7 A Tasteful Crime

Jock McLean clutched the three cards in his hand as he stared at the table. Three pairs of eyes watched him from the other side. He couldn’t help seeing menace in their depths, despite the fact that one pair belonged to Jemima Douglas (formerly Stevenson), the least menacing person he knew. Apart from Christopher, of course. And Charlie Smith’s dog. What was he doing, thinking of a dog as a person anyway?

‘Well?’ said Jemima.

‘I haven’t made up my mind yet.’

It was perfectly true. He couldn’t decide whether Jemima’s courgette and lemon sponge was worse than Tricia Laidlaw’s carrot and orange cake, or whether Tricia’s cake was worse than Penelope Johnstone’s assemblage of layered root vegetables held together, apparently, by sugar, honey and treacle. At least Penelope hadn’t given her so-called cake a name that made it sound more or less edible. He was tempted to award all the points to her just for that. On the other hand, he was afraid his false teeth were going to be permanently stained with beetroot juice, and it felt as if the leeks, barely cooked, had lodged in his throat.

It was all Christopher’s fault, of course.

‘Hurry up!’ said Tricia. ‘We won’t get round to the Queen of Scots before closing time at this rate.’

She gave him a smile that wasn’t exactly false, more like a snarl that had been hastily converted into a smile at the last minute. It was the eyes that gave it away.

Jock took a step forward. He could hardly bring himself to get close to the groaning table with its array of inedible food. But it would have to be done. In a sense, he told himself, it didn’t matter which of them he awarded first place to. They would all hate him anyway.

He glanced at the cards in his hand and picked one out. He reached forward. The three women leaned towards him...

‘Damn! How could you start without me?’ said Amaryllis, bursting through Jemima’
s kitchen door with the energy and explosive force of a torpedo.

‘We haven’t done the judging yet,’ said Jock. ‘You’re welcome to join in.’

She stared at the table. ‘If there’s any chocolate cake...’

Chocolate cake! Ha! There wasn’t even anything that deserved to be called cake, in Jock’s opinion.

Fortunately Amaryllis spoke his thoughts before he had to.

‘Are these vegetables?’ She pointed at Penelope’s concoction.

‘Beetroot, leeks and puréed cauliflower,’ said Penelope proudly.

‘But I thought it was a cake competition,’ said Amaryllis.

Jock had to admire the note of child-like disappointment in her voice. There was no doubt about it, a career as a spy was an ideal preparation for the kind of acting skills you needed when you lived in a small town like Pitkirtly. He knew Amaryllis had already had several arguments with Christopher about the whole premise of the healthy eating drive recently implemented by the local council.

‘These are cakes,’ said Penelope through gritted teeth.

‘But,’ said Amaryllis, ‘no Victoria sponge, or chocolate cake with chocolate buttons on top, or...’

‘Healthy eating, Amaryllis,’ said Jemima briskly. ‘That means vegetables with everything.’

‘Or fruit,’ said Tricia.

‘I never thought it would go this far,’ said Amaryllis. She turned to Jock. ‘So which one are you going to give first place to?’

‘Well, it’s a difficult decision,’ said Jock, not happy that there were now four pairs of eyes watching him. He had an inspiration. ‘Why don’t you try some and give a second opinion?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Amaryllis. ‘Why should I
risk death by beetroot myself when you’ve already made the sacrifice on behalf of all of us?’

Jemima bristled. ‘There’ll be no deaths in my kitchen. And no talk of death either. It’s unlucky.’

‘I know what!’ said Amaryllis to Jock, as brightly as if she had discovered dark matter or the secret of eternal life. ‘I’ll give them marks for appearance, and you can do taste.’

‘Hmph,’ said Jock. ‘I’m not sure...’

One thing he was sure about was that he would get the blame for whatever happened next. That was what men were for, after all. Especially as he was filling in for Christopher, in a way. Normally Christopher would have been here to be the butt of everybody’s jokes and the scapegoat when things went wrong.

‘Where
’s Christopher anyway?’ he said. ‘He’ll be sorry to have missed this.’

‘Oh, he’s had to go and meet some people from
the television company,’ said Jemima. ‘He rang up earlier and apologised.’

Jock didn’t consider the excuse very convincing. He couldn’t imagine Christopher meeting television people. They wouldn’t be his cup of tea at all.

‘Rang up?’ said Amaryllis. ‘Why couldn’t he send a text like any normal person? Or post on Twitter?’

‘Some people still speak to each other,’ said Penelope suddenly.
‘Even although it’s completely out of fashion.’

‘I quite like Twitter,’ said Tricia, and blushed. ‘It’s nice and short. Nobody can ramble on.’

Jock secretly approved of this attitude, but he knew it was more than his life was worth to show any bias at this point.

‘Will we go into a huddle to discuss our marks?’ said Amaryllis to Jock.

