To Die For

by Janet Neel

  ‘What can he do, now the kitchen is in?’

  Judith Delves looked at her, and she realised she had opened the mouth without engaging the brain. ‘Menu planning. Recosting. Talking to suppliers.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, meekly. ‘All new menu?’

  ‘Not necessarily. But one on which we can make a decent profit and which can be kept simple. We’ve lost two sous chefs and a couple of commis as well, and it’ll take a while to get up to full staff. Tony needs to make some phone calls too.’

  She opened the door of the office and Francesca blinked. It became clear that every object which could not be sent to store had been put up here for safety. There was a narrow pathway to Judith’s big desk and she followed her hostess gingerly towards it, and they sat down on two chairs by the window behind the desk, ready, as Francesca pointed out, to defend the office against any number of circling Indians. Judith laughed, politely, but seemed to be having difficulty formulating her request, so Francesca decided to help.

  ‘So your chef is working hard?’

  ‘Yes. Very.’

  ‘Does that mean he has changed his mind about wanting to sell?’

  The right question, she saw, and Judith gratefully told her exactly what had changed his mind, including her knowledge of the scam he had been conducting.

  ‘So that’s what Matt Sutherland was doing up here on Tuesday. I took him to the Coliseum, I had the only spare ticket. He found a dazzling blonde backstage so I left him to it.’ She drew breath. ‘I’ve always wanted to be a blonde. They do seem to have more of the fun than is wholly reasonable.’

  ‘Like Selina,’ Judith said.

  ‘I only saw her the once, but she did look like someone who had all of everything that was going.’

  ‘Yes, but we never had problems over men. She could get anyone she wanted, but she never fancied the same men as I did.’

  Francesca, who had understood that Tony Gallagher would never have got away with a scam had Judith Delves not been off site for a critical six months, then wondered aloud how good a business-woman the late Selina Marsh-Hayden had been. Or had she been better at brightening the lives of those around her than at the minutiae of administration?

  Judith nodded, sadly. ‘I should never have left her running the place on her own. I should have put in a heavy-duty general manager – I knew it wasn’t Selina’s skill. But we were spending all the spare money on the conversion across the river and we couldn’t afford to add to the overheads.’

  ‘What was Selina paid, if I may ask?’

  ‘Same as me. £20,000.’

  Francesca felt her eyebrows go up; that was the going rate for a secretary in a merchant bank.

  Judith had noticed her reaction. ‘In the private sector you have to slave now in order to be a fat cat later. We were going to make real money when we had grown the group a bit. We would each have made six times our original capital over four years as it was. But we can do much better.’

  ‘If the others are prepared to hang on,’ Francesca observed. She stopped and gazed at her hostess. ‘But with the Marsh- Haydens both gone, there aren’t many others around, are there? Tony, who you say is co-operating, and your Michael. Is he still objecting?’

  Judith Delves looked out of the window, biting her lip. ‘Yes. But, of course, we haven’t talked about the restaurant since he heard Richard had died. That was a terrible shock, I thought he was all right. You see, I thought people were if they got to hospital alive and got pumped out.’

  ‘Not if they took paracetamol twelve hours before, as I understand it. It gets the liver and that is irreplaceable.’

  ‘Paracetamol?’

  ‘So I understand.’ Francesca was uneasily aware that she had got her information from the inside but, after all, Richard’s family must have been told what he had taken; it wasn’t a secret.

  ‘But he never took paracetamol,’ Judith objected. ‘He wouldn’t let Selina buy it either. He’d read about an awful case – a teenage girl who had had a fight with her boyfriend, took half a bottle of paracetamol and then was revived. She apologised and the boy apologised and everyone promised not to do it again. Then the doctor had to tell them all it was too late, the girl was already effectively dead. It gave Richard the shivers. Well, it gave me the shivers. It was only about ten tablets.’

