by Dick Francis
“Thanks, I’ll try and remember that when you find her.”
He laughed again and hung up.
I wondered what I would do if he did find her. Probably nothing. It just annoyed me that she wanted to claim damages from me for a minor bit of accidental food poisoning when the lovely Louisa had lost her life due to some deranged madman bringing his grudges two thousand miles from the Middle East to Newmarket.
Carl arrived and I shared the good news with him.
“Will they lock you up?” he asked hopefully.
“Sod off,” I said.
“Charming,” he said, smiling. “So the boss has returned in both body and mind. Shall we get this show on the road?”
“Indeed, we shall,” I replied, returning the smile.
There is a lot more to running a restaurant than cooking a few meals. For a start, the customers want a choice of dishes, and they want them without having to wait too long. At the Hay Net, we usually offered between eight and ten starters and about the same number of main courses. Some of the starters were hot and some were cold, but everything was prepared fresh to order, and our aim was to have a dish ready for the table within fifteen minutes of the order being taken. Ideally, main courses should be ready ten minutes after the starters have been cleared from the table, or, if no starters are ordered, within twenty-eight minutes of the order arriving in the kitchen. I knew all too well that if a customer was kept waiting for longer than he or she thought reasonable, it didn’t matter how good the food tasted when it arrived, only the wait would be remembered and not the flavors.
There were three of us who worked in the heat of the kitchen, Carl, Gary and me, while Julie dealt with the cold dishes, including the salads and desserts. It was not a big operation compared to the large London restaurants, but, at the height of the service, it was an energetic kitchen, with everyone working hard. The plan was that the bookings were taken to stagger our busy dinner period over at least a couple of hours, but our customers were notorious for not being on time for their reservations so sometimes we were madly rushed to get everything out on time.
Food is fickle stuff. The difference between vegetables that are just right and vegetables that are overcooked can be a matter of a minute or two. For a steak, or a tuna fillet, it can be much less time than that. Our clients, understandably, want their food delivered to the table when it is perfect. They also want all the servings for the table delivered at once-who wouldn’t? They expect their food to be attractive, to be hot and to have an appetizing aroma. And, in particular, they want the food delivered in the same sequence as the orders were taken. Nothing, I had learned, upsets the customers more than to see a party that ordered after they did being served ahead of them.
To the casual observer, the kitchen might appear as a chaotic scramble, but, in reality, it was only as chaotic as a juggler’s hands keeping four balls in the air at once. Appearances, in either case, are deceptive.
Needless to say, we didn’t always get everything right, but, overall, the number of compliments far exceeded the few complaints, and that was good enough for me. Occasionally, someone would say that they weren’t coming back, but, usually, it would be someone I didn’t want back anyway. I would just smile and politely show them the way to the parking lot. Thankfully, those were few and far between. Most of my customers were friends, and it was just like having them to my house for dinner except, of course, they paid.
My thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a delivery from my butcher. I used a man from Bury St. Edmonds who slaughtered all his own meat. He had told me that he knew all his farm suppliers personally, and he claimed that he could vouch for the well-being and comfortable life of every one of the animals. That is, of course, until he killed and butchered them. I had no reason to doubt his claims, since his meat and poultry were excellent. A fine restaurant obviously needs a good chef, but even the best chefs need good ingredients to work with and so the choice of supplier is paramount.
The driver had almost finished stacking the delivery in the cold-room by the time the rest of my staff arrived at ten o’clock. Gary was all excited that the padlocks had been removed and went around the kitchen like a little boy allowed to roam freely in a toy store. He was having one of his good days, I thought. He had the energy and the enthusiasm to be a good chef, even a great one, but I felt that he had to learn to be slightly less adventurous in his combinations of flavors. He was, like me, a great believer in using fruit with meat. Everyone was familiar with pork with apple, turkey with cranberries, duck with orange, gammon with pineapple and even venison with quince. The flavors complement one another, the fruit bringing out the best in the meat, and satisfying the palate. Gary was apt to choose exotic, strong-tasting fruits and, to my mind, serve them inappropriately with meats of a delicate flavor, such as veal or chicken. It was a matter that we had discussed at length and with passion.
Ever since he had arrived a couple of years previously, I had attempted to have at least one dish on our menu of his design, and, at the moment, it was an herb-crusted red snapper, topped with a roasted caramelized pear, over a lightly garlic mashed-potato base, with a pear reduction. It was a tasty and popular dish, and it usually kept Gary busy throughout the service.
However, the bookings for lunch on that particular Tuesday were not spectacular, and, during the morning, several calls to cancel left us looking very bare. More calls canceling dinner reservations made the day look bleak indeed.
I called a short meeting of the staff in the dining room at noon.
“It seems that a combination of the bombing on Saturday and the problems we had on Friday evening may result in a bit of a lean time this week,” I said. “But I am sure that things will pick up soon. We will continue as normal and do our best for those that do come. OK?” I tried to sound upbeat.
“How about Louisa’s job?” said Jean. “And when is Robert coming back? Ray and I can’t do the whole dining room on our own.”
