The Food Detective

by Judith Cutler

  It would have been nice to trip nimbly down the stairs, spurred on by determination. I was spurred on, all right, don’t doubt it for a moment. But in my state tripping was more likely to be the arse over tip sort that results in hospitalisation. One foot at a time; one step at a time.

  I must have been mad. How had I kept going yesterday if I was as bad as this? Answer: either I hadn’t been as bad as this, or, and this was the more likely explanation, there was nothing like being self-employed to keep you going when others would simply keel over. Not to mention employing other people: these kids needed me on my feet so they could earn their pay.

  There. Talked out of my Glorious Adventure. But it was a lovely crisp morning, with a light frost to pick up the colours nicely, so I wouldn’t surrender to the suddenly strong call of bed. I’d walk, even if I had to will each foot in front of the other. I’d walk – all the way round the village, just for the hell of it. See what I could see; whom I could see. Take a few photos. Just what got me my reputation for being nosy. Why not? I slipped in a film to replace the one Short had taken away yesterday.

  Who was out and about this fine morning, apart from me? And no, they wouldn’t look at me with concern and ask how I was. No way. Well, they wouldn’t. It was nothing to do with my erect carriage and serene air. The streets were deserted.

  Quite independently, it seemed, my feet took me toward Fred Tregothnan’s house. I’d be crazy to try to get in, now the police knew about the connection between us. In any case, the police would have removed the key left under the plant pot. Or Sue would.

  Someone had. But only very recently. There was still a little dry patch on the earth where the key had lain. I could see from where I stood that the back door was ajar. Should I assist it to open a little further? Why not?

  Because I was a vulnerable old lady, that’s why not.

  Like hell I was.

  But though I could do slow and dignified, I couldn’t sprint, cut it how I would. So I’d better resort to a Nick trick. I’d use the camera.

  Great idea. Whoever was in there would stand still and let me take a mug shot?

  ‘Just what the blazes do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I might ask the same of you, Nick Thomas,’ I hissed, hoping I hadn’t actually cried out with pain when I’d tensed. ‘But before we exchange explanations of how and why and when, let’s deal with our current problem. There’s someone inside Fred’s house. Look: you can see where the key was and the door’s open.’

  ‘And what do you propose to do? Sail in and do a spot of citizen’s arrest?’

  I bit my lip to keep back a moan about my bruises slowing me down. ‘Now I’ve got reinforcements, why not? You still look like a policeman – you’d do it more convincingly than me.’

  He went grey. ‘No ID.’

  ‘Don’t need it for citizen’s arrest. All right,’ I said eventually, knowing by now there were better occupations than banging your head on a brick wall, ‘why don’t you simply go and ring the front or the surgery bell and tell whoever answers that the back door’s open and you’re Neighbourhood Watch concerned about security. If he’s pukka he’ll thank you. If he’d not, the chances are he’ll bolt out of this door and I’ll take his photo. And scarper,’ I added hopefully.

  He opened his mouth and shut it again.

  ‘What are we waiting for? I’ll holler if I need any help. And you, of course, can do the same if you need me.’

  Shrugging he shoved his hands in his pockets and headed not to the front door but to the surgery, quite a good move because I could keep an eye on him, and possibly on whoever opened the door. I could see him peering in, covering his eyes against the reflection. Giving up, he headed for the front. His knock would have awakened the dead.

  It certainly flushed out the intruder. Not a Burglar Bill type at all. Not a kid robbing the place just to get a few quid for his next fix. A man in his forties, slim but well set up, wearing a black polo neck and designer jeans setting his figure off to perfection. His haircut was as expensive as mine. If we’d met at a party, I’d have made a beeline for him. As it was, I just hoped he hadn’t heard the shutter or the whir of the motor drive. I’d shot from the stomach rather than eye level, so goodness knew what I’d get. But it meant all I had to do was tuck the camera under my capacious jacket and stroll away, apparently intent on being the first customer in the shop.

