The Chinese Takeout

by Judith Cutler

  And he did! No arguments about not letting me walk. He stopped: just like that.

  ‘Thanks.’ I released the seatbelt and opened the door.

  The interior light showed him shaking his head, as if to clear cobwebs. Perhaps the sharp click of the door helped – no, I very definitely did not slam it.

  He wasn’t a good enough driver to go sharply into reverse. He got out slowly, and stood helplessly in the road – I presume, because although I heard his door slam, I didn’t turn round, but kept walking. By this time I wasn’t sure what was happening in either of our heads. I was being foolish in the extreme, a middle-aged woman walking with a dodgy torch through lanes so deep even the growing moonlight couldn’t penetrate. As for him, I presume he really did have some appointment he’d forgotten to tell me about, but there was no doubting something had happened to dent our friendship. Maybe St Paul had intervened, the old misogynist. All that stuff about marriage and fornication and burning.

  At last I heard running feet and turned: there was no point in inflicting a heart attack on him.

  ‘Please – just get in the car and let me run you safely home. I’m sorry if I gave—’

  I obeyed. ‘Just drive. Then you can go wherever you have to. OK? So carry on down here, turn left, and instead of turning immediate right, keep going up the hill.’

  He drove in silence. I didn’t speak except to give further instructions. What a pair of fools.

  Scones are satisfactorily sticky, but there’s nothing like making bread to vent emotions you’d rather not have. Pummelling and pulling are wonderful therapy, plus good exercise for the poor old neglected triceps. When this was all over I might just enrol in a gym.

  So what was the this I wanted to be over? The damned murder investigation, so we could literally lay Tim and Tang to rest? Or my stupid, stupid entanglement with Andy? How crazy could I be, to be falling in love with a priest, for God’s sake? Wrong expletive, Josie. I managed a dry laugh. The driest thing I’d done for about nine hours, come to think of it. That was why I never cried, of course: now I’d started I didn’t know how to stop. The prospect of the lads seeing me was the best cure. Sympathy, kind questions, or, worse, tactful avoidance of tricky areas were not about to appear on the menu.

  There! Bread proving and scones ready to be fished out of the oven. They’d better be up to Pix’s standards. And I could walk them down to the Tromans’ farm, just to blow away the last of the self-pity.

  Dan was busy in the yards, calling his baying security guards to heel and quickly muzzling them, an encouraging sight should I ever want to pay a chance visit.

  ‘Early bird, aren’t you?’ he greeted me.

  ‘Early to bed, early to rise…’ I said, offhand. No point in saying I’d not actually got between the sheets. ‘How’s Abby?’

  ‘Still lying round in bed all day like a beached whale. Looks fine, mind you. Anyway, those friends of yours are seeing me all right: casseroles here, cold joints there. And that little tea shop’s not doing so bad, either.’ He seemed to be having difficulty framing the word thanks.

  So I smiled helpfully.

  ‘This chicken business. I do recall something, Josie – can’t think why it slipped my mind.’

  I wouldn’t ever have placed any bets on the adhesive qualities of that organ. True, he was a genius with animals. But – no, perhaps genius in one area was all you could ask. I don’t suppose Einstein would have been too good in the lambing shed.

  ‘Anyway, this bloke with the chicken. The one at market. He drove one of those great white van things.’

  What a surprise.

  ‘And the funny thing is, though he didn’t have any writing on the side, his number-plate made a word. You know how they muck around with the letters and that. Anyways, his said FOWL, or something like it. How about that?’

  ‘Dan, that’s brilliant. Wonderful. I could kiss you.’

  He went a cheery rose pink under his all-weather tan. ‘What, you and them ladies of yours?’

  I thought it time to make a tactical withdrawal, but he was scratching his chin again. ‘This wild garlic stuff. I’m running a bit low. What do you think about fat hen?’

  Wasn’t it that beer with the fox adverts? ‘What should I think?’

  ‘Well, I got plenty of that. It’d be a shame not to see if you could cook it, like.’

