The Chinese Takeout

by Judith Cutler

  ‘When will you be back?’ I heard myself asking – me, who never asked such personal questions.

  ‘I thought I might come via Brum. Elly’s got some tickets for a midweeker.’

  ‘Great. Enjoy yourself. And take care.’ I cut the call.

  Enjoy indeed: trotting round the countryside watching bloody soccer while I was trying to sort out the wrongs of the world. And then I remembered the rotting zebra and hoped the match produced a lot of compensatory goals.

  As for Andy, presumably his busiest working day was drawing to a close. He’d conducted four services to Tim’s five, St Jude’s being out of action, but he must be reasonably tired, and I didn’t know him well enough to phone just for a natter. I wondered idly who had taken the services in his own church; presumably he was grand enough to warrant a curate for just such an event.

  ‘Josie, my love! Did that terrible accident of yours deprive you of your senses? I’ve been standing here ten minutes panting for a glass of ale, and I don’t think you even knew I’d come in.’

  I hoped I hadn’t visibly jumped. ‘Ten minutes my Aunt Fanny, Aidan Carr. I’d have leapt to the pumps only you’d got your nose sucked into that scandal-sheet old Archie left behind! Funny, I never had you down as a tits and bum man.’

  ‘My sweet, the day you do, you can sign me up for the SAS. Guilty as charged. I was peeping to see what people read these days. Only I fancy read is the wrong verb. “Look at” would be more accurate. You’d got a very long face, Josie, when you thought no one was looking.’

  ‘Maybe the accident knocked me about more than I realised.’

  He switched on his solemn face, never easy when the natural lines on his face tended upwards, not down. ‘The word on the street, Josie, is that it wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘No?’ Impassive as possible, I pulled the half of real ale he always had if he thought no one was looking. In a crowd, he took a delight in finnicking around with gin and tonic with crushed ice and the thinnest slices of lime. ‘Does the street identify the malefactor?’

  He raised his glass in a toast. ‘Blessings upon your brewer and perdition to your malefactor. Such a lovely term. But not a lovely man.’

  ‘A man. We’re getting somewhere. Do I know him? Does his name begin with C?’

  ‘Good God, no!’ Aidan was genuinely shocked. Then he donned his puzzled expression. ‘Why should you think that?’

  ‘No matter. So does the name begin with M?’

  ‘Darling girl, we don’t know what letter it begins with. But they do say someone in a big blue 4x4 stopped someone in Taunton and asked his way here.’

  I spread my hands. ‘And do they say whether someone took this information to the police?’

  ‘You know this part of the world and us grockles, sweetie. We’re fair game and there’s no closed season. And if another grockle takes arms against us – so be it.’

  ‘I suppose they might just talk to Ian Strand. I know he’s a cop, but cut him across and you’d find Devon all the way through.’

  ‘Get Lucy on to it. And then she’d have a reason to talk to poor Ian. Come on, Josie, when are you going to set up as matchmaker?’

  ‘When she’s finished her exams. But I wouldn’t want to get involved. The village only forgave her for moving in here because her dad’s bomb was intended for me.’

  ‘A perverse form of logic, but I take your point. So I’d better have the undeniable pleasure of talking to young Ian myself.’

  I could imagine the lustre of Aidan’s eyes as he approached the young man. At least he’d always said he knew looking in shop windows wasn’t the same as buying. I agreed with a twinkle. ‘What burdens life thrusts upon us!’

  Aidan’s stomach rumbled. He patted it: ‘Down, boy. It’s this GI diet, Josie. I don’t seem to have the right sort of food in the house, and—’ He cocked his head winsomely. ‘I don’t suppose? For an old mate? A bit of cold roast and salad?’

  ‘You know my rule, Aidan. No food on Sunday evenings. Ever. But since there’s no one to see, I might just run to earth some cold beef.’

  ‘Josie! I adore you! Marry me, my sweet!’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask!’ I seized his hand and dragged him into the most smacking of kisses, only releasing him when I realised we were no longer alone. The door of the snug – beautifully oiled these days, thanks to Nick – stood ajar to reveal Andy Braithwaite. Rather too clearly, he was not amused.

