Chef Maurice and the Wrath of Grapes (Chef Maurice Culinary Mysteries Book 2)

by J. A. Lang

  “Nothing but honesty, please. After all”—Ariane gave a mischievous smile—“these are not made by my family. You may say anything you wish.”

  “Well, I’ve made my name by calling a spade a spade, and I’ll be damned if I stop doing that today. Now, I apologise, Mrs Lafoute, I know this was a great gesture, very grand of you. But I have to break it to you—these four wines all taste exactly the same.”

  There were gasps from around the table. Arthur watched Bob Barker give Ariane a firm nod, his eyes not leaving her face. For a critic of his standing, to admit, in front of everyone, that he could not tell the difference between—

  Wait a moment. Arthur quickly sniffed at his glasses, then tasted them, one by one, in random order.

  He, too, rather prided himself on his palate. He’d even visited a taste lab once, for an article for the England Observer, to have his tongue and nasal receptors put to the test. They’d crowned him a super-taster (or -smeller, really), capable of discerning the most minute differences in a myriad of flavour profiles.

  (This pronouncement had caused Chef Maurice, a sceptic when it came to anything involving microscopes, to start lacing Arthur’s food with minuscule quantities of unexpected ingredients, in an effort to catch his friend out. This had gone on for months, until a tarragon-and-clam chocolate pudding prompted Arthur to refuse to eat at Le Cochon Rouge anymore, until the flavour shenanigans ended.)

  And, try as he might, as he went back and forth between the glasses, he had to agree that, somehow, Bob Barker was right. The wines weren’t just spookily similar; they all tasted exactly the same, even given their differing ages. But how—?

  Ariane looked down the table. “Mademoiselle Dauphine? Miss Fetters? Herr Herrmann? Do you agree?”

  There was a pause, then a series of reluctant nods.

  “I mean,” said Miss Janet Fetters, “I wouldn’t want to stake my life on it, but . . . ”

  “If you were offered a thousand pounds?” said Arthur.

  “Yes, I’d say they all taste the same,” she admitted.

  Céleste nodded.

  “I need no money,” said Hunfrid Herrmann. “Same, they are all the same.”

  “Well, I think they’re all marvellous,” said Paloni loudly. The whole table shot him a look, and he sat back down again.

  “But I don’t understand. We all saw the bottles opened. How can—” started Arthur, but Chef Maurice had now made a sudden appearance at the head of the table, standing behind Ariane, tapping a corkscrew against one of the empty bottles.

  “Mesdames, messieurs. If I may take your attention, I will now solve for you the mystery of these four bottles. And in the same moment, we will together solve the crime of Sir William’s murder. It is a story that starts with wine, and ends with greed. And it is also the story of what makes a true bottle of wine, and what this very truth must mean.” A dramatic finger was raised.

  Oh no, thought Arthur, he’s at it again. He fished out his notebook, scribbled down a message, and dashed for the door.

  It was time to call in reinforcements.

  Chapter 17

  PC Lucy stared down at the menu, her cheeks burning. Stupid, she was so stupid. To think that a guy like Patrick wouldn’t have other girls on the go. It was true what they said about chefs—they weren’t the steady sort. All the heat and passion of the kitchens, it addled their little—

  “Penny for your thoughts?” said a familiar voice.

  PC Lucy looked up and forced a smile. “Hi, guys. Perfect timing as usual.”

  Fred looked down at his wristwatch, confused. “But we’re ten minutes late.”

  “Which counts as early in Sally time,” replied PC Lucy, standing up to hug her sister.

  Sally obliged with a peck to each cheek, then held her elder sibling back at arm’s length. “You’re not looking so good, Luce.”

  “Nice to see you too,” said PC Lucy, sighing as she sat back down. “I’m fine, I just had a bit of a shock just now.”

  “Seen someone you need to arrest?” asked Sally with a giggle. She picked up the menu. “Oooh, look, babe,” she said to Fred, “they’ve put the chicken dish back on the list!”

  “She liked it so much,” said Fred to PC Lucy, “she actually ventured into the kitchen and tried cooking it the other day.”

