The Chinese Takeout Read online

  ‘That’s the supplier’s problem, see. All these legs. What do you do with them? I mean, even you want extra breasts, don’t you?’

  Not personally I didn’t, but I could hardly say that. ‘Of course. One of the slips in God’s design plan, chickens with only two supremes. He’s obviously not a chef. How are you keeping, by the way, Abigail?’

  ‘So so. Thanks to you I can put my feet up a bit longer. And you’ve got a good hand with scone dough, no doubt about that.’

  ‘It isn’t always me, Abigail: it’s whoever’s on the early turn. So long as they’re OK, though, that’s all that matters. And the wild garlic’s going down a treat, tell Dan. I suppose,’ I added, as casually as I could, ‘that your Dan didn’t get the name of the restaurant offered cheap chooks?’ Because that was something I could get on to, if it was one of my contacts. Or Nick, if it wasn’t.

  ‘I’ll ask him, shall I?’

  ‘That’d be great. But it’s not urgent. Nothing to raise your blood pressure over.’

  But it seemed something was, and I heard all her symptoms, with as much sympathy as I could, for the next five minutes, until I managed to end the call. Her working day might be over, but mine certainly wasn’t.

  In fact, we became busy – a party booked for eight-thirty didn’t appear till after nine – so that, having neither time nor energy for an encounter with Andy, I switched off my mobile phone, though I kept it as always clipped to my waist band. I left clear instructions with Lucy that she mustn’t disturb me, but just take a message if he came through on the restaurant line. And I wouldn’t, at this rate, be heading upstairs to my sanctum till too late to respond to any messages left on the answerphone there.

  Everything was going very well, and I was giving my laurels a polish, when one of the guests waved me over.

  ‘Oi! Waitress! This here dessert menu: it looks a bit fancy to me,’ he said. His shirt was just a bit too snappy, the tie too wide. And his trousers were definitely too tight for his belly, so he wore it over his waistband, in the best manner of potential heart attacks. So perhaps he was telling the truth.

  ‘I can always offer fresh fruit,’ I said limpidly. ‘In fact, give me five minutes and it can be a nice alcoholic fruit salad.’

  He looked at his companion, the sort of man in the old days I’d have been able to judge to the pound how much he made from crime. Don’t ask how: it’s to do with the prison skin and cockiness and – like the first man – dress style and posture and a damned great ring. Even without Tony’s whisper in my ear, I was on my guard.

  ‘I don’t much go for fruit,’ he said, ‘unless it’s made into a nice drop of cider or wine. I was thinking more like – more like a nice scone. The sort you make for other people I’m sure you’d not want any harm to come to.’

  Tony pressed my shoulder. I must keep calm. Buy thinking time.

  I looked at my watch and shook my head sadly. ‘I’m sorry, at this hour I couldn’t ask Chef to knock up anything special like that.’

  ‘We thought you might have some in, like. Suppose we just go into that kitchen of yours and have a look.’ Both men rose to their feet. One swept his tablecloth off, with all the glass and china smashing to the ground. The other grabbed a wine bottle from an adjoining table and smashed it. So now he had a nasty weapon.

  The first shouldered me out of the way, and I fell heavily against another diner. It might reactivate a lot of my old bruises, but I was actually glad to have an excuse for a firm response.

  As I scrabbled to my feet, I grabbed the mobile and pressed the pager button. Kitchens were such noisy places they might not hear the racket outside. So I had to let everyone know there was trouble, so that they could prepare accordingly. In these days of binge drinking and drunken yobbishness there probably wasn’t a restaurant in the land whose staff weren’t trained in defusing situations. Or acting fast if they couldn’t.

  But not as fast as one of my regulars. I knew him merely as Mr Jenkins, a mild-mannered, middle-aged A and E consultant based in Plymouth, with an educated taste for English wines. What I didn’t know was that he could arm-lock someone from a standing start, his grip so fierce the bottle fell uselessly – and noisily – to the floor, and use his captive to shunt the other man to his knees.

  ‘This is on the house,’ I assured Mr Jenkins ten minutes later as we all metaphorically dusted our hands and I presented him with a bottle of champagne. ‘With my gratitude.’

