A Taste of Death Page 5

  I rang the bell and Naomi opened the door.

  ‘Shoes, please …’ she said.

  I gave her the box I was carrying to hold and balanced awkwardly on one leg, then the other, to remove my mud-covered footwear. Naomi watched my mono-legged teetering critically, it wasn’t very yogic. I bet she could take her shoes off elegantly, perhaps I should sign up for a class. I followed her into the hall. The house was more or less as I had expected: dimly lit, with wall hangings and several Buddhas, fat Chinese ones and slimline Thai. The living room was a profusion of Persian rugs and framed Chakra diagrams. Jazz music played discreetly in the background. Miles Davis, Kind of Blue. Incense was burning in a holder.

  I wondered if it was really the kind of atmosphere for a business discussion.

  After Jess’s lurid warnings, I was half-expecting, no, fully expecting Naomi to be wearing some kind of come hither clothing, something certainly provocative if not positively tarty. I was unsure about whether or not being seduced by a client was a bright idea but I had high hopes.

  Maybe I was getting ahead of myself, I thought, as she gestured at a sofa and I sat down. She was wearing sensible black trousers and a baggy jumper, her hair tied severely back. She didn’t look like a cougar about to pounce. She looked like an attractive, intelligent, middle-aged woman. I felt a twinge of disappointment mixed with a sense of relief.

  Naomi West did have a romantic aura about her. She was fine-featured with large, dark eyes. Time had given her just the right amount of lines. She also moved with a conscious grace which I conspicuously did not have. Her hair was long and dark and her fingernails short and shapely. They were painted red tonight, which gave me some hope. I think the expression is ‘clutching at straws’.

  Before I’d left the restaurant earlier, I had taken my copy, much thumbed, of the Tao Te Ching, and opened it at random. I often do this when I think I need guidance. Well, as often as I can; I probably need guidance through most of my waking hours. My own thinking and planning abilities have often proved disastrous. The bit that I had read had basically told me to stick to the straight and narrow and not get sidetracked.

  Well, that had seemed pretty obvious. I mustn’t deviate from the path of the catering menu to the flower-strewn bowers of dalliance.

  No flower-strewn bower seemed on offer. Perhaps she would pounce later?

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said brightly and sat on a chair opposite me, a low coffee-table between us. ‘Now, the party, what did you have in mind?’

  ‘Canapés,’ I said, ‘I brought a selection as examples.’

  I opened a container that held asparagus twists with puff pastry, assorted crostini on home-made ciabatta, home-made rye bread, duck rillettes, capers, beetroot gravadlax and celeriac remoulade. Oh, and a selection of vol-au-vents. I think the Seventies are due for a comeback; perhaps this was the effect of having the radio permanently tuned to the one station. I’d been listening to too much Slade on Beech Tree FM: ‘Merry Xmas, Everybody’ was still playing despite it being January.

  Miles Davis moodily trumpeted away in the background. Perhaps I should ask for some Slade. Or Mud, given the weather.

  Naomi leaned forward. ‘Oh, God, this so good,’ she said, nibbling a disc of rye bread with a very thin circle of goat’s cheese topped with a beetroot mousse. She filled my wine glass up, and said, ‘What then? I mean, after the canapés?’

  She stood up in a smooth, effortless gesture. All her movements were sinuously graceful and I noticed how flexible she was. She picked a cushion off the floor, bending over so I could see that she could place her hands flat on the ground. She adjusted the curtains, pirouetting like a ballerina to reach the draw-cord.

  ‘A buffet, I think. I’ve got a few ideas here,’ I said.

  I had printed off about twenty items which I thought we could narrow down to half a dozen. She took the paper and peered at it in the dim light of the living room.

  I was enjoying my evening out. It was nice to be in warm, pleasant surroundings. When I went upstairs at the Old Forge Café it was to yellowing, peeling wallpaper and silence. You could see where things had been before Mrs Cope moved out so it was like being haunted by the ghosts of dead chests of drawers and armchairs past. The radiators in my flat didn’t work very well and it was bitterly cold. Sometimes I slept in a jumper.

  I sat back and stared at the fire while Naomi went through my suggestions.

