Shelf Life

by Douglas Clark

  “Cheese rind?” echoed Green.

  “Yes. Stilton. You know. After it’s been scooped out there’s often a lot left round the inside. If they’ve got one like that, they give it to Joe. Then he comes in here for the bread to eat with it. I’ve heard him say he’s often scraped enough cheese off a big Stilton case to last him a week.”

  “Doesn’t do too bad for a tramp, does he, love? I wouldn’t mind joining him if the weather’s nice.”

  “Choose a day when I’ve got a couple of old sticky buns to put in with his loaf,” whispered Mavis conspiratorially. “Then you could have yourself a ball.”

  “It’s an idea,” agreed Green.

  “Tell me,” said Masters, breaking up the tête-à-tête, “what does your manageress think of Joe Howlett coming in here?”

  “He chooses his time—when we’re not full up.”

  “How very wise of him. Just one more thing. You say you are sure he wanted bread to go with his cheese from the Albatross. Did you notice whether he had the cheese with him?”

  “Now you come to mention it, I didn’t see it. He usually carries it wrapped in a paper napkin . . . no, he didn’t have it with him. Definitely. That’s funny. Is that what you wanted to know about him?”

  Masters smiled and shook his head.

  “What do you want him for then? Oh, I know! He’s been up to his tricks again. Doing his welly dance in the High Street.”

  “Something of the sort.”

  “What’s cheese got to do with that?”

  “He bunged up the exhaust pipe on the Mayor’s car with it,” lied Green unblushingly.

  “So it wouldn’t start, you mean?”

  “Oh, it started all right—after a bit. But the Town Clerk got a face full of green cheese, because he was standing behind it when it fired.”

  Mavis covered her mouth with her hand in a vain effort to stop the laughter.

  *

  “Where to now, Chief?”

  “The Albatross, Betty.”

  W.P.C. Prior, having been present at the conversation in the baker’s shop and therefore aware that the hotel had been mentioned, showed no surprise. But Berger, to whom this was merely a pointless retracing of steps, asked: “What’s this, Chief? Early afternoon tea in the lounge?”

  Masters was saved from the necessity of replying by the muted sound of Betty’s radio, which she was carrying in the sling bag over her shoulder. Green, however, had already made a mumbling remark about a three piece band playing Merrie England to help the cucumber sandwiches down when the W.P.C. said: “Message from Mr Snell, Chief. Professor Haywood will be at the station at four o’clock and would be pleased to see you there at that time if convenient to you.”

  Masters looked at his watch. It was barely three o’clock.

  “Please ask Mr Snell to let Professor Haywood know that I shall be with him at four o’clock.”

  While the W.P.C. radioed the message, Green said: “We’ve plenty of time to call at the Albatross, George, but if you’d like me to do it while you go on . . .”

  “No, Bill, thank you. I want you to be with me when I speak to Haywood.”

  “Right.”

  When they entered the hotel they were lucky enough to see the afternoon under-manager crossing the foyer in the day-time uniform of black jacket and pinstripe trousers.

  “Could I have a word with you, please?”

  “Certainly, Mr Masters.”

  Green said: “We’re known, George.”

  The under-manager kept a straight face and added: “And your particular likes, Mr Green. For instance, I hear that you like to eat hearty at breakfast time.”

  “You mean I’m known more for my appetite than my professional reputation?”

  “We do tend to concern ourselves here more with appetites than police investigations, sir. That’s our job.”

  “Then you’ve got a shock coming, laddie. You’re about to be involved in a police investigation.”

  “I am? The hotel is?”

  “In a small way,” said Masters.

  “Is there something wrong, sir?”

  “No. A small problem. There is a tramp in Colesworth called Joe Howlett. Do you know him?”

  “I’ve heard of him, Mr Masters, but I can’t say I’ve ever met him.”

  “Not your type at all,” said Green. “Hasn’t your style in dress.”

