The Food Detective (18 page)

‘We may want a DNA sample.’

‘The old gob swab? OK. But why?’ There was a bottle of wine within reach. I poured a couple of glasses and pushed one across to him.

Almost absentmindedly, he picked it up and drank.

‘Come on, Mr Evans: you want a swab to eliminate me or to put me in the frame. Which is it?’

Chapter Nineteen

I’d hardly fainted with surprise when Evans wriggled out of replying, and then, having sunk the wine far more quickly than it deserved, made his excuses and left. He took, I’m glad to say, his entire crew with him and left my yard in its original state. It was clear he’d rather I found somewhere else to store the motorbike, but finally, taking my point about an employer’s duty of care and the vulnerability of motorbikes, taped off a limited area for Robin’s use. I locked the door, but knew it’d take hardly more than a gentle push to open it.

‘Home, sweet home,’ I remarked to Robin as he strolled up, having taken just about the right amount of time on escort duty.

He heaved the bike into the shed, and, cocking an eye at me, produced a thick chain for its rear wheel, just as if he was parking in a public place. I nodded my approval.

‘She’s a nice kid, that Lucy,’ he said as he came back into the pub, closing the door behind him. ‘I take it you use all these locks?’

‘And the bolts,’ I agreed. ‘So long as you remember she is just a kid. Or could she be the Queen of Sheba and it wouldn’t matter a toss to you?’

‘Nothing like being direct, I suppose,’ he said, taking a step back.

‘Nothing. I don’t care the click of my fingers about your sexual orientation, Robin, so long as it’s for adults. But my late husband once shared a cell with a paedophile who regaled him with his adventures and it rather put me off.’

‘So if I were a paedophile you wouldn’t employ me!’

‘Sure I would, if you’d had treatment and were no longer practising. I just wouldn’t ask you to walk Lucy home, that’s all. Of course,’ I added over my shoulder as I set off upstairs, ‘this may be a case of shutting the stable door. I should have asked before. But I’ve been a mite busy.’

He didn’t follow but turned towards the kitchen. ‘Hey, you’ve tidied up in here.’

‘My job as chef,’ I said.

‘I’ve worked in some bars in my time,’ he said, closing the door and following me, ‘where the boss worked hard. But you beat the lot, Mrs W.’

I shook my head. ‘I had support staff tonight. You and Lucy. You should have seen me the other night. Sunday. We were supposed to be closed, but …’ I gave him an edited version. We shared a laugh. But as he went off to his new room and I unlocked my door, I called him back. ‘Young Robin, you never answered my question. Which end of the ballroom do you dance?’

‘I like to wear the tails, not lift them. But young Lucy’s safe from me. I might not say the same of a real looker I passed in the village. Blonde? You know…’ He gestured.

‘Flashing her tits even in this weather? That’s our Lindi, Robin.’

‘You couldn’t introduce me, I suppose. What have I said?’

‘She’s the girl you’re replacing. Trouble is, if she comes back to work here, you may be surplus to requirements.’

‘Is she coming back?’

Closing the door on myself – no point in letting all that nice warm air out – I turned back to him. ‘As a bar worker, she’s a waste of space – not worth your little finger. But she pulls in the locals. She’s currently being used in some game I don’t know the rules of. Probably she doesn’t either. So if she comes back, it could be a good sign as well as being good for business. Who knows, I may be able to afford both of you if trade really picks up. After all, I’m happy to manage without an extra chef, which would save enough for your wages.’

He nodded. ‘It’d save even more if you paid my wages direct, and not to the agency.’

‘Let’s cross bridges like that when we get to them. At the moment you’ve got a wage and a free room. And I’ve got a damned good barman. Whatever forces removed Lindi in the first place may not let her return. Leave the ifs and maybes till tomorrow. I eat breakfast about eight in my kitchen. You’re welcome to join me. Otherwise, you can forage in the main kitchen or get cereal or whatever from the shop. No dirty dishes or plates in your room, ever, by the way: we have a mouse problem. As from
tomorrow, work starts at eleven thirty for twelve o’clock opening. I’d be grateful if you’d check the food deliveries I’m expecting. I mean check – they can be dozy bastards. OK? Sleep well. And if you smoke, don’t burn the place down.’

