Gourmet Detective 01 - The Gourmet Detective

by King, Peter

  There were financial reports on both Raymond’s Restaurant and Le Trouquet d’Or. Both were in excellent shape and both had shown record profits in the last reported year. Stock was not available to the public.

  The day’s post contained nothing of value and I left the office at six-thirty, stopping to make a few purchases. Fish, cheese and eggs didn’t sound too appetising in view of my recent reading and I decided against figs and melons too. Tomorrow, the information input on them would have receded to a lower memory level and they would sound as tasty as ever.

  I browsed through the CD files, searching for the right—or a try at the right—combinations. I passed over Corelli’s Concertos—at the moment, they seemed like music to drink Diet Coke by. Eventually, I put on Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances. They are a reliable raiser of spirits despite the criticism of both Brahms and Liszt that they confused Hungarian music with gypsy music. To accompany the fiery rhythms and tuneful melodies, I poured some Jack Daniels and added lots of ice. The music and the liquor were worth repeating so I repeated them.

  When I went to work in the kitchen, it was to prepare some Madeira Sauce. I made a brown roux, then added beef consommé, boiled it and added chopped tomatoes, onions and carrots, thyme, bay leaf, parsley, salt and pepper. I let it simmer while I thawed some soup I had made and frozen for the day when I would want soup but not want to make it. This was a purée of asparagus with tarragon.

  Previous attempts at musical accompaniment for the soup had been unsuccessful. This time I tried Debussy’s String Quartet, written during the period when Debussy was a close friend of the Impressionist painters and was trying to do for music what they were doing for painting. I was probably over-extending myself—I was not always able to match music and food—now I was blending music, food and painting!

  I pulled the cork from a bottle of Dão. Most of Portugal’s finest reds come from this region and when they are good, they are superb. It can be a gamble whether you get one of these or one of the others. Labels may mislead and some older vintages can be musty-tasting due to the addition of oak essence, a ploy to replace the natural flavour imparted by ageing in oak barrels. This one was excellent and I let it sit for a few minutes while I put another of my purchases on to sauté. These were two small tournedos—surely the best named beef. “Turn your back” is the one thing you cannot do as they cook so fast. Tournedos are the tenderest beef but not the tastiest so a sauce is recommended—only Rossini knew why he considered a truffle topping with a little foie gras to be enough.

  The sauce I was using required the addition of Madeira before serving and the result was very satisfying. The next CD came on even as the sauce thickened and the tournedos were ready. It was a personal favourite—Beethoven’s Second Symphony. It is the work which gave him the most trouble to write and he had to write it three times before he was satisfied. He was aware at the time that he was going deaf, making its gay, poetic charm all the more remarkable.

  I debated the subject of dessert—doctors and dieticians have instilled a guilt feeling throughout the entire Western world on the questions revolving around it. After deciding “yes” rather than “no”, the next decision was “which?”

  A sabayon seemed like the best idea, self-justified as I had had no potatoes, rice or pasta with the dinner. It is a dessert suited to such an occasion as it can only be prepared at the last moment and served immediately. I followed the classic recipe, using dark Barbados rum.

  With coffee, I had a rare indulgence. I watched television. The film was an old one about a woman who suspected her husband of poisoning her. As George Sanders was playing the husband, I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if her suspicions had proved correct. I was relieved that it wasn’t fish poison but the number of red herrings in the plot made up for that.

  He hadn’t been responsible on this occasion and I went to bed even as the final clinch dissolved into credits.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE NATIONAL TELEVISION STUDIOS IN Acton Park were only a short walk from the tube station. The massive letters “NTV” hung above the gateway entrance to the parking area. They obviously expected all their visitors to arrive by car and when I walked across the street and presented myself at the glassed-in guard office which controlled the double-barred barrier, I received a questioning look from the commissionaire.

  My name received no immediate recognition but I suppose they get lots of people there, many more famous than me. Eventually he found my name on his list though the way he said “Ah—by Mr St Leger” suggested that I wasn’t among the day’s celebrities and neither was Mr St Leger.

  “Did you park your car across the road, sir?” he asked. “You can bring it in and—”

  “I didn’t come by car.” I could see that I’d slipped a few more notches down the scale. “There a bad traffic situation on the A40,” I explained. “Or so they said on the radio.”

  “Radio!” His lip curled in derision. “Radio! What do they know about traffic?”

  “Oh, they’re often wrong, I know but—”

  “Often? Not often right if you ask me—still who did you say you wanted to see, sir?”

  “Miss Watkins.”

  “Ah, not easy. She’s a hard one to find, she is…” he paused with his hand on the phone then through the window, he spotted someone and rapped hard on the glass.

  A little elfin-like lady in a grey dress, black shoes and a red and white bandana holding her greying hair appeared and cocked her head on one side.

  “Oh, Millie, take this gentleman up to the third floor west, would you? See if you can find Miss Watkins.”

  She looked scornful. “Like looking for a blinkin’ will-o’-the-wisp, that is.” She studied me for a moment. “Well, orl right, let’s see what we can do.”

  Crossing the yard, she cocked an eye upwards. “Looks like rain,” she commented cheerfully.

