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

by J. A. Lang

  “She was here at this weekend,” continued Chef Maurice, “and she tells me she most enjoyed the Beakley Spring Fayre. Did you have the chance to attend, monsieur?”

  “’Fraid not. Kitchen runs all through the holidays. Got the staff to feed, plus a few of the lasses stick around, too far to go home. Some of ’em went over for the Fayre, though. Came back telling me they want a pig roast every Friday now,” he said with a grimace, unenthused at the idea of going the whole hog.

  Chef Maurice cast a quick look over at Miss Everwright, who was staring speculatively at a tray of chocolate cookies. “You have heard the sad news of Mademoiselle Miranda Matthews, I am sure. Perhaps you remember her, from her days here at the school?”

  “’Course I do. Never forget a face, not even when they change their hair and paint their eyes and all that stuff women do. I remember little Miranda all right. Her and Angela—that’s Mrs Gifford now, our cookery teacher, funny how these things turn out—those two, they’d always be hanging around ’ere, trying to snitch the pies fresh out the oven, and pestering me for my butter shortbread recipe. Always knew she’d end up doing good for ’erself, our Miranda,” he added with some pride.

  “And her disposition? Was she a jeune fille who caused much trouble, played the tricks?”

  “Oh no, I never had any trouble from ’er. Always Mister McNutty this, Mister McNutty that, ever so polite. Face of an angel, too, bless ’er. I did hear there was a few times those two got called up in front of the headmistress, sneaking around after hours when they shouldn’t ’ave been, stealing one of the other girls’ letters, something like that, but I just call that high spirits. No ’arm in them. At least, back in those days.”

  “Ah, but later? You heard of trouble caused by Mademoiselle Miranda more recently?”

  Mr McNutty stared at Chef Maurice. “You what? Nah, I’m talkin’ about Mrs Gifford. You should hear ’er go on now, all high and mighty about her vitamins, and minerals, and government guidelines. Sayin’ I should be using less suet in me clootie dumplings! Oh, they all think she’s a meek and mild one, but you should ’ave seen her face after I tried putting me famous deep-fried pork pies on the menu. Family recipe, that is. Never did me granny any harm.”

  “It’s a wonder they’re all still so slim,” commented Arthur, as they headed out of the dining room, battling their way through the incoming tide of Fifth Formers.

  “That’s what I thought too,” said Miss Everwright, “when I first got here, but actually, it’s making them eat that’s sometimes the problem. They can be surprisingly health-conscious. In fact, last term the older girls were petitioning for a salad and juice bar. I’m sure you can imagine what Mr McNutty said to that.”

  The next stop was the Home Economics lab, where Angie, somewhat surprised to see her two co-investigators on her home turf, tentatively accepted Chef Maurice’s offer to conduct a flambéed apple crêpe demonstration for the class.

  The girls, roused from the stupor of attempting to design ‘a better mousse’, sat up in their seats and eyed this large-moustached intruder with interest.

  “Have you heard anything new about last Saturday?” asked Arthur, as he and Angie stood at the back of the room, watching Chef Maurice mix up a large bowl of batter.

  A less thoughtful observer might have expected this to take place with a great deal of eggs flying and batter splattering, but they would have been wrong—chefs abhor the wasting of food, and Chef Maurice whisked away at his batter with all the care and attention of a motherly hen.

  Thirty pairs of eyes watched in rapt attention.

  “I haven’t heard much, no,” said Angie. “The police came round here, of course, but most of the girls were away, and the ones that weren’t were all down at the Fayre.”

  “Miss Everwright says no one was seen cutting through the grounds that day.”

  Angie nodded, watching uneasily as Chef Maurice poured a generous measure of Calvados into a big metal ladle. “It really wouldn’t make sense to come up through here. Not when whoever it was could have just popped back up to the Fayre and blended in with the rest of the crowd.”

  There was a poof as the alcohol ignited, followed by a burst of applause as Chef Maurice tipped the flaming sauce over the crêpes and caramelised apples. Stools scraped as the class dashed forward, forks at the ready, to get a taste.

