The Chinese Takeout

by Judith Cutler

  ‘She’s off sick,’ he told me.

  ‘In that case…’ I regaled him with an edited version of the accident and the subsequent floral tribute.

  ‘Could be a joke?’ he said.

  ‘Of course it could. But not a nice one. Just in case it might help you people, I kept it in one of my outhouses.’

  He promised to come round as soon as he had a moment, which I took to mean it was hardly a priority. I drifted back downstairs. There were dozens of more important jobs to do but only one I felt capable of. It was my comfort task: filling the pepper mills. Whether it was the simple folding of a paper cone to funnel the corns into the mills or the soft warm smell of the peppercorns I don’t know. But I always felt better when I did it, which was a good thing.

  We were fully booked for Saturday evening: we could have filled the room twice over. I was deep into preparation work at about eleven on Saturday morning when PC Downs turned up, apologising for her cold. If I expected a bright red nose and a rasping voice, I was disappointed.

  ‘You mentioned other flowers?’ she muttered, through a mug of steaming blackcurrant juice made from my own frozen blackcurrants. If she claimed a cold, a cold I’d treat her for.

  ‘All of them had little notes from people I knew hoping I’d soon be on my feet.’ All? Three. ‘None of them was anonymous; none wished me to rest, in peace or anywhere else. Which was a good job really. Now, it’s getting awfully close to lunch time…’ She took my hint and left.

  Why it should have taken ten hours and the Saturday evening special starter of hot smoked salmon on crushed baby potatoes, garnished with French beans and homemade basil mayonnaise to remind me, I prefer not to ask. But just as I was serving a particularly picky customer with this delectable warm salad I remembered I hadn’t checked with Downs if the police had found the sack of Tang’s clothes. If Tim had tucked it in his garage, it was just the sort of thing to be overlooked. It didn’t strike me that DI Lawton would welcome a call from me, however, nor even from Nick – especially from Nick, not if he was implying a criticism – had he happened to be around. If anyone would make her eat out of his hand it would be Andy. I risked a glance at my watch. Nine-thirty on a Saturday evening might not be the best time to phone him, however, if he was sweating over whatever sermon he had to deliver tomorrow. As for our benefice, the first scheduled service was eight o’clock communion at St Faith and St Lawrence. Presumably the church wardens would manage to find a locum to take it. There should also be some sort of announcement about the rest of the temporary arrangements until a new incumbent could be installed. I might just get up and go.

  Meanwhile, should I disturb Andy or not?

  Why not? It was quiet enough here for me to take a break, Robin insisting he was now as fit as the proverbial flea and doing wondrous public things with crêpes – a bit seventies, perhaps, but he was such a dramatic genius with the flambé pan no one could complain, and indeed his display could be guaranteed to entertain the whole dining room. So I slid upstairs – OK, hauled myself slowly upstairs – and dialled Andy’s number. He answered, third ring, his voice brusque enough to suggest he hadn’t enjoyed being interrupted in whatever deans did at that time. But when I announced my name, I could hear a smile arrive.

  ‘Josie! I thought you’d be chained to the stove or the sink.’

  ‘Pix and Robin are at the former, and I’ve got a work experience sixth-former at the latter. I think he’ll prefer psychiatric nursing to catering. And you: are you toiling with a quill pen or a word processor?’

  ‘Tomorrow’s sermon? Neither. Done and dusted. I was tossing up between a Macallan or a Bushmills.’

  Was he indeed? ‘What a tough call. Now, something with a much less lovely nose. Tang’s clothes. Remember we had a bin liner full of them? I told Tim not to burn them in case they might provide some evidence of where Tang came from. His job, not China! But I never asked Tim what he’d done with the bin liner. I did mention it to DI Lawton, but she wasn’t very pleased with me at the time. So if anyone was going to ask if the clothes had been found… You’re entitled to ask, after all,’ I wheedled.

  ‘I’ll get on to it first thing on Monday,’ he said, ‘unless you think there’ll be someone on duty now?’

  ‘The usual working day never seemed to prevail when they were after Tony,’ I said, ‘and he never killed anyone. Not personally,’ I conceded, in the interests of honesty.

