A Taste of Death Page 19

  He walked towards the door and turned to me.

  ‘I just want to say sorry. None of this should have happened. It just got out of hand.’ Words and sentiments that sounded great except they had been uttered by just about every inmate in HMP Bretton Wood I had ever met or ever spoken to.

  ‘Sorry I hurt you …’

  ‘Sorry I nicked your car …’

  ‘Sorry I ran her over …’

  Sorry really isn’t the hardest word. It’s the easiest.

  I nodded. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  He turned and said, ‘The mousse really was delicious.’

  That, at least, had the ring of sincerity.

  As he pushed the door open I saw Slattery sitting at a table in the restaurant. He was staring directly at the kitchen, at us. It was an unguarded moment – it was a pure fluke that the door should have opened at that instant and for me to have been standing where I was and catch a glimpse of him. I had seen that look on his face before.

  Ten days ago, in another restaurant, when he’d been looking at Whitfield not long before Whitfield’s death. I wondered what Slattery had made of our faces now, Montfort looking worried, in pain and unhappy and me looking like I’d gone a few rounds in the ring with Floyd Mayweather.

  The door to the restaurant swung to. I hoped that Slattery wasn’t as psychic as Anna Bruce had seemed to be.

  Tomorrow I’d know who killed Whitfield and hopefully I’d be able to get some usable evidence. I doubted that Montfort would agree to appear in court, but I could easily imagine him giving enough detail to enable me to go to the police.

  Jess bustled back shortly afterwards into the kitchen. As she did so and the door swung open again, I glanced at the table Slattery had been sitting at.

  It was empty.

  ‘What on earth was all that about?’ asked Jess, excitedly.

  ‘Luke Montfort is going to tell me everything,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ said Jess, then, ‘you be careful now!’

  ‘I will. Jess, I will,’ I promised.

  Later, after service, I picked up the phone to call Naomi. After I finished telling her how much I missed her, I’d give her the good news.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Wednesday, 27 January, early morning

  I woke up about seven the next morning and lay in bed thinking about my eight o’clock meeting with Montfort.

  I had received the information from the Land Registry. The fields had been sold by Earl Hampden to the Arcadia consortium who were the current owners. I checked Companies House. Arcadia was a fairly common name, but after a bit of time searching I found an Arcadia whose registered company address was Number Four, the High Street, Chandler’s Ford. It had two current registered officers. A director who was an Edward Musgrave and one resignation, a David Whitfield of Hampden Green.

  Resignation. That’s one way of putting having your head blown off with a twelve bore.

  The Land Registry report also gave the land a flood rating of ‘low risk’ which I thought rather odd given the height of the river. It certainly hadn’t looked ‘low risk’ when I was there a few days previously, it had looked like a paddy field.

  I stared at the ceiling of my bedroom looking at the ominous cracks that had appeared since I’d taken the place over from Mrs Cope. There was obviously something highly illegal going on with the Arcadia deal, and of sufficient value to warrant the deaths of Paul Harding and Dave Whitfield.

  Luke Montfort would know.

  My own personal guess was that Montfort had been bribed to green-light the housing development and had got in above his head. I had been given ample opportunity in my life to study a large number of criminals at close quarters and Montfort didn’t come across as one. At least, not a violent one. I guessed that Farson had made him participate in the attack on me to consolidate his hold on him. To emphasise the ‘we’re all in this together and don’t you forget it’ idea.

  I got up, did some sun salutations and a few Qi Gong exercises for my stiff, sore body, ate a banana, pulled on my running kit – the shoes were still filthy from the day before – and headed off across the green. I ran past Naomi’s house as I went. Her curtains were drawn – I had left before daybreak and returned to the Old Forge Café. She didn’t want our affair to become common knowledge. Good luck with that in Hampden Green, I thought.

  I jogged on through the rain in the dark early-morning greyness. It was only just above zero, colder than my fridges, and miserable and wet. I had arranged the meet at the church car park because I didn’t want Montfort round at my place. I was beginning to feel that everything that I did in Hampden Green was in the eye of the public, like The Truman Show.

  I crossed the road and ran down the footpath by some allotments. It was unusually quiet; normally I meet a couple of people walking their dogs before going to work, but not today. I can’t say I was surprised. It was bitterly cold and there was a northern wind slicing across the countryside. It didn’t worry me too much. I was wearing gloves and a hat as well as a nylon windbreaker, designed (so it said) for alpine conditions. I settled down into the rhythm of the run once I reached the wood that lay between my village and the next one, Frampton End, where the church was. As I ran, it started raining in earnest, cold, hard, stinging my eyes.

  The church gave its name to the woods surrounding it, Church Woods. The picnic area where I was to meet Montfort lay about a mile away on the far side of the wood. I was going to run past the church and along one of the many footpaths ran directly from it to the picnic area.

  As the trees thinned I could see its tall spire. It was set back from the road, down a drive that led to a car park, invisible from the main road. I crossed the road – soon it would be snarled with traffic, it was a rat-run to the local primary school and it would be full of pushy Chiltern mothers in enormous 4x4s, Porsche Cayennes, Audis, Kias, Range Rovers, all jostling to park nearest the school in a display of aggressive Alpha Mum-dom. Now, it was empty.

