by Dick Francis
I glanced through the rest of the paper to see if there was any more information that I had missed. On page five, in inch-high bold type, another headline ran: RACING FOLK POISONED BY THE HAY NET-ONE DEAD.
Oh shit!
The story beneath was not totally accurate and had probably been pulled together with a considerable amount of guesswork, but it was close enough to the truth to be damaging. It claimed that two hundred and fifty racing guests at a dinner had been poisoned by the Hay Net kitchen, with celebrity chef Max Moreton at the controls. It further claimed that one person had died and fifteen others hospitalized. The Hay Net, it stated, had been closed for decontamination. The tone of the piece was distinctly unpleasant.
Alongside the article was a photograph of my roadside restaurant sign with its large KEEP OUT-CLOSED FOR DECONTAMINATION sticker prominently displayed at an angle across the all too clearly recognizable THE HAY NET RESTAURANT beneath.
Oh shit! I thought again. That really won’t be great for business.
5
T rue to her word, Angela Milne moved mountains to get an inspection of my kitchen done late on Monday afternoon. The inspector, a small man in a suit with dark-rimmed glasses, arrived at about a quarter to five and stood in the parking lot, putting on a white coat and a white mesh trilby hat.
“Hello,” he said as I went out to meet him, “my name is Ward. James Ward.” He held out his hand and I shook it. I half expected him to inspect his palm to see if I had left some dirty scrap behind, but he didn’t.
“Max Moreton,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “I know. I’ve seen you on the telly.”
He smiled. Things might be looking up.
“Now,” he said, “where’s this kitchen?”
I waved a hand, and we crunched across the gravel towards the back door.
“Have you got the keys?” I asked.
“What keys?” he said.
Things were not looking up that much.
“The keys for the padlocks,” I said. “The two men who came and put this lot on last Saturday said the inspector, when he came, would have the keys.”
“Sorry,” he said. “No one told me.”
I bet my nonfriends, the bailiffs, didn’t bother to tell anyone. They probably tossed the keys into the river Cam.
“What do you suggest we do?” asked Mr. Ward.
“Do you have a crowbar?” I asked.
“No, but I have a tire iron in the car.”
It took several attempts, but the clasp finally parted from the doorframe with a splintering crack. No doubt it would be me that would have to pay for the damage as well as for the keyless lock.
The inspection was very thorough, with James Ward literally looking into every nook and cranny. He ran his fingers along the top of the exhaust hoods, looked for residue in the industrial dishwasher drains, and even poked a Q-Tip swab into the tiny gap between the built-in fryer and the worktop. It was clean. I knew it was clean. I left that gap there on purpose specifically for health inspectors to find and test. I had it cleaned out every day in case there was an unannounced visit.
“Fine,” he said at length. “Nice and clean all round. Of course, I will have these swabs tested tomorrow for bacteria.” He indicated the swabs he had placed in small plastic bags not just from the gap by the fryer, but also those wiped on the worktops, the chopping boards, the sinks and anywhere else he thought appropriate.
“But the kitchen is now open?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he said. “I spoke with Angela Milne, and she was happy that you be reopened as long as I was happy with the kitchen, and I am, provided I don’t get any surprises from these.” He held up the swabs. “And I don’t think there will be. I’ve inspected lots of kitchens and this is one of the cleanest I’ve seen.”
I was glad. I had always been insistent on having a clean kitchen and not just to pass inspections. There was a note printed on every menu that invited my clients to visit the kitchen, if they so wished. Many did, and all my regulars had been in there at some time or another, and one individual in particular always made a point of taking his guests in to see me, or Carl, and Gary. I had toyed with the idea of putting a chef’s table in a corner of the kitchen to allow diners to watch us at work. But as my limited star had risen over the years, I did tend to be elsewhere for an increasing number of the service periods in any given week. Also, I knew that even now the customers were apt to complain and be disappointed if I wasn’t actually there in the flesh, so I decided it was probably less troublesome overall to keep the clientele eating in the dining room only.
I thanked James Ward, and saw him to his car and off the premises. Even though he was pleasant and helpful, there is something about health inspectors that gives all chefs the willies, so I was glad to see him depart.
Carl and I spent the next hour removing all the CLOSED FOR DECONTAMINATION stickers, which seemed to be stuck on with Super Glue. Then we tried our best to remove the remaining padlocks without causing too much damage to the structure of the building. At last, it was done, and we sat together in the bar and pulled ourselves a pint each.
“We reopen tomorrow, then?” Carl asked.
“If we have any customers left,” I said.
I showed him the newspaper.
“That’s all right,” he said. “No one who comes here reads that.”
“They will have done so today,” I said. “Like me, they’ll have bought it to read about those killed on Saturday. They’re all bound to have seen it.”
“Nah, don’t you worry, our regulars will trust us more than a newspaper.” But he didn’t sound very convincing.
“Most of our regulars were at the dinner on Friday and will know it’s true,” I said, “because they were throwing up all night.”
“Ahh, I’d forgotten that.”
