by J. A. Lang
“Did Gaby ever manage to prove that Miranda was involved?”
“Nah. Anyway, the photos never made it to print. Gaby paid them off, I heard. But the producers got a whiff of it and that was enough to boot her off the show. And then Miranda went on to make her millions. Nice little story, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps. Do you have Miss Florence’s contact details?”
“Sure.” He reeled off a telephone number and address. “Only you won’t get hold of her now. She’s on a plane to India. Sent me a message last night, saying she was off to some ashram to cleanse her aura, whatever the hell that means.”
“Did she say when she’d be back?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. And look here,” Adam added, now slightly uneasy, “it’s not like me and Gaby have any big history or anything. We only hooked up at a mate’s birthday bash about a month ago. She was dead keen, guess I now know why. It was all her trying to get one up on Miranda. But hey, I wasn’t complaining.”
PC Lucy and PC Sara exchanged another ‘men, animals the lot of them’ look.
“One last question, Mr Monroe. Where were you and Gaby on Saturday afternoon, between the hours of twelve thirty and one fifteen?”
“Ah, so we come to the prime moment. Afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you there. We went to get some lunch, then I spent the rest of the time at the shoot ’em up stand. I had some shooting lessons once, and Gaby wouldn’t let me leave until I got her one of those damn stuffed bears. I told her it was ridiculous. Those guns they give you are practically falling to pieces. But then I got a bit caught up in it all, and ended up staying there until I won the biggest one they had. You can talk to the guy at the stall, he’ll remember me, all right. Cost me a bloody fortune.”
“We will. And what about Miss Florence? Was she with you the whole time?”
“Indeedy. Oh, wait, no, I tell a lie. She took off for the loos at one point. Came back complaining about the queues.”
“She was gone a while, then?”
“Yeah. But, I mean, don’t quote me on that. It might have been a while, might not have. Couldn’t think of anything apart from those damn pink bears, right then.”
The conversation ended there, with Adam promising to let them know if he heard again from Gaby.
“Fancy a trip to India?” said PC Sara.
“Doubt the chief will sign that one off. Still, we might as well chase up where Gaby went, see if we can get her on the telephone.”
“Not if she’s taken one of those vows of silence or something.”
“Unlikely. I read she’s a radio presenter nowadays. They’re not really the silent type.”
“That Adam Monroe was pretty full of himself, wasn’t he?” said PC Sara, spinning her chair back around to her desk. “Pity. I like a man who looks good in breeches. It’s slim pickings in the dating world at the moment. You should be glad you’ve nabbed that chef fellow of yours.”
“We’ll see about that.” The mention of Patrick gave PC Lucy a dull little ache in her chest. What if he ended up taking the job up in the Lake District? She’d seen enough friends’ relationships fizzle out when one of them moved away, usually for job reasons. Of course, they’d always swear that they’d make it work, but eventually the back-and-forth travel and the long-distance phone calls would get too much.
But what could she say? ‘It’s your mother or me?’ The last thing she wanted was to end up in the same crazy camp as Chef Maurice. Patrick had already called her up to rant about the emotional trauma of having to return a state-of-the-art Thermal Masher, or whatever it was.
No, she’d just have to suck it up and play the supportive girlfriend, no matter what his choice.
It didn’t stop her, though, wondering idly about what Chef Maurice’s next plan of attack would be. And hoping, rather guiltily, that it might just have the desired effect . . .
Chapter 8
The next morning, Patrick arrived at the restaurant to find Chef Maurice and Alf hard at work in the dining room, heads bent over a notepad of scribblings.
Given that neither head chef nor commis could possibly be described as naturally early risers—if Chef Maurice was to be found in the kitchens before the hour of six a.m., it could be relied upon that he had not gone to bed the night before—Patrick regarded this impromptu morning tête-à-tête with all due suspicion.
“What’s going on?”