  There was a short silence. His voice was totally neutral when he replied, ‘This evening, then. Have you any idea where the sack might be? I didn’t see it yesterday.’

  ‘It was very noisome: if I’d been in charge of it, it would have been in a garage or shed, preferably well away from the house.’

  ‘Noisome…noisome,’ he repeated, for no apparent reason. Another pause. ‘Will you be in church tomorrow? St Faith and St Lawrence? Or one of the others in the benefice?’

  ‘It’s eight o’clock communion, isn’t it?’ The only problem with attending a communion service was that I didn’t take communion. That was reserved for people baptised and then confirmed into the church – or for visitors who were regular communicants in their own churches. But I did like the language of this particular service, since it used the King James Prayer Book, with all its measured archaisms. While the others took communion, I would simply sit at the back and be absorbed into the stillness.

  He jumped in very fast. ‘I suppose it’s very hard for you – since you have to work so late tonight.’

  ‘Better than the usual morning service: I start serving lunches half an hour after the closing hymn, which is a problem if the church is fifteen miles away. Any idea who’ll be taking it?’

  ‘Me.’ For so short a syllable it seemed to have a lot of nuances. I picked up a lot of embarrassment, a touch of pleading and a smidgen of plain fact.

  ‘I’d better set the alarm, then, hadn’t I?’ I nearly offered a post-service breakfast, but that seemed a bit sacrilegious.

  St Faith and St Lawrence did encourage kneeling, but at least the pews were solid enough for me to be able to heave myself skywards when necessary. The service was held in the Lady Chapel, an altogether grander affair than the St Jude’s equivalent.

  I’d bargained on slipping in unobtrusively and lurking at the rear. However, Andy was waiting at the chapel entrance in the south transept to greet us all – there were nine in total, plus him. He rewarded us all with a smile, and, in my case at least, a searching look when I flinched at his too-firm handshake.

  He took the service at a brisk but not rattling pace, delivering a short and moving sermon focussed on death and rebirth, all in a voice pitched slightly lower than usual. I had no idea what might constitute a dress code for clergymen, but he was in simple black, head to toe.

  Taking his place at the church door, he had a private word for each of us. I should imagine, however, that I was the only one asked for an invitation for coffee.

  ‘When I’ve changed,’ he added.

  ‘You can have breakfast, if you like. I’ll leave the back door unlocked.’

  ‘Is that a good idea?’

  ‘OK. Knock three times and ask for Josie,’ I misquoted, badly. Should I have done? Comparing myself obliquely with a sexually generous character in Under Milk Wood wasn’t necessarily the wisest thing in the world. It might not put him in the best of lights, either.

  ‘Are you sure about this black sack?’ DI Lawton demanded, unable quite to disdain the coffee and croissant I’d pressed on her. She was here in search not of me but of Andy, in response to the call he’d made last night. Since then she’d obviously been commendably busy, her Sundays clearly being working days too.

  ‘I told you. I know it was left in the church porch. And I’m sure Tim said he would take it home,’ I added helplessly.

  ‘Dean?’ The hierarchies in her own profession almost brought her hand to the salute.

  ‘I saw it in the porch, I’m sure of that. And I heard people talking about it. Tim promised to
deal with it. Whether he did or whether it slipped his mind…’ He shrugged elegantly. ‘I take it that it really does matter?’

  ‘If it can supply evidence of what Tang seems to have done… I suppose he never drew a picture for that nice woman?’

  ‘Annie,’ I replied. ‘She’d have told us. As you’re aware, there was a great deal of moral doubt whether we could ask him anything without knowing what to do with the information.’ Secretly I kicked myself – in the most metaphorical sense, of course. Why, why, why hadn’t I got him to draw what he’d done? Answer: because of those little communication difficulties. ‘Meanwhile, the bag has gone totally missing?’

  ‘I’ve checked with all my officers, with the forensic science teams and even the fire service. No trace. Yet. But we’ll naturally go on looking.’ She stopped abruptly, lips in a pucker she’d later regret.

  I added as if it were just dawning on me, ‘And their killers might have come from the same place, I suppose?’

