Chef Maurice and a Spot of Truffle (Chef Maurice Mysteries Book 1) (3 page)

The head chef stared into the distance for a moment, then shook his head.

“
Bon
,” he said, slapping the table. “Enough of talk, today we make a terrine of pork with the spiced Bramley apple chutney—Patrick, you know the recipe—and Alf, potatoes and the usual
mélange
of vegetables for the ox cheek stew. We will put it on tonight’s menu.
Allez-y!
”

He picked up the rest of the truffle, wrapped it carefully in his handkerchief and pocketed it.

“Now, I must go see a man about a dog.”

Patrick tilted his head to one side. There was something about the smell still lingering in the air, and the way his boss had said it . . .

“Not a pig, chef?”

Chef Maurice gave him a long look. “
Non
. A dog, Patrick. Definitely a dog.”

* * *

PC Lucy Gavistone surveyed the crime scene with a grim look on her face. She was hoping this gave her a look of stern authority, something she felt she sorely lacked in her dealings with the residents of Beakley.

That was the problem with policing in a small village. It wasn’t that the residents of Beakley didn’t respect the law; they had great respect for it, and therefore liked to turn up en masse to make sure it got done properly.

Hence the ragtag audience currently following her as she made her way round Ollie Meadows’ cottage. Okay, she could deal with Arthur Wordington-Smythe, who lived up the top of the village and had been the one to report last night’s break-in. Unfortunately he hadn’t seen much, just an intruder dressed in dark clothes, tall and thin, most likely male.

This ruled out the possibility of the intruder having been one of her other two spectators.

She wasn’t too sure why Chef Maurice, who ran Le Cochon Rouge up at the top of Beakley, was also here. He’d dropped by—as if dropping by a police investigation was a normal morning activity—wanting to speak to Arthur about Arthur’s dog, or something along those lines, then had been distracted by the mess in Ollie’s kitchen.

She’d have turfed him out if she could, on the grounds of obstructing the course of justice in general, and that of PC Lucy in particular, but that would have meant also getting rid of old Mrs Eldridge from next door, who was immovable to the crowbars of unsubtle hints and pointed suggestions.

Mrs Eldridge was currently rummaging through the drawers in Ollie’s desk, “looking for those clue things,” as she put it. PC Lucy felt the need to point out that burglars hardly left their calling cards when they made their rounds.

Unfortunately, burglars were also meant to take things, and this was the second time someone had been here at Ollie’s, apparently to do nothing more than stroll around and perhaps make themselves a cup of tea. This vexed her. This wasn’t how things were meant to go.

“If only I’d been here last night,” sighed Mrs Eldridge. “Of all the nights to go over to Ethel’s—her back’s playing up again, poor dear—when I could have been here, apprehending criminals and whatnot. Makes you question fate, it does . . . ”

No, kicking Mrs Eldridge out at this point would only cause an almighty fuss; plus manhandling members of the public, especially those old enough to be your granny, was generally frowned upon in the force.

“Hmm, now this is rather odd,” said Arthur, who was also standing by Ollie’s desk. Like much of the rest of the house, it was covered in bits of dried leaves and twigs and was sticky to the touch.

“What’s odd?” She followed Arthur’s gaze to the large corkboard above the desk. It was bare, apart from a wide rectangular patch of lighter-coloured cork where something had been pinned up.

And torn down. Recently, too.

The four remaining pins each held a corner scrap of paper, grubby and curled at the edges. The many holes in each piece suggested that whatever had been pinned there had been taken down and put back up with some regularity.

She carefully removed the pin from the yellowed scrap nearest to her.

“ . . . Civil Parish of Farnl . . . 1957 . . . ” she read.

“There was a map there,” volunteered Mrs Eldridge. “One of those maps with geography on it, fields and woods and things. It was old, too. Told Ollie he shouldn’t be drawing on a nice old map like that.”

“Do you think it was valuable?” said Arthur to PC Lucy.

“Perhaps. Though Ollie doesn’t strike me as the map-collecting type.” PC Lucy dropped the scrap, along with the other three corners, into a plastic bag and sealed it.

“Was the map here after the first break-in?” asked Arthur.

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs Eldridge, before PC Lucy could reply. “I’d have noticed a thing like that, I would.”

