The Chinese Takeout Read online

‘Ah, only just started shaving by the looks of him,’ Joe chuckled. ‘Well, still wet behind the ears, any road.’

  ‘And now he’s in the middle of this mess,’ I sighed. If there was a hope of Tim being able to return to normal duties it might be better if people thought he’d been thrust unwilling into controversy. ‘One moment he’s giving the sermon, next there’s all this kafuffle. Not everyone likes it, but I can’t see what else he could have done – apart from turning a starving boy out into the snow.’ No one seemed to notice that I’d compressed the timescale, knocked ten years off Tang’s age and eliminated possible police involvement.

  ‘Ah, the moor can be cruel in the cold,’ another old chap said.

  I pressed on. ‘Goodness knows where he came from, poor thing – he doesn’t speak a word of English.’

  Mrs Lane, Lucy Gay’s aunt, joined us. Obscurely she blamed me for her brother’s death, but since I’d taken in his children, hospitality she might have felt she ought to offer, she accepted an armed truce. ‘Not everyone’s as sorry for him as you are,’ she countered. ‘There’s some as say the church is no place for him, smelling it out as he does.’

  ‘The Abbot’s Duncombe folk have sorted that out with an old-fashioned zinc bath. In fact, they’ve all been so generous it takes your breath away. Clothes and bedding and everything.’ I might as well exploit the ancient rivalry between the villages. ‘But you can see why people think it’s the wrong place,’ I conceded.

  ‘That Mr Corbishley’s worshipped at St Jude’s for the last thirty years,’ Mrs Lane said. ‘Poured money in there left, right and centre, he has.’

  ‘And it shows,’ I said, fervently. ‘And Mr Malins, no doubt.’

  ‘Bless you, no. He’s like you, a Johnny-come-lately,’ Joe said. ‘And like you, to be fair, he’s done his best. Though not as much as you, like,’ he added, in a tone that didn’t make it entirely clear whether he approved of such hyperactivity. ‘White Hart doing OK, I take it?’

  ‘I shan’t starve,’ I agreed. ‘But what about Mr Corbishley? His wallet deep enough to carry on?’

  ‘Deeper than mine. You bet it is, isn’t it, Em? Fingers in every pie going, that one.’

  ‘And not all his own,’ she said. ‘They do say,’ she added as a swift afterthought.

  ‘But he’s a respectable churchwarden!’ I cried, eyes wide open.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Welford, you’re not telling me as you can judge a sheep by its winter fleece,’ Joe said. ‘There was something about a takeover a while back – no, I can’t recall… As for that Malins—’

  ‘He’s as decent a man as you can find,’ Em corrected him quickly. ‘Civil servant, very respectable. Retired down here, him and his wife. Live right out Duncombe Minimus way. Keep themselves to themselves, they do. As they’re entitled,’ she concluded challengingly. She pushed her way through to the till.

  I’d learned something, if nothing like enough. Thirty years’ input into any establishment gave you something like squatters’ rights, at least in your own opinion. No wonder Corbishley was so resentful of the incursions into his kingdom. Which made his apology all the more generous. Or interesting, depending on your point of view.

  I checked my watch. Six forty-five. The shop would be open till eight, but I thought I’d pretty well exhausted its possibilities. Had the owners been around, I might have questioned them, but they’d left a couple of school kids in charge, as they had to, to keep the place open the hours they did.

  I thought I’d check my emails, before one last foray to St Jude’s. Nick, who was depending on me for wheels, could stick it out a few more minutes. He might, with his dogged patience, have got Tang to reveal information, rather than simply react to his little sketches. He might have persuaded him to give himself up.

  There was a good crop of incoming mail. Most simply said hello, and that their chicken was fine, thank you very much. A couple moaned about the hike in prices from a Devon organic supplier, who thought he could milk a niche market for all it was worth. Nearly £18 a kilo? Where did he think we were, London? I sent them all a standard note of thanks. But what about these two? They were well out of the area but both complained about the quality of some chicken they’d acquired, pappy in texture and indeterminate in taste.

  They got an immediate response from me. Was it from their usual supplier? Had they complained? What was the outcome?