“Ah, Patrick! Come, sit.” Chef Maurice kicked out the chair opposite him. “The weather, I find it so good, that I have decided we will start our Spring Menu one week early. And I have decided that I must be more, how do you say, loose with my decisions. It is time to let others make a show of their creativity.”
“Right.”
Clearly, this was yet another move in the sous-chef retention game. Chef Maurice knew how much it rankled him, Patrick, to have to argue, plead and cajole to get each of his new dishes onto Le Cochon Rouge’s daily menu. This, though, was definitely a case of too little and much too late.
On the other hand, though, he still had a few days to make his decision, and he had a spice-crusted rainbow trout dish he’d been angling to get onto the—
“And so,” continued Chef Maurice, “for our new Spring Menu, I have decided that we will have six new dishes. Two entrées, two plats principaux, and two desserts. All to be designed by Alf.”
A meaty slap was dealt to the gangly commis chef’s back. Alf, for his part, looked as if he’d died and gone to a hot, dark place containing a lot of pitchforks.
“Whu-uh?” he managed, not daring to meet Patrick’s gaze.
“Oui! I have much belief that the best of ideas may come from the places most unexpected. You will present to me your dishes in two days. Now, allons-y, there is much preparation to do this morning.”
Chef Maurice drained his coffee cup and marched off into the kitchens.
“He’s doing this to punish me, isn’t he?” said Alf, head in hands.
“Why do you say that?”
“Remember that coriander-flavoured ice cream I made last week by mistake? Instead of using the mint?”
“At least we didn’t serve it. And chef managed to offload the whole tub to Arthur in the end. He said he was going to serve it with his cumin chicken at the next dinner party.”
“Yeah, but six new dishes? Chef knows it’s going to be a total disaster. And then I’m going to get the sack.”
“He can’t do that. He’d have no staff left,” said Patrick absently, staring down at Alf’s scribblings.
Alf gave a gasp of horror. “Wait, you mean you’re actually thinking of going?”
Patrick paused. Up until this point, he’d had a firm fence-shaped groove developing under his metaphorical buttocks. But if Chef Maurice was going to continue playing games, then he was damned if he was going to stand around waiting to be hit by a leather ball.
It just wasn’t cricket.
“I’m still mulling things over. But I think I’m starting to come to a decision.”
Alf, always inclined to baseless optimism, decided to take this as a good sign. “You know, I did have this one idea for a steak dish with glacé cherries and cottage cheese . . .”
Patrick felt immediately queasy as he mentally sampled Alf’s proposed dish. And yet . . .
“It’s not a bad idea,” he found himself saying.
“You think?” Alf looked surprised but gratified.
“It might need a bit of a sauce to go with it. Maybe something like a . . . chocolate-and-grapefruit-infused gravy. Very modern. I can give you a hand with it. Chef will never have to know.”
After all, he thought, as Alf scribbled down this stomach-curdling combination, if Chef Maurice was going to stoop to such measures of psycho-culinary warfare, there was no reason why two couldn’t play this game.
The Lady Eleanor School for Girls was a handsome red-brick building, built in the Edwardian style, with a sweeping D-shaped driveway, immaculate lawns, and flower beds given over to daffodils
and pink and white hyacinths. The main school block was surrounded by woods and undulating sports fields, in which various acts of lacrosse, hockey, and cross-country running were no doubt perpetrated.
Chef Maurice had decided that the next step in the investigation was to delve into the past of the victim herself. Miranda did not appear to have cultivated many friends on her return to the area, but hopefully here at her alma mater they would be able to find those who could cast some light on her so-far enigmatic character.
“You might be onto something there,” Arthur had said, when Chef Maurice had turned up to collect him in his little red Citroën. “These old schools, they’re marvellous for promoting staff longevity. You go shooting up from shorts to trousers in a handful of years, but the teachers? Hardly age a dot. Must be all those youthful hormones in the air. I went back a few years ago to visit my old prep school and, you know, they were practically all still there. All in their eighties, mind you, but still going strong. Miss Dickie and her tropical fish collection, and Miss Harrison—boy, I’ve never seen a woman with such a terrific aim with a nub of chalk . . .”