  “Our work here, it is done,” said Chef Maurice, ambling over and handing Angie back her flower-patterned apron.

  “Not much news from Angie, I’m afraid,” said Arthur, as they stepped out into the hallway, where he found himself counting the number of fire extinguishers hung on the walls nearby. “So where to next?”

  “Ah, I think here is our answer.”

  Miss Everwright was speed walking down the corridor in their direction.

  “Miss Caruthers will see you now.”

  “And so, into the dragon’s lair,” murmured Arthur.

  “Oh!” She looked at him in some surprise. “So you’ve met her before?”

  To label Miss Caruthers’ reign over the Lady Eleanor School for Girls as draconian would not be being entirely fair. Though possessing of a sharp tongue, she had never actually been seen to breathe fire, and though she might stalk the midnight corridors with soft shoes and an acute ear tuned for mischief, throwing windows open in the belief that fresh air promoted healthy growth, she seemed little inclined to jump up onto the sill and take to the night skies on leathery wings.

  However, when it came to sleeping on a pile of gold, here Miss Caruthers’ critics were on potentially firmer ground. It was said that the headmistress of the Lady Eleanor School for Girls kept a shrewd eye on the global economy, and possessed a keen intuition when it came to the most opportune time to increase school fees—while, of course, still inducing in parents a feeling of overwhelming relief to have secured their daughter a place at one of England’s most respectable educational establishments.

  “Do you really have a niece, Mr Manchot?” was Miss Caruthers’ first enquiry, after Miss Everwright had departed.

  Chef Maurice contrived to look offended. “Mais oui, of course. I have many nieces and nephews.”

  “I see.” Miss Caruthers lowered her glasses half an inch, as a hunter might cock his rifle, and peered severely at her two visitors sat opposite her. “I understand that the unfortunate events of last Saturday’s Fayre have Angela quite worked up into a tizzy, but I do not think it’s appropriate for you both to be leading her on in this ill-advised manner, believing yourselves capable of doing the job of our country’s own police force. And I certainly do not approve of you concocting relatives and wasting my staff’s time and energy.” She focused her gaze on Arthur. “Really, Mr Wordington-Smythe, I would have expected better of you.”

  Arthur squirmed in his chair and tried to appear contrite, if only for the sake of his position on next year’s cake-tasting panel. As he attempted to avoid the headmistress’s glare, his eye was caught by a black-and-white photograph on Miss Caruthers’ desk showing three young girls, all in Lady Eleanor uniforms, standing before a tall sycamore tree. The youngest of the trio was staring directly at the camera with a familiar piercing gaze.

  “Your family have a long history with the school, I see,” he said, by way of a conversational sidestep.

  Miss Caruthers looked down at the photo, her face softening a fraction. “Yes, all three of us girls were sent here. Deirdre and I only overlapped a few years. She was already in the Sixth Form when I arrived. Caroline was in the year above me.”

  The name seemed familiar to Arthur. There had been that Winter Jumble Sale down at the village hall, in aid of a leukaemia charity, and he had a vague memory of Miss Caruthers’ sister being mentioned.

  “Forgive me, is she the one . . . who—”

  “Yes, she passed away last year after a long battle with leukaemia. Though sometimes I have to object to that phrase—to employ the word ‘battle’ gives the suggestion that one has a choice in these matters.”


  Arthur nodded solemnly, while Chef Maurice, annoyed at the derailment of the conversation at hand, cleared his throat.

  “We promise to intrude no further on your school, Madame Caruthers. But while we sit here, perhaps you can tell us more of the character of Mademoiselle Miranda. We understand that she caused some small matters of trouble when she was a student here?”

  “My staff clearly talk too much. But yes, she was the worst type of troublemaker, to my mind. And I say that as rather an authority on the subject, after teaching here for over four decades.”

  “Ah, fights in the changing room, frogs in the water fountains, painting all the teachers’ cars bright yellow, that kind of thing?” said Arthur, who’d attended an all-boys establishment.

