Eat, Drink and Be Buried (7 page)

“Yes, sure, I was there a few times,” he told me. He was a short, chunky man with a square no-nonsense face that must have comforted many of his clients. “Lord Harlington was a real gent, it was a pleasure to do business with him.”

“Any problems?” I asked.

“What's the interest?” Edgar wanted to know, cautious as always.

I told him of the commission to update the food—back to the Middle Ages. He nodded. Food was not high on Edgar's list of priorities. Then I told him of the death, and he looked grim. “Do the police suspect murder?”

“It's a possibility,” I said. I could be cautious too. “The critical point is this”—and I proceeded to tell him of the joust that was supposed to feature Richard Harlington and how Kenny came to his death instead.

Edgar stroked his chin. “Never met Richard. He was at Oxford when I went to Harlington Castle. His sister, Felicity, had just come back from school in Switzerland, I remember. A very nice young lady.”

“What about the other two children? Were they there? They were younger, maybe they were at school somewhere too.”

Edgar frowned. “They only had two children.”

“Two? No, they have four.”

Edgar shook his head. “Only two.”

“That's strange. You're sure?”

Edgar snapped his ringers. “Wait a minute. Now I remember. After my last visit there, Lady Harlington died. He must have married again. The other two must be his second wife's children.”

“I did think it unusual that they looked so different,” I said. “That must be why. But tell me, Edgar, any crimes during your time? Attempted or successful?”

He paused, clearly running through what must have been an extensive mental file. “Nothing big,” he said finally. “I recall one instance of a fellow who hid in one of the rooms after the last tour had gone through. During the night, he filled a sack with antique silver, then tried to get out. He was an amateur, didn't know that the alarm system worked the same going out as getting in.”

“That was all?”

“A couple of other attempts at break-ins through windows. On both occasions, the thieves took off as soon as the alarm sounded.”

Edgar gave me a keen look. “So the police think that it could have been an attempt on young Richard's life? Somebody thought he would be in the joust, didn't know that this Kenny would replace him?”

“Nothing to support it so far. It has to be considered, obviously.”

“You were there when it happened, you said?”

“Yes, I was.”

“So the police want you to stick around.”

“Yes. I managed to get twenty-four hours off for good behavior, though, so that I could come here.”

“Who's handling the case?”

“Inspector Devlin, Hertfordshire Police.”

Edgar shook his head. “Don't believe I ever met him.”

“It's a she.”

Edgar pulled a face. He was evidently not a supporter of the movement for women's equality, at least not in the realm of law enforcement.

“Anything I can do to help, let me know,” he said.

“If I really get into trouble and you have to smuggle a file in to me, make sure it's in a chicken pie, plenty of chicken, well seasoned, crisp crust…”

T
HE NEXT MORNING, A
fine drizzle and a gusty wind were the opening salvo in Mother Nature's war on the human race. Rain spattered the window of the train as we rattled and swayed out of Hammersmith Tube station while the smell of wet coats and umbrellas filled the carriage.

The Smithfield Meat Market used to be a vast mausoleum of blood-dripping carcasses, glistening raw rib cages, crimson limbs, and the sickly sweet smell of death. Progress and technology have brought us a sterilized version, all clean and tidy with nothing to offend the eye, nose, or mind.

I made my way through a row of trucks waiting to be loaded and into an office area with wall-to-wall computers. No one paid me much attention and I didn't need any; I knew where Max's office was. Even without that knowledge, he would not have been hard to find, for he was on the phone and his bull-like voice transmitted great distances.

His full name was Max Rittmeister, but everyone knew him as Max the Knife. He had a large bald head and a scar on one cheek that he claimed he had received while dueling as a student in Heidelberg. Another version said he'd inflicted it on himself with a carving knife while drunk, but nobody repeated that version within earshot of Max. He was big and powerfully built. He had been a POW in England during the war after being shot down as a rear gunner in a Dornier bomber. When the war was over, after a brief sojourn in bomb-shattered Germany, he returned to England and resumed his life as a butcher. As long as I had known him, he knew more about the meat business than almost anyone else in London.