Now, as they puttered up the drive and followed the signs to the Parents’ and Visitors’ Car Park, Arthur could feel the concentrated aura of a hundred years of righteous schooling emanating from those red-brick walls. It left him with a sudden urge to pull up his socks and tuck in his shirt.
“So what’s our story?” he said, as they strolled through the stone archway into the main Reception, narrowly missing a stampede of ponytailed girls wearing pleated skirts and polo shirts, and all carrying weapons of shin-bruising destruction. “Because I hate to break it to you, but we don’t exactly blend in here.”
But Chef Maurice was already striding over to the young woman standing at Reception, who was busy sorting a pile of classroom registers into order.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle. We talked on the telephone this morning. About a tour of the school?”
“Oh, yes, Mr Manchot, wasn’t it? How lovely to meet you. I’m Miss Everwright. You said you were looking for a school for your niece?”
“Oui, for la petite Arabelle. Her mother wishes for her to study away from home, and to learn more of the wonderful language of the English.”
Arthur turned his chuckle into a hasty cough. He knew for a fact that his friend had no great love of the English language, wonderful or not. Instead, Chef Maurice seemed to positively revel in the cultivation of his impenetrable accent—still thicker, after all these years, than a pair of school dunces—and as yet could not be persuaded that there was no such word in the English language as ‘sheeps’.
“How delightful,” said Miss Everwright, picking up a pile of papers and scooting out from behind the desk. “We have boarders from all around the world, I’m sure Arabelle would be quite at home here. Were you looking for her to board, or attend as a day pupil?”
“Eh?” Chef Maurice looked to Arthur, who spoke fluent Boarding School Admissions.
“Boarder, at least to start with,” said Arthur. “Annabelle’s—”
“—Arabelle’s—”
“—ahem, Arabelle’s mother doesn’t think that Maurice here is quite up to providing a rounded home life for an eleven-year-old, especially not with a restaurant to run at the same time.”
Chef Maurice’s moustache bristled indignantly, while Miss Everwright smiled an even brighter smile, full in the knowledge of the hefty additional school fees that came with international boarders.
She handed them each an embossed school brochure and led them through a set of swinging doors and down a long wood-panelled corridor. The walls were hung with rows of long, wide frames containing the annual school photographs—the girls neatly lined up in height order, with the younger ones cross-legged at the front in pinafores and the older ones in green blazers and bowler hats tied with ribbon. As they walked on, the photos turned to sepia, and pigtails and bowl cuts came back into fashion.
Chef Maurice stopped before an old black-and-white photo of a group of girls posed around a silver sporting trophy. “The school, it has many distinguished students from the past, n’est-ce pas?”
“Oh, certainly. There was Greta Burroughs, of course, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry back in the Fifties. Then there were the Almore sisters, you might have read their books, as well as Ingrid Fullers . . .”
Miss Everwright, eyes shining, proceeded to reel off a long list of notable sportswomen, academics, politicians and businesswomen.
“I believe,” said Chef Maurice, as the young woman paused to draw breath, “that Mademoiselle Miranda Matthews from the television was also a student here once?”
Miss Everwright froze. “I’m afraid we’re not really allowed to discuss that topic, in light of recent events. I hope you’ll understand.” Having now laid down the official party line, she lowered her voice, adding: “But, I mean, it’s not like you can really stop the girls from spreading things around themselves, what with the way the news is nowadays.”
“Oui, that is true.” Chef Maurice leaned in further. “The . . . incident, it took place on the grounds of the school, am I right?”
Miss Everwright nodded. “On the edge of the grounds, quite far from here, you understand. Thank goodness it was half-term last week, so most of the girls were away visiting their families. But we had a few boarders staying on, and they were here when the police came round. Now, half the girls won’t go outdoors, and we can’t keep the other half from running down to the creek every chance they get to ‘see what else might float up’. Honestly, the ideas they get!”