  The under-manager grinned. He was very young. “You should see how I dress when I’m not on duty, Mr Green. My mother disowns me in the street.”

  “Dirty jeans?”

  “With holes and patches.”

  Masters said: “This man, Howlett, is in the habit, I believe, of calling at your back kitchen door every now and again.”

  “In search of food?”

  “He has a great liking, I understand, for Stilton. One of your staff sometimes saves him a case with some edible cheese still there—or so I am led to believe.”

  “That could well be so. If they are of no further use in the restaurant, somebody should get the benefit of them rather than us putting them in the swill bins.”

  “Quite. Could I see the person who would have given Howlett the cheese?”

  “That may not be easy.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because kitchen staff have a break between lunches and preparing dinners—except for our confectionery cook who bakes scones and small cakes for afternoon teas each day.”

  “Could we see if whoever it is is on the premises?”

  “Of course, but I’m just wondering . . . you see, Mr Masters, we are a good hotel, but we’re nothing like as big as some of your London ones. We don’t have different chefs for every different type of dish. We don’t have a man exclusively for sauces, for instance, or even for fish alone. Cheese—all sorts—is looked after by our cold-table chef and he, poor soul, has to be able to prepare everything from salmon mousse to Russian Salad, with appropriate dressings.”

  “Could we try him?”

  “Why not? Would you like to come to the kitchen?”

  Masters and Green followed the under-manager. Neither had ever entered a hotel kitchen before this moment. They were, to say the least, surprised. The great room was practically deserted. The long central bank of ovens and hot plates was cold and dead, the high servery counter empty. All the vessels seemed grey and battered—huge rectangular dripping tins and roasting dishes, fish kettles, dixies—all in grey metal. No food visible. Everything in store cupboards and cold rooms. All the utensils huge in comparison with their domestic equivalents.

  And practically deserted, except for the confectionery cook who was working in a small offshoot from the main kitchen. She had several cooling racks full of individual cakes, and was whipping a large bowl of batter.

  “Lucy, these gentlemen would like a word with Derek. You don’t happen to know where he is, do you?”

  Without a word, the woman nodded towards a door on her right. The under-manager murmured his thanks and led the way into the room. It was the kitchen staff’s dining room. On the long central table a man was lying flat on his back. He wore soiled white trousers and a white zephyr, and in one outstretched hand he was holding an opened can of beer. His occupation seemed to be nothing more than gazing at a not-particularly-exciting ceiling.

  “Derek.”

  The man raised his head and then, when he saw strangers, sat up and swung his legs to the floor.

  “Scotland Yard,” announced the under-manager. “They’d like a word.”

  “Sorry to disturb your kip, mate,” said Green.

  “I was about to get weaving,” said Derek. “I’m cold-table, you see, and lots of my things have to be prepared early.”

  “To get cold?”

  “That’s right. And I was on breakfasts this morning so I was on the job by six.”

  “Are you the chap who fried that spud for me?”

  “If you’re the one who asked for it, I am.” Derek took a swig at his can and put it down beside him on
the table. “What can I do for you gents?”

  “Are you the one who gave Joe Howlett, the tramp, a Stilton rind on Tuesday?” asked Masters.

  “What if I am? There’s no law against it, and the management doesn’t mind as long as we’re not fiddling stuff that can be used.”

  “I’m not suggesting you have done anything wrong.”

  “Why the questions then?”

  “I was a bit surprised that Howlett should have called here at lunchtime. I thought he would have known better than to bother you at so busy a time.”

  “Who told you he came here at lunchtime?”

  “Nobody. I guessed he did.”

  “Don’t give me that—guessed!”

  “It was quite easy, really. You see it is his habit to buy a loaf of bread only when you very kindly give him cheese to eat with it. He bought a loaf on Tuesday at lunchtime. To me, that didn’t seem right. So I asked the shop assistant in the baker’s if Howlett was carrying a package which could have been a Stilton rind. She said he wasn’t. So I suspected that he had bought the loaf because he had been promised his cheese later.”

