“Did he know Mrs. Nell Greene?”
Viv frowned. “I can’t imagine that he did.”
“Did you see them leave the pub together?”
“No. I was in the kitchen. It was Friday-night service,” she added, as if it should have been obvious.
Murray made another note, then asked, “Do you have a London address for Mr. O’Reilly?”
“No idea. He used to rent a flat in Chelsea, but I don’t remember the street. As I said, it was a long time ago. Look, I have to—”
“Just a couple more things, Ms. Holland. Is there anyone who should be notified as Mr. O’Reilly’s next of kin?”
Viv paled again. “Oh, God, no. He didn’t have any family that I know of. That was part of Fergus’s myth—you know, the Irish orphan. They were all killed in Belfast in the eighties.”
A young man in jeans came from the direction of the glasshouse, carrying two pails brimming over with salad leaves. “Look, sorry to interrupt,” he said when he reached the terrace, “but what do you want me to do with these greens, Viv? They’re going to wilt.” He turned to Addie. “And what about the kids? I’ve given them some veg to sort but I can’t keep them occupied all day.” He had a shock of unruly brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard, and a heavier local accent than Gemma had heard so far. Joe the gardener, she assumed.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, standing. “I’ll just fetch Char—”
But PC Murray stood as well, and the silent McCabe followed suit. “Thank you all for your time,” Murray said, with a nod to Addie. “We’ll let you get on with things. Just one more question for Ms. Holland.” She’d put her notebook away, but Gemma guessed what was coming. “A formal identification of the body will be necessary. Can you come to the mortuary at headquarters? At your convenience, of course.”
May 2006
The first thing Viv did every morning when she arrived at O’Reilly’s was clean the vent hoods, which had been left in the sink to soak. Ibby had mocked her, saying, “Women’s work,” but she was used to that and she didn’t care. Any kitchen she worked in was going to be clean.
“You think any Michelin-starred restaurant has greasy vents?” she asked.
She’d been in enough London kitchens. At eighteen, she’d left her home in Evesham, having saved up the money she’d made working at the café next to her mum’s antiques shop, and set off for the city she knew mostly from television shows.
For her mum, the good life had meant her shop. For her dad, a former London banker, it was a smallholding, raising chickens and pigs and his own veg. Viv had helped him in the farmhouse kitchen for as long as she could remember, and the older she grew, the more she loved it. When her friends were listening to the Spice Girls, Viv was glued to MasterChef on the telly and daydreaming about what she could make for dinner.
For her sixteenth birthday, her parents took her to the Michelin-starred Le Champignon Sauvage in Cheltenham. The food had been sublime, beyond anything she had even imagined, as if every component tasted somehow more itself. She’d spent weeks afterwards trying to re-create the things she’d tasted, crying in frustration when she couldn’t duplicate what she’d eaten.
Now, she saw that meal as the moment her future crystallized. She knew then that she was going to cook.
In the five years she’d been in London, she’d worked her way up from restaurant to restaurant, dishwasher to line cook, in some of the best places in west London. A year ago, she’d set her sights on O’Reilly’s in Chelsea. It had the up-and-coming buzz, and Fergus O’Reilly was the chef everyone was talking about as the next Marco Pierre White or Gordon Ramsay. When a job came up on day prep, she’d jumped at it, even though she knew she was good enough to be on the line.
When she sat down for an interview across from O’Reilly in the tiny basement room that served as the restaurant’s office, she’d found herself unexpectedly tongue-tied. She’d seen him in photos, and in cookery and interview segments, but none of that had prepared her for his height, or for how stunningly good-looking the man was in person. With his curly dark blond hair and deep dimples, he was reputed to have women swooning over him, but none of that charm was wasted on her that morning.
“I don’t like women in my kitchen,” he’d said bluntly, with his Belfast accent. He must have seen her start to bridle because he added, “I don’t mean women can’t cook, so don’t go getting all flustered. But women cause problems in the crew and I won’t have any of that emotional shite on my patch, understood?”
“Yes, Chef,” Viv had managed to mumble. She was glad she’d worn a T-shirt and kitchen overalls and not a stitch of makeup.