  ‘Is the implication then that someone didn’t want it found?’ Andy asked.

  ‘Or that some over-anxious parishioner thought she ought to take it home to wash it?’ I asked, clapping my hand – foolishly – to the side of my head. ‘Those who got involved – I know most of their first names, but not their surnames or addresses, of course.’

  ‘Surely someone from the church would?’

  ‘Poor Tim. And, I suspect, the church wardens,’ Andy said, as if grudging the information.

  ‘Messrs Corbishley and Malins?’

  ‘They did know about the sack and its contents,’ I said. ‘So might it be better not to explain why you want to know names?’

  ‘Mrs Welford!’ She turned to me as if I were in infant school. ‘You really must permit us to get on with our task in our own way. You and Mr Thomas seem to think – where is he, by the way?’

  ‘Working.’

  Her eyes shot up in derision: those poor wrinkles. ‘Dead cows?’

  ‘He’s working near London.’ I stopped, as abruptly as if Tony were pressing a hand on my shoulder.

  She clicked her tongue. ‘All right for some.’

  ‘If picking through people’s luggage for putrefying monkeys’ heads is “all right”, I’d like to know what constitutes unpleasant.’

  That silenced her.

  We walked her to her car, then Andy got into his, ready to drive to the next service within Tim’s benefice. He looked altogether too grand for his Focus. I was within an inch of throwing him the keys to my Saab, which was altogether more appropriate.

  But I didn’t.

  Sunday lunch passed without so much as a dropped saucer. There’s never a moment to rest, but as a team we simply intermeshed, with no cross words, let alone obscene ones. We shared a short group meal afterwards with Lucy Gay and her brothers and sisters.

  ‘Here we are, boys and girls: have a bit of Pix’s special turkey,’ Robin said.

  ‘I don’t like brown meat,’ one of them whined, to be hushed by Lucy.

  ‘No probs. This here was a Dolly Parton turkey – silly little legs and great big—’

  ‘Thanks, Pix!’ I said. ‘And some of these wonderful potatoes.’ I didn’t bother the kids with their French name.

  ‘How do you make them, Pix?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Slice potatoes about as thick as a pound coin, and watch your fingers on the mandolin. Layer with chopped onion, chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Top with chicken stock. Little pats of butter or paint with oil – depending on whether that dairy allergy bloke is eating.’

  ‘And they go especially well with leeks and carrots and spring greens!’ Lucy insisted, dolling out portions all round.

  At their age, I hadn’t thought anything went well with spring greens, but then, I hadn’t had Pix and Robin to cook them.

  Since we never had a Sunday evening shift – just Lucy with her homework on duty in a virtually moribund snug – I had no excuse not to go for an afternoon walk. The sun was shining: it was spring, and I ought to have some in my step.

  But there were springs in my bed, too. A zillion, hadn’t I claimed? And they all called, each last one.

  Even as I headed upstairs, Tony smacked my head. ‘Where’s your will power, woman?’

  I reached for my boots.

  Today’s path took me away from the village to the richer farmlands of the valley. Here grazed the organic cattle and sheep that would find their way into my kitchen, the lambs looking like children’s toys and far too cuddly ever to eat. That way vegetarianism lay! So I ignored the frantically waggling hindquarters as the lambs demanded to suckle, and turned my attention to the hedgerows. Was this weed in fact a herb? Was that herb deadly if eaten raw?

  I stopped to sniff. My feet had released the most glorious smell of garlic. Now, on my Internet rambles I’d seen a recipe for wild garlic soup: I must be stomping on its main ingredient this very moment. Yes! But I could hardly gather armfuls without permission. This might be what made my roast lamb so delicious, not my cooking skills at all. So I carried on down to the farm shop, always stuffed with organic produce. Since I was after a favour, I greeted Abigail Tromans like a long-lost sister. She was always rather cooler to me than her husband Dan, who’d once been known, when I told him he wasn’t charging me enough for his prime beef, to swing me off my feet to celebrate the deal. He’d have difficulty swinging Abigail anywhere at the moment, since she was seven months’ pregnant with twins. Her blonde hair hung in rat’s tails, and she’d applied what little make-up she wore by touch, it seemed. Even I could see that her ankles were swollen; she’d had to remove her wedding ring, too.

