by Dick Francis
Reluctantly, she headed off, with a couple of backwards glances. Nice legs, I thought, as she trotted off towards the grandstand, her high heels clicking on the tarmac.
Just when I thought she had gone, she came back. “Oh yes,” she said, “there’s something else I was going to tell you. I’ve had three calls this morning from people who now say they aren’t coming to the track today. They say they are ill.” She didn’t try to disguise the disbelief in her voice. “So there will be five less for lunch.”
I decided, under the circumstances, not to inquire too closely if she knew what it was that had made them ill.
“It’s such a shame,” she said. “Two of them are horse trainers from Newmarket who have runners in our race.” She placed the emphasis on the market while almost swallowing the New. To my ears, it sounded strange.
She turned abruptly and marched off towards the elevators, giving me another sight of the lovely legs. The mass of black curls bounced on her shoulders as she walked. I watched her go, and wondered if she slept in curlers.
“Sorry about that,” I said to Ms. Milne.
“Not your fault,” she said
I hoped nothing was my fault.
She gave me her card. I read it: ANGELA MILNE, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH OFFICER, CAMBRIDGESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL. Just as she had said.
“Why have you sealed my kitchen and closed my restaurant?” I asked her.
“I didn’t know we had,” she said. “Where, exactly, is this restaurant?”
“On Ashley Road, near the Cheveley crossroads,” I said. “It’s called the Hay Net.” She nodded slightly, obviously recognizing the name. “It is in Cambridgeshire, I assure you. I’ve just come from there. The kitchen has been padlocked, and I have been told that I would be breaking the law to go in.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Two men said they were acting for the Food Standards Agency.”
“How odd,” she said. “Enforcement is normally the responsibility of the local authority. That’s me. Unless, of course, the incident is termed serious.”
“How serious is serious?” I asked.
“If it involves E. coli or salmonella”-she paused slightly-“or botulism or typhus, that sort of thing. Or if someone dies as a result.”
“The men said that someone has died,” I said.
“Oh,” she said again. “I haven’t heard. Perhaps the police, or the hospital, contacted the Food Standards Agency directly. I’m surprised they managed to get through on a Saturday. The decision must have been made somewhere. Sorry about that.”
“Not your fault,” I echoed.
She pursed her lips together in a smile. “I had better go and find out what’s happening. My cell phone battery is dead, and it’s amazing how much we all now rely on the damn things. I’m lost without it.”
She turned to go but then turned back.
“I asked the racetrack office about your kitchen tent last night,” she said. “You were right. It’s now full of beer crates. Are you still planning to do a lunch service for Miss America up there?” She nodded her head towards the grandstand.
“Is that an official inquiry?” I asked.
“Umm.” She pursed her lips again. “Perhaps I don’t want to know. Forget I asked.”
I smiled. “Asked what?”
“I’ll get back to you later if and when I find out what’s going on.”
“Fine,” I said. “Can you let me know who it is that’s died as soon as you find out?” I gave her my cell number. “I’ll be here until about six-thirty. After that, I’ll be asleep.”
TWO OF MY regular staff had arrived to help Carl and me with the lunch and neither of them had been ill overnight. Both had eaten the vegetarian pasta bake on the previous evening, so, by process of elimination, the chicken became the prime suspect.
For more than an hour, they worked in the glass-fronted boxes while Carl and I set to work in the tiny kitchen across the passageway preparing the pies for the oven. Carl rolled out the pastry while I filled and covered the individual pie dishes. Our Cambridge greengrocer had successfully replaced the asparagus and the new potatoes, both of which were held captive in the restaurant’s cold-room. The potatoes now sat ready in saucepans on the stove, and I began to relax. But tiredness creeps up on those who relax.
I left Carl to finish the pies while I went to check on the others.
They had successfully retracted the divider wall between the two boxes, making a single room about twenty feet square. Four five-foot-diameter tables and forty gold ladder-back chairs had been waiting for us in the boxes, delivered by a rental company contacted by the racetrack, and they had been arranged to allow for easy access around them for serving.
