Chef Maurice and the Bunny-Boiler Bake Off (Chef Maurice Cotswold Mysteries Book 3)

by J. A. Lang

  They headed back up the lane into the village with Chef Maurice striding on ahead, nose in the air, wearing an expression of injuriously injured pride.

  That evening, the staff of Le Cochon Rouge sat down at the big kitchen table to tuck into plates of grilled sardines on toasted seeded bread, to fortify themselves for the busy dinner service ahead. Many of the Spring Fayre visitors had decided to soothe their frayed nerves with a slap-up dinner before the drive home, and the restaurant was fully booked. The kitchen crew were joined at the table by Mrs Merland, who had offered to pitch in with a special dessert for the evening menu.

  “Have they found the murderer yet?” asked Alf, pouring some balsamic vinaigrette over his sardines.

  “This one’ll have ’em stumped for a while, I’ll bet,” said Dorothy, nodding in satisfaction at the prospect of weeks of speculation and idle gossip with her regular customers. “Big crowd, no witnesses, all ’em woods just to disappear into. You know it was all on the telly this afternoon? We made the national news, we did.”

  Patrick nodded, though he didn’t quite share their head waitress’s level of enthusiasm. He wondered how the next few weeks’ table bookings were going to fare, though he had to admit that the news report had painted the village of Beakley in quite a flattering light. If you ignored the part about brutal murder, of course.

  “Makes you think twice about wandering about late at night,” continued Dorothy.

  “But it happened right in the middle of the day,” Patrick pointed out.

  “All the more reason to know how to defend yourself,” replied Dorothy. She had recently signed up to a series of self-defence classes run by Mrs Petticoat, the vicar’s wife. However, it seemed that Mrs Petticoat was a subscriber to the belief that the best defence was a good offence, and news of Dorothy’s one-inch punch had spread fast through the village. Tips had more than doubled over the last month alone.

  Chef Maurice, who generally found that the application of a heavy steel-capped toe was usually enough to ward off any would-be attacker, shook his head. “It is possible that the attack on Mademoiselle Miranda may not have been a random chance.”

  “Cor!” said Alf. “Like, someone had some kind of vain debtor against her?”

  They looked at him.

  “I think you mean a ‘vendetta’,” said Patrick, after a few moments.

  Alf was currently going through a mafia movie phase, which had led to various recent attempts to tough talk the vegetable box into submission when he thought no one else was around. Still, it provided some light relief in a demanding schedule, given that the job of commis chef mostly consisted of following orders that could not be refused.

  “I am grieved, Madame Merland, that you have travelled all this way to be welcomed by such a tragedy,” said Chef Maurice, tearing off another chunk of bread.

  “Not at all,” replied Mrs Merland. “First chance I’ve had to get out of the kitchens in quite a while. And I have to admit, I did have another reason for coming down here.” She turned to smile at Patrick, who felt a surge of sudden alarm. The Merlands were not a family given to overt displays of familial affection. Either the years had finally begun to soften his mother’s no-nonsense approach to parenting, or something was afoot . . .

  Mrs Merland laid her hands flat on the table. “I’ll get straight to the point, no use beating around the bush in these circumstances.”

  An icy chill grasped Patrick’s chest. There had been a throwaway remark the other day about a routine health check-up, but surely—

  “I’ve found a manor house up in the North Lakes, just outside Buttermere. Georgian build, in good repair, superb views, and the best thing is that it’s already being run as a restaurant, so no problems with the local council there. I’m proposing to do the place up, turn the upstairs floors into guest bedrooms, and reopen it as a hotel and restaurant.”

  “Sounds lovely,” said Dorothy.

  “Oui, but much work,” said Chef Maurice, who had firm views on the notion of combining gastronomy and the garrisoning of the guests afterwards—in short, that the whole endeavour was more trouble than it ever could possibly be worth. For one thing, it involved waking up at unseemly hours in order to provide said guests with breakfast, which was an insult in itself, as any sensible person knew that the best way to appreciate an evening of fine dining was to sleep it off until at least midday the day after.

  “And,” said Mrs Merland, “I want Patrick to join me up there as head chef.”