  “I wish,” said Miss Caruthers. “Unfortunately, I think you’ll find that girls, Mr Wordington-Smythe, prefer a wholly more insidious form of troublemaking. And Miranda was quite the expert. The starting of nasty little rumours, the spread of gossip. Picking up some junior girl as her best friend one week, then spilling all her secrets the next. It causes quite a pernicious effect, to have that type of girl in the year. Though, of course, she wasn’t the first of that kind. Nor the last, for that matter.”

  “And yet, madame, you let her continue her studies here?”

  “The choice was outside my control. I was Head of Geography at the time. And she had Miss Furlong, my predecessor, completely wrapped around her little finger. And most of the staff, too.”

  “Ah, oui, it is true that Monsieur McNutty speaks quite highly of her.”

  “Indeed? I’m not surprised. He’s been harping on at me to allow him to put on a memorial menu in Miranda’s honour. I said it was quite out of the question. I will not have him blowtorching Smarties on these premises.”

  “Oui, that would be most dangerous,” said Chef Maurice, who still smelled faintly of Calvados fumes.

  “I suppose then,” said Arthur, “your feelings on the matter have mellowed since those days, what with Miranda being involved with the Beakley Spring Fayre?”

  “Not at all. It was Angela who suggested that Miranda play a role this year. She came to me one day in the staff room, telling me that Miranda was insistent on doing some form of demonstration at the Fayre. And wanted to sit on the Bake Off panel. In the end, I relented, if only for Angela’s sake—I understood they were planning to set up some little cookery school business together, and the Fayre would be good for their publicity, make Miranda more of a local presence. Oh, don’t look so shocked,” she added, seeing Arthur’s face. “I wouldn’t be sitting where I am today if I didn’t have a pretty good idea of what my staff are up to. Angela’s a good teacher, of course, but I never thought that she’d stay forever. She has more ambition than one might think. I think she’ll do very well, going into business.”

  “Did Mademoiselle Miranda have any other friends from the school in this area?” said Chef Maurice.

  “I don’t believe so. In those days, most of the girls were boarders like her, so very few settled down locally after they left us. Angela was one of our few day pupils. Her parents ran a farm over near Winchcombe. Now, if that’s all”—Miss Caruthers placed her hands on her desk and stood—“I’m afraid I’ll have to end our little interview here. I have meetings this afternoon I must prepare for. If you would take my advice, you’d best to leave this matter well alone. You’ll find that old debts have a way of being paid in the end, and Miranda Matthews had more than her fair share, I’m sure.”

  With that, she led them to the door and firmly ushered them out.

  “Madame Caruthers, she knows something,” said Chef Maurice, as they wandered back to the car.

  “Indeed. But any idea what?”

  Chef Maurice shook his head. “But, it makes me think of a particular mustard . . .”

  “Maurice?”

  “Oui?”

  “Is there anything that doesn’t make you think about food?”

  Chapter 9

  The Cochon Rouge dinner rush was dialling down when PC Lucy arrived that evening. Chef Maurice, declaring the kitchen safe in his team’s capable hands, was in the process of retiring upstairs with a plate of rhubarb crumble and a large jug of custard, to ‘contemplate on the case of Mademoiselle Miranda’. After a while, various snores of deep contemplation could be heard through the kitchen ceiling above.

  PC Lucy took a seat at the big oak table, a forkful of lemon tart in one hand and a pen in the other.

  “Come on, then,” she said to Patrick, who was plating up a quartet of marmalade-and-chocolate fondants. “It’s not that hard. We’ve already got the pros written down. So what are the cons of moving jobs?”

  Patrick pushed the finished plates towards Dorothy, who scooped them onto a tray and hustled them out into the dining room. “Okay, let’s see. The restaurant in the Lake District will probably have less of a local customer base, at least to start with. More tourists, so I’d have to keep the menu a bit more traditional.”

  “Definitely a con,” said PC Lucy, noting this down. Chef Maurice might have been a staunch believer that the only cuisine worth cooking was the one of his native France, but he also possessed the boredom threshold of a sugar-crazed chimpanzee and was tolerant of the occasional bout of experimental or international cuisine onto his menu—as long, of course, as a suitably francophone name for the dish could be concocted. The porc tiré à la Texane (pulled pork in a barbeque sauce) had long been a favourite on the lunch specials menu, as well as the gâteau le meutre par le chocolat (murder being, according to Chef Maurice, a far more suitable description of the near deadly amount of cocoa in that particular cake).

