by J. A. Lang
What wasn’t so easy to understand was the card now in his hand. Call me if you think of anything else, she’d said.
And he had. He’d thought about how very nice it would be to ask her out on a date. Not the actual asking as such—his stomach was rapidly turning into concrete at the very thought. But going on a date, now that would be very nice indeed.
PC Lucy wasn’t exactly beautiful—her nose was a little too sharp, her mouth a tiny bit too wide—but she came damn close in Patrick’s opinion. There was something about her eyes, and the specks on her nose that hinted of summertime freckles, and the way her lips parted when she was deciding whether or not to start yelling at someone.
He’d never quite understood the term ‘girl next door’, seeing as when he was growing up the girl who lived next door had been several years older than him, and had once spent an afternoon shooting stones at him and his frog-breeding experiment (to wit, one pond, lots of frogs, and a clipboard).
But he definitely wouldn’t have minded living next to PC Lucy.
So logically, there was no problem, then. She’d said he could call her if he thought of anything, and he had. He did have an inkling that there might be something wrong with this train of thought, but inklings weren’t logical.
So he took a deep breath, picked up the phone and dialled.
After the third ring, it occurred to him that it might have been better to have first worked out what he was going to say.
“PC Gavistone here. Hello?”
Patrick’s tongue was suddenly dry as a bag of breadcrumbs.
“Hello?” She sounded impatient.
“Er, hi. It’s Patrick here. Um . . . ”
“Patrick? Oh, yes. What can I do for you? Are you calling about the Meadows case?”
He could hear the buzz of an office in the background. She must be down at the Cowton police station.
“Not exactly. I was thinking, if it wasn’t completely inappropriate, and of course it’s totally fine if you say no, don’t worry, I won’t stalk you like a serial killer or something—”
Patrick’s ears caught up with his tongue and sent a message to his brain that it might be a good idea to consider moving to Australia. Or New Zealand. Anywhere far enough from this conversation and the soon-to-be-issued restraining order.
“—um, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, just a joke. What I meant was, um, I was wondering . . . ifyou’dliketogoouttodinnerwithmesometime?”
“Sorry?” She sounded genuinely confused. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
“If you’d like to go out . . . to dinner . . . with . . . me?”
Silence reigned.
“Um.” PC Lucy’s voice sounded strangled. Was it with anger, laughter or sudden serial-killer-induced fear? “Can you give me a moment?”
The line went on hold.
Patrick glanced out the front dining room window. He wondered how long it would take for the car to arrive to arrest him for Propositioning an Officer of the Law.
He also wondered if kangaroo meat was any good for grilling. Perhaps with a little olive oil and a chilli-herb rub . . .
After what seemed like an eternity, the line clicked back on.
“That sounds great!” She sounded out of breath, and her words tumbled out. “How about tomorrow evening? My place? I’ll c—” There was a muffled sound, like a hand on the receiver, and some incoherent shouting.
“Sorry about that,” she said, after a moment.
“Um, no problem. You were saying?”
“Oh yes, dinner tomorrow. I’ll cook,” she said brightly.
“Really?” He couldn’t help himself. “Oh. That’s, um, great. I’ll . . . see you then, then? Tomorrow evening, right?”
“Right.”
The line went dead.
Patrick stared at the phone, then hung up. He stood up and walked back to the kitchen, his knees a little wobbly.
He’d just asked a girl out, and she’d said yes. She’d even offered to cook him dinner. That had never happened before.
He was halfway back to the kitchen when he was struck by a truly dreadful thought.
* * *
PC Lucy put the phone down and stared at the piece of scribbled paper in her hand.
“‘I’ll cook’? What the heck were you thinking?” She waved the paper in the face of PC Sara Shotter, who was sat on the edge of PC Lucy’s desk, smirking.
“More than you were, when you hung up on the poor guy and I had to step in to save the day.”
“I didn’t hang up. I put him on hold.”
“Sure. Because that’s normal.”
“I needed a moment to think.”
PC Sara snorted. “If you’d been thinking any longer, I’d have had to start drawing my pension. And look, now you’ve got a date. Which,” she added, as PC Lucy opened her mouth to argue, “is a good thing.”
“You say that like I never go on dates.”
“You don’t. And you need to, else you’re going to fall into that whole bitter single female cop routine. And then there’ll be nothing left for me to do except to enrol you in a beauty pageant so you can meet the man of your dreams.” She paused. “Is it me, or does that film make no sense whatsoever?”
“Well, thankfully, we don’t have beauty pageants around here.”
“Uh-uh, we do,” said PC Sara. “I saw a sign the other day for the annual Miss Clover competition.”