  “Very clever,” said Derek reaching for his beer can.

  “Oh, there’s more,” said Masters. “The cheese rind could only be ready for him after lunch or after dinner. So Howlett could have returned here early in the afternoon to collect what you had promised him. But from my own experience in hotels, I would judge that not much Stilton would be consumed at lunchtime, whereas I have seen a great deal eaten at dinnertime. So, the alternative is that you told him to return in the evening—say after the first rush of early dinners was over and a Stilton was more likely to have been finished in the dining room. Am I right?”

  “Why should I tell you whether you’re right or wrong? I don’t know what you’ve got against old Joe Howlett, but the fact that you come here to ask questions about his movements shows you’re after him for something. And that’s a load of cods. Old Joe doesn’t nick things and he doesn’t hurt people, so I’m not answering your questions. If you’re so good at guessing, you guess the answers for yourself.”

  Masters turned to the under-manager. “I think it would be wise if you were to start making enquiries about a replacement chef for cold-table duties this evening, with a possibility of tomorrow, too.”

  “I . . . I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Let’s put it another way,” said Green harshly. “We’re taking this joker in. Now. He’ll spend the night in the cells and appear in court tomorrow morning charged with obstructing police officers while carrying out their lawful duty, namely conducting a murder enquiry.”

  “Surely not?”

  “If it’s his first offence he could be let off or even be given a suspended sentence. But I wouldn’t count on it if I was in his shoes, because if he goes into court and Detective Chief Superintendent George Masters of the Yard goes into the box against him—and you, too, of course, because you’ve witnessed his refusal to answer our questions—it’ll be a brave set of magistrates that will let him off.”

  The young under-manager gazed from Green to Masters and then to Derek who still sat on the table, his mouth open in bewilderment at the turn events had taken.

  “I’d have to appear in court?”

  “Will have to,” corrected Green. He turned to Derek. “Come on, sonny boy. There are three more like us waiting upstairs to escort you to the nick.”

  “You can’t. You can’t take me in just for not saying he came back at nine at night.”

  “That’s when he picked up the Stilton?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s just as well you spoke,” said Masters, “because the D.C.I. and I have an important meeting at four o’clock and we’d no more time to spare with you. It literally was a case of telling us what we wanted to know or of going inside. So don’t run away with the idea we were fooling you. We never fool about on business. And don’t forget if you’re on breakfast duty tomorrow morning, Mr Green likes his mashed potato fried—with finely chopped onion—until it just browns on the bottom of the pan, because he likes the crispy bits.”

  “And make sure you cook it in bacon fat,” added Green.

  *

  As they were returning through the kitchen Lucy, the confectioner, said to Green: “Well, did you get what you came for?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Not yet? Meaning you hope to? What are you after?”

  “One of those lemon curd tarts. My old mother used to make her own lemon curd in one of those old stone jamjars. But she always made her curd tarts oval.”

  “Oval?”

  “Yes. They were bigger than the round ones. Oval tarts cost tuppence in the shops, round ones a penny.”

  “Thanks,” said Lucy.

  “What for, love?”

  “There’s a heap of those old oval patty-tins in a cupboard through there. I wondered what they were used for.”

  “Now you know. Lemon curds, oh! and Maids of Honour. Do you ever make those?”

  Lucy grimaced. “You’d like some of those, too?”

  “You mean you’ve made some?”

  “Yes. Here you are.” She slid the confectionery into a bag from a pile which the hotel obviously kept for packing lunches.

  “Look what I’ve been given,” said Green proudly to Masters, showing him the bag.

  “You haven’t been given them,” said Lucy. “They’ll be put on your bill.”

  “Thanks.”

  “With fifteen per cent VAT and ten per cent service charge.”

  “Thanks again.”

  “Not at all,” she said, dredging sugar on to a row of Swiss Rolls. “If I gave them to you you could accuse me of trying to bribe the police, and if you accepted them you’d be guilty of corruption.”

