A Taste of Death Read online

  ‘You have energy gateways here,’ Naomi explained, pressing my soles. ‘They’re called Yong Quan points. I’m stimulating them, it’ll help unblock your meridian lines.’

  She pressed and I squirmed, I pulled my feet away from her.

  ‘They’ll have to stay blocked,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Be like that,’ said Naomi. ‘Don’t heal! Anyway, you haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure one of them killed Dave, and I think I can find out who did it. I hope so. You did buy me a new oven to find out.’

  Naomi didn’t smile back.

  ‘Ben,’ she said, her voice suddenly very serious, ‘I want you to drop this. Anna said it was dangerous.’ She bowed her head and when she looked up I could see her eyes were moist. ‘Look at you, Ben. You could be in intensive care, or worse … I thought back then it was a good idea, but now I’ve changed my mind. Two men are dead, three if you include the protestor in the churchyard. You’ve been really badly beaten up, God knows what state you’d be in if Francis hadn’t intervened.’

  She did have a point.

  I stood up in the bath and lathered myself with tropical foam. ‘The Scent of Paradise’ it said on the bottle.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, with a confidence I didn’t really feel. ‘The thing is, Naomi, I’m a very stubborn man. Besides which, Farson is going to have to pay for this.’ I gestured at my battered body. ‘And, let’s not forget,’ I said, ‘it’s written in the stars, Anna said so, she’s never wrong, you said.’

  ‘No, she’s not, but I still think you should reconsider, oh well … so be it, ’ said Naomi. She was staring at me in the bath as I slowly lowered myself back into the water. ‘You’ve got very good abs,’ she observed, changing the subject.

  ‘Thank you.’ I felt flattered. All those sit-ups and crunches were finally paying off.

  ‘What did she say about your future, by the way?’ she asked.

  I thought of the three cards, the Devil, sitting on his iron throne with a man and a woman in chains like his pet animals. There had been the Moon, the dogs baying at it, a mysterious crab-like creature crawling out of the water in the foreground, the ominous towers in the background and last of all Judgement, the angel blowing the horn for the last day, the graves yielding up their cargo of the dead.

  Betrayal, a snare or a death, and last of all a judgement.

  I felt reluctant to discuss it. ‘It was shrouded in mystery, she said.’

  Naomi smiled. ‘Well, mystery man, I’m glad you are staying in the spare room tonight. I think it’ll be safer than going back to the Forge. At least I can keep an eye on you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘I really mean it, Naomi, thank you for everything.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be in this position.’ She smiled warmly at me. She had a lovely smile.

  ‘If it wasn’t for you,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t have a fantastic new oven and I wouldn’t smell beguilingly of tropical fruits!’

  She laughed and stood up, pushed a hand through her hair.

  ‘I’ll go and put your clothes in the wash and then I’ll come and tuck you in,’ she said. ‘It’s the room at the end of the landing.’

  I watched as she left the bathroom. Her T-shirt was tailored and fitted her like a second skin. She really did have a fantastic body. Mine ached like hell.

  Oh, well. Time to drag my battered self off to bed.

  I climbed out of the bath, pulled the plug and dried myself. I wrapped myself in one of her towelling dressing gowns that was hanging up, the same pink one that I’d used the other day. I admired myself in the mirror. Pastel colours suited me. I must wear more pink, I thought.

  I emerged on to the landing and from below I could hear the whirring noise of the washing machine. I smiled to myself: I may not have found a lover, but laundry wise I was doing well. I padded down the corridor to the spare room, wincing with pain at every step.

  I went in. It was a pleasant, sizeable room. There was a large double bed with a duvet on and I got in, still wrapped in the dressing gown. It was the first time since I’d moved to the village that I’d been in a bed. I stretched out – it was wonderful, and the duvet smelled crisp and laundry fresh. I stared at the ceiling. No cracks! Furniture! A bed! The room was lit by a bedside lamp on a little table, I had an angle-poise on top of an inverted beer crate.

  It was almost worth being beaten up for. No, I thought, luxuriating in the cool linen, it was worth being beaten up for.