“Good. My day prep cook quit because he said it was too hard. Can you fucking believe that?” He glared at her as if it were her fault. “You’d better tell me now if it’s going to be too much for you.”
“No, Chef. I can do it,” she’d said, looking him straight in the eye. She’d started the next day.
It was hard, she found out soon enough, ten hours a day of working her bum off. The job was as much about organization as physical labor, but she liked that, liked the routine and the sense of accomplishment, liked that everything that came off the line at dinner service depended on how good a job she’d done.
Fergus O’Reilly, however, she thought as she dumped twenty pounds of veal bones into a stockpot, was another kettle of fish.
He was mercurial, prone to shouting at the staff over the least little detail, while ignoring things that drove her bonkers, like the dirty vent hoods. But when he cooked, he was absolutely bloody brilliant, making the kind of food she’d dreamed about since that sixteenth birthday dinner. And lately he’d been listening to her suggestions and a couple of her ideas had turned up on the menu.
But she wanted to be back on the hot line—she missed the adrenaline rush of service and the challenge of getting the plates up. When a spot opened up on the line, she was going for it, no matter what it took.
“What about this one?” Kit shoved his phone across the train carriage table towards Doug Cullen. With an exaggerated sigh, Doug lowered the tabloid he’d picked up at Paddington Station. This must be the tenth car Kit had shown him in the last hour and a half.
“A Volvo?” It was a sleek and powerful S90 saloon. “That’s pretty hot.” Doug slid the phone back. “But your dad doesn’t need hot. He needs boring. How do you think you lot and the dogs would fit in that?”
Kit rolled his eyes and elbowed his younger brother. “We could leave him home.”
Toby, earbuds in and eyes glued to the iPad Kit had let him use, was oblivious.
“You sure what he’s watching is okay?” Doug asked, a little nervous with his temporary parental role and Toby’s access to the Internet.
Glancing at the screen, Kit said, “Ballet. And more ballet. Justin Peck again.” Toby had discovered the New York City Ballet’s resident choreographer and was in the grip of adulation. Kit scrolled through his phone, then handed it back to Doug. “What about this one?”
A Mercedes SUV this time. Doug snorted. “Not bloody likely. That’s not a cop’s car. And you don’t even know for certain that the Astra can’t be fixed. Not to mention that your dad could have been killed.” He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. It was a horrible thing to say to a boy who had lost his mum.
Kit glanced away and shrugged, his mouth set in a scowl. “But he wasn’t. He’s fine.”
But it had been Kit, when Doug had rung him about the accident last night, who’d insisted on coming early, as if he had to see for himself that Duncan wasn’t seriously hurt.
“Of course he is,” Doug said, then breathed a sigh of relief as the announcement for Kingham came over the train’s address system. “Come on, you two, get your things together. Moreton-on-Marsh is the next stop. Melody’s picking us up.”
As the train pulled into Moreton a few minutes later, he saw Melody waiting on the platform. In faded jeans and T-shirt, she looked more like a teenager than a seaso
ned detective sergeant. Her face, too, looked more relaxed than he’d seen in ages, which surprised him. Usually, encounters with her parents left her tense and edgy. Maybe it was the country air that agreed with her. Then, she saw them, and waved.
When they’d disembarked, she gave Toby’s straw-fair hair a friendly tousle. “Good journey?” she asked.
“Boring,” Kit and Toby said in unison. “Is there anything to eat?” Toby added. “I’m starving.”
Doug rolled his eyes. “You had tea and biscuits on the train.”
“But that was hours ago,” Toby protested.
“I think there’s a packet of crisps in the car,” Melody said. “Whoever gets there first has dibs.”
Toby whooped and took off towards the car park. “No, you don’t,” shouted Kit, sprinting after him, his rucksack swinging wildly from his hand.
“You survived,” Melody said to Doug as they followed the boys at a more sedate pace.
“Barely. Kit is already car shopping for his dad. I’m surprised he hasn’t picked out a Lamborghini.”
