

  He nodded. ‘Not until Easter Saturday do they reappear.’

  ‘No wonder poor Mr Corbishley nearly choked. The thing is, Andy, as you may have gathered, I’m fairly new to church-going. I trample on corns left, right and centre. Oh, dear—’ I broke off, turning to see what had made Tim’s voice rise in anger.

  Nick, hands upraised to soothe passions, was talking. ‘OK, Tim. OK. It’s a fair point, Claire. I don’t think you should attempt to prise Tang’s story out of him until he has legal representation and an impartial translator. I’m not having any part of it, anyway.’

  Lawton shook her head. ‘If you want me to protect him, I need to know who from.’ She set her mouth in a stubborn line. Mistake: it would cause even more lines and wrinkles if she did that very often. Still, I suppose she was one of the Botox generation.

  You could see the effort Nick was making to be tactful. ‘Yes and no. It’d be nice to know exactly who you were up against, but—’

  She spat back, ‘And of course as a serving officer you’d know!’

  Children, children!

  ‘Please don’t argue in here – you can see how it upsets Tang,’ I said, putting an arm round him. ‘Ms Lawton, you will provide some protection, won’t you? It’s not as if we can dial nine-nine-nine and summon instant assistance, the nearest police station being upwards of twenty miles away, and that’s as the goose flies. In any case, the only place you can use a mobile is in the far corner of the tower. And if the Assyrian is already sweeping down like a wolf on the fold, that’s a bit late.’

  ‘Though I doubt this particular one will be sporting purple and gold,’ Andy chipped in.

  We eyed each other in sudden appreciation. Of what, I wasn’t sure, except our shared knowledge of a poem. Another time, another place, I wouldn’t mind discussing with him the image of the spears resembling the Sea of Galilee.

  ‘I’ll tell you what: I’ll do my best to get hold of an interpreter. Those on our official list will have been vetted, after all.’

  ‘Soon?’ I prodded.

  I might not have spoken. ‘Plus I’ll ask Uniform to institute regular patrols. After all, he should be all right with all those cameras camped outside. And the geese’ll give plenty of warning. Whose idea were they, by the way?’

  ‘Annie Hatton’s. One of the congregation. She’s been trying to teach Tang some English, but she couldn’t be here this afternoon. So she sent her friends.’

  ‘If those are her friends, I’d hate to see her enemies,’ Lawton said.

  ‘So would we all,’ Nick said, without a trace of irony.

  Since Andy had some unspecified meeting he didn’t feel he could miss, Nick insisted on staying behind with Tim. Secretly delighted at the change in him from the passive, inert man of only a few months ago into someone capable of making decisions, I stayed silent. It was a pity the White Hart wasn’t serving tonight, because I would have liked to invite Andy to eat later with me, and the dining room would have been altogether more neutral than my own apartment. For the first time for years, I was bitterly aware of the effect my sexuality and my enjoyment thereof had on others who wished to find fault. If the church wardens were censorious, how much more right had a rural dean, for heaven’s sake, to condemn? He’d gone out of his way, it seemed, to be friendly with me, but had been equally reluctant to embark on any discussion with me of what Malins and Corbishley had said. Thank goodness.

  Or was it I who’d been reluctant to engage in anything more than social chat? I wasn’t about to defend or justify myself. And I certainly didn’t want any examination of my religious feelings. The sole reason I’d started to attend church was that I believed it was vitally important to keep village traditions alive. That was why the White Hart catered for the local gaffers as well as the lucrative diners. It was also why the village cricket team had received a large and anonymous cash donation for a minibus and the football team sported the White Hart sign on their strip. But that didn’t mean I went to many matches. Whereas I went to church every week, pretty well. And it wasn’t for the music, which was dire, or poor Tim’s sermons, which were soporific at best.

  ‘Are you ready to brave the geese, ladies?’ Andy asked. ‘Josie, I may have to ask you to lead me back to the main road, if you wouldn’t mind. I seemed to spend most of my time on the way here reversing and going back on myself.’

  ‘No problem. Nick, that pie will microwave in four minutes, but do make sure it’s piping hot inside
– give it another minute if it isn’t. Could you establish if Tang likes fish? And lamb? See you tomorrow.’ My wave was cheerier than I felt. I didn’t like the idea of running the gauntlet of those dratted birds, especially in front of an audience.

  ‘Hang on!’ Andy said. ‘Is there anyone whose cake you can’t recommend? Couldn’t we bribe the birds with that?’