  It would indeed. Funnily enough, a price was not mentioned.

  It was a good job the bread was ready for the oven when I got back or I might simply have allowed myself to go to bed. As it was, I had a wonderful time: I hadn’t come top of my bread-making classes for nothing. Much might have to be frozen: after the brilliant dawn and early morning, mist was now rolling purposefully in, as if literally to dampen our spirits.

  So I would make soup as the lunch special. My college tutor always reckoned I could have made soup from gravel chippings. This time I didn’t have to raid the car park, but I did use what I happened to have handy, and a damned good Italian peasant soup I made too: unfortunately ribollita is thickened with bread so my coeliac customers would have to give it a miss. So I turned to and produced curried parsnip and apple, just for them.

  ‘So who’s got up your nose?’ Robin demanded, coming down for the morning meeting half an hour later. ‘Come on, Josie, you never clean out cupboards unless you’re furious.’

  ‘Just a hangover from being ripped off by the good doctors Martin last week,’ I said. ‘That new policeman thinks he needs to talk to them, and I was hoping to have them back here and charge them appropriately.’

  ‘By which you mean enough for last week as well?’

  ‘I do indeed. But alas, the police Mohammed has gone to the Martin mountain, so I shan’t get the chance.’

  ‘And what really pees you off is that you can’t go too and have a good poke round their house. I know you, gaffer: don’t try to deny it.’

  I didn’t. Instead I reached out the best bacon, patted one of my new loaves, and suggested a breakfast meeting.

  At least my lads… I nearly used the L word! But they were like sons to me, and their very joshing and mockery were balm to my heart.

  A new email from a contact saying she’d had some chicken that tasted vaguely perfumed prompted me to phone Burford; I’d also give him Dan’s information about the van. The underling I reached – and I knew that now an MIT was involved there would be many beavering away – was not impressed, so I suggested in my frostiest voice that since his boss had thought my inside knowledge important enough to glean in person he ought to make sure it was properly logged.

  There was a muttering the far end: he’d obviously half covered the phone to make a quip to a mate. All I managed to pick up was, ‘That bird that Burford’s got the hots for.’ Or rather more vulgar words to that effect.

  I managed not to laugh out loud till I’d ended the call. In vain did I remind myself that Burford had a funny way of showing his interest, and that I didn’t fancy him anyway – my ego was suddenly as plump as a goose-down pillow. Why not settle for a sociable shag?

  Because. Nothing more. Just because. In weather like this, the clouds swirling great gusts of rain across the windows, there was no way I’d finish that sentence.

  It was my turn to do the basic weekly shop – the staples, as opposed to fresh produce. When I changed for the errand I noticed for the first time the bruises on my back and round my shoulder. For a moment I’d no idea how they’d got there. Then it dawned that the white van’s mirror must be the culprit. It would give me a great deal of pleasure to know that I’d broken it. And what if – very big if – what if the white van were the white van Dan had mentioned? It wasn’t so very long a walk, not compared with the other route marches I’d recently undertaken: I could do it after lunch.

  Once the shopping was done, it was time to return the hire car and get a substitute. The one they offered was a Focus, just the same as all the other Focuses (or should it be Foci?) on the road. I signed on the dotted line. Yes, limite
d business use, no racing, no rallying – you know the system.

  And got outside to find I’d only hired a silver one. Yes, a silver Focus, just the same as Andy’s. After all that trouble I’d gone to the other day to get something quite different from either of our cars!

  I was back in the office like a shot. And came out again, frustrated. It seemed all the alternatives were either underpowered or rented out or being serviced, and no amount of crisp fivers could change the situation, not till tomorrow. OK. Needs must, but it wouldn’t be the Devil but Josie driving.

  Coming back down the lane where I’d been bashed by the white van, I slowed to a walking pace at the site of the encounter. Yes, there was one big sliver of mirror-glass. Just for the say-so, I retrieved it, wrapped it in a tissue, and stowed it in the boot. If nothing more, it would prevent some innocent animal’s feet being cut.

