The Chinese Takeout Read online

  ‘Of course. Any idea why the young men should have tailed me back from Junction 26? And have hovered outside the rectory? And then tailed me here?’

  ‘I would have thought you were the one to tell me that. They’re presumably to do with your husband’s past.’

  ‘Why?’

  She flushed an unendearing pink.

  I spared her the further embarrassment of a blustering reply. ‘When Tony died I severed all my links with his past. He’d always made sure I had the barest minimum of contact with the criminal world anyway.’

  ‘Why do I have such difficulty believing you, Josie?’

  ‘Mrs Welford. I don’t know. You can see the White Hart’s books whenever you want. My bank statements. Whatever. Which is why I repeat, why should they be following me?’ I stepped up a gear. ‘If I came and made a formal complaint of harassment, would I have to explain why they were doing it? I should have thought I had enough reason to make a complaint,’ I added, rolling up my sleeves to display my bruises. ‘And your colleague never implied I’d brought this upon myself by being Tony’s widow. Nor did A and E ask if it was self-inflicted.’

  Digesting this diatribe, she nodded gravely, but not, I thought, apologetically. ‘So why didn’t you simply phone the police from the rectory and ask them to take charge of the black sack?’

  ‘We’d no idea what the BMW people intended. Did they want us or what we’d found? It was in the compost heap, by the way, in case you want to tell your search team.’ I paused but she made no note. All the same, I thought she would do an excellent job of bollocking her colleagues. ‘You wanted us to barricade ourselves in and wait for your people to come storming over? This isn’t a city with rapid response vehicles waiting in every cul-de-sac. It’s rural Somerset. How long would it have taken? Mr Braithwaite and I thought it was more prudent for him to take the sack, but for that I had to return him to his car.’ I edited the spurious row. Actually, I’d edited quite a lot, come to think of it. But I wasn’t under arrest, so didn’t think it could count against me, legally. ‘I dare say I’d be able to pick them out from photos for you. And I already told you the car number.’

  ‘False.’ It was as much a dismissal of me as an accusation against the driver.

  ‘Only to be expected, I suppose. But I could ID the faces,’ I repeated. ‘Never forget a face in my profession. Actually,’ I pointed out, ‘half the village could too. The incident did not pass unnoticed.’

  Completely impassive she made an unenthusiastic note. But she gave herself away. ‘And what does ex-DI Thomas have to say about it all?’

  ‘You’ve got his number,’ I said, relishing the ambiguity. ‘Why don’t you call him yourself?’ But perhaps I should let her off the hook. ‘He knows nothing about it. He’s still working away from base, remember, and I didn’t think he needed to know. It would worry him. He might think he ought to come hotfoot back here. Now, if you don’t want me to look at mug shots, I’d best get on. Mr and Mrs Martin are coming down.’

  ‘They’re staying here? I thought you’d cleaned out the vicarage.’ It sounded like an accusation.

  ‘Rectory. Yes, I did, because I didn’t want their memory of their son’s home to be of a pigsty. I know I’d hate it. Scruffy, yes, because you can blame that on the church not decorating it properly before he moved in, but not a mess of dirty underwear and s – socks,’ I corrected myself smoothly. No need for her to know he’d smoked spliffs.

  I didn’t think she clocked the hesitation.

  ‘Very kind of you,’ she admitted, huffily. ‘So why are they staying here, if you’re being harassed?’

  ‘I didn’t know I was when I issued the invitation. Look,’ I said, deciding almost to make a clean breast of it all, ‘it all started when I started asking about—’

  Her mobile rang. She didn’t even check the caller before taking the call. Neither did she excuse herself or even turn away.

  Bother her. I got up and ostentatiously reviewed the lunch and evening bookings. In our morning’s mini-meeting, the lads and I had agreed to offer as an on-the-house extra vegetable the freshly delivered wild garlic, gently braised in butter. (We’d marked up the specials’ prices enough to cover it. No such thing as a free portion, remember, especially at £10 the kilo.) Dan had gone away with a batch of scones, grumbling slightly in the way some men do when you spare their partners work.