He hung up the phone as I came into his office. “Been out of town?” he greeted me. “You only come to see me when you need something.”

“Nice to see you again too, Max. No, I haven't been out of town, and yes, I do need something, but it's something that can make you some money.”

He grunted his lack of conviction but I knew that was only an act. The mention of making money would have secured his attention. The meat market operates through individual companies which are, in effect, middlemen between the farms and the customers. Max was one of the establishment's three supervisors; he was responsible only to the meat market but had jurisdiction over the quality of the products sold by the companies. It was the responsibility of Max and his associates to maintain standards by exercising semiofficial control over the farms and the companies. In Max's case, that control could not have been more rigorous if it had been fully official.

“Want to look around first?” he asked.

“Not this time,” I told him. I went on, “Livingstone Farms are the supplier in this case.”

He made a guttural sound that was as near as Max ever got to approval. I knew it meant that they ran a sound operation because if they didn't, Max would already have taken some action.

I outlined the task facing me at Harlington Castle. I knew that although Max was not an expert on the food of the Middle Ages, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of food history in general. He wouldn't make it easy for me, though.

“So what can I tell you? What can I sell you? You want mutton? I can get you mutton.”

“We're considering it, but it's not going to be that popular. People think of it as a food nobody wants to eat any more. Roasts of lamb would be good, don't you think?”

Max shrugged. I knew that the challenge would get through to him quickly. “Could be,” he said. “Lamb is a reasonable price right now. They used to eat roast lamb with ginger sauce in those days.”

“They needed the strong flavor as the meat was often past its prime. Today, I think we can consider less powerful sauces and bring out the flavor of the meat itself.”

He nodded as if he couldn't care less. He was getting more interested.

“Parsley sauce, you think?” I prompted him.

“Lovage,” said Max. “They used a lot of lovage in meat sauces, sometimes on its own, sometimes with thyme.”

I nodded appreciatively. He was coming round. “In a cream base, you mean?”

“Right. Coriander and onion was another popular combination. They added them to a butter and red wine base.”

“I was thinking too of some of the vegetables, chopped to provide thickening. That way, they also give a different taste from the more obvious sauces.”

“Green beans,” said Max at once. “They'd chop them with turmeric and cumin, put them into a stock, then add some breadcrumbs at the end to thicken the sauce even further.”

“Good, yes, that would be different,” I told him. “What about pork? How are your supplies?”

“The pork from Lancashire is hard to beat right now. Good price, too. Of course, a suckling pig is a nice touch. Now they really look Middle Ages.”

“Some plum sauce sharpened up with vinegar would go well with that, wouldn't it?”

“Real good.”

“How would you supply us the suckling pig, though? The nearer to final preparation the better, I think. There aren't many cooks at the castle who know the tricks like you do.”

“We'd clean through the throat and hang from the neck. We'd open the skin under the earflaps so you could squeeze the stuffing in that way. You'd need some calf's brains to make the stuffing really authentic…”

Max was thoroughly hooked by now. He went on to recommend baked ham as another dish popular in medieval times. “But make sure it's not salted,” he cautioned. “They sell you ham loaded with salt today to help preserve it. You want to bring in a salty flavor only through vinegar, fish pickle, and anchovy paste. Never with salt.”

An hour later, I had a long list of ideas as well as Max's estimates of prices and quantities. Ever a storehouse of information, he had gone on to veal roasts and a lecture on how a baron of beef should really be prepared. I left, quite sure that the meat side of the medieval banquet problem at least was solved.

For lunch, I stopped in to see an old friend with a restaurant on Kennington Road, near the Oval. When Dick Lewis had opened Harris House, I had been skeptical about its success. He had taken this step after years of running a restaurant on the island of Harris in the Outer Hebrides. It had been very successful, and when the hostile climate of the North Atlantic became too much for him, he took the bold step of moving to London.

