The Food Detective

by Judith Cutler

  ‘That you’re –’ Short stopped dead. I kept my eyes full on him. He flushed scarlet. ‘A witch,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Twaddle and bilge,’ I said, drawing a grin from Evans. ‘Mind you, I wouldn’t mind being one, not just at the moment. All my staff have mysteriously disappeared, gentlemen. I could magic them back again. Abracadabra!’

  ‘Why should they have disappeared?’

  ‘Given the choice, would you work for a witch?’ I asked as lightly as if I didn’t care.

  ‘No notice?

  I shook my head.

  ‘No word since?’

  Another shake. When I was young, my hair had been long and heavy and silky enough to flop from side to side when I did that. It had made me feel a million dollars. Then I’d reached the age when long hair doesn’t work – mutton pretending to be lamb, and looking all the worse for trying. The hairdresser actually picked up a lock for me to keep, but I slung it down when he wasn’t looking. No point in clinging on to a past life.

  ‘How are you managing?’ Evans looked genuinely interested.

  ‘Not much business this last week, what with the rain. You may have seen me on the TV news on Friday, talking with passion about the problems of the poor farmers and tradespeople round here. No? Your heart would have bled. In any case, I planned for a fairly fallow period while the restaurant was being set up. A few sulking rustics won’t kill me. Could that be what happened to Fred Tregothnan?’ I speculated aloud, almost as if I were talking to Nick. ‘Vets don’t earn that much, do they, in rural practices? Far more money in overfed city pets. Some folk take things hard – he might have topped himself.’

  ‘The possibility isn’t lost on us, Mrs Welford. Very well.’ Evans pulled himself to his feet, not quite suppressing a wince as his knees straightened. ‘Thank you for your time. And for the excellent coffee. Is that what you’ll be serving in your new restaurant?’

  It struck me that the news of the pub’s transformation hadn’t come to him as any surprise. He’d obviously done his homework – or simply listened to villagers all too ready to fill him in on the news. I outlined the plans briefly, leading them down the stairs – to the back door this time.

  ‘Now you’re here, Mr Evans,’ I said, pointing to the stinking ooze, ‘perhaps you could tell me what you’re going to do about that.’

  Scott Short took one look and spewed, all over my feet. Well, he’d go far in the police, wouldn’t he?

  ‘It must be the shock, poor lad,’ I said kindly, kicking off my shoes all the same, and wondering how he’d take it if I stripped off my spattered stockings. The trouble with vomit is that the tiniest spec stinks for ever, and makes me want to heave in sympathy.

  Despite his gabble of apologies, Short goggled – hadn’t he ever seen a woman wearing stockings for anything except seduction? I wasn’t about to give him a lecture on the causes and prevention of vaginal thrush, however. Hopping from one foot to the other, I flung the offending items on to the floor. ‘I’m sorry – I shall have to go and wash this off.’ What else would Tony have considered the bidet was meant for except feet?

  I left plenty of time, while drying between my toes and pulling on fresh stockings, for them to ponder more calmly my unexpected gift. I pondered from afar, amid the smells of lavender and rose. Entrails. Intestines. Guts. A lot of them. Never having seen the innards of a cow or whatever, I’d no idea how much to expect. Had I had the contents of one beast or more? No, I hadn’t actually counted the hearts or lungs or livers, any of which could have appeared on my menu later that week – if I’d had any idea of their provenance, of course.

  Of course, I had a damned good idea where they might have come from. The animals I’d seen being delivered to the makeshift slaughterhouse. Pity I’d resolved not to implicate Nick by reporting it – at this stage anyway. The first question they’d now have to ask, of course, was who might have it in for me. Well, I had a good alternative theory, which came out equally pat when, pale about the gills himself, poor kid, Short sat on my sofa again, knees tightly together as if he was afraid I might flash my suspenders at him. After a good swallow, he managed to stutter out a direct question. Evans, meanwhile, was barking into his phone.

  ‘As a matter of fact there is one person who might have a grudge against me – the sort of grudge you might express that way. Trouble is, I don’t know his name.’

