Chef Maurice and a Spot of Truffle (Chef Maurice Mysteries Book 1) (7 page)

Chef Maurice rummaged around in the walk-in fridge and returned with a bag of apples, a large
tarte normande
and a small jug of cream.

He tossed the bag of apples at Alf. “Peeled, cored, thinly sliced. Patrick, a
pâte sucrée
for the base is needed. We will need a new
tarte normande
this evening.”

“I thought we already had—” started Patrick, then noticed the apple tart in Chef Maurice’s hand. “
Oui
, chef. One
tarte normande
.”

Chef Maurice doused his impromptu late lunch with cream, then wandered over to the hobs. He stuck his nose over a pot of reducing stock, sniffed, then turned down the flame one notch.

The kitchen door burst open.

“You’ll never guess what!”

It was Dorothy, cheeks flushed from the heat of gossip hot off the press.

“Annie just dropped round with the linen, and she just heard it from Charlie, who heard from his brother over in Cowton. There’s been a murder up in Farnley Woods. A murder!”

“Cor!” said Alf.

“That’s awful,” said Patrick.

Chef Maurice opened his mouth, then closed it. Dorothy would never forgive him if he stole her thunder now.

“And you’ll never guess who it was. Ollie Meadows! I said to Annie, if anyone was going to be murdered around here, it’d be that scallywag Ollie, always sneaking around in people’s gardens. Not to speak ill of the dead, of course,” she added primly.

“Blimey!” said Alf, absentmindedly biting into an apple. He’d moved to Beakley from the hamlet of Little Goving, population six. Life in the big village was currently exceeding all his expectations. “How’d it happen? Who did it?”

“Well, of course they don’t know yet,” said Dorothy, in the tone of someone who has watched their fair share of murder mysteries and knows how these things go. “But they know he was shot, right in the chest, they say. Puts a chill up you, that does. We all thought he’d just run off with some girl, and then bam, he turns up dead as a doorknob. Makes you think of locking your doors and getting a big Rottweiler, it does. And think about the poor soul that found him . . . ”

“
Oui
, it was most horrific,” said Chef Maurice, tipping the last of the cream over his plate. “Arthur, he was almost sick. I think he does not possess the constitution for
le crime
.”

He looked up at his staff’s open mouths. “You do not know? It was we who found
le pauvre
Ollie, on our walk with Hamilton this morning.”

Dorothy’s face was a battlefield of emotion. On one hand, her boss had completely upstaged her, but on the other hand, she now had access to a genuine crime scene witness, which was one up on Annie, who’d only heard about it because her boyfriend’s brother was a police constable over in Cowton, and he hadn’t even been there.

In the end, the lure of premium-quality gossip won out.

“Oh my, that must have been terrible,” she cried. “Sit down, chef, let me make you a cup of coffee, and you can tell us all about it. It’s a terrible burden to carry, I tell you, to keep it all in. Best get it out, I always say.”

So the morning’s sorry tale was rehashed, with extra dash and daring on Chef Maurice’s part, and some light embellishment of his conversation with PC Lucy.

“Lucy?” said Patrick, looking up from prepping a tray of pork belly. “The policewoman who lives down near the green? Blonde? Er . . . ” He waved his hands. “Nice and . . . uh . . . ” His ears were going red.

“That’s her,” said Dorothy, with a grin. “Comes here every week for the Sunday roast. Always has the lamb.”

“She comes for dinner too, sometimes,” added Chef Maurice, who liked to get out into the dining room during service to shake hands with regulars, top up wine glasses and inject a little Gallic bonhomie into the room. And to make sure they all cleaned their plates, of course.

“Does she, um, come along with anyone?” said Patrick with extreme nonchalance, eyes focussed on scoring the pork belly all over.

“She’s often with a girlfriend, another police lady, I think,” said Dorothy, winking at Chef Maurice. “Not half as pretty, in my mind.”

“Right.” Patrick bent over, salting the pork with a look of ferocious concentration.

“So
do
the police know who did it?” said Dorothy, turning back to Witness Number One.

Chef Maurice shook his head.

“Of course, they’ll have to read his will,” said Dorothy, sudden criminal expert. “Find out who benefits the most, and that’s your murderer, nine times out of ten, I tell you.”