  A blanket of silence thudded down, like thick snow off a cabin roof.

  Chef Maurice was the first to recover. “But that is impossible! Patrick is already my sous-chef here. I will not allow it!”

  Mrs Merland turned to Patrick. “If you accept, you’ll be an equity holder, along with myself and your father. You choose your team, of course. I’ll head up the pastry side, as well as overseeing the hotel management. I need to sign the lease in five days’ time.”

  Patrick opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  “I know this is all a bit irregular,” continued Mrs Merland, “but I thought Maurice deserved to know exactly what offer I’m putting on the table. Take your time to think it over, of course.”

  “Time? To think?” Chef Maurice leapt up from the table. “This is incroyable! To come here into my kitchen and attempt to steal my sous-chef—”

  “He’s my son, too, you know,” said Mrs Merland mildly.

  “Bah!” came the reply, in tones that suggested the miracle of childbirth held nothing in comparison to the task of training up a competent sous-chef. “Patrick, what is it that you say to all this?”

  “Whuh?” Patrick looked up. “You don’t expect me to give you an answer right here and now, do you?”

  “Of course not, dear,” said Mrs Merland, touching his hand, while Chef Maurice spluttered as he struggled to breathe in and swear loudly in French at the same time. “I’d better be getting back to my B&B. The hazelnut dacquoise cake is chilling in the walk-in. It just needs slicing. I’ll pop by tomorrow to say goodbye before my train.”

  Then she was gone.

  “That woman!” Chef Maurice waved his fist at the door. “She is a . . . a . . .”

  “Now, now, there, we don’t want to be saying anything we’ll be regretting later,” said Dorothy, rolling up her sleeves just in case she’d need to jujitsu armlock her boss if things went downhill.

  “Humph! Then she has thrown down the metal glove. And I accept her challenge!” With that, Chef Maurice grabbed his hat and stormed out of the back door.

  “Cor, a job as head chef. Not bad, eh?” said Alf, with a nervous look at Patrick.

  “It’s like they don’t think I even get a say in the matter,” said Patrick, staring at the back door.

  “I thought your mum said—”

  “Sure, she says things like ‘take your time’, but you can tell she doesn’t expect me to think twice about it.”

  “So whatcha think you’ll do?”

  “Not a clue.” Patrick was still fuming at the presumptuousness of it all; Chef Maurice assuming his loyal sous-chef would never think to leave, and his mother just as certain her son would jump at the chance to join her venture. Maybe it would teach them all a lesson if he just went and upped sticks to Outer Mongolia.

  He wondered if it was possible to make a decent crème anglaise using yak’s milk . . .

  “I do hope chef’s not gone off to do anything silly,” said Dorothy, piling up the finished plates.

  “Probably just walking around out there, sulking,” said Patrick.

  Unfortunately, what they’d all forgotten was that Chef Maurice was not a single-track sulker. He could sulk and get up to all kinds of trouble, all at the same time.

  So while Patrick and Alf fired up the hobs in preparation for dinner service, a little red Citroën reversed itself around in the yard, spraying up gravel all around, and headed out into the dusky evening.

  Its mission: staff retention. By any means
possible.

  Being the only two female police officers in the Cowton and Beakley Constabulary had left PC Lucy and PC Sara with two apparent choices: to become the best of friends, or each other’s prime nemesis. Both being women of a sound, practical nature, they’d promptly opted for the former.

  Tonight, they were the only ones left in the office, along with an empty extra-large takeaway pizza box. PC Sara sat at her computer, scanning through the hundreds of photographs from the Fayre, requisitioned from the local journalists (also probably working late tonight), while PC Lucy was engaged in the laborious task of combing through Miranda Matthews’ phone records.

  “Nothing much here,” said PC Lucy, tossing the final sheet onto her desk. “The only call she made this morning was to a local taxi company. And the week before, it’s mostly just been calls to and from her agent, and Angela Gifford. A few to some local restaurants, and one to Cowton Country Property Lettings. I’ll look into that last one when they’re open tomorrow. There’s one missed call from this morning, just before ten, from an unregistered mobile number, but she didn’t call them back. I’ll try to get the number traced.”