  Then there was another one. She’d changed supplier but would be changing back immediately: within three weeks of the change, four of her regular customers had gone down with food poisoning. It was only because they were so loyal that they hadn’t gone to the public health inspectors.

  Now, food poisoning isn’t unusual if the chicken is inadequately cooked: check out the FSA website for the gruesome details. But I wouldn’t have thought that in a completely hygienic kitchen, with thoroughly cooked meat, there should be that much of a problem. Alarm bells ringing in my head, I asked for details of the new supplier. I would get on to it tomorrow morning, feigning an interest and asking for details of sources, as well as prices.

  Where the hell was Nigel Ho? I left yet another message.

  Eight o’clock. Andy should be well into his meeting by now, so with luck I wouldn’t have to hang around St Jude’s too long.

  I was taking with me the ingredients for a Thai style salmon dish, in which I poached the salmon in coconut milk flavoured with red chilli, garlic, galang galang, shallots, lemon grass, homemade red curry paste (Robin’s speciality) and a little fish sauce. I added some slivers of mange tout and a few slices of courgettes with an eye less to authenticity than to getting a few vegetables inside male systems. A few noodles and a flurry of finely torn coriander and basil and we would have a feast.

  I was just leaving when the phone rang. I grabbed it. It must be Nigel. ‘At last!’

  It was a good job I didn’t add the few helpful expletives I wanted, because after all that it was quite a different voice that responded. Flirtatiously?

  ‘If I’d realised you were poised by the phone of course I’d have phoned earlier.’ Andy! ‘But I’m still at my meeting. Josie, I have a tremendous favour to ask,’ he said, now in what sounded a very official voice.

  Not my sleeping at St Jude’s, please! ‘Ask away.’

  Against a background of voices, he continued, ‘Bishop Jonathan wants tomorrow’s meeting to be held at St Jude’s. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind coming along to organise coffee and so on.’ He was so formal we might never have talked about deep lanes and incised crosses. So who else was in the room?

  I stared at the phone in disbelief. It slowly dawned on me that among the people listening might be the bishop himself, so I wouldn’t ask questions now. But we’d meet up at St Jude’s when he came to relieve Nick so I would certainly ask a few then. Apart from anything else, I had the White Hart to run, and however capable and efficient my staff might be, a business was only as good as its management. Which was still me. As for Nick, he had a job to do protecting the whole country. Grandiose as that might sound, it was he and his four colleagues who had to ensure that all our food was fit to eat. Not just chasing up carcinogenic food dyes, but checking the progress of meat through the food chain. If they were neglectful, consumers – my customers and people like us everywhere – might suffer not just food poisoning but new variant CJD and other hidden diseases.

  ‘Andy, I’ve been thinking. Despite what I said earlier, this really can’t go on much longer,’ I said. ‘I won’t shout my mouth off at the meeting, don’t worry. But something has to be done. Soon.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking.’

  So why did neither of us have the sense to say so earlier?

  ‘Is the meeting with the bishop maundering on?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘Trouble is, what about Nick? I promised to collect him from the church.’

  ‘Go ahead. And would you warn Tim and Tang that if the meeting goes on any later, I may not make it out there at all?�
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  ‘Fine. No problem.’

  There wasn’t even any problem at St Jude’s. A child had gone missing down near Teignmouth, and the media had decamped. Every last one. Well, it was warmer nearer the coast, and food and drink were at hand. Not to mention loos. With luck they’d all forget to come back.

  Samson and Delilah, bored perhaps, positively welcomed me – or perhaps it was the stale petit fours I carried that they wanted. Standing on the tower, I phoned Andy and in the briefest conversation – he was still in that meeting, poor man, and I was cold – I told him the situation. ‘I’m sure they can manage without you.’

  ‘In that case, tell them to expect me in the morning. Good night and God bless you all.’

  It wasn’t my alarm clock waking me. It was the phone.

  ‘I’ve got you at last!’

  ‘At five in the bloody morning, Nigel!’

  ‘Is that what it is? I’m never any good at transposing time zones. Yes, I’m in New York. You should have come with me when I asked.’