  Despite our superior numbers – and several other diners suddenly discovered how brave they were – we’d had to let the offenders go. Much as I’d have liked to lock them in the boiler house till the police came, I was terrified a customer might get hurt. Neither man would submit tamely to detention, and Mr Jenkins had already rather pre-empted me by frogmarching his captive outside and slinging him on to the road. The other crawled swiftly after him, taking lunges and swings at anyone foolhardy enough to get in his way.

  There was, however, nothing in the world to stop us taking their number as they drove off. The plate was as dirty as the filthy beat-up Mazda bearing it, so it might even be genuine. To my irritation my fingers shook as I put in a call to the police, mentioning to the duty officer I got through to that the incident might well be connected with a murder case DI Lawton was working on. This time I could even promise photos: it transpired that two of my customers had taken nice mug shots with their clever phones. My top of the range security cameras should have something too. DI Lawton would be round first thing, the officer said.

  She better had be. I’d jotted down the man’s name as he first barked it down the phone. Tony had slithered free a couple of times because of police inefficiency and I’d make damned sure anyone who neglected to pass on messages wouldn’t ever forget again.

  We were in the thank you and goodnight ritual when it dawned on me that I’d been the one to forget. Something. Something pretty vital. Life and death vital.

  ‘Sergeant Parsons: I’m glad you’re taking this so seriously. Because now I’m asking you to take something else even more seriously. There’s no time to explain now, but I’m afraid Dan and Abigail Tromans at Whitemay Farm may be the assailants’ target. Could you get someone out there urgently? Please?’

  I must have made some sort of impression on him because he said ruefully, ‘Out of the way places aren’t easy to reach quickly, Mrs Welford. But I’ll do my best, I promise.’

  What if their best wasn’t good enough?

  I only had the Tromans’ office number, and there was little point in leaving a warning that they wouldn’t look at till the next morning. Telling myself they had security fences and spotlights that might have dazzled the Luftwaffe didn’t work. All the time I was beaming my thanks at my more peaceable customers, my mental hamster was whizzing round working out how to reach the Tromans in person. Again I risked honesty: ‘Mr Jenkins, it occurs to me that our friends may have gone on somewhere else. Will you excuse me? Take your time over your coffee, please – but I must shoot off.’

  The Saab was boxed in, of course.

  I dived back into the kitchen. ‘Robin? Can you do me the most enormous favour? Get me to Whitemay Farm, soonest?’

  His face lit up. ‘You mean soonest as in motorbike on unmade road? Do bears need Portaloos? OK, gaffer, let’s go.’

  It had always looked such fun, and I supposed it was grimly exhilarating. I’d have enjoyed it far more if I’d known that the only thing awaiting me at the end of the so-called lane was a warm if surprised welcome. Anyway, the least said about Robin’s nocturnal adventure, which is all it was to him, the better.

  That seemed to be the sentiment of the Tromans, wakened from their slumber by the 1000cc roar of our approach. In fact, Dan greeted me with the suggestion that I go away promptly – in slightly different words, at least. Despite the chill of the night, he was wearing nothing except an England rugby shirt, some very brief shorts and flip-flops.

  ‘Something wrong with my ewes?’ he demanded.

  Of
course: lambing season. Any day now and he wouldn’t know the meaning of a full night’s sleep. And then there’d be the babies.

  When I explained in breathless detail why I was there, he became grimmer than ever. ‘I might have known getting into bed with you wouldn’t do my business any good.’

  ‘I think it’s more a case of careless talk costing lives,’ I snapped, forgetting, as my bum recovered from the indignities of that saddle, to be sympathetic. ‘Someone told someone else of my connection with the enquiries into dodgy chicken. Just to make sure, the second someone wants to talk to me – I use the word loosely – about scones. Information about which could only have come from you or Abigail…’ I tailed off, leaving him to work out the sums. ‘Abigail and I had agreed it was top secret, remember – to protect her business, rather than mine. Anyway, if all is well, I shall disappear into the night whence I came.’ I grinned at Robin. ‘Only by a slightly smoother route.’