  ‘And why aren’t you sitting down with your feet up?’ I asked, forgetting all about the garlic.

  ‘Sitting, standing, walking – they’re all the same,’ she said, so pale and drawn I almost believed her.

  ‘Here: give me those,’ I said, seizing a cardboard box of Easter eggs – Green and Black’s organic and deeply wonderful. ‘Stacked or sort of popped in artistically between other things? A couple here, maybe. And a few – have you got a spare display basket behind the counter? Yes, excellent. No, I’ll get it. How’s your blood pressure?’

  She made a so-so gesture.

  ‘Able to relax at all?’

  She snorted. ‘Cream teas just picking up nicely and I’m not supposed to bake and that.’

  I loaded the basket with a jumble of eggs. ‘You give me the ingredients and I’ll look after scones for you: how many do you need a day?’

  She opened her mouth to argue, but a yawn came out instead. Shrugging, she worked it out and I jotted. If they were Robin’s scones, not mine, she needn’t know.

  ‘But Josie—’

  ‘Abigail: I simply couldn’t manage without your farm and your organic produce. Helping out’s the least I can do. So long as you promise me one thing: this is absolutely our secret.’

  ‘It’s going to be even worse when the twins arrive.’ Her face puckered, and sobs, painful to listen to let alone make, racked her bulk. ‘We need every penny, Josie: we’re this close to the edge.’

  I’d seen Dan’s books so I couldn’t argue. The only thing to do was to abandon the Easter eggs and hold her.

  ‘The bank won’t give us any more. One baby would have been bad enough but two!’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ I said slowly, remembering that garlic, ‘maybe I can help.’

  ‘We don’t want charity!’ But her head still rested against my shoulder.

  ‘Of course you don’t. But you’ve got something extremely valuable growing on your farm, apart from those lovely beasts of yours. It’d bring in—’ I clawed desperately at figures that would sound just on the upper side of sensible, ‘—about £10 a kilo. Cash, of course.’

  ‘£10 a kilo!’

  ‘And I’d need a kilo a day. Weekends, two. Why don’t we go and have a cuppa and talk about it?’

  She was looking well enough by the time I took my leave, the remaining Easter eggs in a pyramid
by the till, for me to mention the topic currently nearest my heart – chicken.

  ‘Have you heard anything on the grapevine about cheap chooks?’ I asked.

  ‘I thought you stuck to organic.’ She was prepared to be affronted.

  ‘I do. But you know me,’ I said ambiguously.

  ‘For yourself, would this be?’ she asked doubtingly.

  ‘A friend,’ I said. ‘Look, if I start asking, people might start doubting my quality. This – it’s a different market altogether. Organic’s getting fashionable, but producing the best quality birds can never be cheap. So if someone comes along offering them at a couple of quid less a kilo, there must be people whose noses have been put out of joint—’

  ‘Beaks, rather,’ she put in, with a still wettish smile, which took some ten years off her and returned her to the doll-like prettiness that might have attracted Dan to her in the first place.

  ‘Exactly. If you get genuine producers with minimal profit margins getting viciously undercut people must talk about it. Next time you go to a market, better still a farmers’ market, you couldn’t sniff around a bit for me? You or Dan?’

  ‘For ten pounds for a kilo of old weeds, I’m sure he’d sniff anything,’ she said. ‘Even a slaughterman’s armpit.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I don’t do loneliness. Never have. All those years Tony and I were apart, I didn’t do loneliness. So why should I start tonight? I’d better stop, PDQ.

  The obvious thing was to be busy. I replaced Lucy behind the bar in the snug. In the privacy of her room she could work uninterrupted. Or watch TV if the spirit moved her, since even she didn’t demand the little ones do homework on Sunday evenings. While I was waiting for the action – any action – I phoned Nick.

  ‘Hell, Josie, the stuff some people try to bring in. I’ve had rotting zebra and dried impala. You wouldn’t believe – Ah, there’s a plane just landing: I’d better go.’