Thursday morning made me realise I’d have to go for a walk, weather or not. My knees and hips, the parts I’d put so much pressure on in my overblown days, were aching enough to wake me up on a day I’d much rather have slept in. Or it might have been the moan of the wind or the smash of rain against the window. Yes, the weather was back. The sort my joints liked least.

The nearest to a ball I could manage these days, I pulled the duvet right over my head. I’d stay put. No. I wouldn’t lie on the floor and stretch until my joints and muscles squeaked, I wouldn’t haul myself up by scrabbling on to all fours and then heaving myself vertical. I wouldn’t turn the shower on maximum and spray each ache in turn. I wouldn’t have a miserable low calorie good-for-me breakfast and most of all I wouldn’t open the front door – or the back – to find what the latest offering might be. No.

Except I needed a wee. And once up I might as well stretch. Well, it’d take the poor back altogether too much effort to lie down again. And then the shower would be a real boon. As for breakfast, I had to start the day with something, and might have to prepare food for Robin, too.

And then I’d have to check what lay beyond the doors.

It wasn’t often I put my head down and howled, there being not a lot of point in it when there wasn’t an audience to leap into
action comforting me and offering me consolation and maybe consoling goodies. I’d cried far more when Tony was at home than when he was doing his time. So why was I standing there in the shower with tears pouring down my face, snot mingling with the shower gel? The last way I wanted to greet my latest employee was with bloodshot eyes. No one would know how the meat treatment was getting to me. In fact, today I’d bloody well do something I should have done when the donations started coming. I’d wring from Reg Bulcombe the name of his meat supplier and go and challenge him straight.

‘It’s all done by arrangement, see,’ the old bastard whined, trying to inch back into his cottage. It wouldn’t have done him any good, since my foot was already in place.

‘I don’t see. Any more than I ever saw any paperwork, Reg Bulcombe. But I do see offal appearing on my doorstep with irritating regularity and –’

‘You don’t know it’s him,’ he put in, too quickly. ‘You never seen him.’

‘And never saw the men on the moon, but I know they were there. Evidence, Reg. Circumstantial, I grant you. So you’re going to take me to see Mr X and I’m going to tell him to his face to stop messing me around. Otherwise,’ I added limpidly, ‘you can tell him I’ve got friends who’ll stop him for me.’ Mistake. I meant some of Tony’s lads, who smashed kneecaps as easily as I shelled peas. But the way his cunning little eyes narrowed he might well have thought I meant Robin and Nick. Would it do them harm or give them street cred?

‘You mean now?’

‘Why not? We wouldn’t want him to go to the trouble of baking a cake for us, would we?’

I waited while he fetched a Barbour I could smell from two yards, and then watched while he locked his front door. Locked. Not the sort of thing folk did round here, remember. He headed for his utility truck.

‘Uh, uh. My car.’ Even though I’d want the interior valeted before I next used it.

I couldn’t read his look. ‘Likely you’ll get stuck in that.’

‘Good job I’ve got you to push!’ I laughed as if I were only joking. I wasn’t. Letting him in, I started the engine, rolling down my window not just to clear the condensation but to let out the rich pong of his jacket and boots. So where were we bound? Some remote farm, moss growing on the thatched roof, or a classy country house
à la
Greville?

Neither made any attempt to break the silence. I didn’t know what he was thinking, of course, except, judging by the way he cracked his knuckles from time to time, they weren’t thoughts full of sweetness and light. I was puzzling over why he’d come so quietly, why he hadn’t insisted on phoning ahead. Puzzling, and making damned sure I remembered every twist and turn in an exceedingly twisting and turning road. I might know the area well; he knew it like the back of that gnarled and tattooed hand. And I suspected he was leading me in circles. No, I’d never been up this particular lane, I was certain of that. Lane? Track, more like, the sort they use on car rally special stages, usually on Forestry Commission Land. I was plunging into woods now – deciduous, not coniferous. So in addition to the mud washed down from the steep banks, there was a thick overlay of nicely rotting leaves. The car didn’t like it at all: I was hard pressed to maintain traction.

