Chef Maurice and a Spot of Truffle (Chef Maurice Mysteries Book 1) (12 page)

“Well, you can hardly expect—”

“That is
intolérable
!” He paused. “Still, it gives me an idea . . . ”

They continued their walk through the village, going door to door handing out flyers. Beakley’s mostly retired residents could usually be depended upon to be at home, or visiting someone else’s home, where they sat ready to pounce on the next visitor collecting for charity or selling double-glazing, dragging them in to dispense the latest gossip. They rarely bought anything—apart from the recent case of Mr Evans, who had been quite taken with the Avon lady, and whose newfound interest in rouge was said to be adding a whole new slant to his social life—but this didn’t stop armies of salespeople making their regular rounds in Beakley, sure of a cup of tea and a slice of sponge cake.

Eventually they reached the end of the village and the cordoned-off cottage of Ollie Meadows, and found Mrs Eldridge sitting on a deck chair in her half of the front garden, a tartan blanket across her knees.

“Move out of my way, you’re blocking the view,” she snapped, waving at them with her cane. They obediently stepped aside and watched as Mrs Eldridge applied a pair of binoculars to her eyes and peered at the white van coming towards them. She pursed her lips, whipped on her reading glasses, and made a small entry in the notebook on her lap.

“Traffic control,” she said, waving the little book at them. “I keep telling the council we need some traffic-calming devices in the village. The through traffic has been terrible of late.”

Chef Maurice and Arthur turned to survey the empty road. In the distance, the van trundled off over a hill. Birds tweeted in the still trees.

“And what’s that paper you’ve got there? I saw you both, plastering the whole village with those things.”

They handed her a flyer, which she took and scrutinised as if it were the terms and conditions of a winning lottery ticket.

“So you’ve lost your pet pig, eh? My father used to keep pigs. They don’t make good pets, I’ll tell you that. Always getting loose and raiding the orchard next door, especially this time of year, when the fruit falls and rots on the ground. Turns to cider all by itself. You ever seen a drunk pig?”

They shook their heads.

“Ah, well, you’re missing out, then.”

“I have been threatened, Madame Eldridge,” said Chef Maurice gravely. “They steal Hamilton, they tell me to stay out of Monsieur Ollie’s business.” This wasn’t strictly accurate, but it seemed the most likely business that someone might want to keep him out of.

Mrs Eldridge nodded. “That Ollie had a lot of business that people might want to poke around into, if you get my meaning.”

Arthur and Chef Maurice shared a look. This sounded promising.

“Have you, er, mentioned all this . . . business to the police?” said Arthur.

Mrs Eldridge snorted. “That pretty little blonde police lady wouldn’t know a criminal if he hit her over the head. Kept me out of the house, she did, when they searched his cottage the other day. His half is a mirror image of mine. I could have told them all the places to look.”

“Like, in the back of the wardrobes, under the stairs, below the sink, that kind of thing?”

Mrs Eldridge narrowed her eyes at Arthur. “You been having me watched?”

“Ahem,” said Chef Maurice. “You were speaking of Monsieur Ollie and his business?”

“I might have been.” Mrs Eldridge tilted her head. “But then again, I might have forgotten. My memory plays up something dreadful, it does.”

Chef Maurice nodded. “I, myself, have that problem sometimes. But I think I have a remedy. Arthur, your phone,
s’il vous plaît
?”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, the smell of caramelised pastry and slow-cooked apples filled Mrs Eldridge’s little parlour room.

“Tell Patrick,” Chef Maurice said to Alf, who was red in the face from his sprint down from Le Cochon Rouge, “that we will need another
tarte tatin
for dinner this evening.”

“
Oui
, chef,” said Alf, and jogged out of the door.

They sat, balancing their teacups on their knees.

“So first of all,” said Mrs Eldridge, leaning forwards like one about to impart state secrets, “there’s those youngsters that keep coming around.”

“Local kids?” asked Arthur.

“Not from Beakley, else I’d know ’em by sight. They park up in the lay-by, near those fields behind here, and cut across through to the back.” Mrs Eldridge waved her cane towards the rear of her house.

“What are they coming here for?”

“Ah, if I knew that, I might have bothered to tell that police lady. I know they come to pick up something, I see ’em scuttling away with paper bags sometimes.”