“Let’s wait and see how many covers we will be doing,” I said. “Richard can help out in the dining room, as he usually does anyway when we’re busy.” I looked at him and he nodded in agreement. “I will call Robert and find out when he will be coming back. Anything else?”
“I spoke to the Whitworths,” said Richard. “They said to thank you for the offer, but they wanted to have the wake at home. And Beryl, that’s Louisa’s mum, said that she will do the food, if that’s all right.”
“Of course,” I said, and wondered if the Whitworths blamed Louisa’s death on her job. I decided that I had better go visit them. It would be the proper thing to do anyway.
“Do you know yet when her funeral will be?” I asked.
“Friday, at two-thirty, at the crematorium in Cambridge.”
Damn, I thought, I’d have to rearrange my lunch with Mark.
“OK,” I said. “We will be closed all day on Friday. You can all have the day off to go to the funeral, if you wish. I will be there.” I paused. “Is there anything else?” No one said anything. “OK, let’s get to work.”
In the end, we did just four lunches, two separate couples who stopped while passing. None of the six still booked actually turned up, and there were three more calls during lunch to cancel for the evening. That left us just twenty-four from what had been a full dining room, and I seriously doubted whether even those twenty-four would show.
I spent some time during the afternoon calling the clients who had made reservations on Friday to tell them that we would be closed and why. Most said they probably wouldn’t have come anyway, but only two said rather tactlessly that it was because they had heard that you could get poisoned at the Hay Net. At one point, I had dialed a number and it was ringing before I realized that it was the Jennings number I was calling. I was about to put the phone down when Neil answered.
“Hello,” he said slowly. “Neil Jennings here.”
“Hello, Neil,” I said. “It’s Max Moreton from the Hay Net.”
“Ah yes
,” he said, “Hello, Max.”
“Neil,” I said slightly awkwardly, “I’m so very sorry about Elizabeth. Such a dreadful thing.”
“Yes,” he said.
There was an uncomfortable pause. I didn’t know quite what to say.
“I saw her at the races on Saturday,” I said, “at lunchtime.”
“Really,” he replied, seemingly rather absentmindedly.
“Yes,” I went on. “I cooked the lunch she attended.”
“Didn’t poison her, did you?” I wasn’t sure if he was making a joke or not.
“No, Neil,” I said, “I didn’t.”
“No,” he said, “I suppose not.”
“Do you have a date for the funeral?” I asked. “I would like to come and pay my respects.”
“Friday,” he said, “at eleven, at Our Lady and St. Etheldreda.”
I hadn’t realized that they were Roman Catholics, but, then, why would I.
“I’ll try and be there,” I said.
“Fine,” he said. There was another difficult little pause, and I was about to say good-bye when he said, “I suppose I should thank you for saving my life.”
“Sorry?” I said.
“If you hadn’t made me so ill on Friday night,” he went on, “I would have been in the box with my Elizabeth on Saturday.”
I couldn’t tell whether he was pleased or not.
6
W ednesday dawned bright and sunny. As a general rule, I slept with my curtains open and tended to wake with the rising sun. However, for a few weeks each side of midsummer I tried to remember to pull them across my east-facing bedroom window to prevent the early brightness from rousing me too soon from my slumbers. I cursed myself for forgetting, as the sun peeped over the horizon at a quarter past five and forced its rays past my closed eyelids and into my sleeping brain. For the first time in nearly a week, I had slept soundly and uninterrupted. That is, until five-fifteen.
As I had feared, Tuesday evening had been a dismal affair at the restaurant. Just five tables had finally appeared, and one of those was from passing street traffic who couldn’t believe their luck that we had space for them. In fact, we had so much space that they had twenty tables to choose from. It felt like the kitchen was working in slow motion. Perhaps I should have been happy to have had a less tiring time after what had happened over the preceding days, but it seemed all wrong, and I could also feel the tension among my staff. They weren’t happy either. They were worried about the security of their jobs and the future. As I was.
Refreshed by a decent sleep and a vigorous shower, I resolved to do something to rectify the position the restaurant found itself in. I decided that it was no good sitting around just waiting for the business to pick up while the Hay Net slowly died. What was needed was positive action. I thought about walking along Newmarket High Street with sandwich boards on my shoulders, stating that Socrates would be safe at the Hay Net, there being no hemlock on the menu. Instead, I looked up the telephone number of the Cambridge Evening News. Use a thief to catch a thief.
I reckoned that an evening paper would start work early, so I sat on the edge of my bed in a bathrobe and called the news desk at a quarter to eight. I waited for some time until Ms. Harding, the paper’s news editor, finally came on the line.
“Yes?” she said. “Can I help you?”
“Would you be interested in an exclusive interview with Max Moreton?” I asked, deciding not to reveal my identity at this stage in case she wanted to do the interview over the telephone. “About both the food-poisoning episode of last week and the bombing of the racetrack on Saturday?”
“What has Max Moreton to do with the bombing?” asked Ms. Harding.
I told her that he was the chef for the lunch in the bombed boxes and that he had been first on the scene immediately after the bomb went off, well before the fire brigade had arrived. She took the bait.