“Cor, that’s clever,” said Alf. Beakley was turning out to be an education and a half.

“Monsieur Ollie did not seem the type to have a will.”

“Do you have a will, chef?”

“Of course.” His was fairly simple. To Arthur, he’d leave his Citroën and cookbooks. Patrick would get Le Cochon Rouge, should he still be sous-chef.

He wondered who should get Hamilton now.

“I heard someone broke into his cottage, twice,” said Dorothy. “Might have been looking for that will. There’s always a surprise will. Leaving everything to the maid, or the like. Or sometimes it could be a forgery . . . ”

Chef Maurice thought about Ollie’s stolen map. Surely Ollie wouldn’t have written his will on a map?

“Can’t imagine he had much to leave, though, always griping on about his bills and all. His cottage was a right mess, Annie said. Just a load of old plants and those mushrooms of his.”

Chef Maurice dropped his spoon and glanced up at the clock. It might not be too late . . .

“Patrick!”

“
Oui
, chef?” Patrick shut the walk-in fridge, having bedded down the salt-and-sage-rubbed pork belly for a good flavourful rest.

“Come.” He put a friendly arm around his sous-chef’s shoulder. “I have a special task for you that I think you will most enjoy . . . ”

* * *

Get hold of the truffles. Don’t mention the truffles.

Patrick tried to hold these two thoughts in his head as he hurried down through Beakley towards Ollie Meadows’ cottage.

It wasn’t stealing, Chef Maurice had said. They were doing the world of gastronomy a favour, even. What would a police station do with a sack of white truffles? Have them with weak tea and digestive biscuits?

Patrick’s thoughts took a detour through a land of savoury beignets drizzled in truffle-infused oil.

He wouldn’t have to lie, either, chef had said. Similar to using truffle shavings, it just paid to be economical with the truth. If someone came out and said “Is this bag of truffles we found in the fridge worth thousands of pounds?” he’d have to answer honestly. But it wasn’t his fault that a bag of white truffles looked a good deal like a bag of small, dusty potatoes.

His thoughts also drifted to a certain blonde policewoman. He’d seen her around and about the village, but working six-day weeks and spending all his free time developing new recipes, which he tried to slip onto the menu without Chef Maurice complaining too much, left him little chance to get to know his Beakley neighbours.

He took another mental detour to visit the fried-squid-and-piquillo-pepper starter he’d been working on lately.

All in all, Patrick’s head was so full of thoughts that his feet brought him all the way to Ollie’s back gate before he realised he hadn’t worked out what he was, in fact, going to say.

A freckle-faced young policeman looked up from examining the broken door lock.

“Can I help, sir?”

“I was wondering if I could have a word with, um, Miss”—he realised he had no idea what her surname was—“um, Lucy?”

“That’s PC Gavistone to you,” said a voice from inside the cottage, and PC Lucy appeared at the door. Her hair was straying from its bun, framing her face in a halo of wisps, and the state of her uniform suggested she’d spent the last few hours down on her knees in dusty cupboards.

“Well?” she demanded.

Patrick felt his throat dry up. A degree in molecular biology, a short-lived career in software development, then successive jobs in professional kitchens mostly staffed by large, sweaty men, had left Patrick in his early thirties with a resume containing a distinct lack of detail in the Talking To Women section.

Especially not attractive young women who carried their own truncheons.

“I’m, uh, I’ve come from Le Cochon Rouge, I’m the sous-chef there and—”

“Perfect!” PC Lucy smiled—but tigers smiled too, didn’t they? thought Patrick—and held up a hand. “Just wait there a moment.”

She disappeared into the cottage and came back with a small woven sack. The smell of truffles drifted out into the back garden, an unspoken accusation.

“I don’t suppose you know what these are?” she said sweetly, holding open the bag. “Being a chef and all?”

Get hold of the truffles. Don’t mention the truffles.

“Um, they could be Maris Pipers, they’re good for making mash and roast potat—”

“And
I
might be the Queen of Sheba.”

The smile vanished. PC Lucy held out a scrap of paper, covered in familiar loopy handwriting. Patrick had a sinking feeling.

“I found this in the sack. You know anything about this?”

Patrick took the note.

Cher monsieur Meadows,

I owe you payment for: 1 bag wild mushrooms, small. 1 bunch bananas, squashed (these I sat on when your table overturned on me). 1 truffle, large, white.