  “And?” To Lucy’s recollection, her sister’s culinary repertoire mostly consisted of toast à la burnt scrapings.

  “Let’s just say my cat left the house and didn’t come back for three days.” Fred planted a teasing kiss on Sally’s cheek while she pouted.

  PC Lucy rather liked Fred, the only one of her sister’s boyfriends who had so far made it past the three-month mark. Perhaps because he was a little bit older than Sally’s usual ripped-jeans, overly hair-gelled swains, it was possible to have an actual conversation with him, and his influence seemed to be having a beneficial effect on Sally’s normally exuberant scattiness. Plus he seemed to genuinely care about her, and Sally for him—though PC Lucy still had suspicions that her sister’s regard for Fred was not entirely hindered by the fact that he ran a multimillion-pound tech company. Still, PC Lucy had so far given Fred the tentative thumbs up.

  “You know,” said Sally, leaning close to PC Lucy’s ear, “I think that guy over there is checking you out. There by the wall, with the dark hair and nerdy glasses. He’s got nice shoulders, though, don’t you think, Fred?”

  “Not my type,” replied Fred without looking up, as he perused the wine list.

  “Will you stop that,” chided PC Lucy, as her sister craned in her seat to try and get a better view.

  “I’m allowed to look,” said Sally. “Oh, how cute, now he’s looking a bit embarrassed—”

  “Fancy that.”

  “Have you seen him anywhere before?”

  PC Lucy made a show of studying the starters with great concentration.

  “So you do know him! Wait, not just that. You’ve been out with him, I can tell.”

  “How can you tell?” demanded PC Lucy.

  Sally gave her an impish grin, and pushed her aside to get a better look. “I can’t. But now you just told me.”

  “Bitch,” muttered PC Lucy.

  “He’s not a bad looker, not that I’m any expert,” said Fred, who evidently had decided he was not going to be able to escape the Patrick-watching game. “Looks like he works out a fair bit, your fellow.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” snapped PC Lucy. “And he’s not my fellow. As evidenced by the fact he’s clearly on a date, with that giraffe-legged supermodel who’s making eyes at him.”

  “I don’t know, she doesn’t look that into him,” said Sally, with the certainty of someone who’d been on dates with plenty of men she hadn’t been particularly into, either. “So why haven’t you introduced me to your guy?”

  “Well, apart from the fact that he’s not my guy, I’ve told you before, you do not get to meet anyone I’m dating.”

  “Oh, come on, Luce, that was all ages ago.”

  “What’s this about?” said Fred.

  “Back when I was in Kindergarten and she was in Form Two,” said Sally in a sing-song voice, “she claims that she was going to pretend-marry Tommy Morris at lunchtime, but apparently I won him over with a potato stamp shaped like a rabbit and he pretend-married me instead.”

  “It’s not funny,” growled PC Lucy, as Fred started to smile. “And I’m not talking about play school. What about when I was nineteen, and you just had to go and nick Gary off me—”

  “Oh, come on, that lasted, like, two weeks. And I did you a favour. I should have known any man that good-looking couldn’t be straight,” Sally added with a sigh.

  “—and then there was that time I was just getting to know Paolo when you swooped in, completely fabricated some upcoming trip to Madrid to get him to give you Spanish lessons, then ended up taking a very suspicious siesta at his house!”

  “Water under the bridge,” said Sally, waving a hand. “It’s not like yo
u even liked any of those guys that much. Plus, I’ve got Fred now, so you don’t need to worry.” She planted a kiss on the tip of Fred’s nose, who gazed back at her adoringly.

  “You two make me sick,” said PC Lucy, though she supposed she should be glad to see her sister so happy with a man apparently free of criminal records, drug habits and visible gang tattoos.

  A waiter approached their table. “Miss Lucy Gavistone?”

  “Yes?”

  “You have a call at the desk.”

  “That’s odd,” she said, standing up. “Must be work. Though I wonder why they didn’t call my phone . . . ”

  She followed the waiter over to reception and picked up the handset, while he hovered next to her impatiently, obviously worried about the hordes of callers currently trying to get through for a table.

