The Food Detective (3 page)

Chapter Three

I distributed plates of lunchtime ploughman’s to Tuesday’s
walkers
– who well might have been yesterday’s recycled – and
sauntered
over to collect a few glasses from the regulars. Yes, of course Lindi should have been doing it. But if there was any
gossip
going, I wanted to hear it.

For some reason the group round Reg fell silent as I approached, so I started a conversational hare myself.

‘What’s this new bloke doing out at your campsite then, Reg? Not the weather for the open air life, I’d have thought.’ Though the pub walls were nearly two feet thick, and the windows in deep recesses, you could still hear the rain sluicing down, as if
someone
had forgotten to turn off a celestial tap. It was a good job I’d already started my improvements: I’d just had the gutters cleared and the drains rodded.

‘Oh, ah. He’s a funny one all right,’ Reg guffawed, slapping his leg. ‘You know what I found him doing this morning? Trying to bury a cat, for God’s sake.’

‘A cat? Did he bring it down with him?’

There was a tiny shuffle from the others, which took me straight back to my long-forgotten schooldays when someone was trying not to snitch.

‘Found it, he says. Dead. I told him to shove it in that there council paper bin, but seems that was too easy. He wouldn’t even put his cardboard boxes in there. Said it’d mess up the recycling or summat. “Come on, man,” I says, “who’s going to tell? Not me, that’s for sure.” But no, he squashes everything into the back of that car of his and off he goes. Said something about the
recycling
centre.’

‘He took a dead cat to the recycling centre!’

‘Well, no. Reckon he must have left that back at his caravan. Said he’d dispose of it tonight. With a bit of luck, I says, it’ll wash away and spare you the trouble.’

‘Dispose of it? How can he dispose of it? I mean, it isn’t likely he’d have brought a spade down here with him, is it? No garden,’ I explained, as Reg and his mates looked as if they couldn’t
conceive 
of a life that didn’t involve a spade.

‘Ah. Suppose not. Anyway, he said he’d put the poor bugger under his caravan and deal with it this evening. If it isn’t washed away by then.’ Reg repeated. He hawked and spat. ‘We might be needing Noah’s Ark, but there’s only room for live moggies, that’s what I told him.’

I joined in the general mild laughter before disappearing back to the bar. Lindi finally registered there were glasses to be washed, and I withdrew to the kitchen to await developments – like Reg huffing and puffing round to find out why there was no meat on the menu and why I hadn’t pressed a repeat order into his hand as soon as he’d appeared.

By now the whole village must have heard I’d tipped all that meat into the big kitchen waste bin, which had been emptied this morning. With luck, there must have been as many theories as
villagers
. I wasn’t sure what to tell him. There was no point in falsely accusing people of selling unlicensed meat. Not until I knew. After all, it had seemed to be good quality. But the receipt business bothered me. Any legitimate supplier would surely
provide
the paperwork another business needed. Meanwhile, I had to source some more meat, and if my prices went up to match, tough. When the restaurant was open serving high quality food, customers would expect to pay accordingly. What if I went one step further and made it a completely organic restaurant? Would that be possible? Not just Reg but all the locals would huff and puff, but their days in the snug were limited anyway.

Upstairs in my quarters the phone rang. I decided to take the call. It wouldn’t do Reg any harm at all to wait. And I’d always wanted to try my hand at vegetarian cooking.

‘Beans on toast? I’d rather been hoping for one of your steaks,’ Nick said that evening as I poured him an extra-long G and T.

‘Do steaks and gastric ulcers mix?’

‘I saw the Boots pharmacist. She’s given me some wonder drug, the best you can get without prescription. I thought I’d test it out.’

‘Unless you want to risk the pickled onions in a ploughman’s, it’s beans on toast or a salad,’ I said. ‘Problems with my freezer,’
I added innocently

He held my gaze. I looked over his shoulder. If I started talking food supplies it might blow his cover. I assumed he’d had the sense he’d been born with and was taking my advice.

‘So how was work? Tough being a new boy, I should think.’