  ‘What a terrible story.’ Francesca moved in her chair, suddenly very conscious of the bump which was making her neat skirt uncomfortable at the waist. ‘I think for the future I might find some other way of fixing a headache.’ She looked across at the other woman, still haunted by the vision of a repentant teenager, surrounded by friends and family, looking hopefully to a future that she was not going to have. Judith was looking equally haunted, and Francesca remembered abruptly how the conversation had started. ‘But, Judith, it was paracetamol, or something like it, that he took. I’m sure about that.’

  ‘Then, I suppose, he did really mean to kill himself,’ the other woman said, slowly. ‘It wasn’t an accident, or a cry for help, or any of the things I was thinking.’

  ‘Mm.’ Francesca acknowledged mentally that this piece of information was potentially useful in tying off a loose end and ought to be shared with her husband. Given his objections to interference by her, it would be nice if it got to him from someone other than herself. ‘His family would have known about his objections to paracetamol?’

  ‘I’m not sure they’re that close. Richard was a black sheep, and he had quarrelled really seriously with his father.’

  They let a moment elapse in memory of the Hon. Richard Marsh- Hayden, and it was Francesca, conscious as always of the pressure of time, who found her way back to the purpose of her visit.

  ‘So, where are you on the sale?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, which is why I wanted to talk to you. Richard’s shares, I know, were left to Selina, but …’

  ‘Mm. Do you know where they go now that – as the lawyers say – the bequest has failed? No? Probably back to his family in some way. Oh dear. What a mess. Sorry, Judith, I only meant that the whole thing will disappear into limbo while they sort that one out. And, of course, there’s a problem about Selina’s shares. If they passed to Richard they go with his estate.’

  ‘If they passed?’

  ‘You usually have a clause saying the beneficiary must survive thirty days – that’s to avoid two sets of estate duty.’

  Judith looked at her, appalled. ‘So Selina’s shares may go back to her family, and get lost there?’

  ‘Indeed. But, sorry, there is no way of avoiding bad taste in this conversation, this confusion may help you. At the moment, so far as I can see, no one can pass good title to Richard or Selina’s shares. Not to Mr Rubin, not to anybody until in some indeterminate future both Richard and Selina’s estates get probate. Then, of course, executors will want to sell – what are they going to do with unquoted shares in a small business? But Mr Rubin may have gone away.’ Francesca was momentarily carried away by a vision of the future. ‘Then you’d have the chance to make an offer for both lots. With the restaurant here open again you could raise the money.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten Michael.’

  ‘Ah. I had forgotten him. But Judith, surely, if Mr Rubin goes away then it’s all quite different. Unless there is a purchaser banging on your door it must be right to buy in any loose shares and trade on. Your Michael’s a banker, after all.’

  They looked at each other and Judith nodded. ‘If we could just get the place open and trading, at a proper margin, I could put in an expensive general manager here which would give me more free time.’ She had gone pink with excitement, her mind obviously racing over the detail. ‘Michael may still not like it much, but …’

  ‘In the situation we envisage, he won’t have a lot of choice – I mean none of you do. So a few graceful concessions on your part, like a general manager …’

  ‘Yes. Oh yes. Now all I need is someone who wants a long-term investment in a restaurant.’ She
stopped and looked guiltily at Francesca. ‘This is awful – I can’t be doing this.’

  Francesca considered her. ‘Did you like Richard?’

  ‘No. But I wouldn’t have wished that on him.’ Her voice went shrill and her eyes were bright, but she steadied herself and smiled across at the silent Francesca. ‘Thanks. You’re right. Now all I have to do is talk to Michael. And pray that Tony doesn’t break an arm in the next four weeks.’

  ‘Or a leg?’ Francesca wondered.

  ‘He doesn’t need legs to cook with.’

  Matthew arrived in the crowded reception room of Graebner Associates, full of the usual mix of every race under the sun, mostly with the kids as well, and made for his senior partner.

  ‘Was that all right? You rang them and told them day after tomorrow?’ Peter Graebner was ushering out one client, a sullen Caribbean, fifteen years old, hair in elaborate plaits, and collecting another, a small anxious Chinese man and wife, but paused, seeing Matthew’s face.

  ‘Yes. I’d have liked to get it over with, but we can’t get a banker’s draft till tomorrow, at the earliest. So Friday’s safe.’