  “Any voicemails?”

  “Nope. How’s the photo trawling?”

  “Plenty of Miranda up until and during her cookery demo.” PC Sara flipped her screen round to face PC Lucy. “Now that’s what I call a celebration cake,” she added, pointing at the photo of a glossy multi-coloured creation on a cake stand, with Miranda posing chirpily behind.

  “I saw that part of the demo. She just covered a sponge cake in Smarties and then blowtorched the whole thing. Not exactly difficult.”

  “Says the girlfriend of a gourmet chef. Never forget, I still knew you back in the days when you thought mascarpone was a type of Italian horse.”

  “Very funny. Any sign of Miranda after the demo?”

  PC Sara shook her head. “But you were right about the shoes,” she said, tapping the screen. “She was definitely wearing pink high heels when she left the demo tent.”

  “Which puts paid to the theory she was attacked in her dressing tent and carried all the way to the creek. No attacker would bother changing her shoes.”

  “Unless she was attacked just after she put on the trainers.”

  “And still carried several hundred metres down to Warren’s Creek, along with a piece of blood-covered piping? All without being seen?” PC Lucy shook her head. “Far more likely she changed and sneaked down there herself. The back of her tent faced the woodlands, she could have easily got out that way.”

  “Meeting someone?”

  “A possibility.”

  PC Sara scrolled onwards. “Honestly, who turns up to a family fair dressed like a pin-up bunny?” She waved her hand at the photos on-screen, in which one particular journalist had decided to express his admiration of Miss Karole Linton’s exquisitely sculpted derrière by taking several close-up pictures of it.

  “Maybe Mayor Gifford snagged the last proper bunny suit at the store,” suggested PC Lucy.

  “Even so, no need for her to go around flaunting like that,” sniffed PC Sara.

  PC Lucy raised an eyebrow. Her friend was not exactly the shy type when it came to squeezing herself into skintight leather leggings and the occasional dangerously low-cut top. In fact, if PC Sara’s perennial crackpot diets ever succeeded in shifting the magical, and frankly invisible, ‘last ten pounds’ that she claimed were keeping her from an appearance down at the local swimming pool, PC Lucy had no doubts that her friend would be more than happy to take up the role of Easter Bunny Girl at the next opportunity.

  “Now, here’s a man who looks good in pink,” said PC Sara. She expanded a photo of Mayor Gifford, standing with one paw around Mr Whittaker, the deputy mayor, and the other clasping the shoulders of Mr Kabilt, M.P. for the neighbouring constituency.

  “He does?” Of course, PC Lucy had grudgingly admired Mayor Gifford’s achievements over the last few years in cleaning up Cowton’s High Street and opening the new sports centre, conveniently located only a few minutes’ walk from the police station. But she’d never given much thought to the mayor’s apparent attraction when it came to the female vote.

  “It’s the shoulders,” said PC Sara. “Everyone likes a man with good shoulders.”

  “Shoulders or no shoulders, it’s no excuse for him being a right royal pain this afternoon.” It seemed to her that Mayor Gifford had taken the murder as something of a personal affront. Perhaps he’d had plans to make use of Miranda’s telegenic presence as part of his political campaign, and was now feeling unjustly thwarted.

  “Bah! The English, why is it they love so much the dressing up?” came a familiar voice from behind them. “They dress as animals, as robots, as spacemen. The men dress as women, the women dress as the men. I saw once a man run a race dressed as a teapot!” Clearly, competing in a sports event in the guise of the nation’s favourite beverage constituted a grave offence in the eyes of Chef Maurice.

  “Maurice, this is a police station. You can’t just barge into the office whenever you want. Are you reporting a crime?”

  Chef Maurice sank down into PC Alistair’s empty chair and swept off his hat. “There has been un désastre at the restaurant!”

  “Really?”

  By now, PC Lucy was more than familiar with Chef Maurice’s idea of what constituted a disaster. Just last month, he’d called up the station in a fury, insisting that one of his customers must be stealing all the restaurant’s teaspoons. A search of the chef’s own laundry hamper, however, had unveiled no less than four dozen spoons, buried and forgotten in various pockets, and five more tucked into the lining of his tall white chef’s hat. “In case of emergency,” had been his defence.