  ‘A man after my own heart,’ I said, grabbing a few of Mrs Herbert’s all too accurately named rock buns.

  Although I led Andy’s car to the A road, he followed me back to the White Hart, parking neatly alongside. ‘I really wanted to pick your brains – ask things I couldn’t in front of Tim,’ he said, smiling disarmingly.

  ‘Ask away. Or are they questions better asked with a cup of tea in your hands?’

  ‘I’m so cold I might ask for a mug, so I could wrap my hands tight round it. Your electricity bill will be enormous – and thank you for footing it, Josie—’

  ‘The church seems to have its own cooling system, doesn’t it?’ I overrode his thanks. ‘Let’s get into the warm, then.’ I led the way upstairs.

  I liked a man who wandered into the kitchen to natter while I made tea. I also liked one who looked askance at the cake I reached out, and shook his head with obvious regret.

  ‘The thing is, with all the goodies the parishioners have donated – and, despite the dratted birds, there’s been a steady stream of visitors – it’s hard not to eat just to keep out the cold.’

  ‘And boredom. Tim and Tang are strips of wind who can feed their faces all day long and not put on an ounce,’ I observed, with something of a sigh. The fruit cake was calling me, but I knew to a gram how much harm a single slice might do. ‘You’re sure?’ The lid hovered.

  ‘Unless you—?’

  ‘Andy, I had to shed six stone when my husband died. Six and then some, actually. I never wanted to be fat, but he liked his wife to be plump.’ I snapped the lid on firmly, and led the way back to my living room.

  ‘Was your husband in the hospitality trade, too?’

  What a wonderful mealy-mouthed euphemism! Tony would have loved it. Sitting in the armchair opposite his, I smiled innocuously. ‘For three or four years Tony was Britain’s most wanted man. He spent most of our married life in the nick. Died there.’

  To his credit he hardly missed a beat. ‘He must have been older than you?’

  ‘Old enough to be my father. At very least. But he was the love of my life. And it was he who got me on to books and poetry, so we always had something to talk about during visits, and could fill our letters with our views. And when I lost him I – yes, I was lost too. So I started to get the education I’d never had and make something of my life.’

  ‘Hence the helicopter licence?’

  Eyes full, I could do no more than nod.

  ‘I’m sure he’d have approved.’

  Sanctimonious git! I was liking him less by the minute, him and his stock-in-trade sympathy. ‘He’d have hated it! Tony’s idea was that I should sit back like a lady and enjoy all the money he’d made. A bit of reading, that was fine, and going to the theatre and such. But turning to and studying properly: that would have been anathema to him. Flying lessons! But even he would have seen,’ I added, swallowing hard, ‘that I couldn’t sit on my arse all day playing Patience.’

  ‘So he wouldn’t have liked your part in the Tang campaign.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve been worrying about that. He believed in the rule of law, you see – I won’t say he enjoyed doing bird, but he accepted it as the price he had to pay for doing wrong. So he’d take DI Whatshername’s part—’

  ‘Lawton.’

  ‘Right. He’d want to know what Tang had done before he supported him. And he’d be worried about Tim getting emotionally involved with a case that can only end in tears.’

  After a long silence, he grinned. ‘Do you want to come to the meeting with the archdeacon tonight? As a token parishioner? Though it’ll no doubt go on forever, as these things do.’

  ‘A very junior parishioner. If they didn’t like me arranging the wrong flowers last year, how would my fellow churchgoers cope with my presuming to represent them at a top level meeting?’

  ‘Oh, it’s nowhere near the top yet. The bishop will be involved before I’m much older, and no doubt a very senior police officer too. And probably the Home Secretary will shove in his unwelcome mite.’

  ‘And the Archbishop of Canterbury?’ I asked hopefully. ‘I’ve always been a bit of a fan.’

  ‘That beard of his, no doubt. Let’s deal with things at this level first, however. Provided your prophet of doom is wrong, and we don’t have Chinese gangs descending on the place, how long can Tang be supported in St Jude’s, would you say? Another week?’

  ‘So long as the police don’t take it into their heads to lay a proper siege. If they stopped us bringing in food and other supplies, getting water and emptying bathwater… Not to mention if they turned off the heat.’

  ‘And prevented your emptying – in the fullness of time – the Elsan.’