  ‘I do apologise,’ he said, in the huffy tone this time of someone not apologising at all.

  ‘Not at all, Dean,’ Aidan said, recovering much more quickly than I. ‘It’s not every day I have a proposal of marriage accepted. You must wish me well, you know. Or congratulate me. Not being versed in these matters, I’m not at all sure what etiquette requires. Are you? No? Alas, I thought I could rely on you.’ Turning back to me, he kissed my hand. ‘Josie, my love, maybe the dean would like a plate of the excellent cold beef which prompted my declaration of love. She does a wonderful salad to go with it, or the most scrumptious homemade pickles. And bread to die for.’

  I let him rabbit on, at his campest, digging me out of any possible hole far quicker than self-justification from me. Until he paused for breath.

  Time to clasp my hands to my bosom. ‘So you only wanted me for my cold meat!’ I declared. ‘Alack, sir, then I am undone.’ In my normal, twenty-first-century voice, I continued, ‘And would you like some beef, Andy? There’s plenty, so long as you promise utmost secrecy. Only my friends eat out of hours, you see.’

  ‘Friends and fiancés,’ Aidan amended smugly. ‘Ooh, I never thought I’d get engaged! Not to a woman!’

  So why, I asked myself as I sliced beef, had it mattered so much to Andy to see me locked in someone’s embrace? He’d laughed heartily enough at Aidan’s subsequent posturings, but only after a time lag, as it were. Hell! That might have been a finger gone. That would have taught me to let my mind wander with a knife like that in my hand. I slapped on a blue plaster and got on with my job. With absolutely no more speculating.

  ‘You see,’ Aidan crowed as I carried their plates through, ‘the woman’s an arrant temptress. There’s me on the latest song in diets, and she offers me bread. I ask you! But what’s a boy to do?’

  ‘Leave the bread for Andy of course. There wasn’t much salad left, so here are some pickles and chutneys if you want them.’

  By now Andy’s grin seemed genuinely relaxed. ‘There’s only one thing I can’t resist,’ he said, with as much panache as if the idea were original, ‘and that’s temptation.’

  But when Aidan, replete and relaxed, announced he needed his beauty sleep, Andy made a similar discovery, and they left together.

  No one else joined me in the snug, either for food or for a quiet pint, so I had plenty of time to ponder the question that was vexing me: was Andy shocked to see Aidan kissing me, or to see me kissing Aidan?

  There was something enormously satisfying about getting up early to make the scones I’d promised Abigail Tromans, turning the incredibly sticky mixture into proudly lopsided moist cakes, good enough in my book to eat without cream and jam. In fact that was how I ate the only taster I permitted myself. Yes, it was fine. The dried fruit Abigail’s recipe demanded had plumped up nicely. What else could you use scone mixture for? I’d seen both savoury and dessert recipes and now I remembered how easy it was to get excellent results, I was dying to try again.

  Dying! I’d have to stop using the word so loosely. Especially when Tim’s parents appeared. I’d scarcely had time to speculate what they might be like. Tim had said I reminded him of his godmother. Abrasive, aggressive, domineering, then. But what about his parents? And what about Tim’s refusal to have them contacted?

  Andy should be calling to let me know when to expect them. Perhaps he’d accompany them to ease their path.

  Meanwhile, unobtrusively, I had to get the scones down to Abigail. It was highly unlikely that anyone would be miffed by our arrangement, but one thing
I’d learned living in Kings Duncombe was that you couldn’t predict how country people might react.

  The problem was solved at our morning meeting. On Mondays these were perfunctory, to say the least, as I wanted to make sure the lads could maximise their free time. Pix turned up in an embarrassing Lycra cycling outfit, which showed precisely why he needed more exercise.

  ‘No probs. But,’ he added, filching at least another ten miles’ worth of calories, ‘just why are we taking coals to Newcastle?’

  ‘Hush-hush coals, moreover,’ Robin added, still in the cut off tracksuit bottoms that constituted his jimmies.

  ‘I’m worried about Abigail. Blood pressure.’ I mimed her bulge.

  ‘Yuck: women’s talk.’

  ‘Quite. No one needs to know why the scones aren’t up to her usual standard. Not that anyone’ll know anything about them at all if you keep on pigging, young Pix.’

