Cherringham - A Dinner to Die For

by Matthew Costello

  She headed round the back, through a well-kept garden with shrubs and lawn, to where, in another larger paddock, she could see someone on horseback.

  A woman, taking jumps – and though Sarah was no rider, she could see this woman knew what she was doing. She stepped forward, leaned on the wooden rail and watched as the rider took a sharp turn then launched into a series of high jumps.

  “Amazing, isn’t she?” came a man’s voice behind her and she turned quickly – to see Karl Desmond in Barbour jacket and jeans, a garden fork over one shoulder.

  The perfect country squire.

  Though – with his portly physique – it all seemed a bit “off”.

  And not quite how she expected him to look, after all those charity dinner photos.

  “Mr Desmond?” said Sarah. “I’m sorry – there was no answer so I came round.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that,” said Karl, grinning and holding out his hand. “Sarah Edwards, yes?”

  “That’s right. Bit early I think, hope that’s okay.”

  “Early – late – no matter, you’re welcome!” he said, eyes bright.

  Sarah detected a Yorkshire accent. That explains the Sheffield connection, she thought.

  He nodded towards the rider. “My wife – Lisbet. Poetry in motion, eh?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Thing is – when she’s back here doing the jumps I like to keep an eye on her, you know, hate to think what might happen if she should fall, and I wasn’t here.”

  He leaned in conspiratorially. “Got to do it casual, like, she hates me making a fuss.”

  “She looks very competent to me, Mr Desmond.”

  “Karl, please,” he said, smiling. “You ride?”

  “Oh no,” said Sarah. “But my daughter Chloe went through quite a phase–”

  “Expensive phase, I bet?”

  Sarah laughed. “Very!”

  “I’m assuming you had just the one horse?”

  “Luckily!”

  Sarah saw him nod towards the line of stables beyond the paddock. “My Lisbet has four – and I’m beggared if I can tell the difference between em!”

  Then he leaned in again.

  “One thing I can tell you. They’re all bloody hard work. And I should know. I do most of the mucking out! Help in these parts – pricey indeed!”

  Sarah laughed. “At least I didn’t have to do that – although from what I remember, Chloe never seemed to mind.”

  “Oh, if they’re horse mad, they love all that stuff too, don’t they?” said Karl. “Tell you what – she’s finishing now, why don’t we go in and I’ll put the kettle on and we’ll get our little interview started.”

  Sarah looked across, and saw Mrs Desmond now just trotting gently round the paddock. The woman gave them both a wave.

  Sarah waved back, then followed Karl into the house.

  Thinking…

  I wonder when I should tell him this isn’t really an interview for the village magazine?

  *

  Jack parked outside the Spotted Pig, got out and walked up to the door. The closed sign was showing – and then he remembered: in winter, Sam and Julie only did a lunch service at weekends.

  He peered through and could just see a light in the kitchen.

  Odd. Late morning – they should be prepping for dinner, he thought.

  He walked round to the back. He could see the fire door into the kitchen was open. He tapped on it and went in.

  “Sam? Julie? Anyone home?”

  In the sink, he saw piles of fresh vegetables, and on the chopping board, tomatoes ready to be sliced.

  Someone’s here… somewhere, he thought.

  He pushed through the service doors into the restaurant and, in the corner, saw a young girl on her cellphone, back to him, ear buds plugged in.

  He walked round into her eye line so as not to startle her – but she looked up anyway, flipping the screen off and pulling the ear buds out.

  “Hey! Who are you?” she said, getting up quickly.

  “It’s ok,” said Jack, hands up gently. “I’m a friend of Sam and Julie.”

  “Oh, um, right. You frightened me.”

  “Sorry about that – wasn’t expecting anyone else to be in here. They not around this morning?”

  “Umm, Julie’s gone out to that big house where they’re doing the dinner.”

  “Lady Repton’s.”

  “Yeah, that place.”