  Robin had forgotten to reserve a table for the Martins. I pencilled it in. They might of course prefer to eat in their quarters, or even in my flat, if I felt sufficiently well-disposed. We didn’t have a full house by any means, but then, who did on Tuesdays? So long as we had enough clients to justify a chef, that was all I asked. Most Tuesday evenings I hopped into Taunton for WeightWatchers, but, though I was eternally grateful to them, I no longer depended on them. Sooner or later our relationship would draw to an end.

  Which is what Lawton’s call was doing now.

  ‘Tell you what,’ she said, eyeing the last remaining pastry, ‘you could come in and have a go at IDing the BMW pair, if you like.’

  ‘Or, better still, you could send a minion down here with a laptop full of images,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘A plainclothes minion, preferably. I don’t want to worry my clients. Now, I have food to prepare: wild garlic.’ I rubbed my hands, and smiled as if she shared my pleasure.

  She merely registered my request with an elevation of a cold eyebrow – more wrinkles in the bud – and stood up. Her eyes were drawn to the pastry as if by a magnet. Tough.

  This time the BMW was silver, and a Five, not a Three Series. And the couple inside were not a pair of lads but a sleek man and his expensive-looking wife. The White Hart’s gastronomic reputation was such that by now I no longer expected them simply to be asking for directions, but to be badgering me to let them book a table for an overfull Saturday night. They themselves seemed to be checking something on a piece of paper with the newly-painted inn sign.

  I made it my business to open the front door to water the tubs of polyanthus and pansies with which I greeted my guests, and happened to follow their gaze.

  ‘It’s rather nice, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘There’s a lad round here trying to revive the craft, so I gave him a commission.’ The fact he was a recidivist trying to go straight entered into the equation, but there was no need to tell them that.

  ‘So this is really the White Hart?’ Disappointment oozed from his voice.

  ‘Yes.’ I made it a flat affirmative, keeping any challenge from my reply.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. They looked at each other. ‘I was expecting something—’

  ‘Bigger,’ I supplied, to save her from herself. ‘I don’t suppose you’re Mr and Mrs Martin, by any chance?’

  ‘Dr and Dr Martin.’

  Since I’d not long since corrected DI Lawton in the same tone, I suppose I couldn’t argue, but I found it hard to smile as hospitably as I should. However, transferring my watering can to my left hand, I stuck out my right. ‘Welcome to the White Hart. I’m Josie Welford. I was so fond of your son – I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’

  He put forward a reluctant hand in response.

  ‘So awful for you – having been so far away when the news came through.’

  Nil response. What on earth was Andy doing to let this couple come unannounced and unattended? It didn’t square with his usual solicitous behaviour. I smiled warmly at the chilly female Dr Martin, suppressing a guffaw as I realised I had acquired a pair of famous boots. Wouldn’t Tony have loved it?

  The male one hadn’t parked very considerately for a city street, and very badly for what was little more than a country lane, frequented by the sort of monster tractor currently approaching – the sort with bigger wheels and more spikes and other lethal looking pieces of metal than you can imagine off the set of a futuristic film.

  ‘Would you care to pull your car round to the back?’

  He cast an eye at the Behemoth and at his paintwork. He did as I suggested, briskly.r />
  Which left me and his other half. ‘Andrew Braithwaite must have told you that although this is officially an inn, with sleeping accommodation, the bedrooms are currently occupied by a homeless family.’

  As I’d expected, all her prejudices flitted before her wide-open eyes.

  ‘Since I’ve already upgraded staff accommodation, which is in a separate building, I thought you might be more comfortable there. It’s designed for communal living, with a sitting-room, kitchen and so on, but my chefs have moved back into the main building for as long as you wish to stay.’ The Gay Children had had to double up, something their eldest sister assured them would be good for them. Like spring greens, I suppose. ‘Would you care to see it? It’s more direct if we simply follow your husband into the car park.’ I closed the front door behind me. I didn’t want any surprise visitors awaiting me when I returned.