“Do you see them exchanging anything?” asked Arthur. “Money and the like?”

“It’s them darn eaves,” said Mrs Eldridge, pointing her cane at the window. “Gets in the way when you’re trying to look out. I can see the back path from my upstairs bedroom, but the way the eaves hang out, can’t see what goes on at the door.”

“A shame,
madame
,” said Chef Maurice.

“Ain’t it just? I wanted to put one of those little balconies on the back, but the council chap said I wasn’t allowed, it’d be overlooking. I told him, young man, overlooking is exactly what I want it for!”

Chef Maurice made various sympathetic noises.

“But I wouldn’t be bothering with those youngsters anyway,” continued Mrs Eldridge. “Not if you’re after something to do with Ollie’s murder.”

“Why do you say that,
madame
?” said Chef Maurice, helping himself to another slice of
tarte tatin
, and making a mental note to try adding a touch of cinnamon next time.

“Got my money on one of those two fellows who’ve been hanging around here.”

“Fellows?” said Arthur.

“Well, the first one, saw him last Friday—”

“That is the day Monsieur Ollie’s cottage was first broken into!” said Chef Maurice.

Mrs Eldridge nodded. “Saw him here a few times that day, bold as brass, staring through the windows, banging on the door. Reckon he waited until dark, then . . . well, just as well Ollie was out that night. Off with a lady friend, he was, by my reckoning.”

“You think the murderer came for him that night?” said Arthur.

“It makes sense,” said Chef Maurice. “Nothing was taken on the Friday. Perhaps because it was not the intention.”

“You might be right about that,” said Mrs Eldridge. “And I saw him again, the same man, on the Sunday afternoon. Shouted something through the letter box, then drove off.”

“You have his car details?”

Mrs Eldridge tapped her notebook. “All in here.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” said Arthur, drumming his fingers on his knee. “Ollie had already . . . disappeared by then. Why come back to the cottage?”

“Aha, perhaps he returns to create an alibi?”

“Damn funny alibi. And then there’s the break-in on Monday too. Why come back again, break in, and steal a worthless map? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Patience,
mon ami
. To solve a mystery, it is like clarifying the chicken stock. In time, it will become clear.” He turned to Mrs Eldridge. “This man, what did he look like?”

Mrs Eldridge peered down at her notebook. “He was tall, not old, not young, a big man, looked like he could heave a crate or two.”

“Hmm, the man I saw break in on the Monday night was a skinny chap,” said Arthur.

“He had a big dark beard—”

“The dog man!” cried Chef Maurice. “
Mon ami
, this must be the same man who collected the dog of Monsieur Ollie.”

“Our phantom truffle hunter?”

Chef Maurice nodded.

Mrs Eldridge, who sensed the limelight was fading away from her, rapped her pen against her notebook. “Then there’s that second fellow who’s been coming round.”

“A skinny chap?” said Arthur hopefully.

She shook her head. “Big fellow. All dressed up, businesslike. Blond hair. Tall.”

“Hmph, all these criminals, always tall,” muttered Chef Maurice.

“So what was suspicious about this chap, then?”

“Well, it was the Thursday night he came around. Ollie didn’t want to let him in at first, then he did. I could hear them shouting through the walls. Terrible the way sound carries through these walls. Had to turn the telly right down, I did.”

“What were they shouting about?”

“Well, it was mostly the blond fellow doing the shouting. Couldn’t make out most of it. Something about staying away from something.”

Chef Maurice thought about the note they’d found in Ollie’s house.
Keep away from things that don’t belong to you. Or else.

“Not much to go on, I’m afraid,” said Arthur. “Frankly, my money’s on those kids and those packages. Drugs, most likely.”

Chef Maurice frowned. PC Lucy hadn’t mentioned finding any drugs. The good citizens of Beakley mostly confined themselves to the wholesomely legal highs of alcohol and gossip.

“What did these kids look like?” asked Arthur.

“Well, it wasn’t always the same ones. There was one boy, though, saw him a lot, always wearing a black jacket. Fancied himself as James Dean, I reckon. Girls sometimes too, wearing those ridiculous shoes they do nowadays. They never caused any trouble, mind you,” she added. “Except for the smoking. They’d stand out the back, waiting for Ollie. Like clockwork they was. Every Friday early evening, regular.”

