The Chinese Takeout

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘I think that’s Michael Rousdon’s car. What would he be doing round here?’

  ‘Come on, Josie – a man’s entitled to drive anywhere.’

  ‘All the same.’ I told him about the photos Andy had taken, light years ago now. ‘Mobile!’ I demanded. ‘Have you got DI Lawton’s number in the memory? Oh, call her yourself and tell her to get a fix on him. Just do it, Nick. And tell her to get a reception committee waiting for him. In Starcross, of course. Where he lives.’

  I heard Claire’s tinny voice, then somehow Burford’s.

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ Burford said, repeating the map reference Nick gave him. ‘Because a witness places him in the vicinity of that factory. We’ll get on to it.’

  Nick cut the call, ‘Hell, what a shambles.’

  ‘Curiously enough,’ I said, flailing desperately for normality ‘you’ve picked on almost the right word. A shambles used to be the street where there were slaughterhouses and butchers’ stalls. There’s a street called that in Worcester to this day.’

  ‘Wow,’ he said, sounding completely unimpressed. ‘Are you sure that bang on the head didn’t do more damage than the hospital picked up? And one of these days, Josie Welford, you can explain why you signed yourself out against their advice.’

  All these people interested in my welfare. There were days, more than I’d ever admit, even to myself, when a bit of pampering and spoiling, the odd cup of tea in bed, that sort of thing, was what I craved. But not interference.

  ‘Now,’ he said, starting the engine again, ‘I’m taking you home. ‘OK?’

  ‘But Michael Rousdon. We should be tailing him. We should—’

  ‘Are you sure you should be doing anything, dressed as you are?’

  ‘Bloody hell. OK, the White Hart it is. I should be getting ready for the evening sitting!’

  I called Robin.

  ‘Pix and I are on to it already. When you didn’t turn up and didn’t answer your phone, we got on to a couple of the better work experience kids we’ve had and offered them real money for real work. Wendy and Lucy are primed. We’ve cut a couple of specials. Don’t worry, Josie: we’re motoring.’

  ‘I’ll be with you as soon as Nick can get me there.’

  Which wasn’t very fast, because every bump in the road hurt my head.

  Once Nick had been the most timid of God’s creatures, incapable of saying boo even to the decapitated Samson and Delilah. Increasingly I could see him as he must once have been, and as Claire Lawton presumably saw him most of the time. In my mind’s eye I already had them tying the knot at St Faith and St Lawrence’s, with the most slap-up wedding breakfast at the White Hart it was within my power to give. The only fly in the mental ointment was the officiating clergyman: I’d bet my boots Nick would insist on Andy, with whom he’d got on quite well.

  I suppose I must have dozed off during this little flight of fancy, because I heard someone snoring and found it was me.

  ‘Here we are,’ Nick said, pulling up right by the staff door, bless him, so no one would see my snowman outfit. ‘Get yourself upstairs and I’ll come and make you a nice cup of tea.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Imagine me sleeping the clock round. But that was what happened. My team had managed perfectly well without me, and Nick had brought me breakfast in bed and the news that a whole lot of knots were being tied up. If I felt well enough to ID a few people via mug shots on a computer it would speed the process.

  ‘So long as you can guarantee a pukka officer,’ I grumbled.

  It was Mark Burford himself who did the honours, and for once I let myself share the Danish pastries and fresh rolls while he updated me.

  ‘Did you pick up Michael Rousdon?’ I asked, wondering if I was strong enough to eschew fresh butter.

  ‘Yes. Not in Starcross. Our helicopter found him in a little place called Cockwood. Do you know it?’

  ‘A darling little hamlet on the coast? Two pubs in a to-die-for location and little else?’

  ‘Right. An ideal location for a man to do a spot of fishing and keep his boat.’

  ‘He always boasted he caught his own.’ My brain got into painful gear. ‘I suppose you could catch other things beside fish… Like the odd economic migrant?’

  ‘Illegal immigrant, indeed. Now, are you ready to look at a few ugly faces?’

  I was. And there they all were, an unlovely collection. White van men; the BMW driver I’d threatened with Tony’s revenge; the man with the vicious dog.

  ‘But these are small fry,’ I sighed.

