Chef Maurice and the Bunny-Boiler Bake Off (Chef Maurice Cotswold Mysteries Book 3) (15 page)

“Ah, and there was no one who saw anything, then?”

“Not a soul. Well, except for Marcia Mendez, who’s been telling everyone she saw a black-caped man run across the lawn with a rose in his teeth. But she spent the whole of last term insisting she was engaged to a vampire. So she’s not exactly a reliable witness.”

They stopped outside a glass-panelled door labelled ‘
Salle de classe française
’. Inside, thirty heads were bent over thick textbooks, while a middle-aged lady with a pince-nez and red square heels stalked up and down the rows, declaiming in strident tones the proper conjugation of the verb ‘
dormir
(to sleep)’—while members of the back row appeared to be putting this knowledge to practical application.

“Is there much in the way of staff turnover here?” asked Arthur, as they continued on down the hallway.

“Not at all. We pride ourselves on one of the lowest staff turnovers in the country for a school of this size. Our headmistress, Miss Caruthers, for example, has been here for over forty years.”

“Ah,
oui.
She retires this year, is that correct?”

“Yes, that’s right,” replied Miss Everwright, though a strange look flitted across her face. “And then there’s Mr McNutty. He’s been the Head of Canteen for almost as long as Miss Caruthers has been here. He’ll tell you himself, but he’s got the best memory for dates and names I’ve ever come across. Remembers every pupil who’s ever eaten here. At least that’s what he claims.”

“Ah!” said Chef Maurice, throwing a look at Arthur. “I think we would be most interested in visiting the school dining room.”

Miss Everwright nodded. No doubt she had encountered a number of equally food-focused French parents in the past.

“Of course. Now might be a good time, in fact, before lunch break starts.” She pushed through another set of swinging doors. “Mr McNutty bakes all our bread on-site, and he’s won the county’s Best Dinner Lady five times in a row now.”

“Impressive,” said Arthur. He wondered idly what changes there had been in school catering fashions in the decades since his own days of frozen peas and semolina pudding. On stepping into the dining room, he was therefore pleased to see that, despite some interior designer’s best efforts with bright pine benches and abstract wall paintings, the answer was: very little.

Today’s blackboard announced such favourites as ploughman’s lunch, jam roly-poly, and toad-in-the-hole. (The latter was a particular bugbear of Chef Maurice’s, who had encountered grave difficulties in sourcing the necessary amphibians when he had first heard of this British favourite.)

They located Mr McNutty at the back of the kitchens, unloading a tray of steaming wholemeal rolls from a big commercial oven.

“I know who you are,” he said, halfway through Miss Everwright’s introduction. “You’s Mister Maurice, from the restaurant down in Beakley. Took the missus there once, but she had a nasty turn after the sight of all ’em little frogs’ legs. Not your fault, though. I told ’er I didn’t think
Grenouille
was a place in Switzerland, but sometimes there’s no talking to ’er once she’s made up ’er mind. So you got a little lass looking to come here, then?”

The story of the relocating niece was quickly rehashed.

“She was here at this weekend,” continued Chef Maurice, “and she tells me she most enjoyed the Beakley Spring Fayre. Did you have the chance to attend,
monsieur
?”

“’Fraid not. Kitchen runs all through the holidays. Got the staff to feed, plus a few of the lasses stick around, too far to go home. Some of ’em went over for the Fayre, though. Came back telling me they want a pig roast every Friday now,” he said with a grimace, unenthused at the idea of going the whole hog.

Chef Maurice cast a quick look over at Miss Everwright, who was staring speculatively at a tray of chocolate cookies. “You have heard the sad news of Mademoiselle Miranda Matthews, I am sure. Perhaps you remember her, from her days here at the school?”

“’Course I do. Never forget a face, not even when they change their hair and paint their eyes and all that stuff women do. I remember little Miranda all right. Her and Angela—that’s Mrs Gifford now, our cookery teacher, funny how these things turn out—those two, they’d always be hanging around ’ere, trying to snitch the pies fresh out the oven, and pestering me for my butter shortbread recipe. Always knew she’d end up doing good for ’erself, our Miranda,” he added with some pride.