“Plus, Ollie didn’t report anything missing. And I’m pretty sure he’d have noticed this”—PC Lucy waved at the bright empty rectangle of cork—“if it hadn’t been there then.”

There was a loud
thunk
from inside the kitchen, followed by swearing and the sound of several objects thumping and rolling to the ground.

When PC Lucy got there, Chef Maurice was shuffling around on his knees, picking up grubby-looking potatoes and stuffing them into a sack.

“I told you, Mr Manchot, that it is imperative that you do not remove any items from a crime scene!” She looked at the sack. “And they’re just potatoes, for goodness’ sake. Surely you have bags of them up at the restaurant.”

Was it her imagination, or did Chef Maurice and Arthur exchange an odd look at that point?

“So put them back where you found them, and if you’re going to be here, at least stick with the rest of us.”

Chef Maurice reluctantly opened the fridge and placed the sack inside, muttering something unflattering about policemen and their lack of appreciation for cuisine that wasn’t round and filled with jam.

PC Lucy headed upstairs, where a quick tour produced a vignette of life as the common-variety bachelor, all piles of unwashed socks and rumpled linen, though a half-used tube of lipstick and some eyeshadow in the bathroom cupboard suggested that Ollie did manage the occasional bout of female company. In fact, word round the village was that the forager was something of a ladies’ man, though so far not a single lady (unattached or otherwise) had been willing to come forward to corroborate this statement.

Chef Maurice tutted at the state of the youth today, while Mrs Eldridge used her walking cane to examine a particularly large pile of laundry.

“You never know who might be hiding in there,” she explained.

In the bedroom, unaired and musty, with overtones of muddy boots, PC Lucy gave the room a brisk once-over while her audience stood at the door, offering a range of helpful suggestions, which she dutifully ignored.

At the back of the wardrobe, she discovered Ollie’s idea of sound monetary practice: a brown envelope stuffed with just over two thousand pounds in small notes. Not bad for a man constantly complaining about being on the brink of financial ruin. Some of the clothes hanging above looked suspiciously new too.

She hunkered down near the bed and had a brief look under—nothing but dust bunnies and an old empty suitcase—then started picking through the litter bin.

“Ooo, I was just going to suggest that,” said Mrs Eldridge.

Bingo. The first crumpled note bore a message in neat bold capitals. The spectators crowded into the room.

“‘Keep away from things that don’t belong to you. Or else’,” read Arthur over her shoulder. “Charming.”

Mrs Eldridge was now poking her cane into Ollie’s wardrobe, while Chef Maurice settled himself into the old armchair in the corner.

“There’s another.” PC Lucy smoothed out the second piece of paper. The writing was thinner, more scrawled, but the message no less threatening.

HAVE COME TO COLLECT MY LOAN. DON’T GIVE ME ANY MORE LIES IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU.

“Do you reckon they’re from the same person?” asked Arthur.

“I don’t know. It’s not the same handwriting, or at least someone’s tried to make it look that way. But don’t worry, I’ll get to the bottom of it,” said PC Lucy, straightening up. She gave the room another sweeping gaze, pondering her next move.

Things weren’t looking so good for Ollie. She might have believed he’d done a runner, probably from someone he owed money to, if it wasn’t for the big wodge of cash he’d left in his wardrobe. But if he hadn’t taken off of his own accord . . .

“Okay, I think that’s that. I’ll take these notes down to the station. Mrs Eldridge, I’ll need a statement from you about the last time you saw Mr Meadows.”

She ushered Mrs Eldridge down to the living room, while taking a moment to head off Chef Maurice, who was trying to sneak into the kitchen again.

“Have a good morning, gentlemen,” she said, as she led him and Arthur firmly out the back door. “Oh, and try not to tell the whole of Beakley about what you saw today, okay? The Cowton and Beakley Constabulary are more than capable of finding Mr Meadows. If he is, in fact, missing.”

It was unfortunate that Ollie wasn’t particularly popular down at the station, what with all the trouble he caused when he periodically got caught foraging on private land. Reporting him missing after a few days would probably cause looks of relief rather than consternation.