  The upstairs flat smelled indefinably of old lady (maybe that’s why it was so cold, her malign spirit still lingered). Not so Naomi’s lounge. The burning incense and the effect of the drink, the dim light, smell of patchouli joss-stick, was oddly evocative of student years a quarter of a century before.

  She returned to her seat, and tucked her slim legs underneath her so she was sitting on her heels, facing me. I looked at the long dark hair that framed a small face with very white teeth. Her attractive head was bent studiously over the sheet of paper.

  ‘I like the idea of the chicken and apricot tagine,’ she said. So did I, it was easy to make and practically foolproof. ‘We’ll need a vegetarian dish, about half the guests don’t eat meat.’

  ‘It’s on the other side.’ She turned the piece of paper over. ‘Do you like the idea of the smoked aubergine moussaka?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, but it’s a bit too exotic for them,’ Naomi said, ‘as is the Caribbean jerk vegetable curry.’

  Oh, I thought. I was disappointed, I had thought both of those would be quite interesting and different.

  She put the paper down. ‘What about roast vegetable lasagne?’ she suggested.

  I groaned mentally. How dull was that!

  But I was enjoying my role as expert chef and problem solver. Then our cosy tête-à-tête was interrupted.

  The ear-splitting noise of a car alarm rent the night, drowning out Miles Davis’s trumpet on Naomi’s expensive Bose stereo system. Bet it wouldn’t have drowned out Noddy Holder.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake …’

  Naomi glared irritably in the direction of the window. It wasn’t a very spiritual, yoga recommended look; she was very angry indeed. The moment was ruined. There was the sound of shouts from outside, somewhere on the green, and then a pounding on her front door. She jumped athletically off her chair, and left the room.

  I heard voices raised from the hallway: ‘It’s him isn’t it …?’ An angry male.

  ‘Calm down, Dave.’ Naomi, exasperated but very much in charge. I sat where I was, I didn’t think it my place to interfere with whatever was going on.

  ‘I’ll kill the bastard! Where’s he hiding!’ Then the door of the lounge flew open and an enraged figure of a man burst in.

  It was Whitfield. He was wearing very little, a white silk kimono open to reveal a hairy, flabby stomach and man boobs with a Union flag tattoo across his heart and a pair of saggy black briefs from which his large, hairy balls hung out on prominent display. He was an eye-catching figure.

  He saw me, jabbed an accusing finger. ‘You, what are you doing here! Was it you?’ He was trembling with rage, his eyes bulging. His balls too, come to that. Behind him, Naomi stood looking on helplessly.

  Was what me? I wondered, not unreasonably. The trouble was, Whitfield was not a man that you could reason with at the best of times, and right now, was obviously not the best of times. It would be fair to say he was enraged.

  I stood up. ‘Why don’t you calm down and …’

  ‘Calm down!’ he shouted in outrage, pointing a finger at me. ‘You’re having a laugh, aren’t you? “CALM DOWN!” You bastard!’

  I wondered what on earth was going on in Whitfield’s mind. Maybe it was the drugs, weed-induced paranoia. Perhaps he’d like a vol-au-vent?

  ‘Just calm down, Dave,’ added Naomi, the chorus in a Greek tragedy.

  He advanced on me, like Nemesis, pop-eyed with anger, fists clenched, then tried to grab hold of my collar. All our advice to calm down had gone unheeded. His flabby builder’s tits bounced angrily, th
e Union flag prominent – ah, patriotism, the last refuge of the scoundrel.

  The time for discussion, I felt, had somehow slipped away. I didn’t think a vol-au-vent offer would help. Neither would the Tao Te Ching. So I hit Whitfield in the face twice, very fast and quite hard, once with my right which stopped him in his tracks and then a left hook, twisting my body so it landed with all the force of the top half of my body behind it. It slammed into the side of his head and knocked him down.

  Textbook! I thought proudly.

  He made an odd noise, like a loud groan, his legs buckled and he collapsed in a sitting position on Naomi’s oak coffee table. Fortunately it had been built to last and it withstood the fifteen stone or so of Whitfield crashing down on it.

  I rubbed my knuckles, the human head is quite hard.

  ‘My God,’ said Naomi. I wasn’t sure if she was impressed or shocked. Maybe she wasn’t sure herself.