He nodded. ‘Not just the new boy. Pretty well the only boy. There are only five of us in the whole country.’

‘So you’re the cat that walks –’

‘Cat?’

Ah.

‘You know, that cat that walks by itself. Or were you thinking of another cat?’

He nodded. Fred Tregothnan erupted into the snug with a great swagger.

‘Tell you what, Nick,’ I muttered, real side of the mouth stuff, ‘come up to my flat and have a coffee before you go. Now, Fred, what can I get you on this foul evening?’

‘You know what I want,’ he said, loud enough to draw
everyone
’s attention to his pelvic thrusting movements. ‘What I always want, of course.’

‘Didn’t your mother teach you anything?’ I asked tartly. ‘
I want doesn’t get
, remember.’ But I had to sound as if I were
joking
: landladies aren’t supposed to tell their customers to go and take a running jump. I waited till Nick was preoccupied counting out change, and dropped my voice. ‘Mind you don’t try anything on with Lindi or young Lucy, Fred.’

‘Oh, they don’t worry about that!’

‘But I do. In Lucy’s case I’m
in loco parentis
and I owe them both an employer’s duty of care. A joke’s a joke, but you touch up either of them and you’ll answer to me. Your usual?’ I added, back at normal volume. ‘Now, I don’t think you’ve met our
newcomer
, Mr Thomas. He’s down here working in Taunton as a civil servant – but you mustn’t hold that against him!’

There: cue for a lot of jokes about things in triplicate and the rest of the rubbish. And a chance for me to back out gracefully. ‘Beans, was it, Mr Thomas, or that salad?’

‘So Reg Bulcombe didn’t offer you a lift back, then?’

Nick looked round my living room as if he’d arrived in heaven, as well he might, after that tip of a mobile home. I followed his eyes. The genuine beams, the colour-washed walls hung with small but good paintings, the oak furniture polished to a glow with elbow-grease and wax. The floorboards were wide, with cracks between them that would swallow pound coins without noticing, and mostly covered with the best rugs I could afford. Yes, it looked good. What was the point of having money if you didn’t use it? Only I knew how much money was left – but I had a lot of receipts, all giving proper provenance. If the receipts showed a good deal less than I’d actually paid, that suited me and the dealers, who’d never objected yet to a little cash in hand.

‘No.’ He looked at me seriously. ‘Did you expect him to?’

‘Don’t see why not. You could take it turn and turn about, drinking and driving.’

‘Makes sense. But I didn’t come from the campsite.’ He was about to add something but seemed to think better of it. After a false start, he continued, ‘They’re not exactly night howlers, are they? Pooping their party at nine-thirty!’

‘Their cows prefer to be milked at five-thirty,’ I said.

‘Of course. Not a lot of working farmers in Brum. You’ve got this looking lovely. Will you be doing the same with the
downstairs
?’

‘If I have my way I will. And I’ve got planning permission.’

‘From the authorities, but not the locals.’ He wasn’t going to hand out advice to me the way he had to Sue Clayton, was he?

‘I didn’t ask the locals. The amount they bring in wouldn’t keep a mouse in cheese for a week. They’ll be all right anyway. Provided a bit of fresh paint doesn’t kill them. You’ve not been out back yet?’

He snorted. ‘I’d rather —’

‘— piss in a hedge than use the privy. I don’t blame you. I hose it and I bleach it and I hose it some more, but it still stinks. Ordure of ages. So it’s coming down. The temporary
replacement
’s out there. See.’ I pulled back the curtain and pointed at a couple of Portaloos. ‘My bathroom’s across the corridor if you want it. I’ll make the coffee.’

‘Would you mind,’ he said awkward as a kid, ‘if I passed on the coffee. Water. I’d love a glass of water.’

‘Whisky in it?’

‘When the tablets have worked properly. But if you –’

‘I’ll stick to coffee, thanks.’ But on reflection I joined him in water. Ty Nant. I’d bought it for its sexy bottles. The glasses were elegant, too – I was buying different styles here and there to
consider
for the restaurant.