  Jack waited for more information – but he could see she wasn’t interested in being helpful.

  “Sam?”

  “Oh yeah. Umm, he went out to the wholesaler I think. Yeah. You just missed him.”

  “Going to be long?”

  “An hour. Maybe.”

  Jack figured as much. An hour for the girl to catch up with friends online, hit the tomatoes later.

  “Ah, okay. I’ll come back later. Thanks anyway. What’s your name by the way?”

  “Izzy.”

  He watched her sit down, cellphone in her hand, clearly waiting for him to go.

  She didn’t ask for his name.

  “Well, thanks for your help, Izzy,” he said. But the ear buds were already back.

  He turned and headed out the way he came.

  Out on the High Street he checked his watch. Still a little early to drop by the Bayleaf.

  But Huffington’s would be open. Plenty of time to grab a coffee and maybe a bit of late breakfast.

  8. Secrets

  “Don’t get me wrong – I loved Sheffield,” said Lisbet, leaning back on the enormous leather sofa and taking Karl’s hand in hers, “but when Karl said we could move down here to Cherringham, I jumped at it!”

  “You can take the girl out of the Cotswolds,” said Karl, leaning towards his wife. Then she joined him and in unison they both said, “but you can’t take the Cotswolds out of the girl!”

  “Oh Karl!”

  Sarah watched them giggling together and forced herself to smile back.

  Were they really this much in love? Or was it all an act?

  Half an hour into this joint interview, and she didn’t feel she was much the wiser. She hadn’t revealed that she was investigating a case. Karl and Lisbet both seemed to have taken her at face value and thought they were giving a “spring update” on the Bayleaf for the Cherringham newsletter.

  They’d given their backstory unprompted, with plenty of “amusing” anecdotes and laughter.

  How they had met in Gloucester and married young (lots more giggling at that), how they were still so very much in love (“Can you blame me? Isn’t she gorgeous?”).

  Yuk.

  But the details kept coming.

  Lisbet had gone up north with Karl while he built his little club and bar mini-empire in Yorkshire (“Not posh, but not seedy”). They had no kids (“Gotta love horses, Sarah!”), and all the while – for reasons unspecified – Lisbet had been pestering him to move back south.

  A year ago he’d given in and they’d bought this farm. Now all Lisbet wanted to do was ride her horses and help him set up “the best restaurant in the Cotswolds”.

  Not that she was involved in the day-to-day running of the place.

  No, she’d chosen the designer, helped create the “look”, insisted on a female chef (“It has to be a woman, Karl, no argument”).

  But it was also clear that once the place was up and running, with all the bills coming in – finances crucial – then Karl was the man in charge.

  “Twenty years I’ve waited for this, watching Karl working his socks off for places that turned out greasy burgers or overdone pasta,” said Lisbet, “and now I’m loving seeing the Bayleaf – a proper restaurant – take off! In fact – have you eaten there yet?”

  Sarah smiled, shook her head.

  “Afraid I don’t get out much – doesn’t that sound sad?” said Sarah, laughing.

  “We’ll sort you a table,” said Karl. “Name the night. Sure we can squeeze you in.”


  Sarah saw the chance to shift her questioning.

  “Yes, er, I did hear you’d not been so busy recently?” she said, as innocently as she could. “Something to do with the booking engine?”

  No giggles at that.

  “Always get software glitches with a new set-up,” said Karl, his grin freezing a little.

  “I’m sure,” said Sarah. “Though I did hear you’d also had some problems with the kitchen too?”

  “Teething troubles,” said a now subdued Lisbet, smile also fixed. “That’s what you call them, darling, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely,” said Karl.

  Sarah guessed Karl didn’t often risk disagreeing with his equestrian in residence.

  “So you’re not at all worried about how the restaurant is doing?”

  “The restaurant is doing just fine,” said Karl.

  “And your chef – Anna Garcia – you’re happy with her?”