  ‘And you’re used to Mr Bigs, aren’t you! Is Michael Rousdon big enough? He kept his most recent boatload of Chinese lads in his boatshed. Shackled,’ he added, his voice mingling pity and anger. ‘Unlike the two we found working in his kitchen.’

  ‘Chinese workers! No wonder he tried to keep me out: he told me it was because I would steal his pickled samphire!’ I squeaked. Then, regaining my normal voice, I asked, ‘Why did Rousdon involve himself in people smuggling? Why should an ordinary English crook dabble in a Triad preserve?’ I’d have scratched my head except it meant moving too many muscles. I thought briefly of going to a health spa to be massaged into comfort, then I remembered the awful food at the last one.

  ‘Money. What else?’

  At this point Nick knocked and came in, followed by Claire Lawton and a worryingly pale Andy, who’d been kept in hospital overnight and looked as if he could have done with a longer stay – though perhaps his pallor owed something to a very black clerical shirt he wore buttoned down to the wrists. Clearly the bishop’s choice, not mine.

  ‘No. Josie’s right. It doesn’t make sense. Too dangerous,’ Nick put in, as if he’d been in on the conversation all along. ‘He’s got to be a middle-man, hasn’t he?’ He sat down, eager to continue.

  The others sat too. I ought to have got up and found more plates and mugs, or at very least asked Andy how he was.

  Mark shook his head. ‘All the people we’ve picked up so far insist he’s the boss: Andy’s would-be executioner, who might also sue you for assault, I suppose; the lads from the scrapyard, who’ve now found their voices; the Chinese labourers as translated by an officially accredited interpreter.’

  Nick and I exchanged a look with Andy. This conversation was taking on an uncanny echo of one in St Jude’s light years ago, when I’d mooted one of Nigel Ho’s employees for the role.

  Andy spoke softly, as if his throat hurt. ‘Have your forensic accountants checked Rousdon’s books? Not the recent ones. I’m sure they balance perfectly.’ He shot a look under his lashes at me. ‘But in the past. To see whom he owed money to when he started his life of crime.’

  Burford raised an eyebrow, but wrote it down. With a grin at Nick, Claire Lawton excused herself, fishing her mobile from her pocket as she left the room.

  ‘I don’t suppose it’ll be any of my bêtes noires,’ I grumbled.

  ‘You never know,’ Burford said, surprising me. ‘We’ve maintained our surveillance operation on the delightful Doc Martins.’

  Andy was suddenly bolt upright. ‘On a bereaved family!’

  ‘Come on, Andy,’ I said, not as sharply as I could have done, ‘you thought them as loathsome as I did. Has anything interesting shown up?’ I asked Burford.

  ‘Did you know they were acquainted with Mr Corbishley?’

  ‘Corbishley! The churchwarden!’ Andy’s shock turned to interest. He slumped again. ‘But they neither contacted nor referred to him while they were down here. To the best of my knowledge,’ he conceded. Then he got into full flow. ‘Never have I seen such unnatural parents. All right, they might have been exhausted, jet-lagged, whatever, but not an iota of emotion did they show. Not for one minute. The only interest they showed at any time was in some of poor Tim’s books.’

  ‘Are they still there? The books?’

  ‘I didn’t see them remove any.’

  Burford was on his feet in an in
stant. ‘I take it you’ve still got the rectory keys, Mr Braithwaite? And no, with all due respect, none of you is coming with me.’

  ‘Would there be any point?’ Andy asked wearily. ‘It was most possibly something left in the book that they wanted, not the book itself. Why not do the simple obvious thing and talk to the church wardens direct? Corbishley at least? He’ll bluff and bluster, but he can’t have worshipped at St Jude’s for thirty years without some good rubbing off on to him.’

  To describe as cynical Burford’s expression would have been a massive understatement. However, he shrugged. ‘Why not? But why don’t you go and check out Tim’s study? See if you can see where any books might have been removed.’

  ‘Four eyes are better than two,’ Andy replied, surprisingly. ‘What about Josie coming too? After all, she dusted the study and put everything into some semblance of order.’

  ‘Disorder, more like. I tended to put big books with other big books, small ones with small ones.’ And I had a strong reluctance to spend the ten minutes I promised Andy until we’d both recovered our equilibrium.