  Whitfield got shakily to his feet. He looked angrily at me. I can’t say I was worried.

  ‘You’ve got celeriac remoulade all over your balls,’ I said, calmly.

  ‘Do what?’ He seemed confused. Perhaps it was because I’d nearly knocked him unconscious, perhaps it was the concept of celeriac remoulade.

  ‘It’s that stuff like coleslaw that’s hanging off your bollocks,’ I explained patiently. Perhaps he’d like the recipe. We all looked at the offending area of his anatomy, hanging out of his baggy pants. Bits of shredded celeriac in a garlicky, lemon mayo clung to his hairy testes. It was like some kind of horrible sex game. He’d sat down in the remoulade, dunking his balls in the stuff. A sort of mayonnaise tea-bagging.

  ‘I think you should go home and change.’ I added, ‘It’s not a good look.’

  Whitfield nodded. He was quiet now, almost docile. He looked down at his groin again and then at us. He seemed somewhat at a loss.

  ‘I’ll take him back,’ said Naomi, rolling her eyes upwards in a ‘God give me strength’ sort of way. She turned to me. ‘Someone’s chucked paint over his Ferrari. He chased them and thought they’d hidden in here.’

  Well, that explained both Whitfield’s presence and his rage. The various Buddhas in the room regarded us with tranquillity, as they would do.

  I frowned, puzzled. ‘Why would they do that? Hide in here I mean.’

  ‘Because he thought I was behind it.’

  I must have looked puzzled. I was puzzled.

  ‘I’m his ex,’ she said by way of explanation. She took Whitfield by the arm, like a parent with a naughty child. ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow,’ I said. She nodded and disappeared with Whitfield. I started packing my stuff up. There was no way that we would be eating any more of my lovingly crafted food tonight. Neither, I thought with a hint of regret, would I be doing anything else at her house tonight. I thought of Naomi’s flexible body and lovely hair. Oh well, at least the boundaries between caterer and client wouldn’t be blurred. Three cheers for professionalism. I didn’t feel like cheering, it had been a while. But there was no point in lingering.

  No moment of attempted seduction had happened. And even if that were on the menu, the moment had obviously passed.

  At least Jess would be pleased.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tuesday, 12 January

  Jess, needless to say, was delighted by the previous night’s events.

  ‘I told you so,’ she crowed.

  I rolled my eyes and carried on kneading sourdough, or rather I weighed the sourdough starter (a gloopy natural yeast mixture that is mixed in with the flour to produce the carbon dioxide which inflates the dough). It had taken me ages to make; even though it was mainly just flour and water, it had kept going off until I used some recipe that involved adding some rhubarb in to get things kick-started. I had wasted kilos of flour. Only mulish stubbornness had kept me going. I’m a bit like that, once I start something I feel compelled to finish it.

  I put the flour, starter, sugar and salt into the mixer, fixed the dough-hook on and started it. The battered old machine (another thing that could do with replacing) clanked and whirred into life. It was deafeningly loud.

  Jess was pressing butter into small ramekins ready for service.

  ‘Did you enter those figures on that worksheet in Excel?’ she asked.

  ‘Errrm, not as such …’ I said evasively. I didn’t really understand Excel, and I certainly couldn’t touch type like Jess. She shook her head in exasperation. I changed the subject.

  ‘So,’ I asked, ‘she’s the ex-Mrs Whitfield?’

  ‘She is indeed.’ Jess squinted at the ramekin, wiped a bit of stray butter off with a napkin. ‘It was all very beefy at the time I believe.’ She inspected her work and started on another ramekin. ‘She was a stripper/pole dancer at Caramel Rosa – that’s a strip club outside Slough – before he whisked her off in his Ferrari and she blew his brains out – well, whatever mush passes for brains in that man’s skull – with her Tantric sex.’ She looked at me meaningfully.

  ‘Tantric sex!’ I said scornfully.

  Jess shrugged. ‘You have been warned … anyway and then he put a ring on her finger,’ she paused, ‘or so people say. Well, my mother, anyway.’

  She’s an unreliable witness, I thought, judiciously, what with Mrs Turner’s suspicions about Naomi and Jess’s father.