  Actually I was using the window like a rear-view mirror. Nick was walking towards me from one direction, Mr Chic from another. To my surprise, Nick tucked his arm in mine, and kissed the top of my head, turning me away from Mr Chic and back towards the White Hart as if we were a couple staying there for a dirty weekend. We heard footsteps behind us for a few yards, but then came the slam of a car door, and an impressive engine starting first pull. Nick fished out a ball-point and wrote on the back of his hand. ‘You get out of practice. Or maybe it’s these double letters to start with,’ he said, which I interpreted as an apology for not getting it all.

  ‘There are photos of all the cars in the street in my camera,’ I said. ‘Now, shall we go back and check he’s locked up? I’d hate anyone off the street just to walk in, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ Not much of the dirty-weekender left now. ‘You can’t go waltzing into someone else’s house.’

  ‘I might just want to stop anyone else doing just that,’ I retorted. ‘And hand over the key to young Short.’

  ‘And you might want to fly to the moon,’ he said, nonetheless turning as I did and falling into step with me.

  In the event, he needn’t have bothered. Mr Chic had purloined the key.

  ‘So you make a habit of prowling round the village when every decent citizen is still asleep in bed?’ DC Wendover asked dourly: at a guess it was her day off.

  ‘At my age it’s hard to adjust one’s internal clock,’ I said limpidly. ‘I’m sure that’s why Mr Thomas went for a walk, too.’

  Nick produced the most open smile I’d ever seen on his face. ‘As a matter of fact I forgot to put my clock back. I just assumed it was time to get my paper. When Mrs Welford saw me she called me over and told me that Tregothnan’s back door was open.’ I approved his slight reorganisation of the sequence of events. ‘When we discovered that the key had been recently removed from its hiding place under the plant pot, we thought we ought to check if the intruder was still in the house.’

  ‘You didn’t simply go in and check?’ Wendover might have told us to pull the other leg.

  ‘Unarmed civilians, with no authority?’ Nick shook his head as if neither of us could even have conceived of such an idea.

  ‘All right. Now, I wonder if you’d know the face again. I can get some mug shots sent down line on to this.’ She patted a nifty little laptop.

  With the air of producing an exhausted rabbit from a rather battered hat, I passed over my camera.

  She raised his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘Who are you, Patrick Lichfield or someone?’

  ‘Other women carry handbags,’ I said. ‘I carry this.’ It would have been a good moment to tell her about other photos of interest, those safely in Piers’ care, but I never like to over-egg my puddings. Which reminded me, Robin and Lucy’s help notwithstanding, it was time I was in the kitchen.

  I never forgot a face. Never. On the other hand, I rarely thought I’d recognised people I didn’t. So why did I have this nagging feeling that I’d met Mr Chic when I was quite sure I hadn’t? Tony always claimed he did his best thinking when his mind was actually on something else, so I left the Chic problem simmering at the back of my mind while the front half was very definitely preoccupied with today’s cooking. A glance at the reservations file, now Robin’s province, told me that I was booked solid. I hated turning people away, but it looked as if we’d have no option. I’d have been terribly tempted to press Nick into service as a temporary waiter, to speed up the through-put, but he’d taken himself off to his room with a sandwich and the Sunday papers he’
d had to go out again to buy, saying he’d rather eat en famille with me this evening when things were quieter. Yes, I’d invited him, largely to free up a table now.

  I was just about to blast Lucy for being late on a day she knew we’d be frantic when I noticed she hadn’t come alone. Lindi had sidled in behind her, looking as coy as a girl with that sort of décolletage can ever be said to look.

  ‘Are you sure you’re up to this?’ I asked, all concerned mother hen. ‘Because we’re flat out from the word go. Start laying the tables, will you, Lucy? I’ll keep Lindi in here with me for a bit.’ Not for anything would I let Lindi loose on Robin till all their chores were done.

  The racing round, the bending, the reaching must have been like a particularly aerobics session: they certainly ruined my hair and eased my stiffness. I was entitled to a long, scented bath and a nap, revelling in the knowledge that there was no meals service tonight. Much as I loved the work, it was possible to have too much of a good thing.

  I was standing by my living room window taking my earrings off – funny how when you’re tired your lobes ache – when I realised Nick’s monster-mobile was missing. A tap on his door suggested that he was missing too. Put it another way, a grown man had decided to go for a drive.