Please return from being missing soon, or I will require a new mushroom supplier.

M. Maurice Manchot

PS: Your kitchen floor requires a sweep. It is most unpleasant to sit upon.

Patrick tugged at the collar of his chef’s jacket, which had suddenly become dangerously tight.

“Well, we did make a banana soufflé yesterday, which seemed a bit odd for this time of year . . . ”

He trailed off as PC Lucy’s blue eyes bored into him.

“Tell Mr Manchot I’ll be along to speak to him later,” she said, eyes narrowed. “And tell him I’d appreciate it if he could refrain from eating all the evidence he removed from a murder investigation, too.”

Patrick thought about yesterday’s omelette breakfast.

“I’ll do my best. I guess I’ll be, um, going now . . . ?”

PC Lucy nodded curtly and swung around without a backwards glance.

At least, thought Patrick, he hadn’t mentioned the truffles. Which meant he’d achieved at least one of his two aims.

And she said she’d be along to the restaurant later. Giving him a second chance to attempt to interact.

He hoped he wouldn’t mess it up again. Given their meeting just now, he rather doubted he’d get a chance at a close encounter of the third kind.

* * *

The problem with Chef Maurice, thought PC Lucy later that evening, was the way that any situation he was involved in managed to slip through your fingers faster than a well-oiled ferret.

She’d stormed up to the back door of Le Cochon Rouge, bag of truffles in one hand, ready with a stern lecture about withholding information from the police and perverting the course of justice.

She’d expected him to posture, to wave his hands and argue his case. But the chef had seemed almost contrite, as much as one could tell under that giant moustache. He apologised profusely, the way only a Frenchman can, and invited her in for dinner.

They sat at the kitchen table and, somehow, over a glass of good white wine and truffle-covered linguine, she found herself handing over another large truffle from the sack—after all, what were they going to do with them down at the station?—in exchange for everything he had found out about Ollie’s missing dog and its mysterious rescuer.

“Tall, dark beard, in his fifties, possibly foreign,” she repeated, noting this down. Her head felt a little dizzy, and she wondered if she should have accepted the second glass of white Burgundy. Still—she glanced at her watch—she was technically off-duty.

“And they didn’t even get his name?”

“Mademoiselle Tara said it was something Spanish or Italian. Ending with an
oh
.”

Well, that narrowed it down. Tomorrow she’d have to go over there and check out the CCTV, if they even had it. She didn’t have high hopes on that count, though—animal rescue homes were not exactly a hotbed of crime, apart from the crime of abandonment, of course.

“More pasta?” said Chef Maurice, waving a fork at the pan. He was already on his fourth helping.

PC Lucy looked down at her large but empty plate and willpower failed her. Anyway, she told herself, she hadn’t eaten much all day, what with the new case and all.

“Was anything more of interest found at Monsieur Ollie’s home?”

“Not much,” she found herself saying, “apart from finding a few more stashes of cash around the house. He’d clearly been doing very well for himself lately.” She picked up a piece of truffle with her fork and stared at it. “Now I can see why. How much was he charging for these?”

Chef Maurice’s face darkened. “He had not offered me a single truffle!
Quelle effronterie!
I, who have bought from him since the first day of his
entreprise
. When I find out which chefs he has been selling to—”

“He did say he had something new for us, chef.”

Lucy looked up. It was the sous-chef from earlier. She hadn’t caught his name, but now she had time to notice him properly, it struck her that he rather resembled a curly-haired Clark Kent. Perhaps a little less square-jawed, but as he scrubbed out a large stockpot over the sinks, with his chef’s jacket rolled up past his elbows, she couldn’t help but notice the muscles on his forearms gleaming in the soap suds . . .

She blinked. It must be the wine, she decided.

Chef Maurice was still on his tirade. “We should have been the first! It is an insult, an impertinence, a—”

“Can we even afford to have a truffle dish, chef?”

Chef Maurice glared at him. “That is not the point!”

Bzzzzz!
PC Lucy pulled out her phone.

“PC Gavistone?” It was Alistair. “We’ve located the victim’s vehicle. It’s in the woods right behind Farnley village.”

“Understood. I’ll be right there.”

She stood up, and the kitchen swayed. Yep, that second glass had definitely been a mistake.