  ‘Even so,’ Burford put in thoughtfully. ‘I’d be very grateful – I’ll organise transport.’

  Andy coughed, ironically. ‘It’s a most beautiful day out there. I fancy that, our various injuries notwithstanding, Josie and I might be trusted to walk the three hundred yards there without keeling over and expiring.’

  I gave my most non-committal nod. ‘I’ll get my jacket.’

  Feeling middle-aged is not something I do. Hardly ever, anyway. But I certainly didn’t have much youthful spring in my step as we strolled down the village street. For a weekday, there were plenty of people around: we could almost here the jungle-drums pulsating as we greeted anyone we knew. Was this what Andy had intended? A silent snook at Bishop Jonathan?

  ‘I wanted to thank you for saving my life,’ he said, slowing to an amble.

  I’d prepared my response. ‘Anyone would have done the same.’

  ‘By throwing a knife? Quite a skill! Did you run away to join a travelling fair? Or is it another accomplishment your late husband taught you?’

  I wished I didn’t always suspect a flick of the tongue when he spoke of Tony. ‘Blame my gypsy blood. What are you expecting to find tucked in one of Tim’s books?’ Once I’d started to exercise regularly I’d found it easier to walk briskly than slowly, so I steadily edged up the pace.

  ‘I’ve truly no idea. Probably nothing. I just needed some air, and thought you might. But we might as well see what shows up. If anything.’ He gave one of the smiles I’d have died for a couple of weeks back, before we got angry with each other.

  Despite all the air-fresheners, the rectory was as musty as ever, just with a sickly air-freshener overlay. Without speaking we flung open windows before going into Tim’s study.

  The books seemed to be exactly as we’d left them. They weren’t all theological tomes by any means, though they predominated. It seemed he was interested in natural history, and had for some time collected – and read! – standard editions of biographies of celebrated Victorians. Not a lot of light reading apart from a few books on cricket tucked away behind his desk, as if he took secret dips into them when he should have been concentrating on his next sermon.

  ‘All those student books,’ Andy said sadly. ‘Prefacing a life dedicated to God.’

  ‘And achieving that end, if you think about it. Laying down his life for a stranger.’

  ‘Tang had become a friend,’ he corrected me.

  ‘Tim knew he’d bitten off too much. There were times he regretted it, but he stuck to his task. A good young man.’ I gestured. ‘All these: did he leave them to someone in a Will?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about one. The young rarely bother, do they? They think Wills are for old people. And he’d precious little to leave anyone.’

  ‘If he died intestate,’ I pursued, ‘I suppose his parents would get everything. Or that sister of his.’

  ‘Sister? He never mentioned a sister to me!’ As if he’d admitted a personal failure, Andy drifted to the window, peering out at a garden refusing to surrender completely to neglect – wherever you looked bulbs intended to break into flower at any moment.

  ‘Nor to me. Burford dug it out of the parents. She’s emigrated to – God, my memory! You’ll have to ask Burford, who only found out when he visited them at their house. He said it’s not like a family house at all. No clutter. No photos. And you can’t say Tim exactly celebrated his parents – not a single family snap around the place. I should have clocked that before. It’s as if parents and kids have settled for a divorce from each other.’

  ‘Something terrible or something entirely trivial: that’s how rows flare up,’ he said, but not as if he was alluding to our contretemps. ‘Especially family ones.’

  ‘How about we go for the terrible? Would there be something in one of these books to give us a clue?’

  I made us instant black coffee – I drew the line at milk granules – and Andy settled to open and shake every single volume. We ended dusty and tired and irritable. With nothing.

  ‘But it’s something Corbishley knows about,’ he said. ‘He couldn’t – he couldn’t have been blackmailing the parents, could he?’

  ‘Which argues they’ve known each other a long time.’

  ‘Captains of industry, all three. Their paths might have crossed. And it also argues he’d known Tim a long time.’

  ‘Or of Tim. Maybe he didn’t expect such parents to produce such a dedicated young man – any more than they did!’ I added, with a dry laugh. Almost as an afterthought I said, ‘Tell me: how were they searching? Desperately? Leafing through books and throwing them down? Or deliberately? Show me. No, relax: don’t think about it. Just do it.’