“How about those you phoned earlier?” I asked him. “You know, to say we would be closed tonight.”
“Well, most said they weren’t going to be coming anyway.”
“Did they give a reason?” I asked.
“If you mean did they say they weren’t coming because we were akin to a poison factory, then, no, they didn’t. Only one person mentioned it, and she said that she and her husband wouldn’t have come only because they hadn’t fully recovered from a bout of food poisoning. Most simply said it would be inappropriate for them to enjoy an evening out while the bodies of those killed had hardly gone cold, or words to that effect.”
We sat in silence and finished our beers. The thought of the bodies getting colder in the commandeered refrigerated truck had been drifting around the periphery of my consciousness for most of the day.
I CALLED MARK WINSOME. I thought it was time my silent business partner knew that we might have a spot of bother ahead. He listened carefully as I told him the whole story about Friday night and also about the bombing on Saturday. He knew, of course, about the bombing but hadn’t realized how close his investment had been to biting the dust.
“I’m so sorry about your waitress,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said. “It’s been very distressing for the other staff. I sent them all home this morning.”
“But you say the restaurant will reopen again tomorrow?”
“Yes,” I said. “But I don’t expect there to be much business, and not only because of the food-poisoning incident but because the whole area is in shock and I don’t think people will be eating out much.”
“So you might have a bit of time this week?” he said.
“Well, I think I should be here for those who do come,” I said. “Why?”
“I just thought it’s time you came to London.”
“What, to see you?”
“No. Well, yes, of course I would love to see you. But what I really meant was that it’s time for you to come to London permanently.”
“What about the restaurant?”
“That’s what I mean,” he said. “I think it’s time you opened a restaurant in Lon
don. I’ve been waiting six years for you to be ready and now I think you are.”
I sat in my office and stared at the wall. I had called Mark with considerable trepidation since I feared he might be angry that I had seemingly poisoned a sizable chunk of Newmarket society and damaged his investment. Instead, he was offering me…what? Fame and fortune, or maybe it would be humiliation and disaster. At the very least, Mark was offering me the chance to find out.
“Are you still there?” he said at length.
“Mmm,” I replied.
“Good. Then come see me sometime later this week.” He paused. “How about Friday? Lunch? At the Goring.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Good,” he said again. “One o’clock, in the bar.”
“Fine,” I repeated, and he hung up.
I sat there for a while, thinking about what the future might bring. There was no doubt that the Hay Net was becoming very well known in the area and, at least until Friday night, had been generally well respected. Indeed, so popular had we become that securing a table for dinner was a challenge and needed considerable forward planning, especially weekends. In the past year, I had been featured in a few magazines, and the previous autumn we had entertained a TV crew from the BBC. The Hay Net was busy, comfortable and fun. Maybe it had become rather too easy, but I loved being part of the world of racing, the world in which I had been brought up. I liked racing people and they seemed to like me. I was enjoying life.
Was I ready to give up this provincial coziness to move to the cutthroat world of restaurants in the metropolis? Could I afford to walk away from this success and pit myself against the very best chefs in London? Could I afford not to?
THE NIGHT WAS slightly less disturbed than the previous one, and with a few new variations of the dream. It was mostly MaryLou pushing the gurney, and occasionally she became a legless skeleton as she pushed. More than once, it was Louisa doing the pushing, and she still had her legs. Thankfully, on these occasions the dream ended peacefully rather than with the endless fall and racing heart. Overall, I slept for more hours than I was awake, and I was reasonably refreshed by the time my alarm clock noisily roused me at a quarter to eight.
I lay in bed for a while, thinking about what Mark had said the previous afternoon. The prospect of joining the restaurant big boys was, at once, hugely exciting and incredibly frightening. But what an opportunity!
I was brought back to earth by the ringing of my telephone on the bedside table.
“Hello,” I said.
“Max, is that you?” said a female voice. “It’s Suzanne Miller here.”
Suzanne Miller, the managing director of the racetrack catering company.
“Hi, Suzanne,” I said. “What can I do for you so early?” I looked at my clock. It was twenty-five to nine.
“Yes, sorry to call you at home,” she said, “but I think we might have a problem.”
“How so?”
“It’s to do with last Friday,” she said. I wasn’t surprised. “It seems that some people who were at the gala dinner were ill afterwards.”
“Were they?” I said in a surprised tone. “How about you and Tony?” Tony was her husband, and they had both been at the event.
“No, we were fine,” she said. “It was a lovely evening. But I always find these big evenings nerve-racking. I get so wound up, in case anything goes wrong.”
And it wasn’t even her firm doing the cooking, I thought, although they had been responsible for the guest list and all the other arrangements.
“So what’s the problem?” I asked innocently.
“I’ve had a letter this morning. It says”-I heard paper being rustled-“‘Dear Madam, This letter is to give you advance warning of legal proceedings that will be initiated by our client against your company to recover damages for distress and loss of earnings as a result of the poisoning of our client at a dinner organized by your company at Newmarket racetrack on Friday, May 4.’ ”
“And who is their client?” I asked.
