The Food Detective
Page 6
The church door opened gently to admit a lady in her sixties, terribly thin with the consequence that she looked amazing in her jeans and jerkin. Sue’s bête noir, Mrs Greville. She smiled vaguely at us both. ‘Barbara. Mrs Welford. I’m sorry I’m so late. One of the dogs… I waited ages for Mr Tregothnan but there was no sign of him at his surgery this morning. I suppose he must have had an emergency somewhere.’ She looked around the church, spreading her hands as if genuinely embarrassed. ‘There doesn’t seem much for me to do.’
‘Is the dog very ill?’ I asked. ‘I’m Josie, by the way.’
‘Caro. I take it you and Barbara have already introduced yourselves.’ She put out her hand for me to shake. She could have done with a good manicure. ‘Spud? He’s just off his food. So unlike him, though. Now, why don’t I make amends by sweeping up? That’s coming along beautifully, Barbara – such verve. And Josie – now, there’s only one thing wrong there, my dear – no one’ll see it, tucked away down there. Let’s pop it onto a kneeler, shall we? Did I ever tell you about my favourite kneeler? It’s in Hereford Cathedral. The SAS one. Such a hoot. You can just imagine them all blacked up for some terrible mission and one of them saying, “Hang on, Sarge, just got to finish this corner.”’
Our laughter rang round the church. Why on earth had Sue so taken against her?
We lifted the vase as she directed and stood back to survey it. Yes, I felt quite proud.
She applied herself to the broom, me busy with the dustpan and brush. While we waited for Barbara to stick in the last few dahlias, I asked, ‘Have you noticed the stream recently? It’s gone a funny colour.’
‘The rain, of course,’ Barbara cut in.
Why didn’t she ask what was funny about it? ‘I’m sorry?’
‘All that rain – it’s bound to discolour the water.’
‘But to turn it pink?’
‘Pink?’ Caro repeated, the same disbelief in her voice as in my head.
‘Have you never noticed how red the soil is in parts of Devon?’ Barbara snipped an end, letting it fall on to the floor. Caro bent, rather stiffly, to pick it up. Yes: her knuckles were slightly swollen – maybe her knees or hips were already arthritic.
Actually, I had. I’d been to a sleepy little village with some bloke I’d met on the Internet. Dawlish. And the stream there was a deep terracotta colour after a thunderstorm. Not pink, though. And come to think of it, we weren’t in Devon, but in Somerset. Just.
One part of her perfect triangle stood up too high, mocking the rest. It would have been the work of seconds for me to nip it out, but I refrained. Caro, winking with the eye Barbara couldn’t see, gave it a deft shove.
‘Ladies, I’m sorry to be such a bore, but I must have another go at seeing the vet. Can I offer you a lift, Josie?’
She was the sort of woman to whom I could pat my buttocks and say, ‘I need the walk, thanks. I hope your poor Spud improves.’ Then I had a spurt of courage. If Sue could do it, so could I. ‘Actually, there’s something I need to ask. I’ll walk with you to your car, shall I?’
She raised a well-plucked eyebrow, but held open the door with a friendly smile.
‘I was wondering if you’d mind the hunt meeting at the Court,’ I began. ‘I hate to break a village tradition but –’
‘You’re anti-blood sports too.’
‘’Fraid so –’
She gave a snort of laughter. ‘My dear, I loathe them too! Why do you think it stopped gathering at the Court and moved to the White Hart? Tell you what,’ she added, dropping her voice to a stage whisper, ‘Ask Barbara Coyne. She’d love to think she’s one up on me!’ With a wink, she let herself into her car, not the huge four-wheel drive I’d have expected but a fairly elderly Volvo Estate. Spud lay in the back looking, even to a non-doggy person like me, pretty miserable.
I got back to find some of Barbara’s flowers in my arrangements – my lovely golds dotted with turquoise, that sort of thing. ‘I found I had some to spare,’ she smiled graciously.