Hebridean food was a novelty, I had to admit, when he first opened. Whether it would be popular enough, I doubted, but within a year Dick had proved me wrong. People wanted good, wholesome food, well cooked and nicely served. Dick managed a fine blend of homely dishes made from natural ingredients, all fresh and yet surprisingly piquant. This was the main reason that this particular restaurant had come to mind out of so many—there was a strong parallel between Dick's food and the medieval food at Harlington Castle.

The place was tastefully decorated and had the appearance of a superior and perfectly kept farmhouse. Vases of flowers on the tables enhanced the image.

One of Dick's secrets was that he made fuller use of Oriental spices than one might expect in Hebridean cooking. The cauliflower and fennel soup was fragrant with its seasoning of coriander and cumin, and the ingredient that made all the difference was the crushed dried pomegranate seeds, adding a fruity but firm aftertaste.

He brought a smoked mackerel spread next and two slices of black bread. “Not enough to be called a course,” Dick said. He said it so I could enjoy a typically Hebridean plate of scallops in oatmeal. In the Hebrides, scallops are called clams. The biggest and freshest are obtained by diving, which makes them more expensive—but very much better—than the dredged variety. Oatmeal is used in place of breadcrumbs and adds an extra dimension. A pungent accompaniment is tomato sauce with plenty of tamarind.

I was earnestly assimilating all these ideas.

A large percentage of Hebrideans are vegetarian. This originated from necessity as the bitter weather often limited the population's food to what they could grow themselves. But then it became a preferred way of eating for many. Dick offered me a choice of meats, though, starting with venison. Deer are wild in the Hebrides but sparse in number. The popularity comes from the fact that it freezes better than any other meat.

Lamb features in several dishes on the islands, but as Dick had said to me once, “Kill a lamb when it weighs twenty pounds rather than wait till it grows to eighty pounds—doesn't make sense!” To the thrifty Hebrideans, battling the elements for survival, it made a lot more sense the way Dick put it. “You often hear the comment, ‘Mutton dressed as lamb'—well, we serve lamb dressed as mutton,” he said.

I settled on a roasted pheasant. The birds were introduced some years ago into the Hebrides but did not do well until plantations were established for them. They are really best when roasted, but I told Dick that would be too much for me for lunch, so he proposed the pot roast.

He confided that this method was usually used so the cook could choose birds too tough for roasting, even though those he could obtain here in London were tender enough. Nevertheless, he was proud of the pot-roasted pheasant. It was cut into pieces and boned, cooked with carrots, onions, and celery, seasoned with bayleaf, thyme, and lemon peel, with some quince jelly added at the end.

Every housewife in the Hebrides has her own way of making scones. Some sweeten with sugar, some with treacle, some use sour milk to lighten the texture. They are known by the names of their originator, so Mary Ann MacSween's scones and Kathleen Morrison's scones are two of the best known. Dick brought me a couple of each when I declined dessert. Golden brown, light but not airy, they tasted as good as they looked.

At the beginning of the meal, I had asked, “They are still not producing wine in the Hebrides?” Dick's answer was inevitable, but he brought me a half bottle of a wine from Hampshire, “only thirty miles from here.” It was a sound, light white with a firm finish.

I left Harris House fully satisfied, having assured Dick that his food was better than ever. I also had a headful of notions for augmenting the castle's medieval table.

London's supply of fish in earlier days came from Billingsgate Market, where the turrets of the Tower of London made a splendidly appropriate background. It was a dour Victorian building with spidery iron girders. I remembered my father taking me there when I was at a very young and impressionable age. I recalled the stalls in the bays, the hundreds of porters carrying their impossibly heavy loads, the dead eyes of the fish, the haggling and bargaining that took place before the porters hoisted the dripping wet boxes of purchases out to waiting transport.

Today, much of the fish trade has moved to Docklands, five thousand acres of recently developed land just beyond fabled Limehouse. The elevated railway gave fine views of it; the sky had now stopped raining and sunshine threatened.