“That’s for cows, Sara. It’s the annual Cowton livestock show.”
“Seriously? You country folk are weird.”
Sara had grown up in inner-city London, and therefore assumed all the idiosyncrasies encountered in her new countryside life were due to the effect of an overabundance of fresh air on the local population. By dint of her being the only other female officer in the team and about the same age as PC Lucy, they’d soon become de facto best friends.
“And since when do I invite strange men round to my flat and offer to cook them dinner? He’s a chef, for goodness’ sake! What am I going to make?”
“He’s a chef?”
“Yes!”
“Ah. That could be a problem.” PC Sara tapped a biro against her lip.
“You think?”
“How was I meant to know? You just said he was cute.”
“No, I didn’t!”
“Your tone of voice implied it.”
PC Lucy glared at her.
“Why don’t you serve oysters? I hear they’re good on a date.”
“We’re landlocked around here, Sara. And I can’t afford oysters.”
“Roast a joint of meat? Leg of lamb? Men like a nice big lump of meat.”
PC Lucy pictured the intricately crafted plates of food that issued from the kitchens of Le Cochon Rouge, each one of them a little work of art.
“I’m not sure if that’s true for this one.”
“Gavistone!” Chief Inspector Grant waved her over. “Enough chit-chat. Get over to this address here. There’s been a reported kidnapping. Some French fella phoned it in. Kept repeating your name.”
Uh-oh.
“It wasn’t Mr Manchot, was it?”
“Something like that. Sounded like he’d swallowed a bucket of frogs. Anyway, off you go.”
“I’ll bring you in some cookbooks tomorrow,” called Sara, as PC Lucy hurried out of the office.
A murder, and now a kidnapping. PC Lucy shook her head. It’d be arson next.
That, or just her setting fire to her flat trying to roast a chicken.
* * *
Arthur felt sorry for PC Lucy, as he watched her attempt to piece together a coherent version of the afternoon’s events. It was hard to tell who was more hysterical: Brenda Laithwaites or Chef Maurice.
The chef kept jumping to his feet and pacing around the kitchen, firing questions at poor old Brenda, who was sat clutching Missy in her arms, red-faced and teary-eyed.
“How can it be! This man, he just runs in here and you do nothing?” Chef Maurice threw his hands in
the air. “Poor Hamilton, he is a poor little cochon, he cannot defend himself from—”
“Remember, the man had a gun, Mr Manchot,” said PC Lucy, who was sitting at the end of the table, looking like she could do with something much stronger than the camomile tea currently on offer.
“It is déplorable! To kidnap a poor defenceless animal! When will he be found?”
“Mr Manchot, please can you sit down a moment while—”
“Will there be, how do you say, a line-up? I insist to be there!”
“Mr Manchot, you weren’t even in the room. And we don’t do line-ups—”
“Bah!” He threw himself down into a chair and cut a savage slice out of the walnut-and-coffee-bean cake on the table. “The police in this country . . . ” he muttered through a mouthful of crumbs.
PC Lucy drew a deep breath. “Mrs Laithwaites. You were in the middle of describing your assailant . . . ?”
Brenda screwed up her eyes in thought. “He was tall, quite wide in the shoulders, wearing a blue jumper.”
“Do you remember anything else? Hair colour? Approximate age?”
“He was wearing one of those masks, the kind you wear when you go skiing.”
“A balaclava?”
Brenda nodded. “It was black.”
“A tall man? In a mask? Bah, that could be anyone!” said Chef Maurice, sawing off another slice.
“Apart from a short woman,” said Arthur cheerfully, then regretted it as three pairs of baleful eyes bored into him.
“Mr Manchot, can you think of any reason someone would want to steal—”
“—pignap—”
“—pignap your micro-pig? Is he a valuable animal?”
Chef Maurice paused mid-chew. “There was a lady, yesterday. She did not have a nice look. I would think it is possible she is involved.” He proceeded to outline the tale of Mrs Carter-Wright and the dreaded pig-walking-licence forms.
PC Lucy made a show of noting this down. “Anyone else? What about his previous owners?”
“The animal home, they said they had no records. He was found in the woods, they said.”
PC Lucy turned back to Mrs Laithwaites.
“You said the intruder came and left through the external kitchen door, which wasn’t locked?”
Brenda nodded. “I always unlock it in the mornings, in case Missy wants to go out.”
“Did you notice anything going on outside? I mean, before the intruder entered?”
“I did think I heard a car earlier, but I wasn’t expecting any more visitors, and we’re so far from the road up here, I thought I must have just been imagining it . . . ”
“Bah!” muttered Chef Maurice.
