Chef Maurice and the Bunny-Boiler Bake Off (Chef Maurice Cotswold Mysteries Book 3) (12 page)

But still, there was no harm in making some gentle enquiries . . .

They paid the bill and headed for Chef Maurice’s car, stopping along the way for Arthur to pick up a jumbo sausage roll and a cream bun from the local bakery.

“If Meryl asks, you did not see me eat this,” he said, waving the bun.

Thus provisioned, they motored out into the Oxfordshire countryside, windows down, leaving a trail of flaky pastry in their wake.

As one of the county’s few fine dining establishments of note, L’Epicure boasted a reservations diary that filled up several months in advance, leaving the area’s more unorganised husbands in a panicked flurry every time Valentine’s Day and various anniversaries came unexpectedly around. It was easier, they complained, to become Prime Minister than it was to get a Saturday evening table at short notice at Chef Bonvivant’s restaurant.

However, as impenetrable as the dining room of L’Epicure might have been, when it came to gaining access to its kitchens, this was a simple matter of walking around the back of the building until one came across a likely-looking set of swinging doors. The handful of lanky chefs and off-duty waiters hanging around, puffing on dog-eared cigarettes, was also a handy giveaway.

Chef Maurice and Arthur received a few questioning glances as they ambled through the sprawling kitchens, but all of Bonvivant’s chefs and waitstaff had been trained to recognise the country’s key food critics—in fact, their pictures, cut out from various magazines, were enlarged and tacked above the main door leading to the dining rooms—and so assumed that if the restaurant critic from the
England Observer
was wandering around in their midst, then he was clearly meant to be there and it would be best not to disturb him. In fact, he was probably being shown around by that PR chap with the huge moustache.

Also, the majority of the kitchen crew were currently oblivious to their surroundings, completely engrossed as they were with their peas.

They all stood around a large shiny prep station, heads bowed over two stainless steel bowls each, one containing a big heap of dried black-eyed peas. The Herculean task at hand appeared to be to move the pile of peas from one bowl to the other, using a set of very long, very pointy chopsticks.

There were various
pings
as escaping peas popped from tense chopstick grips, accompanied by the kind of heated swearing usually associated with the worst type of sailors.

“Maurice, Arthur! What a pleasant surprise to see you here. You have come to view my new training program?”

Chef Bonvivant, spotless as always in chef’s whites and a tall white toque, appeared through the swinging dining room doors, trailed by his ever-present assistant.

“Looks like you’ve quite revolutionised the transport of dried peas,” commented Arthur.

“Ha ha. No, not exactly. I spent the whole of last month in Japan, visiting the kitchens of some of their most prestigious establishments. Did you know, some of them don’t even allow reservations from the public—to eat there, one must be introduced by another diner. If only one might introduce such a concept in this country,” he added with a sigh, perhaps at the thought of his own woefully mixed bag of clientele.

“And the dishes they create,” he continued, “I have never seen such exquisiteness. And everything done with chopsticks! So much more delicate, finessed, when you plate a dish without the need for these.” He wiggled his own elegantly tapered fingers.

“So how do you find the using of the chopsticks,
jeune homme
?” said Chef Maurice to a young man with a ginger crew cut who was bent over his bowl, his tongue poked out in ferocious concentration.

The young chef hesitated, with a quick look over at Chef Bonvivant’s face. “Not as fast as I’d like to be, sir, but I’m practicing lots.”

“I keep finding peas all over my station,” complained a voice down the end of the bench.

“Plus it’s slower than watching a sloth take a sh—” began yet another, before Chef Bonvivant hurriedly cut in.

“Yes, we’re still in the adoption phase, of course, but I am certain we will get there with the necessary application and mindset,” he said, glaring at the third chef. “So do I take it that you have come to visit to watch my staff count beans? Or perhaps you are looking for a new sous-chef.” He gave Chef Maurice a brief, sharklike smile.

“You are wrong in both ways. We come to speak to you about Mademoiselle Miranda Matthews,” said Chef Maurice, making a mental note to berate Dorothy for her gossipy tendencies.

“Oh? Don’t tell me, Maurice, that you’re getting yourself involved in yet another murder investigation? Too much time out from the kitchen will surely be bad for your staff’s morale.”

“I heard Patrick say they get more done without him, actually,” chipped in Arthur.

“Hah, the mutterings of a traitor,” said Chef Maurice darkly. He turned back to Chef Bonvivant. “You were there at the Fayre,
n’est-ce pas
, when the attack happened?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“Mademoiselle Miranda and Madame Gifford were intending to open a cookery school. A site which, I hear, you are most interested in, too.”

“My team have put in a bid for the Cowton site, yes,” said Chef Bonvivant, leaning over and using a pair of chopsticks to pick up the peas that had escaped across the table, in a series of deft little movements. All around him, the pea-transportation efforts doubled at this sight.

“Ah, so you admit that the murder of Mademoiselle Miranda has been of benefit to you and your business.”

“I do not think so. I do not expect that the council would have granted those two the lease, no matter the circumstance. A TV chef and a school teacher? Much better to place the site in experienced hands such as ours. Anyway, from my point of view, the whole ordeal has probably been more trouble than it’s worth.”

“Ah,
oui
?”