  My body felt tired and sore. Every step jarred and set my teeth on edge. I ignored the pain, running through it, but it was hard going. I jogged down the potholed track and into the car park. There was a red Audi A3 parked in one corner that I recognised as Montfort’s. I wondered what on earth he was doing here. He knew where the picnic area was – not here but on the other side of the woods, he could hardly be lost. Here was too public, this was used a lot by the dog walkers. I crossed over to it. Sure enough, it was his car, and there was Montfort, sitting in the front seat. I rapped on the window.

  He didn’t move. I suddenly felt very cold indeed and not from the weather.

  For a heartbeat I stood there in the icy rain, water trickling down the windows of the Audi, the wind gusting. I looked around me: at the empty car park, the church with its very tall spire with gargoyles halfway up, where it began to taper upwards to a point. I had never noticed them before.

  I tried the door and it opened. Montfort looked straight ahead glassily. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, slightly slumped down. But he’d never need to worry about his posture ever again. I thought back to when I had first encountered Whitfield and momentarily fantasised about killing him.

  For stabbing Whitfield to death I’d have gone for a long, thin but sturdy, boning knife. It would have slid in much easier. One can but dream.

  As my old head chef used to say, ‘Always choose the right knife for the right job.’

  It was as if someone had been listening in telepathically. All chefs bring their own knives to work. When I was working in various London restaurants I would mark mine with a strip of red tape so I’d know they were mine and nobody could walk off with them. Black handle, red tape.

  I looked at what was sticking out of his chest.

  Black handle, red tape.

  My knife had killed Luke Montfort.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  I stared at the dead man in his car seat. Montfort was the first dead man that I had ever seen in my life, in the
flesh and it had been very disturbing. I think I may have been in shock.

  You’d better do something, I told myself.

  If Slattery were straight, things looked bad for me. He had seen Montfort emerge from my kitchen the day before. He had seen my beaten-up face. It would almost certainly come out that was my knife. Motive, murder weapon, lack of an alibi, criminal past, none of this looked great.

  If Slattery were bent, if this was his handiwork (or, as I suspected, his idea or the result of his tip-off) things looked even worse. God alone knows what other things beside my knife might be linking me to Montfort’s body.

  Think, I thought desperately to myself, think and make it quick!

  As a chef, I was used to prioritising. Plenty of things to think about. But for now, we had the knife to deal with.

  I pulled on the knife. Excalibur it wasn’t. It slid out easily enough. Careful not to get any blood on me, I washed what little there was on the blade in a deep puddle, wrapped the knife in a plastic bag I had in my fleece pocket and ran across the car park into the wood, my feet needed no urging. At least I didn’t need to worry about leaving fingerprints as I was wearing gloves, I thought.

  Get rid of the evidence!

  As I ran I thought to myself: so this is why they broke in to the Old Forge Café. It looked like Montfort’s fate had been sealed before I had spoken to him.

  The rain was now extremely heavy. The car park was a rough surface of impacted stones, but the path I was now running down through the wood was a mix of water, mud and leaves. I wouldn’t be leaving any footprints. There was nobody around at all. The bare trees stretched out around me. A mile or so into the woods, a couple of hundred metres off the paths, virtually inaccessible, were a couple of ponds. I ran to the larger of the two and threw the knife into its centre.

  It splashed into the gunmetal grey water and sank like a stone.

  As I ran home, a different way, making a kind of wide circle, my mind working furiously.

  How had Montfort been ambushed?

  Who knew I was going to meet Montfort? He would hardly have told Farson or Musgrave, the director of Arcadia, he was going to meet me.

  His colleague Linda Hargreaves knew that I’d had a private chat with him and of course there was one other person who had seen Montfort emerge from my kitchen, DI Slattery. Slattery. God knows what Montfort had looked like when he had emerged from my kitchen but he must have looked shocked. Slattery, with all those years on the force, must have got good at reading the signs of tension and fear on peoples’ faces … Had he guessed? How could he not?

  Four men had attacked me, including Farson, Hat Man and a reluctant Montfort – Farson must have brought him along so Montfort would have been implicated in the assault. You can go to prison for GBH, as well I knew. It was extra insurance to make sure the man from the council kept his mouth shut. Montfort would never have dared come forward of his own accord after that. He would have been irrevocably bound to the Arcadia plot, whatever that was.

  Was Slattery the fourth man? Had he worked out that their hold on Montfort was slipping, and killed him – or was it more ruthless than that? Having played his part, got the development green-lighted, Montfort was no longer necessary.

  I could see the first houses of Hampden Green through the rain now. Lights were on. I ran faster, heaving for breath. I wanted to get home without meeting anyone. Please God, I prayed, let no one have seen me. My mind was still turning over events and scenarios with furious speed.

  The door to the kitchen had been open. I’d lied to Montfort: I didn’t have CCTV, I didn’t have a burglar alarm, but I did have a key and a lock and although I couldn’t swear to it, I was pretty sure that when I left the Old Forge Café that door had been secure.

  Slattery was the kind of man I suspected would have the ability to pick a lock, or know someone who could.