  By the time I got back to the White Hart, my energy levels were so low I’d have to do something. I must have either a huge wodge of chocolate, which might contain enough anticoagulants to prevent DVT on a long-haul flight but certainly had enough calories to fly the damned plane, or a zizz. A zizz was certainly less fattening. The lads could stow the food, and then give me a call: no matter how little sleep I had, I never allowed myself more then half an hour during the day. Then, and only then, would I check the post and the answerphone. It was one thing to think there might be bad news, another to know.

  I didn’t specify, even to myself, what that bad news might be.

  The news was that there was no news. Monday was a day for circulars and junk. No phone messages. All right, then, I’d get on with the lunch trade. I even lit the fires in both the snug and the dining room, thinking the sight of a few flames and the smell of apple wood would cheer everyone up. Guess who I meant by everyone. But a nap had improved the world, there was no doubt about it, and when both soups disappeared as if by evaporation, I was ready for my walk. We were all free agents on Monday, with Lucy coping in the snug bar. In fact, walk be damned, I’d go and have a bit of retail therapy. The road conditions were still foul, of course, but I’d picked my way through mist worse than this before and I deserved a new outfit. A phone call established my hairdresser could fit me in, and I was made.

  Or I would have been, had I not developed this paranoia about white vans. Every time I saw one I wanted to check the number-plate or the side mirror. Fortunately for the safety of all concerned most seemed to have been wiped from the road, and I arrived in Exeter with time to spare. With its main street a clone of every other main street, Exeter’s not the best place in the world for shopping. But there are individual shops tucked away, for those in the know. Within half an hour of my parking, I’d acquired a trouser suit, a top to die for and two pairs of shoes. While my hair colour took, I had a pedicure – vital in a job like mine – and a manicure.

  There: I was ready to face the world again. Even a world – I had to confront the possibility – with no Andy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Once when I wasn’t at my best – I’d actually been tempted to end it all, to be honest, only deterred by the thought I wouldn’t know the rest of the story – someone passed on a tip they’d learnt to keep their mind off their problems. It was a rubber band around the wrist. No, not the fashionable wristbands all the kids were wearing these days, declaring their support for some charity or another. Just the sort of simple rubber band the postie uses to hold a bundle of mail. You could twang when your thoughts strayed in negative directions. Despite my retail therapy – possibly because of it – I slipped a band on before I even tried my new outfit. I couldn’t imagine Andy ever approving of spending a small fortune on such non-essentials. Twang. The clothes looked as good at home as in the shop. The shoes were bliss. It probably meant they’d stretch, in which case the nearest charity shop would end up with designer shoes, but at least they gave me pleasure at a time when – twang!

  As for the rest of the evening, I did something guaranteed to make you concentrate, the VAT figures. Until I got restless. I peered out of the window: the mist had cleared to give a perfect moonlit night. Even I admitted it was too late to go for a walk, and I’d much rather not have put on my oldest clothes, but I had to have another look at the yard at which I’d patently been so unwelcome yesterday. It might be that they maintained a night patrol: more likely they’d simply let the dogs run loose inside the – preferably stout – fence.

  I longed for a phone like Andy’s that would have enabled me to take discreet photos. Why hadn’t I used the sense I was born with and bought one this afternoon? What a fool, to waste time and money on fripperies – twang! Come on: my old warhorse was familiar in my hands, and I could use film fast enough to accommodate poor light. Assuming there was light.

  There was.

  It hadn’t taken me long to drive to the suspect yard, even in the still relatively unfamiliar Focus. I parked well away from a casual observer’s eyes.

  Curiously they’d not installed security lights; there was just a pallid and inadequate affair over the office door. But the moonlight was bright enough for me to pick out piles of wheels and bumpers and other genuine-looking spare parts. I took photos galore. So why the secrecy? And why weren’t the dogs loose? And why was there such a stench?

  The gates were fastened with both a serious padlock and a motorbike-quality chain, and my gate-scaling days were in the past. And I was on my own.