  “Oui. I come to warn you, mademoiselle, that Patrick faces a most grave danger.” Voice brimming with indignation, he proceeded to outline Mrs Merland’s catastrophic offer.

  “And what has Patrick said?” asked PC Lucy, her stomach doing a little flip.

  “He says nothing! He sits there, silent as the lamb! You must talk to him, mademoiselle, and make him see the sense. Even if you must use”—an alarming eyebrow waggle was here employed—“every means available to you.”

  PC Lucy glared at him, though she wondered if she should be flattered or insulted by the chef’s insinuation about her special powers of persuasion.

  “Maurice, you know as well as I do, this decision is entirely up to Patrick. It’s not for us to make his career choices for him.”

  Chef Maurice looked perplexed at this last statement.

  “Then you will not help?” he said finally, in injured tones.

  There was the clatter of the office door, a loud squelching sound, then PC Alistair waddled in, wearing a pair of long rubber waders approximately five times too big for him.

  “We’ve been dredging the creek all evening, miss— Uh, I mean, PC Gavistone. And look what we dug up!” He held up a plastic bag containing a mud-covered digital camera, the type with a long, fat lens and more buttons than a clown costume factory. It was attached to a dangling leather case and strap. “Doesn’t look like it had been down there long. Though we can’t get it to turn on.”

  “Any idea where it came from?” asked PC Sara.

  “Better than that,” said PC Alistair. He pressed on the plastic, smoothing away the mud from the leather casing, to reveal two gold-embossed initials: M.M.

  “Reckon she had it with her when she was attacked and dropped it?” said PC Sara to PC Lucy. “Or threw it in herself?”

  “Hmm. If she wanted to get rid of the contents, surely it would have been easier to just wipe the memory card. I’d put my money on the first idea. Might even be that this is what her attacker was after.” She pushed the plastic bag back towards PC Alistair. “Find someone who can get the pictures off this thing. And then”—she wrinkled her nose—“go home and shower. Please.”

  “Right you are, miss!”

  As Alistair squelched back out of the door,
PC Lucy realised they’d not heard a peep out of Chef Maurice in the last few minutes.

  Sure enough, she turned around to find him sat in PC Sara’s chair, index finger jabbing at the keyboard as he scrolled through the photos from the Fayre.

  “Ah, this is a thing of beauty, is it not?” He crossed his arms over his chest, beaming with pride at a close-up shot of a mustard-slathered hog roast roll.

  PC Lucy finally managed to dislodge the chef, after promising to contact the photographer and get him a copy of the photo, and also agreeing to speak to Patrick regarding his future career choice.

  “Just as a sounding board,” she warned. “It’s still his decision, I’m not going to go taking sides.”

  After all, common wisdom dictated that the best way to make a man do what you wanted was to appear utterly indifferent to whichever option he chose.

  Plus, she had a high-profile murder investigation to be getting on with. She thought about PC Alistair’s latest find. She was no expert, but that camera looked like a piece of pro equipment. What had Miranda been doing with it? Why had she taken it with her on her walk along Warren’s Creek?

  And, should they manage to salvage its contents, what might the photographs show?

  Chapter 6

  The next day brought the usual horde of Sunday lunchers to the low-slung oak-beamed dining room of Le Cochon Rouge, and Chef Maurice and his team had their hands full rushing out plates of roast sirloin beef served with fluffy Yorkshire puddings, accompanied by pots of home-made horseradish sauce and an armada of gravy boats.

  In the kitchens, head chef, sous-chef and commis chef moved fast and furiously in the quasi-choreographed synchrony of a well-tuned kitchen. But if one watched carefully, it was just possible to detect a touch of frost in the air between the head chef and his sous.

  “Where’s the salt got to?” Patrick glanced around, his tea-towelled hand gripping a griddle pan of pork chops, boldly criss-crossed with sizzling char marks. “Chef, can you pass the salt?”