  I heard her footsteps, light on the stairs and then the door opening, its base pushing gently on the carpet made a kind of whispering sound. My door at home creaked.

  Naomi had brought me a glass of water which she put on the table, then …

  ‘Naomi,’ I said, looking at her in wonder, ‘are you taking your jeans off?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, they fell to the floor. She had fantastic legs. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating—’ I touched my head ‘—what with banging my head and all …’

  ‘No, you’re not dreaming,’ she lifted the duvet and smiled at me, ‘budge up.’

  So I did.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Tuesday, 26 January

  Luke Montfort turned up for lunch with a lady called Linda Hargreaves, also from the planning department.

  My face didn’t look as bad as I had feared the night before. I had a black eye and a cut lip, but I’d spent a profitable, although painfully uncomfortable, time with a bag of ice cubes on my face to reduce the swelling on my lips and cheekbones.

  Jess was outraged by what had happened to me. But not as outraged as if I had told her where I’d spent the night. So I didn’t.

  As for me, I was almost floating with happiness. I endlessly relived my amazing night with Naomi. My chi energy seemed to be flowing incredibly well, it must have been the freed blockage in my Yong Quan foot-points that had made all the difference.

  ‘I think you’re crazy not calling the police,’ she’d said. I explained my reasons again.

  ‘Look, Jess,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to make a big thing of it. I don’t want customers thinking, “Old Forge Café that’s where crime lurks,” I want them thinking, “Old Forge Café, great place to eat.” And, Jess, do you really think Slattery is going to investigate this thoroughly? If he found out who did it, he’d probably buy them a pint. No, it ends here.’

  ‘I still think …’

  ‘Let’s just drop the subject.’ I didn’t like to say that I suspected Slattery of being involved, certainly at a planning level. Then I added, ‘Besides, with the best will in the world, what could they do? I can’t give a description of my attackers; they were all wearing gloves, there’s no prints … no evidence to incriminate anyone. Even if I’d had CCTV, which I don’t, there’d be nothing whatsoever to identify them. If anything my insurance premiums might go up. Anyway, I’m fine, I was rescued by Francis.’

  Francis heard his name, turned around and grinned. He was so happy to have been useful.

  As he did so, I reflected that actions often have the most unexpected consequences. Farson’s attempt to inflict pain and alarm on me had produced a night of the most incredible pleasure, an even greater desire to find out who had killed my Naomi’s ex, and had, oddly, saved Francis from being sacked. I could hardly get rid of him now, not after he had saved my life.

  Now my mind was feeling a little sharper, I had also checked the kitchen again this morning, and found nothing seemed to be missing. Maybe I had simply forgotten to lock the door. I had said nothing to Jess yet about the one detail from the attack that I remembered.

  I was feeling happy. Ecstatic. I thought, I’m in love! The memories of last night (the good bits) looped around and around in my mind. I felt like I was floating. Sometimes I would smile uncontrollably with delight. That hadn’t happened for years. I felt like I was a teenager again, I felt like writing her name over and
over again on the back of a lever arch file, like I had done when I was at school and in love with a girl called Jenny Wilkes.

  As a treat for Francis – a bit of light relief from potato preparation – I let him peel some quails’ eggs that I was going to turn into Scotch eggs with home-made piccalilli. The eggs, small enough at the best of times, looked microscopic in Francis’s clumsy paw. I gave him my Shun paring knife. It’s Japanese; endless layers of folded steel, so you could see the grain when you held it up to the light. The cutting edge gleamed brilliantly, like a razor. The handle too I found alluring. It was just black wood, but there was an elegance and simplicity in its design that marked it out from my other knives.

  ‘Careful with that,’ I warned.

  ‘Why, is it sharp?’ asked Francis. I rolled my eyes.

  ‘All my knives are sharp, Francis, but that one cost seventy-five quid. I’m more concerned about the knife than your fingers.’

  Peeling boiled quails’ eggs is a tedious business, the shell sticks like glue to the white and fragments into lots of tiny pieces. It takes for ever.