  Peter smiled gently at the Chinese couple and indicated that he would be with them shortly and they sank back on their chairs, watching him intently.

  ‘That will be all right though. They are men of their word. In their field.’

  ‘Yeh. Sorry. I’m still having trouble with the idea of handing over near on £10,000 to people like that.’

  ‘Better than drug dealers.’

  There was a message here, as Matt well appreciated. Not for those who had indulged in soft drugs and dealt with the people who purveyed them, to be unduly censorious about bookmakers, whose trade was not illegal.

  ‘Gimme a break, Peter.’

  His senior partner’s spectacles glinted at him. ‘Ring your client, won’t you? He’ll be glad to know he can go to work safely.’

  Judith, completing a slow tour of inspection, picked her way through wood shavings and cardboard boxes to the door and was surprised to find the late evening sun shining. She stood, watching the home-going traffic thirty feet away across the broad pavement and the early evening theatre crowds, some stopping hopefully to look at the front of the restaurant, faces falling in disappointment as they realised it was closed. She sighed; she, too, wished it was open to welcome in all these passers-by. She reminded herself that, disaster as the fire had been, when they reopened the Caff would be sparkling new; after four years it had been getting shabby despite persistent maintenance and some of the kitchen equipment had been wearing badly. No one could welcome a fire and a restaurant closed for two weeks, but it was not all loss; at some time in the next year they would have had to close to refurbish for at least a week.

  A Jaguar, chauffeur driven, pulled up by the kerb and she watched incuriously as the driver got out. His passengers were not waiting to be released and she stepped back involuntarily as Brian Rubin, expensively attired in a baggy linen suit and fashionably tieless, unfolded himself on to the pavement. Another man, conventionally dressed, was walking round the car from the off-side, and she saw it was Michael. He said something to the driver who nodded and slid back into the car, and she braced herself for whatever was to come. Brian Rubin came over to her, hand extended, so she had to take it.

  ‘Judith. How are you? I am so sorry about Richard …’

  He was, she saw, incredulous; he was looking haggard, and his eyes were watering. He produced a handkerchief and, unembarrassed, mopped them. ‘Terrible thing to happen. The poor bugger, excuse me.’

  Michael had come up behind him and kissed her, pressing her to him. He was upset too, she could feel it right through his body.

  ‘What a bloody day.’ He was holding her as if he had reached home after a shipwreck, and Brian Rubin looked away, tactfully. ‘I need a drink. But I don’t suppose we’ve got one in there, just at the moment.’

  ‘We do in the office, if you don’t mind fighting your way through the whole of the bar fittings which are parked there.’ She was pointedly not looking at Brian Rubin, but saw from Michael’s expression that he was going to form part of the conversation. She took them through the Café; Brian Rubin, professional that he was, would understand that they were not all that far from being able to reopen.

  ‘You’ve done brilliant, Judith,’ he said, as they went through the kitchen. ‘Wouldn’t have believed it from when I saw it Sunday.’ ‘Thank you,’ she said, demurely. ‘Tony has worked like a Trojan. He’s just catching up with his sleep, but he’ll be in again later.’ She wanted the besieging general to know that the inmates of the citadel were all of one mind and preparing to repel him. Brian’s eyebrows lifted but he took the point, and so, she saw, did her lover. He was looking wretched, shoulders slumped in the good suit, walking heavily. She distributed drinks and they stood awkwardly in the crowded office, Michael gazing silently out of the window. He came back from wherever he had been and looked across at her in appeal, and she stiffened her back, feeling her rigid defences being undermined.

  ‘Brian came to me this afternoon because he has something important to tell us. Important to all of us.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what.’ She needed to discharge the hostility she felt to both of them. Brian, leaning against the dismantled bar, looked at her steadily.

  ‘Thing is, Richard’s death means his shares pass to me. Or rather to my company. We made a deal, six months ago.’

  ‘What?’ She felt dazed and stupid.