  “Miss Lucy?” It was Alf, sounding breathless.

  “Yes? Has something happened at the restaurant? Why didn’t you call my mobile?”

  “Didn’t have your number, miss. But they’ve got the phone book here, and Patrick said you’d be at Trattoria Bennucci—”

  “What?!” The tables nearby looked around in alarm.

  Alf was still chattering on.

  “—Bourne Hall, and Arthur gave me a note and said to ring you. Said that chef’s up to something again, and that you probably wouldn’t want him, chef, I mean, to go arresting any murderers without proper instruction.”

  PC Lucy breathed in and counted to three. “Okay, I’ll be right there.”

  She strode back over to her table. “Emergency at work,” she said, giving her sister a brief hug and Fred a peck on the cheek. “Keep her out of mischief, will you?” she told him, as she flung on her coat and searched around for her bobble hat.

  She forced herself not to look over to the back table where Patrick was no doubt whispering sweet nothings into the ear of that camel-eyed brunette.

  Then she headed out into the cold night, ready to deal out merry hell to anyone who got in her way, and all chefs in particular.

  Chef Maurice raised the empty bottle. “It is with much sadness that I must inform you that all four wines you have just tasted are, in fact, fakes.”

  There were gasps from around the table.

  “Fakes?” said Bertie, looking stunned. “What does that even mean? How can you have a fake wine?”

  Arthur noticed that the rest of the table—saving Lady Margaret, who seemed quite thrilled at this turn of events—did not look nearly as confused. In fact, they all looked rather grim.

  “A good question, Monsieur Bertie,” said Chef Maurice. “There are, so I am told, many different ways that one may manufacture a fake wine. Different levels of the art of forgery, one can say. The simplest is for one to take a completely genuine bottle, but to change the year on the label to another vintage of higher value. But this is not the case here, as it does not explain how these bottles taste entirely the same,” he added, as Arthur opened his mouth to comment.

  “Then,” he continued, “there is the most grand, most daring type of fake wine. This is when only the glass itself of the bottle is the genuine item. The label, it is fake, of course. The cork, aged by chemical means. And the wine itself, it is not even always wine! A mixture of old wine, new wine, alcohol, colourings—a forger will use anything to allow the contents to look and smell as one imagines they should.”

  The whole table was now staring at the four empty bottles lined up in front of Chef Maurice.

  “Aha! So I see you now ask, how fake are the wines you have tasted tonight? For this question, I turn to a man of much knowledge in these matters. I present to you Monsieur Mack, of the FBI of America.”

  The door swung open and a tall man in a grey suit, with neatly clipped ice-blond hair, stepped inside.

  Alf, who had been standing just inside the door, gave a little yelp and ran behind a large potted plant.

  “Monsieur Mack makes a speciality of the investigation into the fraud of wine. For many months, he has worked with Sir William and the Metropolitan Police Department of Art Fraud—oui, it is most pleasing, is it not, to see that wine is considered as art in this country—to gather the clues of a crime in action here in England. Sadly, a much greater crime took place before their work was complete.

  “But one task that was finished was a scientific examination of these bottles in front of you. The labels scanned in tiny detail, and samples of the liquid drawn with a needle, he tells me. That these bottles look very real, that none of the experts here could give comment”—he nodded at Resnick and the other critics—“is because they are. I mean to say, that the labels, the glass, all are original. But the wine inside, it was not.

  “But how can this be? I then learn from Monsieur Mack that one may buy empty bottles of fine wines on the dark market, or steal them from restaurants after the true contents are consumed. They are then refilled to give the taste, the smell, of a fine old wine. This is what happened to these four bottles, manufactured by a master forger, most likely all at the same time.”

  “But how are these crooks getting away with this?” demanded Paloni. “One or two bottles, maybe, I can believe that, but once you opened enough of them—”

  “Ah, but many collectors, they live to make their collections, not to drink them. The rich man or woman may buy so many fine bottles, yet never taste any. Especially in the case of the very rare, very expensive bottles. And so, we have a crime that so very often is not even detected in the first place.”