  While Francis got on with the task, I lined a heavy cast-iron terrine mould with clingfilm, then prosciutto, and in a bowl made the mix for a chicken and tarragon terrine with reduced stock, gelatine and chicken, with fresh tarragon. I filled the solid, metal container and folded the wafer-thin ham over, then the clingfilm. Then I weighted the whole thing down with a couple of cans to compress it and put it in the fridge to set. As I did so I thought if only I could get rid of my troubles so easily, pack them away in a sturdy Le Creuset terrine dish and put them where the sun doesn’t shine, a Terrine of Troubles.

  Service began, the cheques started to come. We were pleasantly busy.

  Jess came in and handed me another cheque over the pass. When I started to make some money I would buy an EPOS system and we could move into the modern age by sending the cheques wirelessly; until then we’d have to make do with pen and paper, the old-fashioned way.

  ‘Luke Montfort’s order,’ she said, with a grimace.

  I looked at it: steak baguette/caramelised onions for him, chicken Caesar salad for her, w/a written on top. With anchovies. I felt a surge of love for Jess. It may sound trivial, the fact that the caesar salad comes with anchovies, which is how it classically is, but, of course, many people can’t stand them, so you have to ask. In my experience, many front of house staff will forget, but not Jess. If you told her something once, she never forgot.

  ‘Ça marche! Cheque on,’ I called to Francis. ‘One chicken Caesar with anchovies. That’s you, Francis. And one steak baguette, so a baguette plate and don’t forget the fries!’

  Francis and I got the food together and, as Jess took the plate, I asked her, ‘When you take that out, could you have a look at Montfort’s wrist. Is there anything distinctive about it?’

  She was puzzled. ‘How do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Just … have a look,’ I said, carrying on with butterflying a chicken breast.

  She came back a while later and deposited some plates for Francis to wash up. Francis had gained new-found confidence from saving my hide the night before, he had even made Montfort’s guest lunch. I know that a Caesar salad isn’t the hardest thing to assemble, but he had done it as it should be, and had saved me five minutes. And minutes are precious in a kitchen during service time. He’d also prepared the steak plate garnish, a little pelouche of salad and the chips, which he’d remembered to season.

  ‘Yes, he does have something there. He’s got a little tattoo of a dragon on the inside. How naff is that!’ she said. ‘Why?’

  I nodded. ‘I thought he might. Here’s his dessert.’

  I had made his passionfruit mousse (and Linda’s) look stunning. They came in individual glass bowls but I had glammed them up by judicious application of a fruit and cream garnish and some candied flower petals and orange dust. It looked very starry, Michelin starry.

  ‘Service!’ I called.

  The dishes were taken away and then Jess returned with a ticket.

  ‘That chef, Graeme Strickland’s out there. He wants a steak baguette too, and he’s pre-ordered dessert. He said he doesn’t care what it is, he just wants whatever Montfort’s having.’

  I laughed. Think of the devil and he will come. I started work on his food.

  When Jess cleared the Montfort table and had given me his compliments, I said to her, ‘Go and ask him to come in the kitchen. I’ve got something to show him.’

  Jess frowned in a slightly suspicious way and left the kitchen.

  ‘Francis.’

  ‘Yes, chef?’

  I opened my locker fridge where I keep the food I need for mains and took out a bottle of Kirin. ‘Would you mind just going out in the yard for a minute, I’m just going to have a private word with Mr Montfort. Have a beer while you’re waiting.’

  ‘OK, oh, Japanese,’ he said with delight, inspecting the bottle, ‘like the knife.’

  He bustled out happily holding his beer.

  The kitchen door swung open. ‘Hello,’ said Montfort, ‘the mousse was superb!’

  ‘Good.’ I smiled winningly at him. Montfort didn’t comment on my dinged about face. Maybe it was just politeness on his part.

  He was wearing a suit and tie and shoes that needed a polish. I’m a bit of a shoe man myself. For work I wear black, high-sided Caterpillar work boots with a steel toe. Not only are they practical, durable and non-slip, they look good and take a good shine when you polish them. If you kick someone with them in the chest, it breaks their ribs. I know that because I’ve done it.

  I was disappointed in Montfort, as a public servant I felt he had a certain standard to uphold. Shoes maketh the man.