  For answer he passed the plastic box across to Robin.

  He assumed a blissful expression. ‘Not bad, gaffer. So you do this every morning and one of us bikes them down?’

  ‘Not exactly. Whoever’s duty pastry cook can do them, if that’s OK with you two? Some mornings Dan’ll be able to collect them when he drops off our wild garlic. Executive decision time, lads. We’re going native.’

  I was laying up for lunch – only rolls and salads, remember – thinking about Abigail and her problems, when something she said struck me so smartly I nearly dropped the cutlery box. She said that in exchange for the wild garlic business, Dan wouldn’t mind sniffing a slaughterman’s armpit. As if that was the worst smell in the world. Tang’s smell: could he have been a slaughterman somewhere? Why hadn’t I thought of that before? I’d had an intimate acquaintance with a slaughterhouse only a few months back, after all. Or had my memory done as Nick’s had done – shut down on the experience. But it wasn’t meat he’d reacted to, but chicken. No. I must be right. If only Nick hadn’t lost his files. If only he hadn’t been called away. And if only he were making a speedy return to get at the information.

  Perhaps that was deliberate. He didn’t want me flying solo on this, did he?

  Tough.

  Because that was exactly what I was going to do.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Oh, Josie! I’d no idea it could be so exhilarating! It’s wonderful! I never want it to stop!’ Unfortunately Andy was yelling all this into his mike, not my ear.

  But I mustn’t let him disturb my concentration. For flying I was, if not – in the event – solo. Flying literally, too.

  ‘Josie, why have I never tried this before? It’s so beautiful! Wow!’

  I started to laugh. With pleasure, as much as anything. And at myself, too.

  ‘Oh, Josie, thank you, thank you!’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  ‘Look at it: all spread out like a living map,’ he continued.

  Wet blanket I might be, but eventually I had to point downwards. We weren’t flying for fun, not really, but to do the sort of thing I’d rather hoped the police might have done: to scan for buildings, outhouses, whatever, where people might slaughter or process chickens. My job was to fly the helicopter: Andy’s was to photograph possible sites and record them on the map.

  So far, it had to be said, we’d had little success. I might be a qualified pilot, but I was relatively inexperienced, and I was far too respectful of the machine to risk violating any of the flying height regulations. Besides which, as I’d told Andy, we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves. That was why he had my biggest and best telephoto lens to shoot through. I just hoped I could trust him with it.

  ‘There! Down there!’ I shouted.

  ‘It looks more like a scrap metal yard, with those tarpaulins covering spare parts.’

  ‘Make a note anyway,’ I said, as I had on several other occasions. ‘It’s time we headed back.’ I only hired this thing by the hour, and even that cost an arm and a leg.

  ‘And there! Yes, there!’

  Possibly.

  I returned us neatly to Exeter Airport, with Andy still as joyous as a kid. I let him stand me a cup of tea, and together we peered at the circles he’d scrawled on the maps.

  He pointed. ‘What about this one?’

  ‘It looked too well organised and public to be anything other than legitimate. I’d bet a weekend’s takings it was a bona fide battery farm.’

  ‘But then, how many times does a genuine business front a dodgy one?’ He flushed crimson. ‘I mean – I do apologise!’

  ‘For implying that the White Hart’s an extension of Tony’s empire? So you should. The cleanliness of my books shocks my accountant.’

  His voice sounded hopeful to the point of pleading. ‘So you never profited from your late husband’s criminal activities?’

  Was he mad? ‘Of course I did! How do you think I survived all those years when Tony was in the nick? He wouldn’t let me work, objected to my thinking of studying formally—’

  ‘Despite the books you shared?’

  ‘Possibly because of them. I was much younger than he. He thought I’d get shacked up with hairy students and forget about him. Just to make sure, if I started getting close to anyone, anyone at all, he’d get them warned off. And I must never ask where my weekly allowance was coming from.’ Was it Andy’s fault he’d caught me on the raw? I controlled my voice, continuing more reflectively, ‘To all intents and purposes I was just a con’s wife, living on benefit in a not very nice council estate in Birmingham. He made sure I had just enough money for a few extras without attracting anyone’s attention. And by anyone I mean the police, the taxman, the nosy neighbours on whom I depended for support and friendship and a set of in-laws that would have given Lucretia Borgia the willies.’