She thought about the two notes now in her pocket. Despite what she’d just told Arthur and Chef Maurice, she had her doubts as to whether the police would be able to find Ollie—especially if someone, given the content of those notes, didn’t want him to be found.

She walked back into the cottage, a sudden chill running down her back.

Back at the Wordington-Smythe house, Arthur filled the kettle and turned on the stove. “You really should have told the police about the truffles.”

“I did. I showed them to her,” said Chef Maurice, inspecting the contents of the biscuit tin and selecting a home-made jammy dodger. “If she thinks they are potatoes, then what is there for me to do?” He gave an expansive shrug.

“Well, for a start, you could have told her that there are thousands of pounds’ worth of white truffles sitting in the fridge of a property that’s now been burgled twice in the last four days.”

“Bah,” said Chef Maurice, waving his biscuit. “If the thief did not find them, he did not want to find them. And we know it is for the map that he came,
non
? You said that yourself.”

Arthur poured them each a cup of Earl Grey tea, which Chef Maurice accepted with a little sniff. After several decades in the country, he’d finally given in to the thoroughly British enjoyment of a ‘nice cuppa’, though he still insisted on his mandatory three sugar cubes.

“I
said
the map is definitely an item of interest. But whoever it was might have been after the truffles too.”

“Then why do they not take them?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Arthur, dunking a biscuit in his tea. “Maybe he was disturbed by the screaming Frenchman trapped under a solid plank of oak.”

“I did not scream,” said Chef Maurice, calmly picking out a second jammy dodger. “And it was not my fault. It was he who pushed the table on me.”

Arthur drummed his fingers on the table. “I still don’t understand this map business. If it was in any way valuable, why rip it off the wall like that? The house was empty. He could have taken out the pins and rolled it up, not grabbed it like a child in a playpen.”

“Perhaps not all thieves are so exact as you,
mon ami
.”

“So it appears.”

There was a grunt from beneath the kitchen table. Arthur retrieved a bone-shaped biscuit from the second, much larger tin and tossed it under the table. There was a slobbering gulp followed by a happy rumble.

“So what did you want to borrow Horace for, anyway?”

“Aha,” said Chef Maurice, waggling his eyebrows. He fished around in his pocket until he found the handkerchief, which he unwrapped with care. “Smell this.”

Arthur took a long deep breath. “Magnificent,” he murmured. “Alba, isn’t it?” He picked up the truffle and studied the cut surface.

“That is exactly what I ponder. They say the
arôme
of a truffle comes not just from the variety, but from the tree itself that it grows with. Many years ago, I have been to Alba, seen the trees, eaten the truffles—”

“Amazed there’s any left, then.”

“—and though this truffle is similar, my nose smells something different. A little difference, that is true, but there is something there. This truffle,
mon ami
, it smells of the
English
woods.”

Arthur gave the truffle another sniff. “I thought no one’s been able to cultivate white Alba truffles anywhere, let alone here in England. I’m certain I’d have heard if any had been found growing in these parts.”

“But would you? Those who deal in truffles, they have very closed lips. These truffles, they may be closer than we think.”

Arthur paused, then slapped both hands on the table. “The map! Of course! Maurice, suppose Ollie actually found those truffles near here, and he marked his patch on that map. Mrs Eldridge said something about him drawing all over it. Just think—”

“I already have. And I have come to the same thought. These truffles, there is a chance they come not from Italy, but from much nearer here. But without a map, we must find them by ourselves.
Donc
, the need for your
chien
.”

Horace lifted his head and gave them both a sleepy-eyed look.

“You think Horace here can sniff out truffles?”

“With the necessary training. Which we must do fast. Do not forget, if the map shows the way to the truffles, we are not the only ones looking. And the other person, they now have the advantage of directions.”

He waved the truffle under Horace’s big wet nose. “Horace,
allons-y
! We go to find truffles!”

Horace blinked, rolled his head to the other side of his basket, and started to snore.

* * *

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Arthur wished that this principle also applied to Chef Maurice, every time he came up with another of his hare-brained schemes.

Horace had so far been unmoved by the scented handkerchief shoved under his nose. So, with great reluctance, Chef Maurice had carved off a sliver of truffle, placed it on a dog biscuit, and offered up this canine canapé for Horace’s inspection.