Murder on the Green. H.V. Coombs

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СКАЧАТЬ serve, to spring into action should a customer appear; it was more as if he were guarding the bar from anyone who might be rash enough to try to get a drink.

      It really was a horrible place.

      Strickland was on a split shift from his restaurant and was allowing himself two pints. Theoretically he should have been working ten a.m. until three p.m., six p.m. until ten p.m. In reality it was more nine a.m. to three p.m., five p.m. to midnight. Six days a week. He had his own way of coping with the endless hours. He’d just come back from his third visit to the toilet. He might have had bladder problems, but his suspiciously wide eyes and frequent sniffs, as loud as they were frantic, told a different story.

      His restaurant, the King’s Head, was the other pub in Hampden Street. It had been turned into a restaurant and Strickland had firmly dragged it by the scruff of its countrified neck, from pork pies, filled baps and ploughman’s lunches into the world of fine dining. He was highly successful. Now, if you wanted to eat there it was a three-week wait, unless there was a cancellation.

      We tended to choose the Three Bells, first off because it was no threat to either of us. Malcolm’s food ran to crisps and sometimes, if he’d been on a gourmet spending spree, pork scratchings. The second reason was that the Three Bells was round the corner and therefore the perfect place to grab a quick drink mid-shift. There had been an article on the Michelin system of awards in the trade press the other day. This was a sore point. Strickland was aggrieved as he’d just narrowly missed out on his coveted Michelin star. He still had his four rosettes but boy, did he want that final accolade.

      ‘French bastards!’ he’d said when last year’s annual results had been announced and he had been ignored.

      The Charlie was not mellowing his mood. I had stupidly moaned to him about Francis’s lack of ability. It was not only stupid, it was unfair too.

      It wasn’t Francis’s fault.

      I had hired Francis as a kitchen porter, a person who washes dishes, not as a chef. It wasn’t as if he had misrepresented himself to get a job. He had never said he was a chef. He never wanted to be a chef.

      In the old days I would have raged at Francis, screamed and shouted and got rid of him. Now, courtesy of the Tao Te Ching, which I read daily to help with my anger management, I was working on my personality rather than his. The way of the Tao. I decided not to share this with Strickland – he would have thought I was mad.

      ‘Well, I can’t really do that,’ I said, taking a sip of my drink. ‘I can’t fire Francis.’

      Before Strickland could say anything, I changed the subject. ‘And how about you – how are things at the King’s Head?’

      He frowned. ‘I’ve got this sodding awful restaurant manager. He keeps harassing my waitresses.’

      ‘Sack the bastard!’ I said, parroting his advice to me. At least I just had an amiable oaf.

      He took a mouthful of lager, and shook his head regretfully. ‘He’s very clever, it’s either when no one’s looking, wandering hands sort of stuff, or verbal, or it’s just creepy behaviour, like staring down a blouse, that kind of thing. But it’s never that bloody obvious.’ He sniffed loudly and stared at me through coke-crazed eyes. ‘Perhaps you could beat him up for me, Ben.’

      ‘I don’t do that sort of thing!’ I protested.

      ‘Course you don’t …’ There was polite disbelief in his tone.

      Serve time for GBH and people, understandably, think you’re violent. A reputation is a hard thing to shake. Particularly in a village. Strickland continued, ‘Anyway, one of these days he’ll go too far. Probably grab a customer – I wouldn’t put it past him, he’s a sick bastard.’

      ‘Why’d you hire him?’ I was genuinely interested.

      Strickland looked at me. He was a small, dapper, good-looking man, never a hair out of place.

      ‘He came highly recommended, glowing CV.’

      ‘Probably from someone desperate to get shot of him,’ I said. ‘You know the way it is with troublemakers and the incompetent; just please get out of my life and I’ll give you a fantastic reference and a generous payout.’

      ‘It’s the only explanation,’ said Strickland mournfully. He looked quite depressed, as anyone would, with an unsackable member of staff. I changed the subject.

      ‘Do you know about the Earl’s opera thing?’

      Strickland nodded. ‘Yeah, and I know who’s doing the catering for it too.’

      The way that he said it made me sure that he had won the contract for it. He would be well placed to do it. He had the expertise. He’d been at the top of the tree for twenty years, from a spotty faced kid to thirty-six-year-old head chef. He also had phenomenal energy – it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that he was going to do it single-handedly.

      Probably in his break.

      ‘Who’s that then?’ I asked.

      His smile broadened, ‘Have a guess …’

      I felt a stab of envy. Undeserved, but I had to acknowledge it was there. ‘I really don’t know …’

      He sat back in his chair. ‘Justin McCleish!’

       Chapter Four

      So, Justin McCleish, famous TV chef, was going to be running the show. Not Graeme Strickland. Well, that was surprising, to say the least. Everyone knows Justin.

      McCleish had worked his way up from being a chef who cropped up on Saturday Kitchen and MasterChef: The Professionals, to having his own TV series on BBC2. The most obvious thing about him, other than his ability to cook, was his extreme good looks. He had a seductive, half-Italian, half-British pronunciation, and a model wife. The former made women swoon, the latter attracted a male audience. Some people even learned a bit about cooking.

      Strickland nodded his head.

      ‘Yeah, thought that would surprise you. He’s going to be running a pop-up restaurant for the Earl’s opera in some marquee, hundred-quid five-course tasting menu, hundred and fifty with matched wines and two-hundred-quid ‘deluxe’ truffle and champagne option. What do you make of that then?’

      Hampden Street could do with some excitement. Since January when there had been a murder nearby, things had been remarkably quiet. The most talked about thing was currently a village debate about parking near the village hall.

      Half the village wanted restrictions, half the village didn’t. Temperatures were running high.

      That had ruffled more feathers than the murder and subsequent arrest of a local for the killing. Parking was always a hot topic here. Murder seemed a bit meh for the village, a bit, who cares … Parking though …

      The arrival of a bona fide famous person, a chef in the same league as Gordon Ramsay or Tom Kerridge or Rick Stein, would be the topic of conversation in the village for the next month.

      Strickland СКАЧАТЬ