  “Another con, there’d need to be three shifts, to include the hotel breakfast as well. That’d definitely be a pain. And it’ll be harder to recruit up there, I reckon.”

  PC Lucy nodded and added this to the list. “Anything else?”

  Patrick rubbed his nose, leaving a tantalising smudge of chocolate across one cheek. “No, I think that’s it.”

  “You sure?”

  “I think so.”

  He turned to check on some dehydrating olives in the oven behind him, while PC Lucy gripped her pen and held back the urge to throw it at his (admittedly rather fine) blue-and-white-checked behind.

  The cheek! To not even include ‘my girlfriend lives right here in the Cotswolds’ as a disadvantage of moving several hundred miles north? She knew Patrick set great store by his career, and painful experiences with certain exes had taught her to never get in the way of a man and his métier—but, really! Just the other week, he’d been dropping hints about the prospect of them moving in together.

  At least, that’s what she’d thought at the time, when the subject of his flat’s rent coming up for renewal had floated across their conversational path. He’d made a passing comment about how he might prefer not to renew and to look for another, bigger, place instead.

  Now, though, she wondered if Mrs Merland hadn’t already had a quiet word in her son’s ear, and if the whole rent discussion had been his subtle way of preparing PC Lucy for news of his imminent relocation . . .

  Patrick was still crouched down by the oven. She shoved the list across the table. “Here you go. It’s all down here. I’m sure it won’t be a very hard decision.”

  With as much calm as she could muster, she stalked out of the back door and down into the village.

  Back to her flat. Alone.

  Patrick watched, puzzled, as PC Lucy disappeared out of the back door.

  “Do you think she looked a bit annoyed about something?” he asked Alf, who was podding a bowl of just-blanched broad beans for the next day’s lunch menu.

  “Dunno,” said Alf, who was of the private opinion that Patrick’s girlfriend lived her life on a tide of barely concealed rage, and the less directed at him, Alf, the better.

  “She was pretty insistent on me doing that list. Do you think it’s something I said?”

  He looked down at the piece of
paper, which was divided into two columns, each filled with PC Lucy’s neat handwriting. To his surprise, the ‘pros’ column, in favour of relocating, was rather longer than he remembered.

  Dorothy, returning with a tray of rattling crockery, glanced over his shoulder.

  “Oooo, dearie me! You’re in trouble now,” was her pronouncement.

  “What? Why?”

  “You’ve gone and left our Lucy right off the list. I imagine she took off pretty fast after that.” She elbowed Patrick in the ribs. “Am I right?”

  “She said something before about an early start tomorrow. And I didn’t put her on the list on purpose.”

  Dorothy folded her arms over her ample bosom and tilted her head with a ‘try me’ expression.

  “See, I can’t let her think I’d choose to stay in Beakley because of her,” explained Patrick, “or else she might feel . . . well, obliged to carry on going out with me. I want her to feel free to end things whenever she wants, instead of feeling guilt-tripped into us staying together because I chose to turn down the head chef job.”

  Alf nodded along to this display of proto-male reasoning at its finest.

  “And what did she say about this little list of yours, then?” said Dorothy.

  “She said it looked like an easy decision,” said Patrick slowly.

  They all looked down at the lengthy ‘pros’ column.

  “Cor!” said Alf. “Do you think she said that, because, like, she actually wants you to go?”

  The two chefs stared at each other in horror.

  Dorothy, eyes rolling, picked up her tray and dumped the contents in the sink.

  It was true what they said. Behind every great man, you found an extremely perplexed woman, wondering what the heck had happened.

  The next day dawned fine and clear across the rolling Cotswold hills. Down by Warren’s Creek, wisps of clouds reflected off the placid waters, and the weeping willows dappled the sunlight as it fell on the path running alongside the bank.