  Short groped for his superior expression, missing horribly.

  ‘Look, have another of these biscuits – they’ll settle that poor stomach of yours. The man was my meat supplier till quite recently. You might say I inherited him when I took over the pub. But I only ever contacted him through a third party. You need to ask Mr Bulcombe, the guy who runs the campsite recently under several feet of water: he’d know. It was he who did the deals.’

  Short wrote assiduously.

  Evans, over his head, asked, ‘Why did you stop getting your meat from him?’ He snapped his phone shut as if to emphasise the question.

  ‘No paperwork’ I told him. ‘See, I told you what a law-abiding citizen I was compared with my late husband.’ I swallowed hard, not entirely for show. ‘No matter how many times I asked, an invoice, a receipt would always come next time – honest, Mrs Welford. And then I did a spot of research about BSE and how it can affect humans and decided to go organic instead. Apart from anything else, it’ll add cachet to the restaurant when it opens.’

  Evans joined Short on the sofa, leaning forward to ask, ‘Did you have any reason to believe that the meat you were buying might be infected?’

  ‘None at all. Like I said, all I wanted was nice legitimate paperwork for my nice legitimate business. And when it didn’t appear, I changed to a supplier who practically bakes his beasts birthday cakes he knows them so well. And he knows the slaughterhouse, too,’ I added, wondering if they were bright enough to take the bait.

  ‘Why did you do the research?’ Short asked, surprising me.

  ‘I just happened to be surfing the Web one day and saw an item on this young man with – what to they call it? CJD? And I took it from there.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Serendipity,’ I said, still preferring to keep Nick out of this.

  ‘And do you reckon,’ Evans jumped in, ‘that it was serendipity that brought all that – that matter – to your doorstep?’

  I sensed a trap. ‘Like I said, ask Reg Bulcombe.’

  ‘Is this Mr Bulcombe’s handwriting?’ He flourished a scrap of paper torn from an exercise book.

  ‘I’ll need my reading glasses. Could you pass me my bag? Thanks. There.’ I read the words aloud. ‘You nozy bastared, I warned you to clear out or you’re lanlady’ll get a nasty surprise.’ Where did this come from?’

  ‘Someone had tucked it under a windscreen wiper.’

  Hell and damnation! OK, some of Nick’s activities might have to come into the open. But fancy him just clearing off like that, in that cowardly, supine way, without a word to me! I’d have stood up to whoever it was, you bet I would. I supposed I should say something. ‘Yours?’ As he nodded, I mused, ‘So all that wasn’t meant for me!’ I ought to feel happier than I did.

  ‘Only indirectly. So who would the nosy bastard be?’

  ‘I can only think it must be my temporary lodger. Nick Thomas. But why they should leave a note on your car…’ I feigned innocence. ‘Ah, I suppose you wouldn’t drive a dirty great gas-guzzling four-wheel drive? Silver? That’ll be it, then. They thought it was his.’

  ‘So why should they wish to get rid of him?’

  ‘I’d tell you to ask him yourself, but he’s left a phone message saying he’s working in the South East for a bit. He’s some sort of civil servant,’ I added carelessly, leaning back and crossing my legs above the knee. How much had Sue, not to mention the villagers, said about him?

  Whatever the effect on Short, Evans didn’t buy my ignorance. ‘What sort?’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll tell you when you talk to him. He’s definitely coming back
, he says.’ The men exchanged glances – so they did know about him. To clarify, I added, ‘He’s paying me to keep his room. He’s based in Taunton, mostly.’

  ‘And has now conveniently decamped.’ I couldn’t tell who Evans was more irritated with, Nick or me.

  ‘I’d have thought,’ I objected, for both our sakes, ‘that you need to talk less to Mr Thomas than to the guy who threatened him, wouldn’t you? And I don’t know Mr Bulcombe’s writing, but I’d say whoever wrote it spelt the way he speaks, and that certainly doesn’t rule him out.’ To mark a change of subject, I recrossed my legs. ‘What are you proposing to do with my gift? I take it whoever it was committed some sort of offence to dump it there? It’s not exactly good for public health or the environment.’