“Wow!” she said. “Then, yes, please, we would love to have an interview with Mr. Moreton.” An exclusive with a witness to the biggest national news stories of the hour was like manna from heaven for a local newspaper.
“Good,” I said. “How about at the Hay Net restaurant, at ten-thirty this morning?”
“Hasn’t that restaurant been closed down?” she said.
“No,” I replied, “it hasn’t.”
“Right.” She sounded a little unsure. “Will it be safe?”
I stifled my irritation and assured her it would.
“And one more thing,” I said. “Don’t forget to bring a photographer.”
“Why do I need a photographer?” she asked.
I thought about saying to her: so she could rephotograph the restaurant sign, this time with OPEN FOR WONDERFUL FOOD stuck across it. Instead, I said, “I am sure that Mr. Moreton would be happy for you to photograph his injuries from the bombing.”
“Oh,” she said. “OK. Tell him someone will be at his restaurant at ten-thirty.”
“But won’t it be you?” I asked.
“No, I doubt it,” she said. “I’ll send one of the reporting staff.”
“I do think that Mr. Moreton would only be interested in speaking with the news editor,” I said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure that he would only speak to the most important person in the newsroom.”
“Oh,” she said again, “do you think so? Well, I might just be able to do this one myself.” Flattery, I thought, could get you everywhere. “OK,” she said decisively. “Tell Mr. Moreton I will be there myself at ten-thirty.”
I promised her that I would do just that, and hung up, smiling.
Next, I called Mark. I knew he was always at his desk by seven-thirty each morning, and sometimes he was still there at eleven at night. To my knowledge, he survived on a maximum of six hours’ sleep a night. All his waking hours he devoted to making money, and I was under no illusions that his plan to bring me to London would include him getting even richer. I was not saying that I wouldn’t get richer too, just that I knew that Mark wouldn’t be contemplating the move out of feelings of altruism or philanthropy. He had pound and dollar signs in his eyes, and he would have already calculated the potential profit in his head.
“No problem,” he said. “Come to dinner instead. You choose where. I’ll pay.”
“OK,” I said. “How about the OXO Tower?” I had always liked their food.
“Fine. I’ll make the reservation. Eight o’clock suit you?”
I mentally calculated train times. “Make it eight-thirty.”
“Fine,” he said again. “Eight-thirty on Friday at the OXO.”
He hung up, and I lay back on the bed, thinking about what the future might bring. How ambitious was I? What did I want from my life?
I would be thirty-two in November. Seven years ago I had been the youngest chef ever to be awarded a Michelin star. But, by now, there were two younger than me, each with two stars. I was no longer seen by the media as the bright young thing of whom much was expected, I was more the established chef who was now thought to be making his fortune. The truth was that I was doing all right, but the Hay Net was both too small and too provincial to be a serious cash generator. Whereas nationally I was only a minor celebrity chef, at the local level I was well known and admired, at least I was before last Friday, and I enjoyed it. Did I want to give that up to seek fame and fortune in London? What else in my life was important?
I had always wanted a family, to have children of my own. In that respect, so far I had been a singular failure, literally. A few relationships with girls had come and gone. Mostly gone. Restaurant work is never very conducive to interactions of a sexual nature. The hours are antisocial by their very design: having dinners out is other people’s social activity. Exhausting evenings and late nights are not ideal preparations for lovemaking, and I could remember more than a few occasions when I had been so tired that I had simply gone to sleep in the middle of the act, something not greatly appreciated by the other party.
But being alone was no
t something that kept me awake nights, worrying. I was not actively searching for a partner. I never had. But if the opportunity arose, I would take it. If not, then I would go on living alone, working hard and keeping my eyes open so as not to miss the chance if it came along. London, I thought, might well increase the probability of such a chance.
The telephone rang on the bedside table. I sat up and picked up the receiver.
“Hello,” I said.
“Morning, Mr. Moreton,” said Angela Milne. “Lovely day.”
“Yes, lovely,” I said. My heart rate rose a notch. “Do you have any news for me?”
“Yes, indeed I have,” she said. “I’m afraid I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?”
“The good news, I suppose,” I said.
“The swabs taken by James Ward in your kitchen are all clear.”
“Good,” I said. I hadn’t expected otherwise. “So what’s the bad news?”
“You poisoned everyone with phytohemagglutinin.”
“Phyto…What?” I said.
“Phytohemagglutinin,” she repeated. “And, yes, I did need to look up how to pronounce it.”
“But what is it?” I asked.
“Kidney bean lectin.”
“And what’s that when it’s at home?”
“It’s the stuff in red kidney beans that makes them poisonous,” she said. “You gave your guests kidney beans that hadn’t been properly cooked.”
I thought back hard to last Friday’s dinner. “But I didn’t serve any kidney beans.”
“You must have,” she said. “Maybe in a salad or something?”
“No,” I said confidently, “there were definitely no kidney beans in that dinner. I made everything from scratch, and I swear to you there were no kidney beans, red or otherwise, in any of it. The tests must be mistaken.”
“Samples were taken from sixteen different individuals at the hospital and all of them contained phyto what’s-its-name.” She didn’t actually say that it was me that must be mistaken and not the tests, but the tone of her voice implied it.