  Sarah saw Karl’s smile slip a little more. This last question clearly not what he’d expected from an upbeat spring feature in the local online magazine.

  “Anna’s an amazing, talented chef,” he said.

  “Ah – then nothing to worry about,” said Sarah, nodding.

  A too-quick nod. “Nothing.”

  “If Karl’s not worried, then I’m not worried,” said Lisbet, smiling up at her husband then nestling into him again.

  “And I’m definitely not worried,” said Karl, giving his wife a squeeze, then leaning back and looking straight at Sarah…

  A look that seemed to say – this interview is over.

  Sarah looked at a smiling Lisbet, apparently unaware that her husband’s expression was now sombre.

  So, Mrs Desmond doesn’t know about what’s been going on, thought Sarah.

  There’s a surprise.

  But what did it mean?

  Karl looked at his watch, took a deep breath and stood up.

  “Well – now if you don’t mind – I have a bit of an urgent appointment. You got enough there Sarah? Mind if we wrap up?”

  Sarah shrugged and put away her notebook.

  “No problem. It’ll make a nice feature.”

  She stood up and went over to Lisbet to shake hands.

  “I can’t wait to read it,” said Lisbet. “Karl’s always saying we should hold back on the PR till we launch properly!”

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” said Karl, one hand now softly on Sarah’s shoulder.

  And when they were outside on the gravel drive, he turned to her.

  “What the hell was that about?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Bloody questions about bookings, the chef–”

  “I’m sorry if you think I overstepped the mark–”

  “You’re not writing any ’feature’,” said Karl. “Just what the hell are you up to?”

  Sarah took a deep breath.

  Karl was more perceptive than she gave him credit for.

  “Your chef – Anna Garcia – seems she’s conducting a personal campaign against the Spotted Pig restaurant in Cherringham. I’m a friend of the owner – Sam Walters. I also happen to do investigations.”

  “So, you came up here – to my house – where I live with my wife, intrude on my privacy, and lie to me that you’re writing a bloody article–”

  “Mr Desmond, it’s in your interest as much as Sam Walters’ to find out what is going on at the Bayleaf. I assume you know about what happened there last night?”

  “Yes. Someone broke into the kitchen and ripped open one of the dishwashers,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “Your Sam Walters apparently.”

  Sarah saw him look over his shoulder at the open door of the house, as if to check that they weren’t being overheard by his wife.

  “There’s no proof of that,” said Sarah. “And, even if there were, compared to what your chef did at the Pig the night before…”

  “Now what the hell are you talking about?”

  Sarah looked at him. Had he really not heard about Anna and the rat?

  She told him what she knew and waited while he seemed to absorb it all.

  “This common knowledge, is it?” he said.

  The news had clearly shaken him. Karl did nothing to hide his displeasure.

  “All over the village,” said Sarah. She watched his shoulders drop.

  “Lisbet mustn’t know any of this,” said Karl, glancing over his shoulder at the house again. Then he nodded towards Sarah’s car and they both walked over to it.

  “Her mother died last year, and then her father too,” he said. “It’s been very hard for her.”

  “So you’re protecting her – by not talking about the problems at the Bayleaf?”

  “She wouldn’t be able to deal with it.”

  “But you know the village rumour mill,” said Sarah. “She’ll find out soon enough – and then what?”

  She looked at Karl, his brow furrowed as he stared across open fields into the distance.

  “Cross that bridge when we come to it, I suppose,” he said. “Tell me – if you don’t believe Sam Walters is doing this, then who is?”

  “I don’t know,” said Sarah. “Could be anything. Someone who’s got a grudge against you. Business rival. You’d know better than me.”

  “These last two months I’ve been trying to figure it out,” he said. “But I’m none the wiser.”

  “What about staff?”

  “Don’t know them personally but they’re all pros,” he said. “The sous chef – Paddy? Got an excellent CV. Solid as a rock.”

  “Which leaves Anna herself,” said Sarah.

  He looked at her, nodded, then looked at his watch.