I had originally planned for five staff, other than me and Carl, to work the event, one waiter for each pair of tables, two to provide the drink and wine service and one to help out in the kitchen, but the other three had failed to show. The idea was for one waiter to provide drinks or coffee to the guests as they arrived while the other helped with steaming the asparagus and heating the rolls. In the end, the rolls had been caught by the padlocks, so we had bought some French loaves at the local supermarket in their place. If MaryLou objected to this continental influence, that was too bad.
Only half my dining-room manpower had actually turned up, so they, and I, were still busy setting up the tables when the first of the lunch guests was due to arrive. We had nearly made it, with only the wineglasses on a couple of the tables still to be put out.
MaryLou had just stood back and watched us as we worked.
We had laid starched white tablecloths over the stained and chipped plywood tables, and it had instantly improved the look of the room. I liked using Stress-Free Catering, since their equipment was of a higher quality than other catering services. Kings-pattern cutlery and decent water glasses and wineglasses soon transformed the bare tables into settings fit maybe not for a king but certainly fit for tractor and harvester manufacturers from across the pond.
Carl had even managed to rescue the pink-and-white carnation table centerpieces from the cold-room before it was sealed, and they, together with the alternating pink and white napkins, gave the final touch to the room.
I stood back and admired our handiwork. I was sure the guests would be impressed. Even MaryLou seemed to be pleased. She smiled. “Just in time,” she said as she placed seating name cards around the tables.
I looked at my watch. Twenty-five to twelve. Only the daylight outside told me it was a.m. and not p.m. My body clock had stopped hours ago and needed rewinding with a decent sleep before it would start again.
“No problem,” I said.
I felt clammy all over and longed to put my head down on a nice feather pillow. Instead, I retreated to the kitchen and doused my aching crown under cold water at the sink. I hoped that Angela Milne couldn’t see me through the window. The Food Standards Agency wouldn’t approve of a chef wetting his hair under the kitchen tap. I emerged slightly more refreshed, but, overall, it wasn’t a great improvement. I yawned loudly, with my mouth wide-open, leaned on the sink and looked out across the parade ring towards the town center.
Newmarket on 2,000 Guineas day. The town was abuzz with excitement for the first Classic race of the year, with every hotel room for miles occupied with the hopeful and the expectant.
Newmarket was nicknamed “Headquarters” by racing people, although it had long since relinquished its role as the official power base of the Sport of Kings. The Jockey Club headquarters had been established at Newmarket in the 1750s to regulate the already-thriving local racing scene, and it had soon expanded its authority over all Thoroughbred racing in the land. Indeed, the Jockey Club had wielded such power that in October 1791 the Prince Regent, the future King George IV, was investigated for “irregularities in the running of his horse Escape.” The irregularities in question were that the horse pulled up on one day at short odds only to win the next day at long. The prince sold his horses and his st
ud and never returned to Newmarket, and it is much rumored that he was, in fact, privately “warned off” by the stewards, although officially he was just “censured.”
Nowadays, the Jockey Club was still a huge influence in Newmarket itself as it owned not only the two racetracks, but also some twenty-four hundred acres of training paddocks around the town. But the role it once had in running and controlling British racing has faded away to almost nothing with the establishment first of the British Horseracing Board and then, more recently, the creation of the British Horseracing Authority, which has taken over the inquiries and disciplinary matters within the sport. The Jockey Club has returned to what it was at its original meetings in a London tavern, a social gathering for like-minded individuals who enjoy their racing. That is, of course, unless they happened to be a professional jockey. There are no actual jockeys in the Jockey Club. In the eyes of the members, jockeys are servants and have no place socializing among their betters.
Carl roused me from my daydreaming.
“We can only get half the pies in these ovens,” he said, “so we’re borrowing the space in the ovens down the passage. They’re serving a cold buffet, so there’s plenty of room.”