‘But there are a couple of gaps in your own,’ I said, pointing them out and returning my lectern arrangement to the original. ‘There.’
By the time she’d rearranged them to her satisfaction I’d retrieved some bright pink carnations from my bronze chrysanthemums – not my favourite flower, I have to admit, but it would have been churlish to spurn Sue’s choice.
‘They stick out a bit,’ I said, aiming for apologetic.
She pulled her half-moon specs a little lower down her nose, and looked slowly from me to the flowers and back again. She didn’t need to say it: the interlopers were a metaphor for newcomers to the village. I was a shocking pink carnation amid the mature, sensible natives. I could have pursued the theme: we were more fragrant, easier to arrange and a good deal less unyielding. As it was, I simply held her gaze longer than she thought comfortable.
To do her justice, she fished the carnations out and shoved them into her medley. If I’d been more charitable, I’d have said it was a wonderful floral image of a multicultural city like dear old Brum. As it was, it simply added to the mess.
She might see my suggestion about the hunt as a peace-offering, or even as a desire to appease. Hell. In any case, was it my place to ask her? That had never stopped me yet. I plunged in.
For all I might have been suggesting she host a drug-taking convention, she was tempted. I could see that. She agreed, with a show of reluctance, to discuss it with the Master. We bade each other extremely courteous farewells and I left.
The feel of the secateurs in my hand reminded me of another job involving cutting. The obstruction on the footpath. When I took my walk that afternoon I went armed. First of all I photographed the tangle of barbed and razor wire. Then, with my pliers, I attacked it, piece by vicious piece. It wasn’t as easy by any means as I’d expected, and I was glad of my old outsize gardening jacket over my Barbour, not to mention two pairs of leather gloves. With my walking stick, I shoved the stuff into the brambles beside the path. I didn’t want to be accused of theft, did I?
Rain came squalling down. I ignored it for a couple of hundred yards, but it was really so unpleasant I gave up with ill grace and headed back to the sanctuary of my living room.
There was an excellent turn out for Sunday lunch, the organic rib of beef earning a lot of plaudits, which I was happy to pass on to my Sunday chef, a bone thin lad called Tom Dearborn, who looked as if he couldn’t tell the time of day, but had the nose and palate of an angel. He responded with a close inspection of his clogs.
‘Thing is, Mrs Welford, I don’t think as how I can work here any more.’
‘Tom! But you know I was hoping to take you on full-time as soon as the restaurant was up and running. You’re more than good enough.’ He was: he was wasted on simple Sunday roasts.
A further inspection of the clogs.
‘Have you had a better offer? I’ll match it if I can.’
‘’Tisn’t that, Mrs Welford.’
‘And you’ll be working in a brand new kitchen, with all that state of the art equipment.’
‘I know. It’s just that …’
I closed the kitchen door so we wouldn’t be overheard. ‘Just what?’ As he hesitated, I asked, ‘Has someone suggested it would be better if you didn’t work for me? Just because I’m a grockle? Hell, Tom, there aren’t many employers round here who aren’t grockles! There aren’t many employers round here full stop.’
‘I know. And you’re a very good one, don’t get me wrong. And I told him –’ He wrung his hands miserably, the big knuckles crunching.
‘Told who, Tom?’
If there’d been a crack between the floorboards, he’d have tried to disappear down it. ‘This bloke. You don’t know him.’
‘Did he want you to work for him or just to stop working for me?’ I didn’t need to wait for an answer. ‘Did he threaten you? What’ll he do to you if you don’t do as he says?’
‘He says he’ll stop me seeing my Sharon.’
‘Thing is, she still lives at home. And – I’m going to be a father, Josie.’
I hugged him. ‘That’s wonderful!’ If bringing a child into the world without a roof of your own was wonderful. ‘When?’
‘In February. Thing is, he knocks her about when he’s had a few – I –’
‘Then the first thing to do is get her out of there. Now. Today.’