  ‘I’ve already arranged for its disposal,’ he said stiffly. ‘And here are a couple of industrial cleaners we sometimes have to use.’ He flicked two business cards. ‘The caravan site, you said.’

  ‘Yes, just down the road here. While you’re at it, you could even ask him why his field’s flooded and nowhere else is. No, better not. Because he’ll know who tipped you off. I saw him loading waders and shovel into his car the other day and we exchanged a couple of sentences. I think he must have gone off to reorganise a watercourse. The stream next to the post office virtually dried up while the caravan field flooded, you see. Now the stream’s running as usual, and the field’s conveniently recovered.’

  ‘That’ll be for his insurance company to sort out,’ Short said, his face lifting with relief: someone else would get to do the paperwork. ‘I’m sure they’d be grateful for a tip-off too.’

  How much else should I reveal? Damn and blast Nick.

  I checked my watch. ‘I’m afraid I have a pub to run, gentlemen.’ And a call to make to my insurance company, for the cost of cleaning and a fresh carpet and a spot of redecoration.

  ‘You reckon you’ll have any customers?’ Evans demanded, taking the hint and getting to his feet.

  I looked him frankly in the eye. ‘To a large extent that depends on you. If you let it be known that there’s actually no sign of Mr Thomas, they may come flooding back, keen to show me all is forgiven. On the other hand, they might not like me either. We shall see.’

  ‘We shall indeed. Now, the council should get that lot clear by nightfall.’

  ‘Nightfall!’ I squeaked.

  ‘You might try soft-soaping them. The men might even hose the place down if you slip them a fiver.’ He took a step forward. ‘I reckon it’s Mr Thomas they’re after – don’t take kindly to strangers, round here.’

  I looked him straight in the eye. ‘What are you and I, Mr Evans, if not strangers?’ Perhaps that was why I’d told him more than I’d meant; perhaps that was why I’d formed that unlikely alliance with Nick – because however much they might need someone to run their waterhole, the villagers certainly didn’t want an incomer like me to do it, no, nor any other incomers around the place either. If they were feuding with me, I’d make my alliances where I could.

  Like any good hostess, I saw my visitors out – through the main pub door, that is – walking courteously with them to their car. It was actually a twin of the first one Nick had tried, gross in the bodywork with huge wheels and, no doubt, a full complement of bells and whistles within. I wasn’t the only one to have taken umbrage. Someone had taken a set of keys to the paintwork and slashed all the tyres. But I didn’t think it was the aesthetics of the thing or the harm it did to the environment that had offended them. ‘You’re right,’ I said quietly, while the men sounded off. ‘The villagers don’t like strangers.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Monday always was a slack pub day, closed at lunchtime and open just for drinks in the evening. No, not my idea: the previous landlord’s. He’d needed time to breathe occasionally too. But there wouldn’t be much breathing till they’d lugged the guts to another place. The phrase was irritatingly familiar, more irritatingly elusive when I tried to track it down. Maybe it’d come to me if I drove into Taunton to clear my head. Actually to check with the employment people about possible bar staff: they should have had time by now to respond to my fax. There were a couple of possibles, both, fortunately, with their own transport. I’d try the first on Tuesday lunchtime, the other on Tuesday evening, I said. Hang WeightWatchers, just this once. There was no fee to forfeit, since I was on their Gold Standard: I never lost less than my target, and often lost more. Apart from the first vulnerable weeks, I’d never hung round for the pep talk and socialising. My own scales told me I’d lost another couple of pounds, and that would have to do. So I set off briskly to collect my photos and have the current lot developed. As before, negatives and a set of prints would go to Piers.

  And I – would go to Birmingham.

