The Chinese Takeout (19 page)

‘All Chinese to me,’ I quipped. And then, to my absolute horror, I started to cry. ‘No. Don’t dare be nice to me. Don’t even think about it. Get on with what you’re doing and leave me to sort myself out.’ Which I did with a viciously cold shower and meticulous make-up.

I returned to the restaurant to find a pot of tea waiting for me. But no Andy. And no map or photos either.

The idiot! The absolute stupid idiot! With no more idea of how to look after himself than a babe in arms! Except, of course, he’d got enough nous to switch off his mobile. If I’d allowed myself to cry, this time my tears would have been pure frustration.

Or was that an oxymoron too?

‘You’re positive you don’t recognise any of these faces? Absolutely positive?’ Poor Bernie Downs took it as a matter of personal failure on her part.

Hard-hearted in the face of her pleading, I shook my head firmly.

‘Tell you what, I’ll ask the villagers who said they’d witnessed it. After all,’ she added as kindly as if I were ninety, ‘you’d have been very upset, very shocked.’

I suppressed a fierce desire to snarl, not least because they should have been questioned the day I was run down. ‘OK: let’s go through one more time.’ Once or twice I caught myself with a false memory, I wanted so much to get an ID. And then: ‘Yes! Yes, I’m sure that’s him!’

Downs made a note, but didn’t overwhelm me with her enthusiasm. ‘I thought you said you hardly saw the BMW driver.’

‘I eyeballed him! I yelled at him!’

‘I thought you said he was clean shaven.’

‘Easy enough to shave a bit of facial fungus, for goodness’ sake!’

‘But—’

‘Look at that expression: look how knowing it is. My assailant had exactly that look.’

‘So, unfortunately, have a lot of young scrotes. But we’ll follow him up.’

‘I have a pretty good memory for faces. Especially the faces of people who try to run me over.’

She nodded. ‘Just to make sure, let’s try the national data-base.’

‘But—’ On the other hand, if I’d been indignant about Lawton’s laxity, how could I complain when someone was trying?

So we clicked away, Bernie prompting me as if her life depended on my finding someone. We must have been at it half an hour, bless her. At last, hardly remembering who I’d said it was in the first place, I pointed to my watch: ‘Afternoon tea?’

I was well into preparation for the evening, when a phone rang. My mobile. So it wasn’t a late booking or a cancellation, for which I was grateful. A bit of stability was called for, in my professional as much as my personal doings. Which was why I didn’t respond immediately to the call, which was from Andy: if he left a message, I could judge better how to react.

It sounded as if he might have written it down or even rehearsed it. Either that, or he was better at leaving phone messages than most. ‘Nil returns, so
far, I’m afraid. Both places I checked out on the way home had proper signs outside, labelled vans coming and going: everything looked eminently respectable. I’ll speak to you soon, I hope.’

At least he hadn’t been torn apart by a dozen slavering guard dogs or got himself kidnapped and beaten up. I returned to my onion peeling – yes, we all mucked in together, which is why we made such a good team. So the tears pouring down my face were purely chemical in origin when, suddenly panicking that his call was a sop to kidnappers to put me off the scent, I returned his call.

‘Sorry: I’m just off to the cathedral for a confirmation service,’ he said. ‘Literally getting in the car now.’

‘Is there some sort of ceremonial booze up afterwards? No? Suppose you call me then.’ But I had a feeling he was as angry as I was, him because of the photograph trick I’d pulled and I – well, because I was. So I certainly wouldn’t hold my breath. I cut the call without waiting for his response. After all, if my appointment was with fifty or so diners, his was with God.

I was just tarting myself up for my evening front of house role when my phone rang. This time it was Abigail Tromans, the farmer’s wife. ‘Cheap chickens,’ she said.

‘And chickens cheep,’ I responded, foolishly, given that while Abigail is a shrewd businesswoman
– compared with her husband, anyway – her sense of humour isn’t in the premier league.

‘Sorry?’

‘Nothing. Sorry. Cheap chickens?’

‘Dan says there were a couple of free-range chicken farmers at the market this morning who supply one of the big places in Exeter. They’ve been asked to cut their prices. Halve them. Some other supplier’s come along, see, and is offering dressed meat at silly prices. Breast meat, it is, too.’

‘So it’s delivered to the restaurant without skin or bones?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I wonder what happens to the rest of the bird,’ I pondered aloud.

‘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.

‘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.’