He shuddered. Going into a huddle with Amaryllis wasn’t on his list of things to do before he died. Quite apart from the fact that it might enrage Christopher – although that was debatable – he imagined it would be very similar to huddling with a porcupine, or an unexploded bomb. Glancing at her hairstyle that day, and the way it stuck out all round her head in dark red spikes, he decided she was more like a porcupine.

‘We’d better go out in the hall,’ said Amaryllis, apparently taking his silence for consent. ‘We want to keep up the suspense.’

Jock cast one anguished glance back at Jemima as Amaryllis took him by the elbow and hustled him out of the kitchen. Jemima, perhaps annoyed by his failure to reach a decision before Amaryllis interfered, ignored him.

‘Now,’ said Amaryllis as they stood
just behind the front door, almost on the very spot where one of Jemima’s cousins had collapsed, dead, a couple of years before, ‘what do you reckon? Is Jemima more or less likely to kill us than Penelope is if she doesn’t win?’

‘We shouldn’t make a decision based on that,’ protested Jock. ‘It’s not fair.’

She sighed. ‘I really shouldn’t have to remind you, of all people, that life isn’t fair.’

‘Why not?’

‘As a former teacher I would have thought you’d know all that. Some animals are more equal than others, and so on.’

‘Aye,’ said Jock gloomily, thinking back over his years in the classroom. ‘Animal’ was the right word for some of the
kids he had encountered. Not to mention the parents.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘based on appearance, it’s a dead heat between Jemima and Tricia.
How about the taste?’

‘About the same,’ he said. ‘Only I can’t give Tricia a higher mark.’

‘Why not?’

‘Favouritism.’

‘Don’t be silly – not giving her the prize just because you fancy her is worse than not giving it because she’s an old bat.’

‘I don’t!’

‘You do!’

‘Do not! And who are you calling an old bat?’

‘Nobody.’

‘And what’s Christopher doing with
those television people?’ said Jock hastily, now that the pointless argument had run aground.

‘I think he’s got to welcome them to the town because the Head of Culture
at the Council isn’t well. And the Deputy Head of Culture. And both their secretaries.’

‘What for?’

‘What do you mean, what for?’

‘Are you two judging this bake-off or not?’ Jemima interrupted. She was standing in the kitchen doorway, hands on hips. All she needed, Jock thought, was a rolling-pin and one of these scarves women used to wear round their heads in the Fifties, and she would be just like a cartoon wife having an argument with her husband. Assuming the words ‘having an argument’
meant full-scale physical attack by the woman.

‘I think we’ve come to a decision,’ said Amaryllis coolly. She nodded to Jock. He thought she might be trying to get some sort of message across.
Unfortunately he had no idea what it was. Jemima or Tricia. He wished she would trace a letter in mid-air, or whisper a clue to him as they proceeded back into the kitchen.

‘...
used to laugh at my cooking,’ Penelope was saying as they approached the table again. ‘I don’t think he meant to be so hurtful. But I did lose my confidence for a while, I must admit.’

Oh, God! Now he would have to give the top ma
rk to Penelope! What a travesty of fairness and justice.

Jemima handed three cards to Amaryllis. ‘You’d better have those. We can add your marks and Jock’s to get the winner.’

It all seemed very grim. What on earth had made them think this might be fun? Or maybe they didn’t want to have fun at all.

‘Where’s Dave tonight?’ said Jock, wondering suddenly
how Jemima’s husband had got out of being present on this important occasion.

‘He had to go round to the Queen of Scots and give Charlie a hand
with the lunch-time rush,’ said Jemima. ‘There’s only Stewie otherwise and he...’

She didn’t have to say any more. They all knew about Stewie, with his unfortunate background and his propensity for being led astray and getting into trouble.

‘What about Maisie Sue and Jan?’ said Jock, clutching at straws.

Jemima sighed heavily, and sat down. ‘Do you want to know what everybody in Pitkirtly’s doing to
day, or are you going to get on with this?’

Jock turned his cards over and studied them. They each had a number written in capitals: one, two and three. He glanced over at Amaryllis. She had the same selection.

‘Which way round do they go?’ he asked.

‘I would have thought a man of your education could work that out,’ said Penelope, sniffing.

‘Not necessarily,’ said Amaryllis. ‘We could use them for first, second and third place. Or we could give one, two or three points, and the highest score wins.’

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ said Tricia wearily. Jock felt guilty about keeping her in suspense. She had probably spent a long and trying day doing whatever she did for a living, and then she would almost certainly have had
many a sleepless night worrying about Darren. Jock didn’t know if there was anything to worry about, but he knew mothers allegedly never stopped worrying about their offspring.

‘Oh, all right
then, let’s get on with it,’ said Amaryllis. She slapped her cards down on the table one at a time, one beside each cake plate.

Jock shuffled the cards a couple of times and followed suit.

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