“Dad’s taken Duncan to the recovery yard this morning, but it doesn’t sound like the prospects are good. Listen.” She touched Doug’s arm, slowing him down as the boys reached the little Renault. “I thought you should know. Both passengers in the other car were killed. Dad’s taking Duncan to make a statement this morning as well.”
“But there’s no question of him being at fault?” Doug asked, frowning.
“No, I don’t think so. But he’s pretty battered. And my mum and dad knew the driver. She was from the village. They say they can’t imagine how it could have happened.” Opening the Clio’s tailgate with her fob, Melody called out, “Bags in the back.” As she and Doug reached the car, she pulled a shopping bag from the cargo space, adding, “And look. Two bags of cheese and onion crisps. Emergency rations. Just don’t get crumbs all over.”
The boys squeezed in on either side of Charlotte’s car seat, opening the crisps, as Doug got in the passenger front seat. Just how lucky had Duncan been, he wondered, to walk away from that sort of crash? He’d seen enough when he was in uniform to know how bad it might have been.
As Melody pulled out into the high street, he had a glimpse of low buildings in golden Cotswold stone, colorful awnings, and a bustle of people. “You should see it on market day,” said Melody, following his gaze. “It’s bonkers.”
For the first time, he really grasped that Melody had spent a good part of her childhood here. She’d always seemed such a quintessential city dweller. “Is it far, your parents’ house?” he asked.
“No. We’ll be there in a quarter hour. A good thing, too. Gemma’s helping, but Mum will need us as well, even with the local volunteers.”
“You invited me so you could make me work?”
Melody gave him a sideways grin. “Of course. Why else?”
“What about Andy? You do know he’s back?”
This earned him a glare. “Of course I do.”
“You didn’t invite him?”
“No,” Melody snapped.
Doug studied her. “You still haven’t told your parents about him, have you?” Melody and rock guitarist Andy Monahan had been seeing each other since the previous winter, but Melody had made every effort to keep it low profile, especially after what had happened at St. Pancras.
“None of your business,” she said now.
As Melody pulled up to a junction, Doug unfolded the newspaper he’d been reading on the train. “Look. I thought you should see this.” He wasn’t sure if he was being kind or cruel.
Doug watched as Melody glanced down at the photo. In it was Andy, coming out of arrivals at Heathrow. He had his arm round his girl-singer bandmate, Poppy Jones, who was standing on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. They were laughing.
“That’s photo-op bollocks,” said Melody, putting the car into gear, but her lips were set in a tight line for the rest of the journey.
“Did you know him?” Kincaid asked Booth, surprised by his reaction to the news of the passenger’s identity.
“Well, no, not personally,” said Booth. “But I met him. My wife is a bit of a foodie. More than a bit, actually. When O’Reilly’s—his London restaurant—was the big buzz on the food scene, I took her to London for the day and I surprised her with dinner reservations at O’Reilly’s.” Booth fidgeted with a pen on his desk. “I proposed to her there. Fergus O’Reilly himself came out from the kitchen to congratulate us.” Shaking his head, he added, “My wife will be gutted. She was that upset when we heard the restaurant had gone under.”
“I’d heard of the place,” said Shelton, who still stood in the office doorway. “What happened to it?”
Booth shrugged. “I don’t know.
“Can you take a look at the body and confirm the ID?” Shelton asked.
“It’s been more than ten years, but, yeah, I can probably do that. He was a pretty distinctive-looking bloke. My wife went on and on about his damned dimples.” Booth grimaced. “I’m not looking forward to telling Jess. We’re coming up on our anniversary, so she’ll really take it hard.”
Ivan came into the office behind Shelton and the cramped space suddenly felt much smaller.
“It seems DI Booth knew the deceased,” Shelton told him. “What the hell was a well-known London chef doing in a car in Lower Slaughter?”
“According to my wife, our local chef, Vivian Holland, had some connection with him. And he was in her pub last night, so that explains at least part of it.”
“But not what he was doing in Nell Greene’s car,” put in Kincaid. “Or why he was dead when they crashed.”
“Well, I can see I’m not going to make my son’s football match.” Booth’s sigh was belied by the gleam of interest in his eyes. “I’ll have a look at Mr. O’Reilly, and have a word with the pathologist, see if she has any idea yet what killed him. Then, I’d better have a chat with your lady chef.”