“It might amuse you to know that, far from me having anything to do with that dreadful woman, it was
her
who came poking around here. I found her sneaking about in my kitchens a few weeks ago, using her feminine wiles on my staff.” He narrowed his eyes at the group around the table and a dozen young men blushed furiously. “I asked her what she was doing here, and she said she came to warn me. She dared to suggest something ‘unfortunate’ might happen if I did not drop the application. I told her I was sure she was used to getting her own way in the world of television cookery”—a sneer was here inserted—“but that the real world did not work quite like that. She left here in quite a temper.”

“
Oui
, she did not seem a woman very
charmante
, Mademoiselle Miranda.”

“In truth, I cannot claim enthusiasm at the thought of running two cookery school sites. It will necessitate the transfer of some of our teaching staff. But we have also been making enquiries into opening a bistro along the Cowton High Street too, so perhaps the two will be able to work in conjunction.”

“You’re branching out into Cowton?” said Arthur. “It’s a competitive market, I hear.”

“But lacking in French dining options, I believe. And given how well Maurice’s little place does, one suspects there is definitely room in the market for some growth.”

They took their leave soon after, at Arthur’s insistence, before Chef Maurice could do any damage to Chef Bonvivant with a well-placed pair of chopsticks.

“That man, he is
intolérable
,” fumed the chef, as they strolled back to the car through the restaurant’s carefully tended vegetable gardens. (“Humph, it is all for show,” he added. “He buys from the same vegetable producers as I do, I have seen his invoices.”)

“But, unfortunately, in possession of a rather good alibi. I had a quick word with one of his commis. He was at the scallop stand the whole of lunchtime on Saturday. No breaks.”

“Bah, then he instructed one of his kitchen staff—”

“What, to carry out murder? I don’t think employer loyalty stretches quite that far, at least not these days.”

“Humph. Very true. The loyalty, today, it is all gone,” said Chef Maurice, bristling at the thought of his so-easily-swayed sous-chef.

“Oh, come now, the chap’s got a hard choice to make. You can’t go making his decisions for him, you know.”

“Why is it that everyone tells me that?” grumbled Chef Maurice.

He reached into a pocket and pulled out his wristwatch. He was fairly certain that by now Patrick would have insisted on returning the ThermoMash. It was exactly the type of high-minded thing his sous-chef would do.

That said, Chef Maurice would not be entirely unhappy to see the restaurant’s bank balance return to a much more healthy figure. Especially with the annual Paris Cheese Fair just around the corner, which always made a serious dent in the yearly finances.

Just then, Arthur’s phone buzzed. It was Zara Brightwell, one of Meryl’s friends who ran a clothing boutique on the Cowton High Street, opposite The Spaghetti Tree.

“Hi Zara, you got my message? . . . Uh-huh . . . Uh-huh.” Arthur listened for a while longer, then hung up with assurances that he and Meryl would be delighted to come over to theirs for dinner next Saturday.

“She’s a terrible cook, but what can one do,” he said, tucking the phone away. “Anyway, it seems that Gallo did go back to his restaurant before lunchtime last Saturday, just like he said. And Maria apparently has had frozen shoulder for the last few years—can’t lift a tea tray, let alone a big piece of piping. That rather puts paid to this whole cookery school angle. So what’s our next move, old chap?”

“Hmm. You say we are finished with the idea of the cookery school, but it is possible that Madame Angie is mistaken. There may be others that still make a bid for the site.”

“Possible. But how do you propose we find them?”

“Simple,
mon ami
. We go, as they say, to the donkey’s mouth.”

“I think you mean horse, Maurice.”

“Ah,
oui
? That is interesting. One would think that a donkey is the one who talks the most.”

Mr Paul Whittaker, Deputy Mayor of Cowton, had the sort of face and bearing that called to mind a Thoroughbred racehorse. Arthur, who had met the man previously at a few official dinners, had described him as rather aquiline in feature, but Chef Maurice disagreed—there was nothing watery or wishy-washy, he argued, about the deputy mayor in the slightest. If anything, Paul Whittaker had a type of parchedness to his personality, and certainly his hands were dry as sandpaper as he shook their own and settled them into the two chairs across from his desk.

His was a small, narrow office, though fitted out with all the accoutrements of a much larger room. The walls were adorned with various black-and-white photographs of vintage sports cars, and above his desk hung an oil painting of a severe-looking gentleman with a distinctly horsey expression.

“My father,” said Mr Whittaker, noticing their glances. “He held office as Mayor of Cowton for eighteen years. And his father before him.” He nodded at the portrait on the far wall (which, given the size of the room, was not very far at all). “He himself held office for twenty-five years, the longest term held by any mayor in Cowton’s history.”

“How long has Mayor Gifford’s term been so far?” said Arthur.

“I believe it will be fifteen years this summer. But, sadly for us, it appears that national politics will be taking him away from the Town Hall, if the local elections go as expected. My apologies that he couldn’t see you today, by the way. He’s attending a farming conference in Cheltenham.” Mr Whittaker squared the pad of paper before him. “You said you had an urgent matter to discuss with him. Hopefully I can be of assistance instead?”

“
Oui
, we hope,” said Chef Maurice. “It concerns the cookery school site on the High Street.”

“Oh, yes. The site next to The Spaghetti Tree. But I’m afraid that applications are now closed.”

“Ah, but I do not wish to apply for the site.”

“Oh?”

“I simply wish to make enquiries as to the other applicants. It is a matter of much urgency, you see.”

“I see.” Mr Whittaker made a small note on his pad, reminding himself to have a few words with the receptionist about what constituted an urgent request for mayoral (or at least, deputy-mayoral) attention. “I’m afraid applications are of course a confidential matter, as you—”