  ‘She talked you into this caper, did she?’ Dan demanded. ‘You must be off your head, man.’ He turned on his flip-flop – hard to do that with any dignity – and prepared to stride off.

  As Robin turned the bike, his headlight powered over the farmyard. And dwelt on a bottle. A bottle with a rag sticking out.

  Furious that Robin had apparently turned a spotlight on him, Dan turned again, finger upraised. But it and he crumpled. He scurried over to the bottle.

  I probably screamed, ‘Don’t touch it.’ Maybe it didn’t matter, because he’d fished the rag out and shaken it open. Paper, not a rag. And there was no smell of petrol. He put the bottle down and opened the paper, reading its message in the light from the bike. Pulling a face, he slopped over to us.

  YOU WANT TO BE CAREFULL WHO YOU DO BUISNESS WITH, DON’T YOU NEXT TIME YOU’LL SEA WHY

  ‘The police are supposed to be on their way. You’d best show it to them. But for God’s sake, don’t alarm Abigail. Not with her blood pressure. They’ll have her in hospital before you can blink if it goes up any further.’

  He gaped. ‘What business do you suppose they mean?’

  ‘Scones? Meat? Wild garlic? Or is it just the questions you asked? Here are the police now, by the look of it.’ The blue light touched the treetops and hedges weirdly. Blues but not twos – this was the countryside, after all. ‘I’ll leave you to it, shall I?’ It was cold and I was tired and I was furious.

  Who with, I wasn’t quite sure. OK, Tony – with whom.

  Although it was very late, or even fairly early, when we got back, I was so pulsing with adrenaline that I could have cleaned the kitchen twice over, defrosting the fridge for good measure. But the scullions had done their usual brilliant job. To my surprise Pix presented me with a glass of my own brandy – the sort I have seen charged at a hundred pounds a glass.

  You couldn’t drink stuff that good standing up, so I found a stool and gestured to them to help themselves too.

  ‘Wasted on me,’ Robin said, helping himself to a Beck’s, while Pix tasted an eye-dropperful. ‘Thing is, Josie, we’re a bit worried about you, especially after tonight. Well, the farm business, too. It isn’t all that long ago that people dropped all sorts of nastiness on your doorstep – and not to mention trying to blow the place up,’ he added, dropping his voice although Lucy had been despatched to bed ages ago.

  ‘If anyone tries anything nasty, they’ll have to smile while they’re doing it.’

  ‘It’s all very well having security cameras and alarms and the rest of it. But what if they took a pot shot at you out of camera-range?’

  ‘They’d have to be damned good shots. I paid extra for the cameras to track, remember. But I take your point. And I’ll raise it with the police tomorrow, first thing.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Which can’t be many hours away now.’

  They took the hint, but with obvious reluctance. Pix turned. ‘What with one thing and another, I shall be glad when Nick’s back. You listen to him.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Robin grunted.

  The mobile phone photographers had sent me their snaps via my computer, and I duly printed them off. I also circulated them to all the restaurateurs in our organisation. But I didn’t think many of them would be similarly bothered. Not unless they were asking awkward questions about chicken suppliers and baking scones for their neighbours. There was no email address on Bernie’s card or on Lawton’s, so they’d have to make a personal appearance for me to pass them on.

  Thence to my phone. No, no message from Andy. Nor one on the answerphone. Was I relieved or miffed? But by then the brandy was kicking in, and I discovered I didn’t care either way, so long as I could tumble into my bed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Dim I might have been after all my nocturnal activities, but even before nine in the morning I could tell a detective chief inspector in his later forties from a detective inspector in her thirties. Especially when the male officer spent a possibly narcissistic amount of time on his physique and his appearance.

  Thank goodness I always started the day with stretches and a shower; thank goodness for my diet and my daily walks; thank goodness for a job that demanded chic at a time I’d much rather have been in bed.

  No, it wasn’t because I wanted to pull him. A couple of years ago it might have been. And I had to admit he was terribly personable, with a smile that positively caressed and the sort of suit and shoes I’d have loved to kit Andy out in. If he hadn’t been a dog-collar man, I’d certainly have bought him a tie like that too. Silk, the sort of quality you could only get in one shop in Exeter.

