A Twist of the Knife (2 page)

The woman was staring oddly at her, as if she was trying to see her but no longer could. Susan felt swirling cold air engulf her. She turned, bewildered. Where the hell was Tom? The estate agent? Then she saw that the ‘For Sale’ board had gone from the garden.

She was alone, on the step, facing the closed front door.

Number 12. She stared at the white letters, the brass knocker. Then, as if drawn by that same damned magnet, she felt herself being pulled forward, felt herself gliding in through the solid oak of the door.

I’ll wake up in a moment
, she thought.
I’ll wake up. I always do.
Except she knew, this time, something had changed.

For 353 days a year – and 354 in a leap year – N.N. Kettering put the fear of God into restaurants around the world. On those dozen remaining days, something put the fear of God into him.

A number.

Just a simple, two-digit number.

Thirteen.

Just the sight of it was enough to make beads of sweat appear along his brow. And he had a vast expanse of brow, providing ample accommodation for whole colonies of sweat beads.

Nigel Norbert Kettering hated both his first names. When he had first started out as a restaurant critic, for a small English provincial newspaper, he decided a degree of anonymity was a good thing – and it gave him the opportunity to lose those two bloody names. For the past two decades, N.N. Kettering had been, undisputedly, the most influential restaurant critic in England, and in more recent years, his eagle eye and sharp palate, and even sharper writing, had made him a global scourge.

Kettering analysed everything. Every single aspect of any meal he ate. From the table at which he sat, to the quality of the paper on which the menu was printed, to the glasses, the tablecloth, the plates, the balance of the menu, the quality and speed of the service, and, far above all else, the food.

This attention to every detail, even to the quality of the toothpicks, had taken him to the top of his profession – and the top of the list of people many of the world’s most renowned chefs would have liked to see dead.

His daily online postings, the
Kettering Report,
could make or break a new restaurant within days, or dramatically enhance the reputation of an established one. No amount of Michelin stars or Gault Millau points came close to the rosette rankings of the
Kettering Report
. Of course, he had his favourites. Before it closed, El Bulli in Spain regularly received a maximum score of ten. So did The French Laundry in Yountville, California, and The Fat Duck in Bray, Vue du Monde in Melbourne, and Rosemary in Sardinia, and the Luk Yu Tea House in Hong Kong for its dim sum.

But there were legions of other establishments, hailed as temples of gastronomy by some of the greatest newspaper critics, which received from Kettering a scornful three, or a withering two. One of the greatest French chefs committed suicide after Kettering downgraded his rating from a nine to a devastating one in the space of a single year.

In the current harsh economic climes, few people would risk the expense and disappointment of a mediocre night out without first checking the latest opinion online at Kettering’s site.

N.N.’s appearance at a restaurant was enough to render the most seasoned maître d’ and the most assured sommelier quivering jellies, and when whispered word of his presence reached the kitchen, even the most prima donna of chefs turned into a babbling, begging wreck.

Some years ago, his identity had been revealed by a tabloid newspaper. Now, he no longer bothered to book his tables under an assumed name. Every restaurateur in the world had N.N. Kettering’s photograph pinned discreetly to an office wall. Besides, the man was hard to miss. He was tall and lean, despite all the food and wine he packed away, with an elongated neck, on top of which perched his egg-shaped head, his eyes distorted behind round, bottle-lens glasses and his short black hair brushed forward, rather like a modern take on a monk’s tonsure, the fringe barely reaching the start of his high, sloping brow.

He was always dressed the same – in a dark, immaculately tailored suit, white shirt and red or crimson tie – and sat ramrod straight, with perfect posture, as if he had a ruler jammed down the back of his jacket. One great London restaurant owner had described the sight of his head rising above the menu he was reading, accompanied by his beady glare, as being like staring into the periscope of a submarine. Fortunately for this man’s establishment, N.N. Kettering never got to hear the remark.

Of course, Kettering’s tastes became more and more esoteric. One year, the appearance of snail porridge on the menu of The Fat Duck caused him to devote two whole pages of lyrical praise to Heston Blumenthal’s skills as a chef. The following year, he devoted an unprecedented three-page review to a single dish at El Bulli – chef Ferran Adrià’s creation of oysters with raw marinated rabbit brains.

And his demands for greatness and excellence became ever higher.

Almost uniquely among restaurant critics, N.N. Kettering employed no assistants. He ate lunch and dinner out seven days and nights a week. Sometimes breakfast, too. Food was his life. He had never married, never even had a girlfriend – or boyfriend. And he always paid for every meal in crisp, new banknotes. He never accepted anything free.

He never tipped.

He felt fulfilled. As if he had been put on this planet to be the custodian of its restaurants’ standards. He was married to tomorrow’s restaurants. His reviews were his babies.

Once, early in his career, in a rare interview, he declared, ‘The best number for dinner is two – myself and a good waiter.’

But not on the thirteenth of any month.

On the thirteenth of any month, it all changed.

From as far back in his life as he could remember, N.N. Kettering had been a triskaidekaphobic. He had a morbid fear of the number thirteen. And the worst possible date was a Friday the thirteenth. Because not only was he a triskaidekaphobe, he was also a paraskavedekatriaphobe.

Someone who has a total fear of the date Friday the thirteenth.

He knew that the number thirteen was out to get him. It was around him all the time. It was there on car number plates. It lurked in the number of grains in the breakfast cereals he ate. In the number of berries he added to his cereal. In the number of mouthfuls he took to eat his breakfast, and his lunch, and his dinner. In the number of steps he would take from a taxi to the restaurant. In the number of steps from the front door of the restaurant to his table.

He would never sit at table thirteen. He would never choose the thirteenth item on a menu. Nor on a wine list. Nor anything that was a multiple of thirteen.

