Aunt Bessie's Holiday (13 page)

“What sort of new recipes?” Bessie
asked.
 
“Anything we can look
forward to during our stay?”

“I don’t think so,” Nathan said, shaking his
head.
 
“There were one or two that we
might be able to adapt for here, but most of them were not what I would
consider appropriate.”
 

He leaned forward and lowered his voice
again.
 
“Charles is always looking
for ways to cut costs, but I’m a chef and I won’t change out high quality menu
items for cheaper ones just to increase profits.”

Monique approached the table now.
 
“Shall I clear these plates?” she asked
hesitantly.

“Yes, thank you,” Bessie said with a smile.

“I’m sorry the food wasn’t more to your
liking,” she said as she piled the plates onto an empty tray.

“Your husband was just telling us about all
of the upheaval this morning,” Doona said.
 
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have even opened.”

“Oh, but we can’t shut,” Monique said in a
shocked voice.
 
“Lakeview’s guests
would be very disappointed.
 
Ours is
the premier restaurant here.”

“It won’t be if you keep making a mess of
things like today,” Harold said harshly as he approached.
 
“I’ve had nothing but complaints about
the food here today.”

“Charles wasn’t here to do the specials,”
Monique said defensively.
 
“That
meant Nathan and I had to do them all by ourselves, which took ages.
 
We were hours behind before the doors
even opened.”

“I’m not much interested in your excuses,”
Harold said.
 
“Lunch is
finished.
 
You have two hours to get
yourselves sorted out before dinner service begins.
 
I expect a dramatic improvement.”

He swept out of the restaurant after that,
not allowing anyone time to reply.
 
Monique looked around to make sure that all of the other guests had left
and then put her tray down on an empty table.
 
She walked to the door and turned the
lock before she slid the sign on the door to read “closed.”

“Sit down and take a break,” Nathan urged
his wife.
 
“You’ve been on your feet
for hours.”

“There’s so much to do before dinner,” she
argued.

“Not that much,” Nathan disagreed.
 
“Unless Charles turns up to tell us
otherwise, we’ll just do the same specials for dinner that we had for
lunch.
 
That saves us a lot of
time.
 
Sit with me for ten minutes
and then we’ll both get back to work.”

“But what about our guests?” Monique asked,
looking pointedly at Doona and Bessie.

“I want to talk to our guests,” Nathan told
her.

Monique pulled up another chair and then
looked at her husband.
 
“I don’t
think….” she began.

He held up a hand.
 
“I’ll probably get fired for this,” he
told Bessie and Doona, “but with everything else going on, I just have to
ask.
 
Who are you?”

“What do you mean?” Bessie asked after
glancing at Doona, who wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Charles was very excited about your
coming,” he told them.
 
“He’d been
talking about it for weeks and yesterday he was shouting at everyone, insisting
that everything had to be perfect for you.
 
Then, last night, you barely spoke to him and today he’s nowhere to be
found.
 
We’re all confused about the
two of you and why you’re here.”

“We won a week’s holiday in a contest,”
Bessie said.
 
“That’s all.”

Nathan shook his head.
 
“We have contest winners here all the
time.
 
If you don’t want to tell us
what’s really going on, just say so, but please don’t lie to us.”

“We aren’t lying,” Doona said after a short
pause.
 
“We really did just win the
week here as a prize.
 
Charles and I
were, well, let’s just say I knew him years ago.
 
We had no idea he was working here now
or I wouldn’t have come, free holiday or not.”

Nathan chuckled.
 
“So many people seem to dislike the
man,” he said thoughtfully.
 
“I
suppose it’s good that I’m not the only one.”

“Nathan, that isn’t fair,” Monique
scolded.
 
“Charles works very hard and
he’s kind and he’s a good boss.
 
Much better than Harold, anyway.
 
You know that Lakeview has been doing
really well since he’s been here.”

“I thought it was doing fine under Harold’s
management,” Nathan replied.
 
“And I
didn’t have to get approval for everything I did or deal with constant
‘budgetary adjustments.’”

The man made air quotation marks around the
last two words, finishing his remarks by making a face.

Monique flushed.
 
“Charles wants to increase the park’s
profits.
 
Surely there isn’t anything
wrong with that?
 
We wouldn’t have
jobs if Harold ran the place out of business.”

“How long have you two been working here?”
 
Bessie interrupted their argument to ask.

“About a year,” Nathan replied.

“Did you meet here or somewhere else?”
Bessie questioned.

“We met in Paris,” Monique replied.
 
“I was waiting tables in my family’s
restaurant.”

“And I was studying to be a chef,” Nathan
picked up the story.
 
“I used to eat
at a different restaurant every day, trying out different things and seeing how
different chefs plated their meals.”

“But then he started eating at our
restaurant every day,” Monique said, giving her husband a smile.

He took her hand and squeezed it.
 
“It didn’t help with my chef training,
but I had a good reason for wanting to eat there all the time,” he said.

“That seems a long time ago,” Monique said,
staring out of the window at the front of the restaurant.
 
“And I’m not quite sure how we ended up
here, in this place.”

“I was offered the job of head chef at a
famous London hotel,” Nathan said.
 
“We got married and moved to London, but the job didn’t work out.
 