  It was because in my experience men like that disregarded women who weren’t equally spruce and elegant. Looked straight through them. I’d been there, remember, the tub of lard. The thinner I got, the better clothes I bought; when I didn’t have to pretend to be just another woman from a sink estate, the more attention I got. Polite attention, mind, not just the appraising sort.

  DCI Burford cast the same sort of eye around my apartment as the Martins had. ‘Left you well off, did he, Mrs Welford?’

  ‘A lot of hard work and wise investments,’ I countered. ‘Mine. I’ve been all through this with so many people, Mr Burford, you’ll excuse me if I don’t rehearse it again with you?’

  ‘Not my case. But I’m always open to spontaneous confessions,’ he added, with a smile to die for.

  ‘A cup of coffee is more likely.’

  He shook his head seriously. ‘I’d rather have water, please. Out of the tap.’

  A body as temple man, perhaps. Who was I to argue? I joined him, adding lime and ice-cubes to Adam’s ale in fine crystal tumblers. Fine, but not my finest. Since I hadn’t yet breakfasted, I laid out the pastries Pix had produced when he’d done today’s batch of scones. Robin had couriered them down: I expected a detailed report when he returned.

  ‘So why do I no longer merit a bright and hard-working DI?’

  ‘You merit an equally bright and equally hard-working DCI. I’m part of an MIT that has taken over the St Jude’s murders case. And I gather you’ve been having what may or may not be problems associated with my case.’

  My case: a tad possessive, since it had taken over a week for him to take it on. How did Lawton feel about the move?

  ‘Certain problems, yes. Which may or may not simply be associated with my business. I’ve been trying to source cheaper poultry, Mr Burford, and my enquiries have produced no chicken but a lot of interest. And it’s not a figment of my imagination: your colleagues will have no doubt reported on the threat in a bottle one of my neighbours received, presumably from the same source.’

  ‘Heinz or HP?’

  Oh, we were a wit, were we? I granted him a token smile.

  ‘So why should people object to your wanting cheaper chicken?’

  ‘Because I think – and you may have the evidence to support or contradict this – that Tang—’

  ‘That’s the dead Chinese lad, right?’

  A token nod, this time. Even newcomers – especially newcomers? – shoul
d be up to speed. Despite his shapely ankles, clad in the sort of socks I used to buy Tony as a welcome home present, I got less impressed by the moment. At least, most of the time, Lawton had seemed interested, if ultimately out of her depth. OK, and antagonistic – or attracted – to Nick. ‘Have his clothes shown anything interesting?’ I asked. ‘I found them in the compost maker at the rectory.’

  His eyes widened, then narrowed with something like hostility. ‘And why would you look for them there?’

  ‘More to the point, why didn’t your colleagues find them there?’ My eyes and voice went into senior management mode. ‘All trained officers, presumably – you’d expect them to explore every nook and cranny. I found them when I was throwing out dead geraniums,’ I added blazing all my charm guns at him, just when he wasn’t expecting it.

  He responded with an A grade smile. ‘As far as I know, the bag’s still with the forensic science people. But you’re expecting it to have—?’

  ‘The clothes stank. Something foetid. Rotting flesh. Maybe human, if he killed someone, but maybe – and this would be my theory – dead animal or chicken. Chicken because he wouldn’t touch cooked chicken.’

  ‘So you weren’t really trying to source chicken? Not for use in your restaurant? You were trying to get some handle on – what? Somewhere Tang might have worked? Forgive me, Mrs Welford, but I don’t see chickens turning up with “killed by Tang” stamped all over them.’

  My nod suggested that he, as an Alpha male, was of course right, and I was a Silly Billy.

  ‘Why do you think Tang and Tim were killed, then?’ I asked. Gotcha!

  ‘This is why the MIT has been brought in, Mrs Welford. And we shall certainly look into the chicken connection. Thank you very much.’ He stood, eyeing the spare pastries.

  As if absent-mindedly I passed the plate. Equally absent-mindedly he took another.

  ‘And of course,’ I added, ‘there’s always the problem of whatever crime Tang sought sanctuary for. Isn’t there? A problem which has been systematically ignored by everyone.’ Including myself, but I didn’t add that.