  “I’m late,” he said. “And you – you’d better be off.”

  “Thanks for the interview,” said Sarah, climbing into her car. “I’m sorry I wasn’t up front with you.”

  He didn’t answer. She pulled her door closed, started the engine and drove away down the drive.

  In the rear-view mirror, she saw Karl watching her, all the way until she hit the main road and the farm disappeared from view.

  It all seemed so plausible, what Karl had said.

  The happy couple – then the outrage when it turned out she wasn’t just the local reporter.

  But something wasn’t right there.

  And she couldn’t put a finger on what.

  9. Tempers Rising

  Jack saw the Bayleaf ahead. Nearly midday. Should be nicely bustling in prep for a lunch service.

  That is, if they got much of a lunch service. He had to admit that after talking to Anna, he felt bad at how much she seemed to struggle here.

  But he also knew, sometimes first impressions could be wrong.

  (And he had to think of Sam – how much he liked and respected him. And yet – there were clearly secrets there.)

  He went to the door, opened it, expecting the dining room to be all set for lunch, Anna in the back, maybe a server or two flitting around the tables checking the glassware and utensils.

  But instead, he saw the chef over by the small bar, talking to a man in a heavy Barbour winter coat and a matching Stanhope hat.

  Their voices raised.

  But whatever had been the discussion quickly ended as Jack entered.

  The man – not someone Jack knew – looked over at him.

  Perhaps, Jack thought, he thinks I’m a customer.

  The man turned back to Anna who stood there stoically, arms folded. Looking tough and resolute in front of the man, who after a quick nod, barked a parting shot to her.

  “Speak later.”

  And after he left with a firm shutting of the door, Jack tilted his head and walked over to the chef.

  “Old friend?” he said.

  And that made her laugh.

  “As if. No. My backer. Karl Desmond. The man who actually owns the Bayleaf.”

  “And?”

  “Not happy.”

  “Oh. He heard about the other nigh
t”

  “That he did. His money, he said. Doesn’t want to see it go down the old chute. Seems to me that all he wanted to do was put more pressure on me.”

  “Doesn’t he know you want this place to succeed as much as he does?”

  “Sure. But even I have to admit… walking into the Spotted Pig with, um, that rodent…”

  “You did think that Sam Walters had planted it in your kitchen.”

  Jack was surprised to hear himself actually defending Anna’s action.

  “Impulsive. I get angry. Right? Like a lot of chefs. Still, a bad move.”

  Jack nodded.

  “And you?” she said. “Dinner so good you’re back for lunch?”

  “I wish. No. Actually, had another question or two.”

  Anna’s arms had unlocked, relaxing as she talked to Jack. But they entwined again.

  “Told you what I knew. All of it.”

  “Sure,” said Jack.

  Then he looked around – nodded towards a table tucked away to the side of the bar. “Got a minute? Can we talk – somewhere quiet?”

  “Take your pick,” said Anna. “Not hard to find somewhere quiet in this place at lunchtime.”

  Jack nodded, then walked over to the table, sat with her.

  “So?” she said.

  “I know you’re convinced Sam is behind this. But I got to ask you – could it be anyone else? The kitchen staff maybe?”

  Jack saw her frown, shake her head.

  “Why would they do that? They kill this place, they’re out of a job.”

  “I know. But – just roll with me on this…” said Jack.

  He looked up to make sure they weren’t being overheard. “The big guy – Paddy. Tell me about him.”

  “Talented. Good sous chef. Going places. And he looked good on paper – interviewed well. Runs a tight ship. Need somebody in prepping at 7am after a late night? He’ll be there for you, no questions asked.”

  “What about the other guys?”

  “The usual ’crew’. Couple of kids out of college. They don’t even know how a dishwasher works, let alone how to sabotage one.”

  “Front of house?”

  “Mira – you met her – came highly recommended. Single mum – supporting her little girl. She wouldn’t cause trouble.”