  So why was I alarmed enough to turn off the bath?

  All those things I’d said to him about being useless – had he decided to be thoroughly quixotic? Without a getaway driver?

  Before I even had time to think, I was stumbling down the stairs at something approaching my usual pace. And then had to go back again: I’d forgotten my camera. It took me valuable minutes to realise it had disappeared. Nick. I kicked myself all the way back to the hire car. It was intact and still immaculate – what were its chances of being that way when I’d finished with it?

  OK. Where would he have gone? The campsite? The abattoir? The rending plant? Fortunately all the options were in roughly the same direction.

  I didn’t pull into the campsite: slowing down was sufficient to tell me that Reg Bulcombe’s pick-up was safely parked. But I wasn’t reassured. Tony had always told me to listen to what my instincts were telling me – my Gippo second sight, he’d called it uneasily, both proud of my ability and nervous of it. Well, it had been me that warned him he was overreaching himself, and look where he’d ended up.

  The new car was more powerful than the first, but not up to my own. It responded well in lower gears, however, accelerating with some assurance when I asked it to. The late afternoon sun – very late, with the loss of that hour! – gave an air of glamour to the steep hills and now dark valleys. If only I’d got my camera. I kept going. Soon I killed the radio and opened my window. What the hell did I expect? Gunfire?

  Not the furious baying of dogs. Faster than was safe in lanes like this, I headed for the abattoir, flinging the car into the approach lane with a swirl of gravel, quite stylish, really. Hitting Nick’s four by four broadside on wouldn’t have been stylish at all, so I controlled the skid, blessing the memory of Tony’s mate Archie who’d taught me all his getaway skills.

  I could hear the dogs, all right, my flesh creeping more with each deep-throated growl. But I couldn’t see them. And I couldn’t see Nick.

  If only I’d got some sort of weapon. Nothing in the hire car, of course, and nothing in Nick’s. Except for a fire extinguisher. Would that be any use? Anything had to be better than nothing when it came to dogs.

  The main gates were still locked, so Nick hadn’t got in that way. I followed the crushed grass round the perimeter fence, keeping my beadies open for more gin traps. But I was going away from the sound of the dogs. He must have gone all the way round, much as I was doing. To keep on going or double back? I pressed on. It was easier to spot traps this way. And to have both of us prostrate with our ankles broken wouldn’t help at all.

  Nick wasn’t prostrate. He was suspended in mid air, caught on the barbed wire in silhouette against a fading scarlet and gold sunset. He flailed his legs violently to keep the dogs from tearing him down, quite unable to concentrate on freeing himself. I don’t think he’d even registered my arrival. But the dogs had.

  ‘If I lure them away,’ I yelled, squinting up at him, ‘can you slip out of that jacket and fall forward? Sort of somersault?’ I added as I got his attention.

  He peered through the fading light. ‘Too far. Could break something.’

  ‘Hmm. Like your neck. Any chance you could throw me your car keys?’

  ‘Not a key. Stupid bit of plastic.’

  ‘Whatever it is. Can you get at it? Here, boy. Nice doggie. There’s some nice soft Josie meat here. Come on! Look. Nice bare wrist.’ I snatched it back just in time. I’ll swear I heard the snap of those damned teeth. Yes, they’d sliced my skin. The wire fence gave under their weight too much for me to try that dodge again. I ran a few more feet. But then I saw the glint of wire. I was back in gin trap territory. In deepening dusk.

  Back to Nick. His hands were running with blood but he was holding something towards me, much as if he were proffering a dog biscuit. The movement unbalanced him. His foot was in jaw-range.

  ‘Kick for God’s sake,’ I yelled. Then I remembered my secret weapon, and directed a good squirt between the eyes of the lead dog. ‘Just hold on!’

  In virtual darkness, as the interior light automatically faded, it took me valuable seconds to suss out how the card worked, but once started the vehicle responded like a Rolls Royce cum tank. There. It smashed through undergrowth and traps alike, bucking and surging over whatever obstructed it. Hell, it was just like those TV adverts. I might almost be converted. Pulling as close to the netting as I could, I levered myself over into the passenger seat ignoring as best I could the protest of every fibre involved in the exercise.