“And her disposition? Was she a
jeune fille
who caused much trouble, played the tricks?”

“Oh no, I never had any trouble from ’er. Always Mister McNutty this, Mister McNutty that, ever so polite. Face of an angel, too, bless ’er. I did hear there was a few times those two got called up in front of the headmistress, sneaking around after hours when they shouldn’t ’ave been, stealing one of the other girls’ letters, something like that, but I just call that high spirits. No ’arm in them. At least, back in those days.”

“Ah, but later? You heard of trouble caused by Mademoiselle Miranda more recently?”

Mr McNutty stared at Chef Maurice. “You what? Nah, I’m talkin’ about Mrs Gifford. You should hear ’er go on now, all high and mighty about her vitamins, and minerals, and government guidelines. Sayin’ I should be using less suet in me clootie dumplings! Oh, they all think she’s a meek and mild one, but you should ’ave seen her face after I tried putting me famous deep-fried pork pies on the menu. Family recipe, that is. Never did me granny any harm.”

“It’s a wonder they’re all still so slim,” commented Arthur, as they headed out of the dining room, battling their way through the incoming tide of Fifth Formers.

“That’s what I thought too,” said Miss Everwright, “when I first got here, but actually, it’s making them eat that’s sometimes the problem. They can be surprisingly health-conscious. In fact, last term the older girls were petitioning for a salad and juice bar. I’m sure you can imagine what Mr McNutty said to that.”

The next stop was the Home Economics lab, where Angie, somewhat surprised to see her two co-investigators on her home turf, tentatively accepted Chef Maurice’s offer to conduct a flambéed apple crêpe demonstration for the class.

The girls, roused from the stupor of attempting to design ‘a better mousse’, sat up in their seats and eyed this large-moustached intruder with interest.

“Have you heard anything new about last Saturday?” asked Arthur, as he and Angie stood at the back of the room, watching Chef Maurice mix up a large bowl of batter.

A less thoughtful observer might have expected this to take place with a great deal of eggs flying and batter splattering, but they would have been wrong—chefs abhor the wasting of food, and Chef Maurice whisked away at his batter with all the care and attention of a motherly hen.

Thirty pairs of eyes watched in rapt attention.

“I haven’t heard much, no,” said Angie. “The police came round here, of course, but most of the girls were away, and the ones that weren’t were all down at the Fayre.”

“Miss Everwright says no one was seen cutting through the grounds that day.”

Angie nodded, watching uneasily as Chef Maurice poured a generous measure of Calvados into a big metal ladle. “It really wouldn’t make sense to come up through here. Not when whoever it was could have just popped back up to the Fayre and blended in with the rest of the crowd.”

There was a
poof
as the alcohol ignited, followed by a burst of applause as Chef Maurice tipped the flaming sauce over the crêpes and caramelised apples. Stools scraped as the class dashed forward, forks at the ready, to get a taste.

“Our work here, it is done,” said Chef Maurice, ambling over and handing Angie back her flower-patterned apron.

“Not much news from Angie, I’m afraid,” said Arthur, as they stepped out into the hallway, where he found himself counting the number of fire extinguishers hung on the walls nearby. “So where to next?”

“Ah, I think here is our answer.”

Miss Everwright was speed walking down the corridor in their direction.

“Miss Caruthers will see you now.”

“And so, into the dragon’s lair,” murmured Arthur.

“Oh!” She looked at him in some surprise. “So you’ve met her before?”

To label Miss Caruthers’ reign over the Lady Eleanor School for Girls as draconian would not be being entirely fair. Though possessing of a sharp tongue, she had never actually been seen to breathe fire, and though she might stalk the midnight corridors with soft shoes and an acute ear tuned for mischief, throwing windows open in the belief that fresh air promoted healthy growth, she seemed little inclined to jump up onto the sill and take to the night skies on leathery wings.