  He closed his eyes, picking up a book and restlessly riffling through it, rather as I skim magazines at the dentist’s.

  ‘Andy, are you sure they weren’t just killing time? Doing something with their hands? Doing something till it was decent to leave?’

  He drooped. ‘You mean all this has been a wild goose chase. I’m sorry. And I’ll bet you’re needed at the White Hart.’

  ‘I am. Look, why don’t you have a bite there too? If you’d rather, you can have a rest in my flat until the rush is over and we can eat together.’

  I should have said, ‘All eat together.’ Because that’s what happened. I allowed myself a very swift shower before dashing down to supervise the bar meals. The lads tried to send me away, but the weather had brought a huge rush, so they let me stay.

  Meanwhile, Andy had a bath and then presumably a snooze, because when I saw him next he looked much less funereal. Or perhaps that was because he’d cadged a light coloured shirt from Nick. He’d turned back the cuffs to just below the elbows, something I find for some reason very sexy. Perhaps I’m a forearms woman.

  The sun was so warm I decided we’d eat in the garden, so I set about organising all those highly qualified professionals into dusting everything off, laying the table, slicing bread and tossing salad: I wasn’t going to ask Robin and Pix to work yet more unpaid overtime with all those idle hands around. Nick, as I could have predicted, manned the bar, pulling pints of my very best bitter and finding champagne – vintage! – for those who preferred it.

  ‘Let me guess,’ I said, taking my place at last and lifting the embargo on news. ‘Corbishley went to see the Martins because when he’d seen them around the village it dawned on him that Tim must be his son. Poor bugger.’

  There was a satisfactory gasp which told me my wild theory had some truth in it.

  ‘Funnily enough you’re right. He confessed everything. I think,’ Mark Burford reflected, ‘he was glad to get it off his chest after all this time. He got Celine pregnant just before she married Thomas. It never was a marriage made in heaven, but they rubbed along and then had another child, who took up a high-flying job in the States the moment she could.’

  ‘At least one of th
em was an achiever, then – if not a grateful loving child,’ Andy observed.

  ‘But they stayed together? Even had another child! Although there was nothing in these days of swift and easy divorce to stop them going their separate ways?’

  ‘As you know, Josie, marriages take different forms,’ Andy smiled. ‘On another level, think of trying to disentangle all that money without one of them feeling hard done by and involving expensive lawyers – I can’t imagine them wanting anyone else to sniff their money, let alone get their hands on it.’

  Nodding, Burford continued, ‘And we found nothing, absolutely nothing, in their background or in their business dealings to suggest that they are nothing more than hard-working, high-achieving business people. I loathed them as much as you two seem to have done. But that doesn’t make them criminals.’

  ‘So, having got the young woman pregnant, Corbishley retires to the country and pumps huge amounts of money into a village church,’ Andy ruminated. ‘A form of expiation?’

  ‘You’re the one to ask him about that,’ Mark Burford said, adding awkwardly, ‘though I did rather sense that you might not be the person he’d choose as a father confessor.’

  ‘No one as puritanical as the reformed sinner,’ I said as lightly as I could. ‘And he certainly hated me and all associated with me. He and Malins would have had me whipped at the cart tail if they could. Unless – I’d really love it if Malins were our Mr Big?’

  ‘Sorry, Josie,’ Claire Lawton said, dabbing the last crumb of cheese from her plate, ‘not if my information is correct. A quick scan of Michael Rousdon’s accounts suggests he owed a huge amount to a Chinese guy in Plymouth, a chef, as it happens, who in turn is trying to finger Nigel Ho. But there seems to be no direct link. Not an obvious one, anyway.’

  I shook my head sadly. ‘Nigel it may be. He said someone had approached a chef in his Plymouth restaurant with cheap chicken. He could have been bluffing.’

  ‘Or he could be telling the simple truth.’ Did I detect the flicker of a blush cross Claire’s cheek? ‘Nigel could charm the ducks off the water, couldn’t he? And I’d never trust a man who oozes honesty and good advice from every pore as he does. But it’ll take more than half a morning for our forensic accountants to nail him.’