  His efforts to pour tea from the empty pot were probably just to give himself time to frame the next question as inoffensively as possible. ‘So all your income now derives from the White Hart?’

  ‘No. And if that’s a problem, you’d better take a taxi back.’ Getting to my feet, I flipped a twenty-pound note on his plate. I’d gone from confiding to incandescent in one breath.

  He left it there but stood to meet me eyeball to eyeball. ‘It depends what you do with the rest.’

  I held his gaze. ‘That’s between my conscience and me, Andy. One day you may find out. But you don’t tell a single soul. Understand?’ I jabbed towards his chest.

  To my amazement a slight smile flitted across his face, not eliminating his fury but irretrievably softening it. Pompous ass or frail human? He opted for the latter, succumbing at last to a laugh. ‘Tim warned me you were formidable.’ His face softened still more. ‘He was very fond of you, you know. And very grateful for the pavilion. He loved his cricket.’

  ‘They say it’s like human chess,’ I said, falling into step with him after I’d picked up the note, which, to make some point, though I wasn’t sure which, I popped into a charity box. ‘But it’s never grabbed me. It’s quite sexy when they play in white, but those garish pyjamas leave me cold.’

  ‘So you prefer football?’

  ‘Not since someone tried to explain the offside rule to me. And rugby’s a closed book. I’m not a team player, that’s the answer.’ I irritated the automatic doors by standing still. ‘Andy, you may have found out about my donations, but I’ll thank you to keep your mouth shut. The villagers would only see it as trying to buy my way into their affections.’

  ‘Is that the only reason?’ He set us in motion again: the doors closed behind us with a sigh. ‘It isn’t, is it?’

  It’s so hard to have an argument when you can’t stand still.

  ‘Oh, surely you’ve heard the advice, Do good by stealth,’ I said, deciding to end the discussion by setting off at my briskest towards the car park. I should have remembered that it was my briskest minus quite a lot for bruises. He easily fell into step with me and seemed about to pursue the matter further. I’d better sidestep him.

  ‘What else did Tim t
ell you about me?’

  He produced a reminiscent smile. ‘He said he thanked God you were on his side, because he’d hate you as an enemy. You’d be implacable, he said.’

  ‘Sounds OK to me.’

  ‘Not forgiving?’

  ‘Depends on who’s done what to whom, doesn’t it? I can forgive on my own behalf, but not on others’. That’s why I can tolerate Corbishley being rude to me, but if he’s in any way connected with those lads’ deaths I’ll hound him till one of us drops.’

  ‘Why Corbishley? I can see you might have a personal grudge against him – who wouldn’t, in your position?’ He swallowed whatever he’d meant to say.

  ‘Whichever position that happens to be,’ I agreed, affably enough to make him blush.

  ‘But I get the feeling you think he’s somehow connected with the – the outrage.’

  I zapped the Saab’s central locking and we both got in. ‘Everyone tells me he’s got fingers in a lot of pies. Don’t you think I’m qualified to say that that sounds suspicious? And when I tried to find out how he’d made his loot he clammed – even more than I do!’ Would a grin help?

  ‘Tim thought he was a God-fearing man.’

  ‘Who obviously hadn’t been listening to Tim’s sermon about the Good Samaritan. Not that I had, mind you. Tim’s sermons weren’t great, poor kid. There were times I wanted to say to him, “Tell me what you want to say and give me half an hour and I’ll knock up a decent piece for you.” All those college essays,’ I added by way of explanation or apology. ‘Now, I know Corbishley put time and money into the church, lots of both. But isn’t there some argument about faith or good works? Why don’t you talk to him again? You’ve got the excuse of the funerals, which never really got resolved. Malins, too. Just a quiet ordinary civil servant, I hear. But very quickly promoted in the hierarchy here. A decent man, then. Maybe.’ I hadn’t meant the last word to sound quite so doubting, but I couldn’t rewind it now.

  ‘I meant to involve them anyway, but thank you for a timely reminder,’ he said, stiffly enough to knock about a week off our acquaintance.