They expected too much and paid too
little.
 
After that, we moved around
quite a bit, seemingly
always moving
north, for some
reason.
 
We got here about a year
ago, and for the most part, working at the holiday park suits us.”

Monique opened her mouth and then snapped it
shut again.
 
Someone knocked on the
door, startling them all.

“It’s just Mai,” Nathan said as he walked to
the door.
 
“Harold probably sent her
over to shout at us in the nicest possible way.”

Monique giggled.
 
“Probably,” she agreed.

Nathan unlocked the door to let Mai in,
quickly locking it behind her once she was inside.

“Ah, Ms. Cubbon and Mrs. Moore, I was
wondering where you two were,” Mai said as she spotted the trio at the small
table.
 

“We were just taking our time over lunch,”
Bessie replied.
 
“Mr. and Mrs. Beck
were kind enough to let us stay for a bit after they’d closed.”

“Yes, well, anything we can do to improve
your holiday, just ask,” the
girl
replied
brightly.
 
“I just wanted to check
in on Nathan, really.
 
I heard there
were some problems at lunch?”

“Charles never showed up to do the
specials,” Nathan said in a tired voice.
 
“That put us behind schedule and sort of messed everything up.”

“Are you okay now?” she asked, putting a
hand on his arm.
 

He smiled at her, but it was Monique who
answered.
 
“We’re fine,” she said,
getting up from her seat.
 
She
crossed the room and slipped her arm around her husband.
 
“We’ll have everything sorted for dinner,
no problem.”

“Good,” Mai said briskly.
 
“I hate getting complaints about the
food here.
 
I know Nathan is better
than that.”

“We certainly are,” Monique replied
haughtily.

“But what’s on your schedule for the rest of
the day?” Mai asked Bessie and Doona.
 
“Surely you have activities booked?”

“We were meant to be going on the woodland
walk this morning, but we, er, missed it,” Doona told her.
 
“That was all that we had on the
schedule for today, but I suppose we ought to be reading our books for the book
club on Saturday.”

“Oh, you should save those for a rainy day,”
Mai suggested.
 
“It’s beautiful out
today.”
 
She pulled a folded piece
of paper from her pocket.
 

“Let’s see, there’s a family squirrel walk
in half an hour,” she said.
 
“I
suspect that will be full of small children, though.
 
Have you thought about trying out
kayaking?
 
Or we could see if
there’s a tennis court free?”

Doona and Bessie exchanged glances.
 
“I don’t think so,” Bessie said after a
moment.
 
“I think maybe a nice long
walk around the village is what we need after our lunch.”

“I can ring the ranger station and see if
there’s a ranger available to give you a tour,” Mai said brightly.

“We’ve already rescheduled our woodland walk
for tomorrow morning,” Doona said.
 
“I think Bessie was suggesting just wandering around and seeing the
park.”

“Yes, well, of course you’re welcome to do
that,” Mai said with doubt in her voice.
 
“But I’m happy to arrange something special for you.”

“I’m sure we’ll be fine on our own,” Doona
said firmly.
 
“I really don’t like
people making a fuss over me.”

Mai flushed.
 
“Charles insisted, that is, he suggested
that we treat you like our most important guests ever.
 
I don’t want him to think that I’m
neglecting you.”

“You have nothing to worry about there,”
Doona said dryly.

Bessie turned an inappropriate chuckle into
a cough.
 
“Maybe we should get out
of everyone’s way,” she said, rising to her feet.

“Yes, I know you all have a lot to do before
dinner,” Doona said.

“Thanks,” Nathan replied.
 
“Please do give us another try later in
your stay.
 
I promise you won’t be
sorry.”

“We’ll definitely be back,” Doona assured
him.
 
“But I do want to try some of
the other options as well, so it may be a while.”

Nathan unlocked the door for them and pulled
it open.
 
Before the women could
leave, however, two people walked in through the door.

“Miss Cubbon, Mrs. Moore, this is a
surprise,” Margaret Hopkins said, her eyes moving back and forth between the
two women.

“We just finished lunch,” Bessie replied,
feeling guilty of something as the woman’s cool eyes appraised her.

“Joe, what’s going on?” Nathan asked the man
who’d entered with the inspector.

Joe Klein shook his head.
 
“Ask the boss,” he said, nodding towards
Margaret.

She smiled.
 
“I’m hardly that,” she murmured.
 
“As for what’s going on, I’d like to ask
everyone a few questions.
 
It will
be easiest if we lock up here and move across to the main building where I have
an office set up.”

“This is about Charles, isn’t it?” Nathan
asked.
 
“He’s done something and he’s
been arrested.”

“I said I needed to ask you questions,” the
woman replied.
 
“I won’t be
answering any.”

“But what about dinner?” Monique asked.
 
“We have to start the dinner
preparations now.”

“I’m afraid my investigation takes
precedence,” Margaret told her. “I’ll try to keep my questioning as brief as
possible.”

“But what about….” Monique began again, but
Joe interrupted.

“The longer we argue, the more time this
will take,” he said firmly.
 
“Let’s
go over to the other building and get it over with.
 
Then you can get back and get started on
dinner.”

No one looked happy, but when Joe held open
the door, Monique and Mai walked through it.
 
Nathan held up the keys.