  ‘He needed money. So he borrowed from me, and I took a call option on his shares, which I could exercise if he didn’t repay the loan within a year. Or, of course, if he died. That’s a standard clause in these agreements, only no one thought – I certainly didn’t – that it was actually going to happen. You know.’

  She did indeed, she thought, appalled. The agreement she and Tony Gallagher had signed only on Monday had exactly that clause in it; Tony had observed, not wholly in joke, that he’d better watch his step with her, to which she had countered that she was doing the deal to keep her head chef alive and on the job not in order to murder him. She looked at Michael who was examining the contents of his glass.

  ‘You knew he had mortgaged his shares.’

  ‘He only told me last week. And to be frank I thought Brian was very ill advised to lend on the shares. He can’t make the other shareholders accept the transfer. The Articles say we don’t have to. As he knows.’

  He was still not quite looking at her and she watched his fingers clenched on his glass.

  ‘Did Richard ask you for a loan?’

  ‘No. Well, only on Selina’s shares and only in the most general terms and he knew we wouldn’t do it. I’ve never been prepared to lend money myself, and there was no point asking the bank to do it. Not with Richard’s track record. He wasn’t asking seriously.’ He managed to look at her and her heart twisted. He was miserable and on the wrong foot, and so was she.

  ‘I’ll bugger off.’ Brian Rubin finished his drink in one swallow. ‘You two need to talk. But look, Judith, we are where we are. I think you’re terrific, and we’d be better off cooperating than fighting. You can have any deal you need – shares in the combined group, joint managing director, whatever. And I need Tony too, tell him. You’re both as good as or better than anyone I’ve got, just say what you want.’ He put his glass down, tidily, and considered her, and swept her into a warm hairy embrace to which she could not but yield. ‘Either way,’ he said, seriously, disentangling himself, but still holding her hands, ‘you’ve got a great future in the business – I’d just like it to be with me.’ He kissed her cheek and took himself off, having achieved an unimprovable exit.

  ‘Bloody cheek,’ she said, gazing at the swinging door.

  ‘Oh, I agree. But he did what I wanted to. Come here.’ Michael had crossed from the window and turned her to him and wrapped his arms round her. ‘God, what a day. Poor Richard. I can’t get it out of my head.’ He was crying, she realis
ed, as she held him, and found herself weeping too. ‘We need to talk, but I don’t want to now. In fact, there’s only one thing I do want and there isn’t anywhere here, so I want to take you home.’

  Agonised, she thought of the specialist lighting man, due in forty minutes, and absolutely needing to be seen if the restaurant was to be lit for next week. Her head cleared. ‘There’s a bed here. In the back room. I don’t think it’s got things all over it.’

  ‘Still?’

  ‘We never got rid of it after the rush to get set up here. We – Selina and me – used to kip here if we couldn’t get home.’ She tugged at his hand. ‘Come and see.’

  ‘No.’ His grip on her tightened. ‘I want to be with you out of here, for God’s sake.’

  Tony, she thought, gratefully, hearing a familiar voice, shouting the odds. Tony could cope with the lights man; they had agreed that morning what was wanted and marked the catalogue subject only to questions of price and delivery. And she could go back with Michael and get into bed with him which she needed and wanted. ‘Darling, it’s all right. We’ll go. I just have to have ten minutes with Tony, then I’m free. Sit here and have a coffee, I promise I’ll be back by the time you’ve finished it.’

  She was back just outside the ten minutes, but he had got himself a coffee, and was standing, leaning on a filing cabinet. She kissed him and collected her handbag, checking for keys, and sorting quickly through the odd bits of paper that had accumulated during the day, pausing to scribble another message for Tony while he watched.

  ‘You’re relying pretty heavily on Gallagher, aren’t you? On a chap who’s been stealing from us? And who can’t wait to sell?’

  ‘It’s a bit different now. And he’s going to repay what he took.’ She decided that now was not the moment to reveal the rest of her arrangements with Chef. ‘We need him, yes. We could open the doors without him but no one would get anything to eat. There are no spare head chefs who can manage a kitchen turning out four hundred covers a day. Conran was the final straw, they’re all working for him.’