  Since the rooms were meant for permanent occupation, they were both spacious and very well appointed. But clearly there was something missing – olde-worlde charm? And rather too clearly they were disappointed. How such a pair could have bred sweet unassuming Tim I’d never know. There was a physical resemblance to his mother, who I rather suspected of having been under the knife, but none to his father.

  Ah! No tea trays. A peep into the kitchen, however, showed Lucy hadn’t let me down. Everything was laid up beautifully, with an assortment of teas and coffees, and fresh milk in the fridge, along with bottled Exmoor water, sparkling and still – a total extravagance since the same liquid issued ad lib from the tap. A biscuit barrel contained some of Pix’s finest. Lucy had even popped budding wild daffodils in one of my better vases.

  ‘Please make yourselves at home. Use whichever rooms you please.’ I explained how to use the coffee-maker.

  Their polite interest told me they wanted only one thing: my absence. So I speedily obliged.

  ‘You’d better hop back to your deanery and change,’ I greeted Andy. ‘They’ll expect gaiters at very least.’ Not the shoes he sported with a dark charcoal suit. If he looked good in something so obviously not top-of-the-range, what would he be like in the efforts of Tony’s tailor? And bespoke shoes, too?

  Today his shirt was a consciously deanish black.

  To my surprise, he slung an arm round my shoulders as I led him round to the staff quarters. Briefly, true, but very friendly, with a little squeeze that indicated as clearly as if he’d said out loud that he’d got my measure. The whole thing was so natural I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d given my bum a valedictory pat. Or, of course, I his.

  As it was, I made formal introductions, an emphasis I was sure he would notice on their titles, and bowed out.

  My emails included a request from the wife of a disgraced African finance minister to help her retrieve millions, only needing complete details of my bank account in return for a fifty percent cut of her profits. And there were still people who got sucked in by such scams. No, I didn’t need Viagra, and I didn’t need an improved mortgage. Waste of bloody money my spam-block was proving. But there were some genuine messages, notably from Nick, telling me he’d be back on Friday and he’d like to be fed royally – from the vegetarian menu. No need for details about what he’d been up to, then. Then there were a couple headed CHICKEN, one from an old mate in Topsham, an oasis of good eateries, and another from someone I’d never heard of. The first told me she’d been offered heavily discounted chicken breast fillets by her usually reputable supplier; the other, who’d come via my website, was offering meat at amazingly low prices, provided I paid in cash. A month ago and my response would have been that my meat had to have come with all the certification going and to go away and do unnatural things. And perhaps it should still be: I know I was supposed to be scouring the West for dodgy poultry, but that was me going to them, on my own terms. Perhaps DI Lawton was right: perhaps I should leave things to the pros. Except the pro wasn’t going to be back till Friday, damn him. All the same, he ought to know, so I forwarded the message to him, with a couple of covering question marks. It was the nearest I could get to asking advice. As for the message itself, I sent an automatic, out-of-the-office reply, saying I’d get back after a (mythical) week’s break.

  As for my other respondent, the obvious questions were had she tried it and was it any good?

  Then – and I embraced it almost as a refuge – it was back to the kitchen to see the results of Pix’s marketing and to see if we needed to revise the specials board. With rhubarb as pink and sweet as the bunch he waved in triumph, we certainly did. Bearing my dairy-free clients in mind, I wanted individual little jellies, possibly made with champagne; Pix was asserting his inalienable right to produce an old-fashioned fool when the back-door bell pinged.

  Andy and the Doc Martens. OK. Fool it was.

  In a whisk of the apron I was mine hostess again.

  The Martins’ eyes widened appreciably – and possibly appreciatively – when Andy ushered them into my flat. I wasn’t at all sure of the etiquette of offering bereaved parents a pre-lunch drink. If I drank at midday it was only ever champagne, but that was altogether too frivolous. Had I not known Andy better I’d have thought sherry a more ecclesiastical choice. And somehow being the licensee made matters worse: they’d expect some sort of expertise, even if, since I’d promised Andy that all this was gratis, they wouldn’t be paying for it.