Ivan looked horrified. “DI Booth, I hope that can wait until this afternoon. Viv Holland is catering a charity luncheon for fifty people at our house today. If anything disrupts that, my wife is likely to kill me.”
Chapter Seven
A shower and a change into her work clothes had given Bea Abbott a chance to cool down after her row with Viv. She pulled her curly hair into a tight twist—she’d no patience to fool with it today—and swiped at her mouth with a lipstick.
On her way out the door, she gave her usual grimace at the state of the garden. She’d had visions, when she’d bought the semidetached house behind the mill in Lower Slaughter, of turning the overgrown small front garden into a colorful riot of cottage borders. But somehow, between work at the pub and helping to look after Grace, the dream never seemed to materialize.
Nor had her vision included a lodger in the person of Ibby, the sous-chef. But there were no rental accommodations in the village, so Bea had agreed to house him. Frowning, she nudged a cigarette end on the gravel drive with the toe of her court shoe. Ibby had promised not to smoke round the cottage, just as he’d promised not to park his old RAV4 in the drive, where it now sat.
But she had bigger problems to solve today than her errant lodger. Leaving her own car garaged, she walked down Malthouse Lane and then along the river towards the pub. It was a sunny autumn Saturday, crisp as an apple, perfect as a watercolor. The village was already filling with walkers and Lycra-clad bicyclists—they would need all hands on deck in the Lamb today and she hoped Ibby was up to the job.
When she reached the pub, the car park had begun to fill. It was eleven o’clock and morning coffee would just be ticking over into lunch service. Entering through the car park entrance, she popped her bag into her tiny cubbyhole of an office. Her heart sank when she saw that Fergus O’Reilly’s coat was still there. Damn the man. Just how much more trouble was he going to cause?
She’d been dead set against Viv doing this charity luncheon for Addie Talbot, but now that they were committed, she didn’t want anythin
g going wrong that would reflect badly on the pub. Viv’s van was gone from the yard, so at least she’d got off for Beck House. She’d just check with Jack to make sure Fergus hadn’t been in.
But when she walked into the dining area, there was no one at the bar, and she could hear raised voices in the kitchen. The few patrons at the bar tables were looking up curiously.
Bea gave them a nod and a tight smile before charging through the swinging door.
The kitchen smelled of scorched coffee and burning garlic. Ibby and Jack stood facing each other, both bristling and up on the balls of their feet.
“You stupid git,” Ibby shouted. “How the hell could you let the police tell her?”
“Keep it down in here,” Bea snapped at them. “And tell who what?”
“Chef,” said Ibby, turning to her. “Some cops came in, talking some rubbish about a car crash with—”
“Nell Greene,” broke in Jack. “They said Nell was in an accident last night. She’s dead.”
“What?” Bea felt her stomach tighten. “But she can’t have been. She was here for dinner—”
“It must have happened right after she left,” Jack went on. “And that bloke, the poncey one that came in the kitchen, was with her.”
“What? Do you mean Fergus O’Reilly? With Nell?” Bea shook her head against the fog that seemed to be invading her brain. “That’s insane. Why would O’Reilly be in Nell’s car?”
“Well, you can’t ask him, can you?” Ibby picked up his knife and turned back to his cutting board, slamming the flat of the blade down on a head of garlic so hard that cloves shot out and skittered off onto the floor. “The fucker’s dead, too.”
“What?” Bea whispered. “But—but he can’t be—”
“And Jack here took it on himself to send the cops to ask Viv to identify him. Chef can be a right bitch sometimes, but she didn’t deserve that.”
“I didn’t know,” Jack protested. “I thought—”
“You didn’t think. You’re a freaking idiot.” Ibby whacked the garlic again. He looked dangerously piratical with the red bandanna he wore over his hair in the kitchen, his dark olive skin glistening against his whites. But there was something more than fury in the tight set of his mouth and the forceful wielding of his knife. It was a moment before Bea recognized it as grief.
A Bitter Feast Page 7