  “Quite right,” said Masters gravely. “But may I ask a question?”

  “It’s a free country.”

  “Please tell me why you are so anti-police.”

  “Three weeks ago yesterday,” she replied, “I had my home vandalised. My husband and I have worked hard all our married lives to get ourselves a nice home. Nothing grand, of course, just a semi with nice carpets and curtains and a telly and a nice white bedroom suite . . . but you’ll know. Your lot made a note of it at the time. And since then . . . not a dicky bird. Not a sign from you lot. You haven’t got the ones who rubbed crap on my sitting room wallpaper and broke most of my bits and pieces. You and the insurance people! You do nothing and they kindly tell us we were under-insured, but even if we’d been fully insured we wouldn’t have got full money. Oh no, you only get a proportion of the original value even though it costs twice as much to replace as it did when you bought it eighteen months ago. That’s why I’m anti-police, and anti-insurance, and why those perishing tarts are going on your mate’s bill!”

  “I’m sorry . . .”

  “Sorry? Is that all you can say? Or do you want to save your energy for killing young lads in your police stations or for hauling Derek off into court?”

  Masters laughed aloud.

  “I do believe you listened outside the door of the staff dining room, Lucy.”

  She reddened. “What if I did?”

  “Nothing, except that you’re already aware that I’m in a hurry and so you will excuse my having to rush away. But it has been nice talking to you.”

  As they walked back along the High Street, Green gave Reed, Berger and W.P.C. Prior a fairly full and accurate account of what had been said in the hotel kitchen.

  “Never mind,” said Berger, “we can eat your tarts with a cup of tea when we get back to the nick.”

  “Is that your only thought on the matter?” asked Masters. “No dismay that in this pleasant town there should be citizens who are as incensed as Lucy against the police?”

  “There can’t be many, Chief,” protested Betty Prior.

  “No? Five homes vandalised. That’s five families with their outraged friends and relatives—probably a hundred people al
l told from those five incidents alone. And what about others, who have had their cars stolen, garden gnomes pinched—or any one of a thousand incidents which haven’t been satisfactorily concluded? I don’t think there’s room for complacency, Betty, even in Colesworth.”

  “No, Chief. But . . .”

  “But what, Betty?”

  “But that’s not what you’re here for.”

  “True.”

  “So how far did you get in your investigation by just going to the hotel and learning that Joe Howlett was given his cheese rind after dinner at night? You see, Chief, it seems to me that even some of your questions get you no further forward.”

  “Lass,” counselled Green, quietly, “you’re getting into dangerous waters.”

  “No I’m not. I was pointing out to the Chief . . .”

  “I heard, love. But think! Howlett was at the back door of the hotel at nine that night.”

  “So?”

  “So he was within a couple of hundred yards of Berry’s shop just seventeen minutes before Mrs Corby discovered her boots had been doctored.”

  Betty’s face showed surprise. “Of course! I never thought of that. Chief, I apologise . . .”

  “More important,” interrupted Green, “it means we also know that Joe Howlett was in and around Colesworth at the time young Boyce could have been poisoned . . .”

  Betty’s eyes opened wide.

  “I have made a fool of myself, haven’t I?”

  “Just a bit of a one.”

  “It . . . it’s different. The way the Chief works, I mean.”

  “If you mean it gets results,” said Reed, “you’re right, sweetheart.”

  Chapter Five

  It was ten minutes to four when Masters and his colleagues entered the recreation room, but Haywood was there before them. He was amusing himself at the dartboard, playing a game of round-the-clock against himself. He threw the last of the current clutch of three darts as they entered, cursed himself for having missed double sixteen and turned to greet them.

  “I’m Haywood. Forensic etcetera.”

  “Masters.” The two shook hands. They were of an age, though Masters towered above the very-average sized professor. But they were a match for each other in smartness of dress and turnout: Masters in Windsor grey check with highly polished brown shoes, Haywood in light grey Palm Beach suiting with highly polished brown shoes.