Goodness knows why I was going to so much trouble for the man who’d sent down my Tony. To prove I could, I suppose. No, it wasn’t a matter of gracious forgiveness. It was to prove I
wasn
’t just the widow of an ex-con who preferred to live on the cheap on a council estate in Brum’s Bartley Green. We could have afforded somewhere nice – we had a lovely apartment in Spain – but Tony was obsessive about what he called his roots. Though why he could have for one moment thought his roots were in Bartley Green when in real life his folk came from Milan to run a chippie, no one, not even himself, could have said. It was a
mistake
, of course. If we’d bought the sort of house I’d wanted, just down the road in an altogether nicer suburb called Harborne, the way property values had risen I could have been a millionaire by now.

‘Sit yourself down, copper, and tell me about this cat,’ I said, curling up in my favourite chair.

‘Cat?’

‘The one you wouldn’t let Reg Bulcombe pop in a bin.’

‘It was a paper bin! A clinical waste bin, I’d have shoved it in there without blinking. But I don’t know that I’d want bits of dead moggie in my morning paper. Seriously, it could have
contaminated
a whole batch.’

‘So what did you do with it? I take it all your garden tools are in store somewhere. Unless you planned to go prospecting in them thar hills.’

He got up and pulled the curtain again. It had stopped raining. The village doesn’t run to streetlights, so even though just a few stars shone between the hurtling clouds, you could see the loom of Exmoor in the middle distance.

‘Another reason for going home early,’ I said. ‘You’re only a couple of miles out of the village. Some of these men have front drives that long. And a five mile drive to get to them. They’ve got their own private worlds. Some of them are literally monarchs of all they can survey from their front step. Tough lives they lead, some of them. Most of them. And they can’t afford more than the pint they nurse all night.’

‘But you’re not prepared to subsidise them.’ Question or
accusation
?

‘Hang on. They’ll get a better snug than the one they’ve got now. You’re not telling me there’s any comfort in those settles or in those awful patio chairs! And just before you say anything about it, I’ve made sure they’ll have another authentic snug. I’ve bought the contents of another pub further up the valley. Bought up as a grockle’s holiday home, if you’re interested. Chic
restaurant
I may be opening, but I’ll make damned sure the locals have somewhere to swill.’

‘All right, all right. Sorry. I was out of order there. Right out of order.’

‘Yes. You were trying not to talk about the dead cat.’

He stared at his glass and took a swig. His face convulsed. And he started to hiccup. I’d have laughed, but they were great,
racking
hiccups, and the way he grabbed his stomach suggested he was in a great deal of pain.

‘Stand up. Stand up and walk around!’

Gradually the hiccups subsided.

I whisked away the Ty Nant. ‘You’d do better with still than sparkling, maybe. I bet champagne’s a killer, too.’

He nodded. ‘Thanks.’

‘And the dead cat?’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake –’

‘No swearing in my pub, Mr Thomas, thank you,’ I said, prim as I could. But meaning it, too. And determined to get to the
bottom
of his story. ‘You might as well tell me your version: there’ll be at least eight swirling round the village tomorrow.’

He’d have won an Oscar for his sigh. ‘I found a dead cat by my caravan. I had to dispose of it.’

‘You didn’t feel like shoving it under a hedge and letting Mother Nature dispose of it.’

He pulled a face, almost as if he was ashamed of his sensitivity. ‘Someone’s pet. The least I could do.’

‘Might equally have been feral.’

‘That’s what Sue Clayton said.’

‘Sue? How did she get involved?’

‘She happened to drive past as I was dealing with it.’

Happened
, eh? Like hell she
happened
. The waste bins were near the road, sure, but you had to pull on to the camp reception car park to see them.

‘She had a spade and we buried it. End of story.’

Except it wasn’t. I could see he was holding something back. ‘I’m surprised it didn’t get dragged away by foxes during the day. They wouldn’t know you were planning a full-scale funeral for it.’