Suddenly he pointed. ‘Over there. Pull in over there.’

I braked and pulled the car into a small clearing. Hell. There was no house, no car, to pull in for. My plan had backfired horribly, hadn’t it? Especially my little quip about him pulling me out of mud. Even as I tried to reverse whence I’d come, my wheels spun helplessly. Forward, backward – I dug myself deeper in.

Cackling with laughter, Bulcombe heaved himself out. For a big man, he was surprisingly lithe. He was free of the mud and up a steep bank like a goat, merging into the woodland and disappearing.

My mobile announced it couldn’t get a signal. What a surprise. Almost laughing at the ease with which I’d been taken in, I decided to do the obvious thing – walk. I teetered round to the tailgate to dig out my spare walking boots. As I bent to tie the first, I sensed rather than saw movement. There was a rush.

‘I think I’ll take that!’ he crowed, grabbing my spare boot.

Mistake. Big mistake, Reg, as Tony could have told you. You never gave advance warning, even a second’s. At least, not to someone whose reactions have been speeded by anger. Not to anyone carefully coached in the principles of retaliation first, as I had by Tony’s minder.

Reg screamed twice, once as I made him drop the boot, a second time as I kicked him in the balls. I was tempted to go for a third when I saw my boot upside down in the mud, but mature reflection told me he couldn’t have meant to drop it that way up. Or could he? Even as I reached for it, he kicked it from me. OK, he’d asked for it. I turned him over and smashed his head down into the mud. Retrieving the boot, I shoved my foot into it. I’d even started lacing it when I realised something was wrong. His arms were flailing, dreadful muffled grunts bubbling in his chest. The bugger was only drowning in the mud.

I yanked him up and turned him on his side. Recovery position, that was the term. He sank down, his mouth soon level with the ooze. Another yank, so this time he was supported by the car bumper. Damn and blast him – if I knew my back, I’d pay for all this lifting. Yes, he was breathing again. Any moment he’d throw up and I didn’t intend to minister to him. So I tipped his head forward so I could lock the tailgate and, removing an in-car OS map and anything of immediate value, locked up and, without the proverbial backward glance, set off whence I’d come. As soon as I could I started picking up landmarks to work out what I pompously, but possibly accurately, called my coordinates. A church here, a stream there. Yes. I should be able to guide the AA rescue truck after lunch. No time before. If I was to get back in time to cook lunch. I’d have to send Robin into Taunton with a list of things vital for the evening. Even as I steamed along I reviewed the contents of freezers and cupboards and worked out menus – after all, you couldn’t carry all that much on a
motorbike
, not his sort.

The recovery people thought it would be altogether easier if I went in the cabin with them. I couldn’t argue. Robin had been delighted with the extra responsibility, no doubt seeing it was a step closer to a permanent job. He even offered to start preparing
vegetables, an offer I immediately accepted. So here I was with Des and Pete, bumbling along lanes so narrow we could have reached out and touched the sides.

‘Just stop here a moment,’ I said at last. ‘I just want to make sure we’re in the right lane.’

We were. There were my recent wheel tracks, and the clear imprints of some very irate walking boots. But a couple of turns later, when we should be turning off, the tracks stopped abruptly. Weird.

‘We need to back up,’ I said apologetically. ‘Must have missed a turn.’

Des trundled us back. And forward. And back again. In the fast falling mist, we couldn’t see what had happened to the car. I had to give Reg marks for trying. He – and to judge by the footprints – several cronies – had given up trying to move the car. Instead they’d yanked a great pile of young trees across the entrance to the clearing.