  ‘Would you like to come around this side of the pass?’ I said. ‘I’ve got something interesting that I’d like to show you.’

  Montfort walked round. He had a kind of cocky strut and his eyes were full of a genial contempt. For some odd reason I thought of the hymn, ‘There is a Green Hill’ with its lines, ‘The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate.’ There was something condescending in his attitude, the Lord of the Manor.

  I had nothing concrete on Montfort that I could use to coerce him, except fear. And I was going to make Montfort afraid of me.

  I had no compunction in what I was about to do, Montfort had brought it upon himself. It was karma.

  Here was the man who knew who had killed Dave Whitfield. Here was the man who was responsible for four men intent on beating me half to death. I thought too about a dead elderly environmental campaigner. And I hadn’t forgotten he had tried to grope a fifteen-year-old Jess. I beamed at him and drove my fist into his stomach.

  It was a perfect uppercut. All the power from the sudden swivel of my left shoulder. Short, powerful, explosive. It must have hurt like hell.

  It was certainly effective.

  Montfort doubled up, gasping for breath. His eyes were standing out of his head, outrage vying with pain and shock.

  I’m a great believer in adult education, I worked in it for fifteen years, teaching English language and literature to adults. And when I went to prison I learned several interesting new skills. It was a practical course, light on theory, heavy on activity, learning through doing. I studied intimidation there. I thought it was time to maybe put some of that into practice in the outside world.

  ‘Now I’ve got your attention,’ I said, quietly and menacingly in his ear (he was still bent double), ‘you don’t seem surprised by the state of my face, do you? That’s because you saw it happen, didn’t you?

  He looked up at me and then slowly straightened. His face was contorted with fear. I doubt if anyone had ever hit him. It was the kind of thing he had seen on TV but never experienced. Violence isn’t pretty in real life. It hurts and it is shocking. As Montfort was finding out.

  ‘I never …’

  ‘Yes you did, Luke.’ My voice was reasonable. I leaned closer towards him, his forehead was beginn
ing to bead with sweat. He smelled of aftershave and fear.

  ‘That’s a very distinctive tattoo on your wrist and I remember it well. It also shows up nicely on my CCTV.’

  Montfort wasn’t to know I didn’t have such a thing. But he was too frightened of me now to put up any resistance.

  I let go of him. He made no attempt to escape. He fell silent, standing miserably by the pass. Behind him, through the glass panel of the kitchen door I could see Jess making frantic faces at me. Her eyes were wide and I saw her mouth the syllables, ‘Slat-Ter-Ry.’ God, I didn’t want him bursting in. I obviously had to hurry. I carried on:

  ‘You and your mate Farson have got it coming, Luke. Now, this is what you’ll do. You’ll meet me tomorrow, before work, and we’ll have a chat and you can let me know all about Arcadia and who killed Dave Whitfield.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And if not,’ I said, ‘I’ll go to the police with my CCTV recording and you’ll be charged with assault, maybe attempted murder; either way it’ll look terrible. They won’t like it at Bucks County Council and, of course, it’ll be all over the village. And, of course, they’ll look for a motive and I’ll tell them about Arcadia and even poor old Whitfield’s obelisk and they’ll start investigating your bank accounts and your work at the council and I rather imagine you’ll be engulfed in a real shit-storm of a scandal.’

  Montfort looked suitably worried. I decided to increase the pressure a little.

  ‘And one more thing – no, don’t stare at the floor, it’s rude, look at me.’ He did so and I looked him in the eyes. ‘If you’re not waiting for me in the car park – the other side of Church Woods, you know, the picnic area – at eight a.m. tomorrow, as well as the police, you’ll have me to deal with—’ I moved very close to him, intimidatingly so ‘—and I’ll show you some things I learned in prison, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said miserably, ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘Thank you, you can go now. I’m glad you liked the mousse.’

  He nodded again and smiled weakly. I have to say a part of me warmed a bit to him then. At least he had the grace to look sheepish. Grace under pressure. He visibly pulled himself together, straightened himself up, straightened his tie, smoothed his hair.