“It says ‘Ref: Miss Caroline Aston,’ at the top.”
“Was she a guest on Friday?” I asked.
“She’s not on the guest list, but so many of them weren’t named. You know what it’s like, Mr. So-and-So and guest. Could be anyone.”
“You said people. Who else?”
“Apparently, quite a few,” she said. “I mentioned this to my secretary just now when I opened it and she says that lots of people were ill on Friday night. Her husband is a doctor, and she says he had to see quite a few of his patients. And she said there was an article in the newspaper about it yesterday. What shall we do?”
“Nothing,” I said. “At least, nothing yet. If anyone asks, tell them you’re looking into it.” I paused. “Out of interest, what did you and Tony have to eat on Friday night?”
“I can’t remember,” said Suzanne. “What with all this bomb business, I can’t think.”
“It is dreadful, isn’t it?” I said.
“Dreadful,” she agreed. “And I am so sorry to hear about your waitress.”
“Thank you. Yes, it has been an awful blow to my staff. Louisa was much loved by them all.”
“Seems that a bit of food poisoning is irrelevant, really,” she said.
I agreed, and silently hoped that the episode would be soon forgotten. Who was it who tried to hide bad news behind a much bigger story? It had cost them their job.
“So what shall I do about this letter?” Suzanne asked.
“Could you make a copy and send it to me?” I said. “Then, if I were you, I’d just wait to hear from them again. Maybe they’re just fishing for a reaction and will forget about it when they don’t get one.” Or maybe that was just my wishful thinking.
“I think I ought to consult higher,” she said. The local racetrack catering company was just part of a national group, and I suspected that Suzanne was not sure enough of her position to simply sit on the letter. She would want the parent company’s lawyers to see it. I couldn’t blame her. I’d have done the same in her position.
“OK,” I said, “but could you send me a copy of it first.”
“I will,” she said slowly, as if thinking, “but I will send it to you with a covering note officially informing you of the letter, as the chef at the event. And I will also send a copy of that covering note to my head office.”
Why did I suddenly get the feeling that I was being distanced here by Suzanne? Was I the one that the catering company was preparing to hang out to dry? Probably. After all, business is business.
“Fine,” I said. “And if you can remember what you ate on Friday, let me know that too, will you?”
“Tony is a vegetarian,” she said, “so he would have eaten whatever you had for them.”
“And you?” I asked. “Would you have eaten the vegetarian dish?”
“What was it?” she asked.
“Broccoli, cheese and pasta bake.”
“I can’t stand broccoli, so I doubt it. Let me think.” There was a short pause. “I think I had chicken. But I was so nervous about the evening, I hardly ate anything at all. In fact, I remember being so hungry when I got home I had to make myself a cheese sandwich before I went to bed.”
Not really very helpful.
“Why do you want to know?” she asked.
“Just in case it was some of the food at the dinner that made people ill,” I said. “Helps to eliminate things, that’s all.” Time, I thought, to change the subject. “Were all your staff all right on Saturday?”
“Oh yes, thank you,” she said. “Some of them were pretty shocked, though, and one of my elderly ladies was admitted to the hospital with chest pains after having been told by a fireman to run down four flights of stairs. But she was all right after a while. How about you? How did you get out?”
We spent some time telling our respective war stories. Suzanne had been in her office on the far side of the weighing room and she hadn’t even realized there had been a bomb until s
he heard the fire engines arrive with their sirens, but it didn’t seem to stop her from having a lengthy account of her actions thereafter.
“I’m sorry, Suzanne,” I said during a pause in the flow, “I must get on.”
“Oh sorry,” she said. “Once I start, I never stop, do I?”
No, I thought. But at least we had moved away from talking about food poisoning.
“Speak with you soon,” I said. “Bye, now.” I hung up.
I laid my head back on the pillow and wondered who Miss Caroline Aston was, and where she was. I could wring her bloody neck. Distress and loss of earnings indeed. How about me? I’d suffered distress and loss of earnings too. Who should I sue?
THERE WAS ANOTHER letter from Miss Aston’s lawyers waiting for me when I arrived at the Hay Net. It confirmed that she was suing me personally as well as the racetrack catering company. Great. I could wring her neck twice, if only I knew who and where she was. What did she think? That I had poisoned people on purpose?
I sat in my office reading and rereading the letter. I suppose I ought to find a lawyer to give it to. Instead, I called Mark again.
“Send it to me,” he said. “My lawyers will look at it for you and they will give you a call.”
“Thanks.”
I faxed it to the number he gave me, and his lawyer called me back within fifteen minutes. I explained the problem to him.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “we’ll deal with this.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “But please let me know who this woman is so I can make a voodoo doll of her and stick pins in it.”
The lawyer laughed. “Why don’t you just poison her?”
“Not funny,” I said.
“No. Sorry,” he said. “I’ll be able to do a search and find her within the day. I’ll get back to you.”
“I could wring her neck,” I said.
“I wouldn’t advise it,” said the lawyer, laughing. “Suing is done in civil court and you can only lose your money, not your liberty.”