  ‘Been a bit busy, Nigel.’

  ‘Which is why I phoned. And so many times.’

  ‘I’ve got three answering machines!’

  ‘I don’t do messages. Josie, do you know any more about that young man?’

  ‘No. His English is minimal, and he plays chess well. That’s all I really know.’

  ‘No idea of his contacts or family?’

  ‘He’s not asked to use a phone to make contact. Not even with his Embassy, come to think of it.’

  ‘In that case, you must turn him in. Before it’s too late.’

  ‘What?’ It was one thing to think it, another to hear it.

  ‘It’s almost certain he’s what I’ll delicately call an “economic migrant”. His family will have scraped together enough money for a downpayment on the journey from China to the UK. Until he has paid off not just the down payment but the rest of the sum involved, something in the £8000 range, he is effectively the gang’s possession. Escape can lead to one thing only – execution. And maybe the same for the people protecting him. Get him out now. Now, Josie. This instant.’ He cut the call before I could press him on the matter of the interpreter, and didn’t pick up when I tried to ring back.

  I had my clothes on and had run down the corridor to bang on Nick’s door without realising I hadn’t done the stretches I need every morning to get me moving.

  Nick was dressed and gunning his 4x4 before I even registered that he slept in the not unattractive nude. ‘A nod,’ he grunted as we swept on to the road, ‘is as good as a wink to a blind man.’ He put his headlights on main beam, as if to blast any oncoming vehicles out of his path.

  The Midlands expression meaning one should always take a hint sounded weird down here. I responded with another, as we took yet another blind corner at sixty. ‘Where’s the fire?’

  I didn’t expect the answer I got. Nodding briefly at the hill ahead, topped by what looked like a beacon, he said, ‘At the church.’

  It was far worse than we’d imagined. We’d summoned all the emergency services while we had a signal, without knowing exactly what we needed. The best scenario, I suppose, was that Tim or Tang had somehow tipped over the Calorgas stove, or that the ages old wiring, overloaded for too long, had finally given up.

  The worst: that must have been what we got.

  The church door was open, wide open. Inside, nothing but flames. I could see them, hear them. Smell burning.

  Tim!

  I know I paused to pull my coat over my hair. I knew I had to be careful. But I plunged in, head down.

  And ended flat on my back, head ringing as I tried to pull myself up. Must try harder. So why couldn’t I—?

  Nick, that was why.

  ‘Let me go!’

  ‘No. Come back.’

  ‘I’ve got to—’

  ‘No. And if I have to pull both arms out of your sockets I’ll stop you.’

  So that was what the screaming pain in my shoulders was. ‘But—’

  ‘Fire engine’s on its way, by the sound of it.’

  I couldn’t hear anything, except the roar of the flames and the crackle of glass. No young men crying for help. Just the fire.

  Blinded by smoke and tears, I turned, stumbling and falling again. As I tried to look back, Nick heaved me to my feet and propelled me towards the car.

  ‘Listen! I’m going to do the fastest three-point turn I’ve ever done, then you are going to drive back down the lane and stop anyone coming through. No villagers. No media. Just the emergency services. Get it?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Just get in, woman.’ He yanked my arm. But it was too late. I’d already seen the sight he wanted to protect me from.

  I saw what I’d tripped over. Samson. The head was a yard or so from the body. Delilah’s too.

  Somehow I found myself in the passenger seat.

  Nick turned the car, and left the engine running. ‘Get over and drive.’ He was out before I could argue.

  I did. The 4x4 blocked half the lane. I got out, ready to flag down sightseers or wave through the emergency services. Already through the greyness I could see shadowy shapes, people still in their nightclothes, herding towards me.

  What if they got in the way of the fire engine?

  I scrambled back into the car – lights, as many as I could find. Main beam, whatever. To hell with Nick’s battery and the irritating warning beep.

  I flapped and waved like a windmill gone berserk. The leaders in the race fell back. And yes, here was the fire service.

  In its wake came an ambulance and then a police car.