However, when it came to sleeping on a pile of gold, here Miss Caruthers’ critics were on potentially firmer ground. It was said that the headmistress of the Lady Eleanor School for Girls kept a shrewd eye on the global economy, and possessed a keen intuition when it came to the most opportune time to increase school fees—while, of course, still inducing in parents a feeling of overwhelming relief to have secured their daughter a place at one of England’s most respectable educational establishments.

“Do you really have a niece, Mr Manchot?” was Miss Caruthers’ first enquiry, after Miss Everwright had departed.

Chef Maurice contrived to look offended. “
Mais oui
, of course. I have many nieces and nephews.”

“I see.” Miss Caruthers lowered her glasses half an inch, as a hunter might cock his rifle, and peered severely at her two visitors sat opposite her. “I understand that the unfortunate events of last Saturday’s Fayre have Angela quite worked up into a tizzy, but I do not think it’s appropriate for you both to be leading her on in this ill-advised manner, believing yourselves capable of doing the job of our country’s own police force. And I certainly do not approve of you concocting relatives and wasting my staff’s time and energy.” She focused her gaze on Arthur. “Really, Mr Wordington-Smythe, I would have expected better of
you
.”

Arthur squirmed in his chair and tried to appear contrite, if only for the sake of his position on next year’s cake-tasting panel. As he attempted to avoid the headmistress’s glare, his eye was caught by a black-and-white photograph on Miss Caruthers’ desk showing three young girls, all in Lady Eleanor uniforms, standing before a tall sycamore tree. The youngest of the trio was staring directly at the camera with a familiar piercing gaze.

“Your family have a long history with the school, I see,” he said, by way of a conversational sidestep.

Miss Caruthers looked down at the photo, her face softening a fraction. “Yes, all three of us girls were sent here. Deirdre and I only overlapped a few years. She was already in the Sixth Form when I arrived. Caroline was in the year above me.”

The name seemed familiar to Arthur. There had been that Winter Jumble Sale down at the village hall, in aid of a leukaemia charity, and he had a vague memory of Miss Caruthers’ sister being mentioned.

“Forgive me, is she the one . . . who—”

“Yes, she passed away last year after a long battle with leukaemia. Though sometimes I have to object to that phrase—to employ the word ‘battle’ gives the suggestion that one has a choice in these matters.”

Arthur nodded solemnly, while Chef Maurice, annoyed at the derailment of the conversation at hand, cleared his throat.

“We promise to intrude no further on your school, Madame Caruthers. But while we sit here, perhaps you can tell us more of the character of Mademoiselle Miranda. We understand that she caused some small matters of trouble when she was a student here?”

“My staff clearly talk too much. But yes, she was the worst type of troublemaker, to my mind. And I say that as rather an authority on the subject, after teaching here for over four decades.”

“Ah, fights in the changing room, frogs in the water fountains, painting all the teachers’ cars bright yellow, that kind of thing?” said Arthur, who’d attended an all-boys establishment.

“I wish,” said Miss Caruthers. “Unfortunately, I think you’ll find that girls, Mr Wordington-Smythe, prefer a wholly more insidious form of troublemaking. And Miranda was quite the expert. The starting of nasty little rumours, the spread of gossip. Picking up some junior girl as her best friend one week, then spilling all her secrets the next. It causes quite a pernicious effect, to have that type of girl in the year. Though, of course, she wasn’t the first of that kind. Nor the last, for that matter.”

“And yet,
madame
, you let her continue her studies here?”

“The choice was outside my control. I was Head of Geography at the time. And she had Miss Furlong, my predecessor, completely wrapped around her little finger. And most of the staff, too.”

“Ah,
oui
, it is true that Monsieur McNutty speaks quite highly of her.”

“Indeed? I’m not surprised. He’s been harping on at me to allow him to put on a memorial menu in Miranda’s honour. I said it was quite out of the question. I will not have him blowtorching Smarties on these premises.”

“
Oui
, that would be most dangerous,” said Chef Maurice, who still smelled faintly of Calvados fumes.