  ‘I cannot believe that Naomi was an ex-stripper,’ I stated firmly. I haven’t met many strippers, in fact, I’ve never met a stripper or seen one in action, but I found it hard to believe that Naomi had been one. She looked, well, demure, for want of a better word. But then again, it was equally hard to believe that she was married – had been married – to Dave Whitfield.

  Mind you, life is full of unlikely pairings.

  Scallops and black pudding, for one.

  She had struck me as sweet, and somehow vulnerable. These are appealing qualities. Unlike her ex.

  I moved on to inspecting the sandwich fillings. Every day before service you need to check that you have everything you need to make what’s on the menu. It’s called the mise en place list, MEP for short. Even in an outfit as small as mine, this can run to a hundred odd items, from the simple, grated cheese for example, to the complex, langue de chat biscuits or lemon mousse. This was a problem for me; in reality it was my biggest problem. I had too much to do and I couldn’t really afford to employ anyone to help me. Not another chef anyway. So I was still working eighteen-hour days, like in London.

  I noticed that I’d need to roast off some more topside of beef and make some more horseradish. I added them to the list and groaned mentally. More work.

  ‘And you beat him up!’ Her tone was admiring.

  ‘I didn’t beat him up, I defended myself with reasonable force,’ I said. I wasn’t keen, given what had happened in my past, to get any kind of reputation for violence. Food, yes, but nothing else.

  ‘I heard you beat him up.’ She had obviously made her mind up. ‘Beefy!’ Seemingly that was good, in this context.

  ‘It was a fracas,’ I added, ‘a minor fracas.’

  ‘He’s supposed to be really hard.’ She looked me up and down, dubiously. Obviously I was not the kind of man who had impressed her with my virile physique. But maybe I was better with my fists than a keyboard and bloody Excel with its incomprehensible formulas.

  ‘It’s sooo simple,’ she had fumed. ‘Look, sum equals … How can you not get it?’

  ‘Well,’ I put a little oil in a pan, waited until it was hot, and then started searing off the beef, ‘Tao in enlightenment seems obscure …’ I commented. As does bloody Excel.

  ‘Does it indeed?’ Jess looked far from convinced. ‘Is that another pearl from the Tao Te Ching?’

  ‘Yep.’ I winced as hot fat spattered me.

  ‘Beating up Whitfield wasn’t obscure,’ she commented, ‘far from it. It’s all over the village now. You’re famous.’

  ‘Hooray.’ I was far from enthusiastic. The shouti
ng, the car alarm, the general pandemonium, had drawn a small crowd of neighbours wondering what on earth was going on. A half-naked, traumatised Whitfield being led back to his house with the vandalised car (not forgetting the charred obelisk) by the local yoga teacher. The new restaurant owner retreating to the Old Forge Café. Speculation had presumably run riot.

  A threesome that had got seriously out of hand?

  A food related debate that had become heated?

  Was I the kind of man you’d want to do your catering after last night’s lurid scene?

  ‘Well,’ she said, looking through the door into the restaurant, ‘now’s your chance to put theory into practice. Dave Whitfield’s just come in. You’d better go and spread some enlightenment.’

  I wondered what Whitfield wanted. I hoped it wasn’t revenge. I have to confess that nothing heartwarming sprang to mind. Unless it was maybe the remoulade recipe that he wanted, after all. But he wasn’t a dog, he wouldn’t have been licking his balls after he had got home.

  It was momentarily tempting to arm myself with the enormous plastic rolling pin that I had. It was the weight of a baseball bat; it would be like a Trident missile, a highly visible deterrent. I didn’t want any more brawling, particularly in my restaurant.

  I went through to meet him with a sinking heart. ‘Good morning,’ I said breezily, ‘and what can I get you?’

  Whitfield looked terrible. He had a half-closed eye, swollen and bruised, from where I had hit him but that wasn’t really the problem. I am sure in a lifetime devoted to rubbing people up the wrong way he had faced worse things than a damaged face. Rather, he looked like a man who has had the stuffing knocked out of him by life. He seemed depressed and shambling and hesitant. I could suddenly see what Whitfield would look like when he was old.

  In some ways I preferred the other, brasher version, even if he was hard work. He sat down heavily at a table.