  There was another possibility too, one that I hated to even think of. Someone who worked for me and who had conveniently turned up just in time to save me, Francis. He had a key, and he knew where the spare was.

  Surely he couldn’t be involved?

  Could he?

  Surely not Francis … he could have easily got hold of the knife.

  Or worse, Jess …

  No, I thought, I cannot believe that.

  I got home, burnt the plastic bag that the knife had been in, just in case, showered and changed. It was now nine a.m. and I busied myself with my prep list. I thought to myself, I must act normal.

  I rehearsed my story:

  Slattery: ‘Where were you this morning?’

  Me: ‘I got up, went for a run, but not to the church car park. Then I came home and started work.’

  It sounded a bit thin.

  I wondered when Montfort would be found. The church car park was used by dog walkers but it was a large area and they wouldn’t necessarily see anything unusual in a man sitting in a car. He could be there for ages.

  That thought was even worse. I could see now why people gave themselves up, this waiting was dreadful. I looked around the kitchen. I couldn’t stay here, it would be torture. I even toyed with the idea of calling the police and saying what I’d found. Only the notion of telling Slattery kept me from doing that.

  The day stretched in front of me in an uninviting way. Not only did I have the prospect of the police’s visit hanging over me like the Sword of Damocles, I would have the presence of Francis working with me in the kitchen and have to act as if I had no suspicions of what was going on.

  Jess would know immediately something was up.

  Oh, God … nine o’clock. Half an hour before Francis arrived, an hour before Jess was due in, two hours before opening. I felt faint and thought I was going to throw up.

  The whole thing was intolerable.

  So much for my Zen-like calm – my mind was hopping about like a cat on a hot char-grill. I tried to distract myself with work. Chicken liver parfait was the first thing on my prep list.

  I opened the tub of livers and one by one transferred them to a steel bowl so I could check to see that there were no gall bladders attached. The dark-crimson blood from the livers coated my fingers and I felt like Lady Macbeth. I lifted up my bloodstained hands, and stared at them. I thought of the thin line of blood that had run down the front of Montfort and my gorge rose.

  I kept expecting Slattery to turn up and haul me off to Aylesbury for questioning.

  ‘The knife that killed Mr Montfort was a boning knife – a very unusual knife, mainly to be found in kitchens, do you own one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t find it.’

  ‘You can’t find it? Why’s that then?’

  ‘It went missing the night I was beaten up.’

  ‘Did you report this alleged assault to the police?’

  ‘No.’

  God, it looked awful. If I could only work out myself what was happening. Slattery, even if he didn’t try and pin the Montfort death on me, even if he were innocent, was unaware or uninterested in the Arcadia stuff. And I was now linked to that both personally and for the debt I owed to Naomi.

  And what else had been taken? I suddenly thought: the knife had been stolen to frame me, what else had they done?

  The night I was beaten up, who knew I was going to the pub? I could easily have just stayed in, I often did. Someone had tipped them off! Who knew? Who could have known except one person?

  The phone rang and it was the Hobart installer: they’d had a cancellation, could they possibly come this morning?

  I said yes and hung up. I clingfilmed what I was doing and put it away.

  I came to a sudden decision. I simply couldn’t face hanging around here waiting for the police, waiting for Slattery. The same thoughts were going around and around in my head like the Hobart mixer. I thought, only one thing can save me: if I find the killer, I’m in the clear.

  When Fra
ncis arrived at ten I had changed out of my chef’s whites into a pair of jeans, sweatshirt and a pair of steel-toed boots in case I had to kick someone’s head in. Always dress appropriately.

  I had done Qi Gong breathing exercises to calm myself down, they were surprisingly effective. I managed to look at Francis with something like normality.

  Francis regarded me in surprise, his eyes running up and down as he looked at my casual clothes.

  ‘Off somewhere, chef?’ he asked.

  ‘Hobart are coming, Francis,’ I said, nonchalantly. ‘I’d like you to let them in. They know where the new oven is going and they’re taking the old one away. We’ve got no bookings for lunch, so today we’re closed. Can you text Jess, tell her not to come in. Keep an ear out for customers trying to get in. I’ve put an explanatory sign on the door but they’ll always be someone who won’t read it. Clean the restaurant, then when Hobart have gone, the kitchen.’

  ‘When will you be back?’ He looked worried, it was a lot for him to take in.

  ‘This evening, I guess, lock up behind you and see you tomorrow.’

  ‘But …’ he started to say.

  I contemplated him, his straw blond hair, his goggle eyes, his air of agitation. Yes, Francis, I thought, why so worked up?

  ‘Ciao, Francis,’ I said and I left him to it and got in my car. I headed in the direction of Chandler’s Ford. Time to go and see Mr Musgrave. Whoever he might be …

  Time to clear up this whole mess.

  Before it buried me alive.

  PART THREE

  ‘When gourmandism becomes gluttony, greed and debauchery, it loses both its name and its advantages ; it then falls outside our province and enters that of the moralist…or of the doctor.’

  Brillat-Savarin – The Philosopher in the Kitchen

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Wednesday, 27 January, mid-morning