  “And wealthy folks don’t exactly like to shout about it when they get stung,” added Bob Barker.

  “I knew that butler wasn’t to be trusted!” said Lady Margaret. “Sneaking out of here with the real bottles, I’ll wager, and replacing them with these abominable fakes. And then what he did to poor William. The man should hang!”

  “Non, madame, I am afraid the blame cannot be put on Monsieur Gilles,” said Chef Maurice. “But, you are correct when you say that the person who made the forgery of the wines is also the murderer of Sir William.

  “And I can now say that this person sits with us, here. In this very room.”

  “Well, you’re a piece of work, I’ll tell you that.”

  A honeyed voice floated over Patrick’s shoulder, and he turned around to find a blue-eyed, blond-haired young woman glaring down at him. With that particular expression, she bore a striking resemblance to PC Lucy, albeit a mildly underfed version with a slightly weaselly cast to her features. Still, from a distance, it would be easy to mistake the two of them . . .

  “I’m Sally,” she said, “and that’s Fred, my boyfriend.” She pointed over to the table so recently vacated by PC Lucy. “And you’re the muttonhead who’s just gone and upset my big sister. Don’t think I don’t see what’s going on here.”

  She threw a scathing look at Isabella, who sat sipping on her Champagne with a look of mild amusement.

  “It’s not what it looks like,” said Patrick quickly. “We’re just friends. Colleagues, even.”

  “Of course, that bit’s obvious,” said Sally impatiently. “She’s way out of your league.”

  Isabella gave her a gracious nod.

  “But my sister’s too ridiculous to see that. So now you’ve gone and made her think you don’t give a fig about her.”

  “But . . . I thought . . . I mean, I didn’t think she . . . ” started Patrick.

  “I know,” sighed Sally, pulling up a chair to join them. “I saw your face just now. You’re really into her, aren’t you? So, luckily for you, I’m going to help you make things better. And not just because you’re kind of cute.” She leaned in. “You don’t happen to have a brother, do you?”

  “I heard that,” called a voice from across the room.

  Sally grinned. “I like to keep him on his toes,” she whispered, blowing a kiss over to the indignant Fred.

  “I don’t think there’s much I can do,” said Patrick, glumly. “She’s really mad at me. I saw that look of hers. I doubt anything I
do is going to change that.”

  Sally looked at him. “Golly, you really don’t know anything about women, do you?”

  Chef Maurice swept his gaze around the table. The room was full of the sound of a dozen people holding their breath.

  “First, we must consider those people who had often access to the wine cellar. Oui, there was Monsieur Gilles, but it was not only him. Many of you here came often to the Hall, and as trusted visitors were allowed to go and admire the cellar, perhaps even left alone there.”

  “But how would anyone be able to take away the bottles without Sir William noticing?” said Arthur.

  “Ah, that comes later, mon ami. But first, we know Sir William began to hold suspicions. He sends bottles to London, under the trust of Monsieur Gilles, to have them examined. He seeks to make a new catalogue of his collection.

  “And so, our criminal feels the net closing around. The investigation of Sir William must be stopped before he discovers too much.”

  Arthur looked around the table, scrutinising each guest in turn. The critics were looking uncomfortable, as if they’d wandered accidentally into a blazing family row. Of the others, all looked shocked, but none more worried or haunted than the other. Apart from perhaps Ariane, who continued to wear a tight smile.

  He also saw Chef Maurice running a piercing glare over each face: Paloni, Bertie, Ariane, Resnick, Lady Margaret, and then back again. A sinking feeling hit him.

  Maurice didn’t know who it was. Or if he did, he didn’t have a shred of proof. Perhaps he thought the pressure of an audience, plus the FBI chap—whose sudden appearance Arthur still didn’t quite understand—would scare the perpetrator into standing up and committing a swan song, a damning confession. Or at least into trying to make a run for it.

  “I see you look around,” said Chef Maurice finally. “You ask, is it he, is it she? Who can be responsible? But, again, I give thanks to Monsieur Mack. From the work of him and his collègues, we need not to study the face of our neighbours. Because we have it here, clear for all to see . . . ”