  No, not so mad. The industrial cleaners couldn’t make it till tomorrow morning, though the council had promised to remove the waste by the end of the day. And I couldn’t face a day and night of ever-increasing pong. I had to go somewhere, and why not Birmingham, my home town and proud possessor of the central library which Prince Charles had described as a place better suited to burning books than to storing them? And if the library’s archive failed, then I could always go to the offices of the local papers and ask to see their back numbers. I hadn’t packed an overnight bag, of course, but had no intention of wasting time going back to get it. A spot of retail therapy in a city with decent shops was called for, and, the way the city was changing, a bit of sightseeing. Selfridge’s, the new Bull Ring – here I come.

  I never liked going back, as a matter of fact. Too many memories. OK, there were good ones as well as bad, but my philosophy has always been that you should always move forward, never back. And, despite myself, I’d become a countrywoman. The traffic, the fumes – I felt totally bombarded. And it wasn’t just traffic noise – it was people noise too. Unwilling to fight through roads I’d once laughed at, I checked in at a hotel in suburban Edgbaston and caught a bus. Not a single passenger seemed to be sitting silently or even talking quietly to a neighbour. Every conversation was at maximum volume, with the odd one not joining in adding to the mêleé with overloud personal stereos. No wonder someone was smoking pot to calm their nerves – I wouldn’t have minded a spliff myself. But not in a bus plastered with no smoking notices. I looked around – no, no furtive fags cupped in hands. Except one in the driver’s.

  At least none of the librarians were smoking, not visibly at least. I made my way to the sixth floor. What I remembered, probably wrongly, as a silent place of study, now seemed to be a dating agency for kids for all the ethnic backgrounds under the sun, their voices rising like those of the flocks of starlings that had once ruled the city centre. I could be an old codger and remind the librarians of what seemed like baby-sitting duties. Or I could concentrate hard on what I was putting through the microfiche and maybe I wouldn’t hear.

  There was a lot to concentrate on in 80s Birmingham – race, politics, pollution, unemployment. But nothing seemed to fit the bill. Not until I came across the magic headline, KINGS HEATH SIEGE. Hallo, hallo, hallo, as Dixon of Dock Green might have said.

  Kings Heath was not one of my regular stamping grounds though in fact not all that far from Bartley Green, the suburb that Tony had for some reason made his base. Bartley Green included a reservoir where nice people sailed little boats and a lot of high-rise council flats, latterly home to a lot of cheap-skate drug-dealers Tony wouldn’t have given the time of day to. We’d had a top floor flat in one of them. Don’t ask me why he was taking up cheap accommodation meant for the poor and homeless when we were spectacularly neither. Tony could have afforded to buy the whole block, several times over. Well, he owned enough overseas, ones he’d always meant to use as bolt holes when the Law got after him. None of them was in his name, of course, and it would have taken more dedicated forensic accountants than the West Midlands Police had ever had at their disposal to trace them back to him. They were in quite different names now, many quite l
egitimately since I’d sold them and bought other things, including my education. Not to mention my pub and my flying lessons, of course.

  My memories of Kings Heath were mainly of streets and streets of Victorian terrace housing, some better than others. There was some more recent stuff, and one or two grander Victorian houses, many now multi-occupied, of course.

  Once upon a time, mentally ill people had routinely been crammed away in remote institutions, long ago even used as objects of upper-class amusement. Under Thatcher, two initiatives changed this. One was a realisation that in many cases this was plainly unsuitable for many, unnecessary, even. Another was a more pragmatic need for health authorities to clear old institutions to sell them and raise funds. So it became fashionable to turf out institutionalised folk and call it care in the community. Fine if there’d been any care in place and readily available. There were a number of highly publicised cases where innocent men and women were killed by mentally ill people who really should have been locked away for life – but whose hospitals were now bijou housing. One case was in Birmingham: it was all coming back to me now, courtesy the fuzzy pictures now on the pages I was now scanning.

  A kind and loving young man had been returned to the community and popped into a Victorian bed-sit. He’d decided that his pregnant sixteen-year-old girlfriend was carrying the Antichrist. He proposed to stab her to death and crucify the foetus. Fellow lodgers overheard her screams and his rantings, and called the police.