“Every Friday?” Chef Maurice looked at Arthur. “That is today.
Mon ami
, are you thinking what I am thinking?”

Arthur sighed. “I highly doubt it.”

They headed back to Le Cochon Rouge for lunch, plans thus arranged for later that afternoon. Arthur had fervent misgivings about the whole enterprise, but Chef Maurice was insistent: solving this murder was Hamilton’s only chance.

They found Patrick pacing up and down the kitchens and muttering to himself, his hair sticking out at odd angles. This was unusual; as chefs went, Patrick was as well balanced as a tightrope-walking accountant’s chequebook.

He had his eyes half-closed and was gesturing with one hand. “Delicious!” he muttered. “That was really . . . delicious . . . ”

“I don’t think he’s quite got the vocabulary to be a restaurant critic,” said Arthur, sotto voce, to Chef Maurice.

Chef Maurice wandered over to Alf, who was pushing a steaming pile of potatoes through a ricer.

“What is the matter with Patrick?”

“He’s got a date. With a girl,” said Alf with a smirk. “She’s going to cook him dinner.”

“Ah, jolly good,” said Arthur. “So who’s the lucky lady?”

“It’s that blonde policewoman,” said Alf. “Never knew Patrick had a thing for uniforms . . . ”

Patrick stopped pacing and threw his hands open at his audience. “What am I going to
do
?”

They stared at him.

Arthur cleared his throat. “Exactly which part of the evening are you referring to?” he said carefully.

“She said she’s going to cook! What if I don’t like her cooking?”

Arthur looked sideways at the assembled company. Alf was still at the age where girls presented both a fascination and a terror
incognita
. As for Chef Maurice, while he could muster a certain brisk variety of charm when matters required, a prolonged but not unhappy bachelorhood had now led to the stage where an evening with a well-curated cheeseboard held more attraction to the chef than the perils of female companionship.

Which left Arthur, who, despite several years of joyous marriage, rather regarded this feat like a man who has accidentally solved a Rubik’s Cube—he was damned if he knew how it all worked, let alone in a position to advise someone else on its mechanics.

“What if she’s an awful cook? Should I lie?”

“Never,” said Chef Maurice, who lied all the time.

“Absolutely,” said Arthur, the happily married man. “Make sure to have second helpings too. The way to a woman’s heart is through your stomach.”

Patrick looked pained. “Can I at least offer constructive criticism?”

“Not if you don’t want her to retaliate,” said Arthur, patting him on the shoulder. “Especially at a point in the evening when you least expect it.” He winced. “So when is this date?”

“Tonight.” Patrick looked glum.

“Cheer up, she might turn out to be an excellent cook,” said Arthur. He’d once seen PC Lucy judo-tackle a would-be bicycle thief on the village green. Pacifying a rack of lamb would surely be no trouble. That said, there had been that roast chicken question the other day . . .

“You could skip lunch,” volunteered Alf. “That way you’ll be raving hungry.”

“And what are we even going to talk about?”

“Films, books, music? The joys of village life?” Arthur racked his brain. It had been many decades since he’d had to make ulteriorly motivated small talk.

“Whether she has found
mon
Hamilton?”

“
Not
that,” said Arthur. “Keep work out of the equation.”

As he headed for the dining room and his reserved lunchtime table, he heard Chef Maurice offer up one more tip from his personal dating philosophy.

“And do not forget to check her fridge. You can tell much about a lady by the cheese that she eats.”

Bachelorhood, thought Arthur, was a strange world, indeed.

* * *

It would probably go down as one of history’s best-catered stake-outs.

They sat in the lay-by in Chef Maurice’s car—Arthur had taken one look at the overflowing picnic hamper and vetoed taking his Aston—surrounded by four types of cheese, two cold game pies, a roast artichoke quiche, a fruit platter, and an extra-large thermos of hot chocolate.

The late afternoon sun was just setting behind the trees. Over the ridge in front of them, unkempt fields led down the hill to the lower part of Beakley village and, in particular, to the back door of Ollie Meadows’ old cottage.

“It’s been an hour already,” said Arthur, jiggling his knees. “Do you think she got the day wrong?”

“Madame Eldridge is a most conscientious lady.”

Arthur tested his seat to see if it could go any lower. Not that it mattered too much—he was already confident that from the road, a casual passer-by could hardly see him.