“Great,” I said. I was so tired I hadn’t even realized there was a problem. “What time do they go in?” I tried hard to do the mental arithmetic. First race at five past two, so sit down to lunch at half past twelve. Each pie takes thirty-five minutes. If there are forty pies, minus the five people who aren’t coming, that makes…forty minus five pies…if one pie takes thirty-five minutes for the filling to cook and the pastry to go golden brown, how long does it take forty minus five pies…? The cogs in my brain turned ever so slowly and then ground to a halt. If five men can build five houses in five months, how long will it take six men to build six houses? Did I care? I was beginning to think that the pies should have gone into the ovens the day before yesterday, when Carl saved me.
“Twelve-fifteen sharp,” he said. “Sit-down time is twelve-thirty, pies on the table at one o’clock.”
“Great,” I said again. And my head on the pillow by one-thirty. Fat chance.
“And potatoes on in five minutes,” Carl said. “All under control.”
I looked at my watch. It took me quite a time to register where the hands were pointing. Ten to twelve. What is wrong with me? I thought. I’d stayed awake for longer than this before. My stomach rumbled to remind me that nothing had been put in it for a while. I wasn’t sure that it was such a good idea to eat at all, in case it came up again in a replay of the night before, and I wasn’t at all keen on that. But perhaps hunger was contributing to my lethargy.
I tried a dry piece of French bread. It seemed to provoke no immediate reaction from my guts, so I had another, larger piece. The rumblings abated.
The guests would be arriving in the boxes and I was hardly dressed to greet them, so I went down to my Golf, stood between the cars and changed into my work clothes, a pair of black-and-white, large-check trousers and a starched white cotton smock. The top had been loosely modeled on a hussar’s tunic, with two rows of buttons in a sort of open V down the front. MAX MORETON was embroidered in red on the left breast, below a representation of a Michelin star. I had discovered that to look like a chef was half the battle in convincing customers and critics alike that I really did care about the food they ate and that I wasn’t simply trying to fleece them.
I made my way back up to the boxes only to find MaryLou stomping around outside the elevator, looking for me.
“Ah, there you are,” she said in a tone that implied I should have been there long before. “You must come and meet Mr. Schumann. He’s our company chairman.”
She almost dragged me by the arm down the corridor to the boxes, which now had large notices stuck to the doors: DELAFIELD INDUSTRIES, INC.-MAIN EVENT SPONSOR.
There were about twenty people already there, some standing around the tables while others had made their way out onto the balcony outside to enjoy the watery May sunshine and the magnificent view down the racetrack.
My role was as guest chef for the event rather than just the caterer. The usual racetrack hospitality company and I had a fine working relationship that was beneficial to both parties. They had no objection to me having “special” access to the track, and I would try to help them out if they were short staffed or stretched with a big function. Their managing director, Suzanne Miller, was a frequent client at the Hay Net, and she always claimed that it was a benefit for her company to have an association with, as she put it, “a local gourmet restaurant.” The arrangement had worked well for more than five years, but time would tell whether it would survive Suzanne’s approaching retirement. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind if it didn’t. The growing success of the Hay Net meant that I was finding it increasingly difficult to devote the time and energy needed to my track events, and I was not good at saying no to longstanding clients. If the new boss of the caterers didn’t want me on his patch, then I could always blame him to get me off the hook.
MaryLou guided me across the room to the door to the balcony and then hovered next to a tall, broad-shouldered man of about sixty wearing a charcoal gray suit, white shirt and a bright pink-and-blue striped tie. He was deep in conversation with a younger woman who was much shorter than he. He leaned over her, supporting himself on the doorframe, and spoke quietly in her ear. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but he certainly was amused by it, and he stood up, laughing. She smiled at him, but I had the impression that she didn’t quite share in his pleasure.
He turned to MaryLou with what I thought was a degree of irritation.