Whenever it was a Friday the thirteenth, he would prepare himself in advance. All kinds of danger lurked out in the world. So it was best not to risk it. Stay home. But home was dangerous, too. He had read that the place where you were most likely to die was in your own home, especially your kitchen. So, on every Friday the thirteenth he stayed in bed, in his small flat in London’s Notting Hill. The night before, he prepared everything he would need up until midnight the following day. He would spend the time reading, and watching television – mostly food programmes – and visiting, anonymously of course, a number of networking sites and online discussion groups about restaurants.

So it happened, on one such Friday the thirteenth, a cold February day when he was logged on while in bed, that he found by chance a new discussion group on the Web, made up of some of the world’s greatest chefs. He had eaten in every one of their restaurants – a few of them he had praised, but the majority he had trashed. He watched the discussion in fascination, as they were talking about a restaurant he had never heard of. And not just talking about it. Raving about it.

This demented him! He knew every significant restaurant in the world, surely? He had eaten at all the ones that had any kind of a reputation. Yet here, suddenly, was a reference not just to a restaurant, but to one these particular chefs agreed unanimously was the very best in the world. No restaurant sourced better cuts of meat. No restaurant handled an entire range of offal with such inventiveness. He became hungry just reading the descriptions of the sauces, the tenderness of every bite, the juxtaposition of flavours. He was salivating.

And the bastards did not give away the name.

Frustrated, he posted, under his Internet pseudonym,
ChefStalker
, the words: ‘Hi everyone, what’s the name of this place? I thought I knew every restaurant worth eating in on the planet!’

To his dismay, the discussion ended abruptly, without any reply.

He realized there was only one thing for it. He would email some of the chefs, selecting only the ones he had praised, revealing who he was, knowing that was almost bound to lead to an invitation.

To his joy, he was right. Two days later he received an email, although, curiously, anonymous:

He stared at the email.
Friday 13 May.

He had never in his life, since leaving school, left the safety of his home on a Friday the thirteenth.

His first inclination was to reply, explaining that he was grateful for the invitation, but that he could not accept.

But then he thought again about all the words of praise he had read. Many of them from chefs who, he might have thought, had experienced every taste sensation there was to taste, but who raved unanimously.

God, how he loved the mystique of restaurants. He remembered so vividly the first restaurant he had ever entered, when he was just ten years old; it was called Verry’s. He was with his parents, in busy, noisy Regent Street in London. The door had swung shut behind them, and they were in a new world, dimly lit, oak-panelled, with a quiet hum of chatter, tantalizing smells of garlic and grilling meat and fish. A man in a tuxedo, with an Italian accent, had greeted his parents as if they were his long-lost friends, then had shaken his hand and led them courteously along a line of red leather banquettes to their table.

Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Crystal glasses were laid out on a crisp, white tablecloth. A silver dish lay on it, filled with frilly curls of butter. Another silver dish appeared, stacked with Melba toast. Then he was presented with a burgundy leather-covered menu, filled with delights. A few minutes later, a green leather-bound wine list, as thick as a bible, was placed in his father’s hand.

Waiters swept past with silver trays laden with food. Others hovered around their table. It was like being on a new planet, in a new universe. From that moment onwards, Nigel Norbert Kettering knew that he wanted to spend his life in this world. But, even at ten, he noticed things that were not right. Little imperfections. The waiter forgot a side order of haricot verts, and had to be reminded twice. His father muttered that his steak was cooked more than he had asked, but seemed too in awe of the waiters to complain. So, to his father’s embarrassment and his mother’s astonishment, little Nigel stuck up his arm and summoned the waiter. Five minutes later the offending steak was duly replaced.

That was his start. And now, aged forty-four, he had succeeded beyond all his dreams. And there were still some restaurants he entered that held that same, magical promise of Verry’s all those years ago.

And now there was one that sounded as if it would top them all. But his invitation was for a Friday the thirteenth. He emailed back, asking what other date options there were. Within minutes he received a reply: ‘None. We assume you are declining. Thank you.’

Almost as fast as his fingers could move, panic causing beads of sweat to appear all over that brow of his, he typed back: ‘No, not declining. Thank you. I’m accepting.’

*

The next three months passed slowly, feeling more like three years. Everything in every restaurant irritated him. Gormless, moronic waiters sanctimoniously reciting the day’s specials as if they had personally line-caught or wood-roasted the damned fish or meat with their bare hands. Eating starters of bi-valves tortured to death in unpleasantly flavoured oils, or pasta resembling origami creations made during handiwork classes at special needs institutions.

He bankrupted a dozen Michelin-starred establishments and closed four restaurants before they had even opened their doors to the great unwashed.

But finally the great day arrived.

And just how great was it?

He stared at the email printout from the night before, in which he had finally been sent the address. It was the place that just about every ranked chef considered to be the finest eating establishment in the world. It was Number 13, in West Audley Street in London’s Mayfair.

Number sodding 13.

He came close to telling them to take a hike. To stick their stupid invitation up the place where the sun doesn’t shine.

Thirteen.

The number he had spent his entire life trying to avoid. And now he was in a taxi, cruising down Park Lane, getting ever closer.

Salivating.

Thinking about all those descriptions of grilling meat and offal in sauce combinations he had never dreamed possible.

Looking forward to trashing it! To making fools of all those great chefs. To destroying fifty reputations in one single posting on his site later that evening.

He was less than amused when the cabbie read the meter and turned to him. ‘That’ll be thirteen quid, gov.’

N.N. Kettering counted out the money exactly. And took pleasure in the driver’s scowl when he asked for his receipt, with no tip. No arsehole driver who mentioned the number thirteen was going to get a tip from him.