“Is it true, the rumour I hear that a person was seen running from the creek to the main road, through the school gardens? Just after the hour of the attack?”
“Really?” said Arthur, who hadn’t heard anything of the sort.
Miss Everwright looked equally confused. “Oh no, that definitely can’t be true. I was here when the police were interviewing our gardeners. They were both out on the back lawn that day, so they’d have seen anyone trying to cut through our land. We’ve had a lot of nature-lovers trespassing lately—there’s apparently some new type of river otter that’s turned up on our grounds, National Geographic is coming to do a feature next week. Miss Caruthers is getting very angry about it—the trespassers, I mean—so now the gardeners are always on the lookout of anyone suspicious hanging around. They’d definitely have noticed someone cutting up through the grounds. And even if he”—it seemed in Miss Everwright’s oestrogen-filled world, all criminals were undoubtedly male—“had tried to go down along the creek instead, over to the woodlands on the other side of our grounds, he’d have been bound to be seen at some point. Our main building overlooks that stretch of the river.”
“Ah, and there was no one who saw anything, then?”
“Not a soul. Well, except for Marcia Mendez, who’s been telling everyone she saw a black-caped man run across the lawn with a rose in his teeth. But she spent the whole of last term insisting she was engaged to a vampire. So she’s not exactly a reliable witness.”
They stopped outside a glass-panelled door labelled ‘Salle de classe française’. Inside, thirty heads were bent over thick textbooks, while a middle-aged lady with a pince-nez and red square heels stalked up and down the rows, declaiming in strident tones the proper conjugation of the verb ‘dormir (to sleep)’—while members of the back row appeared to be putting this knowledge to practical application.
“Is there much in the way of staff turnover here?” asked Arthur, as they continued on down the hallway.
“Not at all. We pride ourselves on one of the lowest staff turnovers in the country for a school of this size. Our headmistress, Miss Caruthers, for example, has been here for over forty years.”
“Ah, oui. She retires this year, is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s right,” replied Miss Everwright, though a strange look flitted across her face. “And then there’s Mr McNutty. He’s been the Head of Canteen for almost as long as Miss Carut
hers has been here. He’ll tell you himself, but he’s got the best memory for dates and names I’ve ever come across. Remembers every pupil who’s ever eaten here. At least that’s what he claims.”
“Ah!” said Chef Maurice, throwing a look at Arthur. “I think we would be most interested in visiting the school dining room.”
Miss Everwright nodded. No doubt she had encountered a number of equally food-focused French parents in the past.
“Of course. Now might be a good time, in fact, before lunch break starts.” She pushed through another set of swinging doors. “Mr McNutty bakes all our bread on-site, and he’s won the county’s Best Dinner Lady five times in a row now.”
“Impressive,” said Arthur. He wondered idly what changes there had been in school catering fashions in the decades since his own days of frozen peas and semolina pudding. On stepping into the dining room, he was therefore pleased to see that, despite some interior designer’s best efforts with bright pine benches and abstract wall paintings, the answer was: very little.
Today’s blackboard announced such favourites as ploughman’s lunch, jam roly-poly, and toad-in-the-hole. (The latter was a particular bugbear of Chef Maurice’s, who had encountered grave difficulties in sourcing the necessary amphibians when he had first heard of this British favourite.)
They located Mr McNutty at the back of the kitchens, unloading a tray of steaming wholemeal rolls from a big commercial oven.
“I know who you are,” he said, halfway through Miss Everwright’s introduction. “You’s Mister Maurice, from the restaurant down in Beakley. Took the missus there once, but she had a nasty turn after the sight of all ’em little frogs’ legs. Not your fault, though. I told ’er I didn’t think Grenouille was a place in Switzerland, but sometimes there’s no talking to ’er once she’s made up ’er mind. So you got a little lass looking to come here, then?”
The story of the relocating niece was quickly rehashed.