Even as his eyes lit up, reality hit him. I fancied it had hit him quite a lot in his short lifetime. ‘But where –?’
‘Here, of course. You’ll have to rough it in the B and B rooms for a bit. But I always did plan to turn the old stable block into accommodation for the chef – we discussed the plans, remember.’
There was a bit in Shakespeare, Hamlet, as I recall, about one auspicious and one dropping eye. That was Tom to a T.
‘Go and talk it over with her. It’s not the Ritz, and everything’s pretty tatty. But it’s better than being beaten up and putting a baby’s life at risk.’ Even as I said it, I wondered how much more they might be at risk if they accepted my offer. If a violent father didn’t want his daughter’s young man even working for me, how much more of a provocation would it be if his daughter sought refuge under my roof?
Chapter Seven
My Monday morning walk established that Nick Thomas had either left for work extremely early or that he’d spent at least the night, and possibly the whole weekend, elsewhere. An old flame? He hadn’t looked like a man with a current flame: anyone with less ardour it would be hard to imagine. Even his hair and skin resembled long-cooled ashes.
The ground near his mobile home was wet enough to suck off my wellingtons, which I’d bought in Wellington, the nearby market town, in an emporium called – wait for it – the Wellington Boot Shop. The deep footprints I left – I could have done without the strains of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ running not quite inexplicably through my head – simply filled with water. In fact, it was so hard to walk through what was now a quagmire that I cut across to the lane, preferring to take my chance with any traffic to the ignominious loss of a boot - especially as there’d be no one to rescue it for me but myself. As I passed the paper skip in which Reg had wanted Nick to bury the cat, Reg himself emerged from his bungalow, which, like the rest of the administration buildings, was on a rise. I suspected he wanted to meet me as little as I him. As he shoved a spade and waders in the back of his utility truck, he glowered at me, logging my visit; any protests I made that I was just having a walk and certainly not visiting Nick would only make matters worse.
So I took the fire to his line. ‘Any chance of a lift, Reg? It’s no fun, swimming in wellies.’
‘Not going your way, am I?’ He wasn’t as good as the game as I was. ‘Got to look at that stream. Making sure it flows OK.’
Was he, now? And what colour would it flow when he’d seen to it? I’d make a point of checking later.
It was hardly flowing at all. My afternoon walk would have to be a bit longer, wouldn’t it, to find out exactly what Bulcombe had been up to. No good, if I knew him. The shortest way was along the footpath I’d cleared the previous day. It’d be good to check if my activities had been noted. It was going to be slippery enough under foot for me to take my stick, certainly, but I didn’t lug the other gear around – if the razor wire was back, I’d go and yell at the council in person.
No – I wouldn’t have to! I’d triumphed over it. It was still where I’d left it. Brilliant. Like a conqueror, I set out on my victory march. Nearly. If I hadn’t gone flying I would. I never thought I’d be grateful for a bank of brambles and nettles, but I was this time, once I’d gathered myself up and sorted myself out. So why had I fallen? A quick swish with my stick told me. Someone had stretched at shin height a piece of green wire, the slightly roughened sort I use to train my clematis up, between a couple of clumps of gorse. It actually cut a little notch in the walking stick. And then I went flying again. Yes. Another tripwire, a couple of feet from the first. Had they been there all the time, just as back up? Or had someone found the mess and set them up in revenge? Maybe they hadn’t bargained on the bramble cushion. Maybe they’d hoped for a broken ankle to keep the trespasser out in the cold and wet till they were found. No. For ‘they’ read ‘she’. Or ‘I’.
This was beginning to feel personal.
‘Hello, stranger,’ I greeted Nick Thomas that evening. He looked pale and drawn, but managed a smile of sorts. The sort he’d probably once used as he sat down to interview suspects. So where had he spent his weekend? ‘You should have been in yesterday – lovely roasts for lunch, there were.’