  “Surely not,” I said. “That fellow after your news programme last night said it was going to be fine all day.”

  “’im!” she said contemptuously. “Since when did ’e ever know anythink about weather?”

  “Well, he sounds as if he does.”

  “Reads it!” She cackled, holding up a hand to slow an approaching limousine so that we could cross unhindered. “Reads it, that’s all ’e does.”

  “He seems to be accurate enough—”

  “Then why did ’e come in this morning carrying ’is umbrella?” she demanded triumphantly. “Knows nothink about weather, he does. Proper shower if you arsk me!” She cackled at this then led the way into a large brick building. She tittered once or twice at her own witticism and I smiled encouragingly. We went along a lengthy corridor then up in a lift that hiccuped threateningly but finally deposited us on the third floor.

  A long narrow passage seemed to stretch into infinity. Off it were dozens of doors each with a minuscule name on a card in a holder. Presumably this made frequent changes simpler.

  Millie knocked at one door, poked her head in, called out a question then banged the door shut. “’aven’t seen ’er,” she reported. “Come on, let’s try down ’ere.”

  A few doors further along, she tried again, still without luck. The next time, she came out grinning with satisfaction. “She’s in Layout. Near the end.”

  We went down the seemingly endless passageway. Young men and women, mostly with sheafs of paper or folders or computer print-outs went by in both directions. The building was evidently all administrative. The studios must be in another building. At last we stopped. Millie went in without knocking. It seemed to be one large room achieved by knocking down walls and combining several smaller ones. Large tables like drafting tables filled the room, most of them occupied by people engaged in sketching or drawing.

  “That’s ’er,” said Millie. She pointed and left abruptly, leaving me standing there. No one took any notice of me so I walked over to the woman indicated.

  She was small and wiry, with a tight pinched face and hard challenging eye
s. She wore old slacks and a brown sweater that had seen better days. A crumpled cigarette dangled from her mouth and she didn’t bother to remove it while she was talking.

  She held up a large board and stared at it in disdain.

  “What the bloody hell is this?”

  A young girl was holding a stack of similar boards and had presumably just given her this one.

  “The Enchanted Forest,” the young girl said placidly.

  “The trailer park in Southall looks more like an enchanted forest than this does. Take it back to him and tell him to do it again. Put a bit of enchantment into it this time.”

  “He’s done it twice already. You said the last one looked like Butlin’s after a tornado.” The girl, despite her youth, was not cowed. Evidently, she had been through this before.

  “Then tell him to do it three bloody times. And he’d better get it right this time or he’ll be down at the Job Centre begging for work designing Christmas cards.”

  The young girl took it back and handed her another.

  “Looks like Wormwood Scrubs on a bad day.”

  “It’s the Duke’s Castle.”

  There was an indignant snort then she became aware of me.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  I told her my name.

  She shook her head impatiently. “I don’t want to know your name. Means nothing to me. What do you want?”

  I decided quickly that St Leger’s name probably wouldn’t cut much more ice than mine. I needed a tougher approach. Philip Marlowe wouldn’t have tolerated this dame for five seconds.

  “You Deedee Watkins?”

  “Yes but what—”

  “I want to ask you some questions.”

  “What the hell do you mean—”

  “About the death of Ivor Jenkinson.”

  She took the cigarette from her mouth at that. It smelled like a year-old Gauloise—or worse.

  “How would I know about that? I wasn’t there,” she said defiantly.

  “I know. But I was.”

  “Then ask the bloody police—not me.”

  “I don’t need to. I’m the one asking the questions. I’m asking you because you worked with him.”

  She drew the wrong conclusion from my words—as I wanted her to do.

  “Nobody worked with him. He was an independent bastard. The only thing he’d have shared with anybody would have been a communicable disease.”

  “Not popular, you’d say?”

  “IJ had one highly developed instinct—for being completely obnoxious.”

  “Would you say he had any enemies?”

  She tried to laugh but it made her cough, a rasping smoker’s cough. When she recovered, she took another drag at the cigarette which still smouldered rebelliously.

  “Enemies? No, not IJ—he didn’t have an enemy in the world.” She chuckled at my evident surprise. “He didn’t need any enemies—all his friends hated him.”

  I seemed to have broken through the veneer of resistance in Deedee Watkins though I wondered if St Leger had deliberately given me her name knowing the reception she would afford me. If so, well, two could play at that game.

  “Was Roger St Leger one of his friends?”

  “St Leger! The poor man’s Fanny Craddock? No, they weren’t friends. IJ was just making use of him.” She suddenly noticed that the young girl was still standing, the layout boards in her hand and drinking in every word of this fascinating cross-examination. Probably a Bergerac fan. “Go on, Jean. Bugger off back to that refugee from the Tatler and tell him to get his arse in gear. I want new designs by tomorrow.”

  The girl left, clearly reluctant to miss a merciless cross-examination by a tough investigator. I went on swiftly, keeping the pressure on Deedee now that I had her talking.

  “What kind of use?”

  Deedee pulled deeply on the cigarette again. It kicked off a few sparks and she brushed them off her sweater carelessly.