  It would be hard simply to drive away, but at least I’d have something to report to Burford or even to Nick, when he was well enough to return. A cold? I still feared it might be something more serious. I’d give him a call when I got back home.

  Where I didn’t especially want to be. So, twanging the band sharply, I checked the OS map and set the car in motion, heading in a generally uphill direction. I’d never seen the view from the Quantocks in moonlight and tonight seemed as good as any.

  I was bowling merrily along when I ran into mist. Good, thick stuff. And of course, unlike my Saab, the bottom of the range Focus wasn’t equipped with fog-lights. I was trying to work out whether I was better on main beam or dipped when I realised I wasn’t alone. Someone was following me, their speed not dropping even though they could surely see that there was nowhere to overtake and that I was going as fast as I could.

  Using a short, sharp expletive banned in my kitchen, I accelerated as hard as I dared, which wasn’t much. My tail kept up. Was there a turning? I forced myself to visualise the OS map. My ex-Met instructor had been more concerned with cul-de-sacs and rat-runs. I needed a farm gate or – yes, a left here. I plunged on to Forestry Commission land, with the sort of tracks beloved of rally drivers, not mature ladies in hire cars with inadequate lights. But at least I had skills, and the Focus was manoeuvrable in a way that a white van probably wasn’t. Yes! He’d dropped back a bit.

  If only Andy had been here, he could have offered up a prayer.

  No time to twang now.

  For an instant, the mist cleared. The track forked at the bottom of the hill. Left took me back into mist, the right into moonlight. My mist-vision or his? The clear track it must be, the car drifting faster into corners than a van would dare. Tony patted me on my shoulder. The longer I kept going, the more opportunities for the other guy to make a mistake.

  We weren’t so far from the main road when I lost him. Just like that. Had he turned off a track I didn’t register, ready to ambush me on the main road? It’s what I’d do in his situation. Which rather limited the left or right options. So I plunged across what looked as good as a B road into a definite lane. Soon a scattering of cottages appeared either side. I slowed for a man walking his elderly spaniel. Heavens above: streetlights! Something Kings Duncombe didn’t run to. A thirty sign – rather superfluous, since I’d had my heart in my mouth doing twenty-five. A church large and solid enough to be spotlit: St Mark’s, the clean bright notice board said. A pub! Oh, a cheery, welcoming pub, the Queen’s Head, maybe run by someone I knew! And, nestling between
the two, the vicarage, a silver Focus with a familiar number-plate on the drive.

  Without trying, I’d only fetched up in Langworthy, Andy’s home village.

  I do stubborn very well. I always have. So though I had an ideal opportunity to knock on his front door and beg – quite legitimately – for succour and a loo, not necessarily in that order, I pulled into the pub car park instead, right round the back, where no one could see me.

  However, I had something other people might want. Bother the car. Insurance would cover it. What had provoked my tailgaters was presumably the contents of the camera. So, just in case we had a second encounter, and for no other reason, I slipped the film through Andy’s letterbox. And scuttled, like a naughty child who’d rung an old lady’s bell. He’d have the nous to know who was responsible, and his loyalty to Tim’s memory would probably make him get the film developed and copied. He could return the prints to me, as anonymously as I’d dropped off the film, if he wanted to. Or did I mean impersonally? Maybe a stiff diet tonic water would sort me out.

  It was sparkling on the table in front of me, ready to be lifted to my deserving lips, when, in the middle of all my self-congratulation, ideas popped into my head – just like the bubbles in the glass. I had been driving a silver Focus. The white van driver wanted me enough to give chase over dangerous terrain. It was all very well my out-driving him and having time to conceal my vehicle. He’d see a car like the one he was looking for just waiting for him on Andy’s drive. It wouldn’t be hard for him to assume that I might be in the vicarage.

  Greyhounds out of slips had nothing on me. It took seconds to reach Andy’s front door. Someone had taped over the bell-push! I used fists as well as the knocker.

  In black from head to toe, dog-collar apart, he flung open the door in clear outrage.