‘I supposed there wouldn’t be a slice or two left to make a sandwich?’ He looked like a Bisto kid sniffing in vain.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ If I had to sacrifice that nice slice of roast turkey breast I’d been keeping for my supper, I might as well ask outright. ‘Where have you been all weekend?’
‘I had a case in Hampshire –’
‘Hampshire?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you work weekends?’ When he didn’t respond, I said, ‘I suppose you’re used to working weird hours –’ I bit off what I’d been going to say. It was I who’d started this idea that he was a civil servant – no need to blow his cover.
He nodded absently.
‘I’ll get that sandwich, then.’
He was still nursing his drink, the backs of the other boozers firmly against him, when I carried it through to him. Not a bad sandwich, either. Occasionally I went really wild and baked my own bread, freezing batches of loaves or rolls. Sometimes, at three in the morning, when I really did panic over the future of this place, I’d sneak down and fish out a roll, microwave it and smother it in butter fresh from the Taunton farmers’ market. Bliss. Even if I could almost see calories massing. I hadn’t given Nick one of these special small rolls. But he had a couple of chunky slices of organic loaf, thickly carved turkey with home-made mayonnaise and a neat little side salad in case he was the sort of man who usually ignored the five portions of vegetables rule.
‘If you work in Hampshire, why did you come to live here?’ I asked, setting it in front of him. He could hitch himself up on a bar stool or take it to a patio table.
‘It seemed a good idea at the time.’
‘But you’d do better somewhere nearer Exeter and the M5.’
‘It’s not so very far from the M5 here, is it?’
I wasn’t going to spend the whole evening discussing road communication, so I smiled and turned my attention to bar stock. He withdrew to a table.
When he’d finished, I drifted over to collect the plate. ‘Tell me, why should rain make a stream turn pink?’
He shrugged.
‘The sort of pink Sue’s water must have been when she bathed your scratches.’
He flushed deeply. ‘She was kind. A good sort. I suppose I should have gone to church yesterday.’
‘It never hurts to swell the numbers,’ I agreed.
‘I wouldn’t have put you down as a devout Christian.’
‘My beliefs are my own affair. But if you don’t support the ancient institutions that keep the village together how will they survive? And they’ll be missed when they’ve gone. Like this pub and the village shop.’ Maybe it was time to hop off my hobby-horse. I grinned. ‘And you could have seen the stream for yourself. I called the water company but they couldn’t have been less interested.’
‘That’s officialdom for you. Good sandwich,’ he said, heaving himself to his feet. ‘I’d best be off – I ought to unpack a few more boxes.’
‘You could check the stream, too – it rises on Bulcombe’s land. At least, it’s not really his, of course, any more than the campsite is – he rents it from the Greville estate. And this morning he was off in his wade
rs with a spade.’
‘Problem?’
‘Only that the consequence is that the stream is hardly flowing at all now.’
‘So where has all the water gone?’
‘You tell me, Copper. You tell me.’
Telling Sue Clayton about our joint triumph over the hunt was the least I could do. In private, not with a couple of dozen parishioners milling round shaking hands and smiling after morning service. Should I beard her in her den, possibly catching her unawares, or do the decent thing and ask her back to my place when I accidentally met her as we were buying our Guardians?
Any plans had to go by the board, however, when I arrived to find the shop seething with gossip. It seemed that Fred Tregothnan had disappeared. I didn’t think he’d been so upset by our tiff that he’d have flitted. But one or two people looked surreptitiously in my direction, and one or two quite pointedly, so I took care not to mention it. In any case, I pointed out when it was clear I had to shove my oar in, he was a grown man and, like the rest of us, was allowed to take a break when he needed it.
Barbara Coyne was standing by the counter, hand held out for her regular papers – the Mail and the Telegraph. ‘Totally irresponsible,’ she declared. I wasn’t sure whether she meant Fred or me. ‘You’ve obviously no idea how much a rural community depends on its vet. Just skipping off without a locum. Poor Caroline Greville had to take her dog all the way to Taunton.’