  “IJ was a user of people. He put his programmes together alone—never told anybody anything. But you can’t work completely alone in this racket so he had to use people. But that’s what he did—used them to get what he wanted.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Information, knowledge, tips, scandal, scuttlebutt, dirt—whatever would be helpful in putting one of his programmes to bed.”

  “Was he good at it?”

  “Good? Oh, he was good all right. The best.”

  “And what was he working on when he died?”

  “Christ! You’re not listening to me, are you! I’m telling you he told nobody what he was working on. People brought him bits, dribs and drabs, fragments—and he put them all together. He’d send people out on assignments and out of all they brought back, only IJ would know what was relevant and what wasn’t.”

  “But those people would know at least the general target,” I insisted. “Insurance, the Stock Exchange, airlines…”

  “Oh, sure,” Deedee said. “Just like we told your people who were here yesterday.” A hint of suspicion had crept into her voice.

  “Our F-12 group,” I said promptly.

  “I don’t know what—”

  “I’m F-14.” My tone emphasised that there was all the difference in the world. “We communicate of course but our methods of approach vary. Vital in a case like this.”

  It seemed to satisfy her, at least she didn’t ask for credentials. Before she could think about that, I asked:

  “What did IJ do with all the information he gathered for a programme? Do you have data banks where—”

  She chuckled, sounding like the Wicked Witch of the North. She tapped her forehead. “Kept it all in there till he was ready.”

  “Who else worked with him—” I intercepted her look. “In any way—I mean, somebody had to schedule—”

  “You might talk to Mike Quinn. He had some contact with IJ.”

  “And where can I find him?”

  “Left out of the door, five doors along. Name’s outside.”

  I thanked her for her help and exited quickly. At the door marked “M.J. Quinn”, I knocked and went in without waiting for an answer.

  A man in his late twenties sat in front of a TV screen, idly watching. He was tall and strongly built and had a healthy complexion and a lot of unruly red hair. The TV screen was only occupying a small percentage of his concentration. Most of this was focused on a bizarre ceremony that he was conducting and I stared in fascination.

  A newspaper was spread out on the desk and there were several slices of soft white bread that had dents where he had touched it. A slab of what might be luncheon meat sat there—it was probably 100 per cent protein which was 90 per cent fat which was 85 per cent saturated. A block of pale yellow cheese lay alongside the meat. The cheese looked like it might have been a fair substitute for axle-grease on a donkey cart.

  The three components were being assembled in layers and a quarter of a pint of thick red liquid was being squeezed out of a large tube. The liquid looked as plastic as the tube. I wondered what he was going to do with this grotesque structure when it was finalised. He applied the last rites and sat back and contemplated his masterpiece. Something on the screen temporarily distracted him and it was when he looked back at his desk-top creation that he saw me.

  He smiled, a happy farm-boy sort of welcoming smile.

  “Hello. Looking for me?”

  “Mike Quinn?”

  “That’s right.” He didn’t seem curious about me or what I was doing there. I decided to keep it that way. I pulled a battered wicker chair next to the desk.

  “I’m investigating Ivor Jenkinson’s death.”

  “Oh.” He thought for a moment. “You fellows were here—”

  Yesterday. Yes, I know. That was our F-12 group.” It had worked once, might as well keep telling the same story. “I’m F-14. Just want to ask you a few questions. You did the scheduling for IJ, didn’t you?”

  “As much as anybody could.”

 
“Hard to work with, I believe.”

  Apparently I rated higher in entertainment value than the TV set on his desk. He reached out and switched it off. He grinned. “Just timing a show before we send it out for re-runs. Yes, IJ was a shit to work with. Never told you anything. Rude bugger too. Expected the earth but never said thank you.”

  “What was he working on when he died?”

  “He was a close-mouthed sod—never told a soul what he was up to.”

  “In view of the nature of his exposés, that’s to be expected, isn’t it?”

  He eyed the white, light-brown and yellow edifice on his desk but not with any noticeable longing or intent. “Others work differently,” he said. “Some take their staff into their confidence. They think they get better results when they know what they’re doing.”

  “But not IJ?”

  “Not him. The CIA isn’t run as tight as his programme.”

  “But there must have been some clues—”

  “He had three investigations going as near as I know. Might have had more, sometimes he did. They were low-cost housing in the North-East, the food industry and some scandal about a coal mine in Nottinghamshire where a shaft had collapsed, two men were injured and IJ thought it had been hushed up.”

  I didn’t need long to zero in on the one that had a connection with his abrupt and violent death. “The programme on the food industry … what did that entail?”

  Mike Quinn shook his red head vigorously. “No idea but he was enthusiastic about it. Seemed to believe it was going to be one of his best shows.”

  I recalled with a chill the words that had been among IJ’s last—“It will be my best programme.”

  “So nobody worked closely enough with him to know any details of his investigations?”

  “No.”

  “Who did he use as sources, as helpers?”

  Mike Quinn grinned again. “Whoever he could. He had a few regulars, crummy lot, most of them. One or two were stringers for the newspapers, one or two gossip page photographers, in fact, any freelance who wanted to earn a few quid and didn’t mind how they did it.”