  And then Corbishley, in his Jag. I stood in front of him. For a moment I thought he’d run me over. At first he contented himself with leaning on his horn. Then he got out and unleashed a stream of oaths that would have shocked even my Tony. Partly because they called into question my morals, I let him go on until he ran out of steam. Mostly though I forbore because his eyes were streaming tears that were probably nothing to do with the smoke as he watched his beloved church blaze uncontrollably.

  ‘How much damage?’ he asked at last.

  ‘They’ll tell us when they know,’ I temporised.

  He peered at me. ‘Your hair’s singed. You’re filthy. And those grazes…’

  Nick must have had to work harder than I’d realised to stop me. ‘I tried. But it was already…I couldn’t reach…’ I must be crying too. Was it for the same reason as Corbishley? But at least I still had a few wits. ‘Shift your car. In case.’

  In case the ambulance came hurtling back, bearing someone with a little life worth fighting for? More likely for more fire appliances coming the other way, as reinforcements. And certainly police, in what passed for droves in the foothills of Exmoor, as swiftly as indifferent roads permitted.

  And here came the advance guard, another ambulance, but going towards the church, not away from it.

  I spotted Annie, hair like a silver halo. I could trust her. ‘Tea. Get together a team to make tea. Those lads’ll need it as soon as they’ve finished.’ I pointed to another fire team. ‘And the rest of us too,’ I added. It would give the women something to do, get them back in the warm and clear the way.

  Picking up all I’d left unsaid, Annie nodded, with a sideways glance at Corbishley. ‘Poor bugger. All those years of fund-raising and obduracy.’ She managed a grim smile. ‘Not a bad epitaph, maybe.’

  While I was unofficial traffic cop – I hoped Tony was enjoying the sight! – what was poor Nick doing? Blundering round getting in everyone’s way? Six months ago, maybe. Now – who could guess?

  It seemed to take for ever, but at last, now dawn had truly broken, on what promised to be a lovely spring morning complete with dawn chorus, a couple of kids in a panda car replaced me. Soon they were so busy stringing crime scene tape across the road that they didn’t notice me slipping away the business side of it.

  Nick was talking to DI Lawton. Her body language suggested she w
as accepting the dressing down of a lifetime, anger being Nick’s way of venting emotion. Perhaps she needed a little consolation; after all, her hands had been pretty well tied by Tang himself.

  ‘If you’d had a police presence here,’ I asked quietly, motioning Nick aside, ‘is there anything to suggest they wouldn’t simply have gone the way of Samson and Delilah?’ I repeated a little of what Nigel had said to me. ‘After all, they wouldn’t have been armed, would they? And routine body-armour wouldn’t have protected them against that sort of attack.’

  ‘All the same—’

  ‘Do we know how the lads…?’ Swallowing hard, I gestured towards the church, now awash with fire officers dodging in and out.

  Lawton shook her head. ‘Smoke inhalation, I should think. We won’t attempt to get them out until the fire safety people OK it. Old buildings like these – no fire alarms, no sprinkler systems.’

  I let her rail against the church’s inadequacies, gripping Nick’s arm when he tried to protest and finally drawing him to one side. ‘If you’re anything to go by, she’ll beat herself up for the loss of those two kids’ lives for the rest of her life.’ Nick had killed someone accidentally, and suffered deeply for it for twenty years. ‘A few minutes spent blaming something else won’t to any harm.’

  Nick said dully. ‘I liked him. Young Tang. I liked him. And Tim. And she let them die. We let them die. I could have stayed last night. Should have.’

  ‘And what would you have done? Ended up in there? Like those kids? Murdered in their beds?’

  ‘It could have been an electrical fault, something to do with that camping stove.’

  ‘And you’d still have been dead.’

  At last he shook his head. ‘Electrical fault be damned! Camping stoves don’t cut the throats of geese. It’s a classic execution if you ask me. Got to be.’

  ‘The fire? If they’re executioners, do they usually bother destroying evidence?’ I objected.

  ‘Perhaps the heater got kicked over in a struggle. The fire service’ll have a forensic team on hand, which should work hand in hand with the police.’ From his voice, he doubted it. As if to reassure himself, he added, ‘We must trust the professionals.’