  Nick couldn’t do it, could he? Ashen faced, he hung exactly as I’d left him.

  ‘You can do it! Come on, Nick! Just roll! Pretend you’re diving into a swimming pool. Think of the blue clear water. Ease yourself into it. Nice gentle roll! Think how warm and soft the water will be as it welcomes you.’ What twaddle I was talking. Even the dogs’ snarls sounded mocking. Well, sod them for a start. Let them bite on a bit more foam. Lasting side effects? I hoped not. They were only doing their job, after all. But I’d always rated humans above animals, and these had clearly tasted blood. Nick’s yes, and near enough mine.

  With a cry of utter despair, Nick rolled.

  Abandoning the dogs to their fate, I sprinted round to break his fall if I had to. But the silver monster bore him up like a newly benign dragon. Twisting, he dropped his legs over my side, and slithered down, almost knocking me over. Clinging to each other like lovers, we managed to stay upright.

  Somehow I was in the driving seat again. Nick was in beside me, slamming the door.

  ‘Reverse? Where the hell’s sodding reverse?’ By chance I found it, and we hurtled backwards, Nick, not yet belted in, tossed around like a rag doll. I’d never mastered reversing fast, despite Archie’s best efforts, and we weaved and rolled. Fortunately. As I pulled up alongside my hire car, I realised what the noise was I’d hardly registered: gunfire. How much a shield the four by four’s door would be I’d no idea, any more than I could guess if the hire car would protect me. Or if Nick would be able to manage his monster. All I knew was if either of us failed to drive hell for leather away, no headlights, of course, we’d be gunned down. And if we left a car behind, it’d be totalled, one way or another. Nick must have realised the same. More agile than me, he was already in the driver’s seat and pulling away as my car fired. We went off in the fastest convoy possible, both vehicles swinging from side to side as much with the force of acceleration as with the drivers’ joint efforts to dodge bullets. How I avoided a huge truck bearing down on me, God alone knows. Maybe He acknowledged my breathless thanks by making its driver misjudge the bend and stuff his bumper into the bank. Let him worry about that: I was too busy concentrating on picking up the occasional glow of Nick’s intermittent brake-l
ights. At last he judged it safe to use his lights; I’d have done the same if I’d known how mine worked. At least he’d spot any oncoming traffic first. Spot? Mow down, the pace he was going.

  At last we reached the village, and its scatter of streetlights. He slowed to a sedate thirty. I found the light switch. There, two Sunday trippers by chance returning to base at the same time. We pulled up side by side. Even though he’d cut his lights and engine, the car wasn’t still. Correction, Nick wasn’t still. I heaved open his door to find him shaking so much he must be having a fit. He was. A fit of laughter. He roared, slapping his thighs and throwing his head back, tears pouring down his face.

  ‘God, that was fun,’ he gasped.

  Maybe it was true what they said about women having no sense of humour. I’d always thought I could see the funny side of things. So maybe mine had simply gone AWOL. I certainly wasn’t laughing at the sight of his shredded clothes and bloodstained flesh. Or at my own injured hand, now beginning to throb.

  He was. Although he was trying to achieve and moreover keep a straight face, another little chuckle would force his lips apart and ring round the yard.

  Arms akimbo, my own face entirely serious, I leaned forward, my face as close to his as my lack of inches and his bloody throne of a driving seat would permit. I said what I’d wanted to say ever since I saw him alone at that abattoir, as every single joint and muscle locked in spasms of pain as vicious as any dog’s jaws. ‘You idiot. You bloody stupid fool. Taking risks like that.’ I was crying with pain. But then, as I recalled how silly he’d looked on that barbed wire, a rag doll blowing in the wind, I might have been laughing too.

  And, come to think of it, by now Nick might be crying.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I stomped straight past Nick up the stairs and into his en suite bathroom, turning the taps on full. Shame I had to ruin the effect by going back down and returning with the cooking salt, which I shovelled in by the handful.