“Mr. Schumann,” said MaryLou in her clipped manner, “can I introduce Mr. Max Moreton, our chef for today.”
He looked at me in my chef’s garb, and I had the feeling that he thought I should be back in the kitchen and out of sight of his guests.
MaryLou, it appeared, must have read the same thing in his expression.
“Mr. Moreton,” she went on, “is a chef of some reputation, and has often been seen on TV.”
Some reputation indeed, I thought: the mass poisoner of Newmarket Town.
Mr. Schumann didn’t seem impressed.
MaryLou hadn’t finished. “We are very lucky to have Mr. Moreton cooking for us today,” she said. “He is much in demand.”
This wasn’t altogether true, but I wasn’t going to correct her.
Mr. Schumann reluctantly stretched out a hand. “Glad you could help,” he said. “Young MaryLou here usually gets her man.” He spoke with more of a drawl than his marketing executive, but his voice lacked warmth and sincerity.
I shook the offered hand, and we looked at each other directly in the eyes. I found him somewhat intimidating and decided that retreat to my rightful place would be a wise option. However, I was prevented from going by a hand on my arm from the lady to my left.
“Max,” she said. “How lovely. Are you cooking for us today?”
Elizabeth Jennings was a regular customer at the Hay Net along with her husband, Neil, who was one of the most successful trainers in town. Elizabeth herself was a tireless worker for charity and organizer of great dinner parties, some of which I had attended and others that I had cooked.
“Rolf,” she said to Mr. Schumann, “you are so clever to have got Max to cook for you today. He’s the absolute best chef in England.”
Good old Mrs. Jennings, I thought.
“I wouldn’t say that,” I said, although I might privately think it.
“Only the best for you, my dear,” said Mr. Schumann, turning on the charm and laying a hand on the sleeve of her blue-and-yellow floral dress.
She smiled at him. “Oh, Rolf, you are such a tease.”
Rolf decided that he was needed by someone else outside on the balcony and, with a slight nod to me and an “Excuse me” to Elizabeth, he moved away.
“Is Neil here with you?” I asked her.
“No,” Elizabeth said. “He should have been, b
ut he wasn’t too well last night. Something he ate, I expect. Probably the ham he had for lunch. I told him that it was past its sell-by date, but he ate it anyway. He always says that those dates are just to make you throw away perfectly good food all the time and get you to buy new stuff. Maybe now he’ll change his mind.”
“What did he have for dinner?” I asked as innocently as possible.
“We went to that big do here last night, you know. I saw you,” she said. “Now, what did we have? You should know. I always forget what we eat at these things.” She stopped and laughed. “Sorry, I suppose I shouldn’t say that to a chef.”
“Most people had chicken,” I said.
“That’s right. We did. And it was very good. And I loved the crème brûlée.”
“So you definitely had the chicken?” I asked. “Not the vegetarian pasta?”
“Of course I had the chicken,” she said. “Never have that vegetarian stuff. Vegetables should accompany meat, I say, not replace it. I always have a steak at your place, don’t I?”
That’s true, I thought. Maybe the chicken was not guilty after all. She was beginning to look puzzled at my questions. Time for me to depart to the kitchen.
“Sorry, Elizabeth, I must dash or you’ll get no lunch.”
THE LUNCH SERVICE went well in spite of the poor state of the chef. Louisa, one of my staff, came into the kitchen carrying empty plates and said how pleased MaryLou was with the steak-and-kidney pies. Apparently, everyone had loved them.
I had learned early on from Marguerite, my mother’s cousin’s fiery cook, that the real trick to cooking any meat was to not cook away the taste and texture. “What makes roast beef roast beef is not only its smell and its taste but its appearance and the feel of it on your tongue,” she had said. “Food involves all the senses,” she maintained, and she reveled in the chance to make food noisy to prove her point: sizzling steaks, and even whistling toads in the hole. “If you want to add flavor,” she would say, “get it into the meat before you cook it, so that the natural taste of the meat still comes through.”