  Men and their schoolboy jokes! But I couldn’t help a cackle of laughter. ‘It has to be finite. And the way Nick is talking, an extended stay is inviting retribution. This evening I’ll do something more useful than gate-crashing your meeting. I’ll move heaven and earth to get hold of my Chinese friend,’ I explained, hoping I wouldn’t disgrace myself by blushing.

  ‘Thanks. Will you be going back tonight?’

  ‘Not to stay, thanks very much! What about you?’

  ‘Nick?’

  ‘He has a day job: Food Standards Inspector. He was only here today because of the snow on the M3. Plus I think he’ll be the one best placed to check on any dodgy food processing plants, and to do that he needs the adjuncts of the twenty-first century.’

  ‘Looks like me, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It makes a cast iron excuse for cutting short your meeting. Tell you what, I’ll come and cook breakfast for you all tomorrow. Provided you do something for me.’

  He looked as suspicious as our neighbourhood bobby had.

  ‘Just keep your ear to the ground for information about the church wardens. Something I said touched a nerve today, I’ll swear. Something about their consciences and wrong-doing.’

  He looked at me shrewdly. ‘Know thine enemy, eh?’ And it was his turn to blush.

  ‘I’m just interested to know why they so desperately want to get rid of Tang.’

  ‘Smuggled goods in the crypt? A bit Daphne du Maurier!’

  ‘And not really the right part of the world. All the same.’

  ‘All the same it shall be.’

  Which was the nearest I got to finding which part of my brains he wanted to pick.

  As I waved him goodbye, it occurred to me that now the media had located St Jude’s, it wouldn’t take them long to discover it was within spitting distance of what had become their favourite out-of-town watering hole. And that their favourite restaurateur (their term) was deeply involved. I’d have to nip any enquiries firmly in the bud.

  A few weeks back I’d had to confiscate the car keys of the head of the local BBC news, and put him to bed on my sofa, thus saving him his licence, since Ian Strand would undoubtedly have booked him. If that didn’t merit a favour I didn’t know what did. A phone call, in which I promised an exclusive when all was sorted out, established that he quickly agreed with me. Since he’d not been alone on the sofa, he undertook to silence his opposite number at the independent TV news. There. Job done. There was the press to deal with, but Robin was dating one of their number, and would no doubt promise a similar deal to mine. Somehow or other we’d deal with the rest. Don’t think I didn’t have my ways.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There was no better place for me to garner information about Malins and Corbishley than the village shop – which could, of course, provide the press with plenty of titbits about me. But at least I was now an honorary local, which might give me some protection. I wasn’t
unfortunately their most popular customer, despite trying to buy as much locally as I could and giving restaurant contracts to relatives of the proprietors. All incomers were regarded with suspicion, be they as meek and unobtrusive as a mouse. People like Aidan Carr and I attracted something like hostility, him because of his male partner and jazzy clothes, me – well, as I’d told Andy, changes to the White Hart apart, I had been promoted as flower-arranger rather too quickly, and also made a habit of sticking my nose in where it wasn’t wanted. When I’d helped send one of the landed gentry down for a nice long stretch (though I’ll swear nothing like as long as one of us plebs would have got), opinion had divided. Some remembered how much prosperity I’d tried to bring to the village. Forelock tuggers still thought the sun shone out of aristos’ ears, to use the polite variant Tony would have preferred, although the usual one alliterated better. They considered what I’d done nothing short of lèse- majesté.

  I didn’t need to ask any questions yet, just drift into one of the little shoals of gossipers crowding the tiny aisles. There was hardly room for a bulky customer, let alone groups like this. But who could blame them?

  ‘All this telly business – but then, you’re used to that, aren’t you, Mrs Welford?’ a woman said waspishly.

  ‘I’m used to serving telly folk food and waiting on them hand and foot,’ I agreed, mild as milk. ‘You wonder how they manage to stay so thin, those girls, don’t you?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s running away from they old geese!’ an old codger put in. It was Joe Damerel, an occasional, but not regular patron of the White Hart. ‘Nippin’ ’em on they little bums!’ he chuckled, evilly.

  ‘They’d find more to nip on mine,’ I agreed. ‘But I’ve got a secret: I fed them some of my cakes. That quietened them down.’

  ‘They say you’re feeding that lad, too.’ This was Mrs Damerel.

  ‘No pub in Abbot’s Duncombe to do it,’ I said. ‘And Father Martin always looks in need of a good meal, poor kid.’