  Gratis. When I made the offer, I’d expected the pair to be down-trodden, possibly slightly down at heel, in the manner of schoolteachers in my youth. I was aware that things had rightly changed in education – apart from anything else, you’d need danger-money to face today’s kids, high on all those vicious additives. But these two were not just well off, they were rich. They oozed the sort of money you didn’t get working for other people. The sort of money that didn’t need subsidies from hard-working people like me.

  I told them the possibilities of where they might eat while they were here, adding the proviso that I really would need to pencil in a time if they wanted to eat in the dining room, even at lunchtime. They seemed to approve rather than otherwise my business-like approach, saying they’d lunch downstairs now with Andy, but would rather visit the rectory on their own.

  Urbanely, Andy asked if I had time to join them at their table: clearly they hadn’t thought of that, so I declined – I was on duty, I lied. They polished off the very good white burgundy they’d accepted and toddled downstairs to the dining room, where I commended them to the care of a work experience kid, this one adept and conscientious. One kind word to me and they’d have had my full attention, but I didn’t skivvy for people who ignored me. And whose son had not wanted them contacted when he was under siege, and who had lied about their occupation.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Although I was sure Andy would have repeated his offer to accompany them, the Martins still insisted on going to the rectory alone. Sighing, Andy got up as if to leave.

  ‘I need a cup of tea if you don’t,’ I breathed into his ear, a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘Upstairs.’ Strange, it sounded more like a threat – Boy, see me in my study after school – than an invitation to my boudoir. I hadn’t meant it as the latter, true, but I certainly hadn’t meant it as the former.

  Nonetheless, he trotted quite guiltily to my quarters. ‘I know, I know,’ he protested. ‘What miracle produced Tim from such unpromising parents?’

  ‘Quite a big one. You can understand his desire to keep them at a distance. And they seem to be keeping their grief remarkably well under control.’

  He looked at me quizzically. ‘They certainly got up your nose. I’ve never seen you so polite to anyone. Except perhaps to Bishop Jonathan. At first I thought it was because you were intimidated by him – people often are, by bishops. But now I’ve changed my mind. No one would intimidate you, would they?’

  He sounded amused rather than amorous, so I grinned back.

  ‘So what do they do, these not teachers?’ I prompted. ‘They own—? They run—?’<
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  ‘They play their cards even closer to their chests than you do. But they’re bright, Josie – very, very bright.’

  I twitched an eyebrow. Too many people like Andy seemed to regard being bright as a virtue in itself.

  ‘Unpleasantly so,’ he continued, apparently without a pause. ‘Intellect untempered by wisdom.’

  ‘Or their blood by the milk of human kindness.’ I held up my tea caddy. ‘Green?’

  He nodded.

  As the kettle boiled, I said slowly, ‘I hate to introduce a red herring, but you don’t suppose – no, it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Left-brain stuff often doesn’t. Try me. I’m up for it.’

  If only he’d been referring to something other than weird ideas. I was often at my most creative after a good bonk, but perhaps between the unmarried that, in ecclesiastical terms, was an oxymoron. In any case, he’d heard all too clearly that the locals regarded me as the village bike. I didn’t want to be bedded on the assumption that I was easy. I wanted – I wasn’t at all sure what I wanted, a rare and unpleasant state I could only blame on the recent upheavals.

  ‘Could there…could there be any possible reason why… No. Crazy.’

  ‘Why someone should want to take out their own son? It’s not an idea I’d care to put to DI Lawton, but… No, surely it’s got to have been Tang the murderers were after. The snakeheads who brought him here. His employers. People avenging something he’d done. No one could have anything against poor Tim. Who, in God’s name, could be more innocent?’ He mixed exasperation with despair.

  I busied myself with the tea. Any more emotion and I’d cry, not a good option. Once I cry, I never know when to stop, which was why I had kept myself so stern and busy since the boys’ deaths.

  He sat on the sofa, sighing again but soon looking around him. ‘This is one of the most restful rooms I’ve ever encountered.’