Arthur got up and peered out of the kitchen door into the gravelled side path.
“Can’t see much of the road from up here,” he reported. “You can see a bit of the cars through the trees, but I doubt anyone driving by could properly see the side of the house, I’m afraid.”
“You can’t see the front either. The trees on the driveway completely cover the road,” said PC Lucy, scribbling in her notebook. “Still, I’ll see if there have been any reports of suspicious cars loitering in the area. I don’t suppose there are any security cameras monitoring the grounds?”
“No,” said Brenda ruefully. “I’ve been meaning to get some installed, but I’ve always felt quite safe here. Especially with Missy around.”
“Hmph!” said Chef Maurice. “The dog, it did not even bark. We found it hiding in a cupboard!”
Missy had the decency to bury her nose in Brenda’s cardigan.
“Well, I think that covers it all,” said PC Lucy, closing her notebook. “Will you be all right here alone?” she added to Mrs Laithwaites.
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. My son Peter will be back from holidays this evening. I’ll tell him to get a taxi home from the station. I don’t quite feel like driving at this moment.”
“Totally understandable,” said Arthur.
Brenda turned to him and Chef Maurice. “I’m so sorry this happened here. If there’s anything I can do . . . ”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Arthur gallantly, as Chef Maurice continued to glare at Missy. “There’s nothing you could have done, and thank the heavens you weren’t hurt.”
Brenda looked relieved.
After the necessary goodbyes, the front door clicked shut behind them, and they heard a bolt scrape into place.
“Mr Manchot, can I have a quick word in private?” said PC Lucy, drawing the chef aside.
“Of course, mademoiselle.”
They both looked at Arthur.
“I’ll go warm up the car, shall I?” he said.
Chef Maurice and PC Lucy wandered off round the corner of the building. A few minutes later, they reappeared, PC Lucy writing something in her notebook.
“The education of the young people in England, it is extremely lacking,” said Chef Maurice as he climbed in next to Arthur.
“Come on, now, she’s doing a fine job as it is.”
“Eh? Non, not the police . . . ”—he waved his hands—“ . . . things. Mademoiselle Lucy, she asks me how to roast a chicken! Incroyable! What do they teach in the schools?”
Arthur shrugged. “Trigonometry and Latin, it was in my day. Back to Beakley?”
Chef Maurice stared morosely out of the window.
“I’m sure Hamilton will turn up soon, right as rain,” said Arthur, as they swung out of the drive. “It might all turn out to be some elaborate practical joke.”
In truth, he wasn’t even convincing himself, but what else was there to be said in such a situation?
“Anyway, let’s go get some lunch. I’m driving up to Gloucestershire this afternoon for an interview. You should come along, take your mind off things. I think you’d be rather interested in meeting this particular lady . . . ”
* * *
Hamilton was not a happy pig.
It had all been going so well. The nice lady who smelled like flowers had given him a big bowl of apples and carrots. He liked apples and carrots.
Then there’d been a bang at the door, and a tall human had rushed in and thrown a sack over him. He’d cried for help, but to no avail.
Now here he was in a big cardboard box, watching the ceiling bob up and down as someone carried him up what felt like a long flight of stairs.
Then hands reached down and grabbed him by the middle—he tried to bite, but ended up with a snoutful of woolly jumper—and now he found himself in a bigger box, this time a crate lined with hay. A single lightbulb buzzed high up above.
There was a musty smell in the air. It smelt of human sweat, ancient dust, and an odd whiff of lavender.
In fact, it all smelt rather . . .
. . . familiar.
Chapter 11
Miss Fey’s cottage was hidden down the end of a narrow, windy lane, nestled in the dense woodlands that spread for miles in all directions. Thick ivy crept across the whole front wall, giving the cottage the look of a boxy hedge with windows, and autumn berries hung from the low thatched roof.
The smell of apricot pie wafted out of the open window, and Chef Maurice found himself cheering up, despite recent events. Until he could find out more about Hamilton’s disappearance, it would be impossible to mount a rescue mission. He would just need to bide his time, and accost any blue-jumper-clad balaclava-wearing men he met in the interim.
“Whatever you do, don’t insult her or her produce,” said Arthur, as they pulled up in front of the cottage.
“Mon ami, I would never—”
“And don’t get me involved in your negotiations. In fact, keep the negotiations until after the interview. No haggling over the price of cèpes the minute we get in there, understand?”
“Oui, oui, I will sit in the corner like a good English schoolboy.”
Arthur shot him a dubious look.
A hand-painted sign over the door announced: Miss Fey’s Wild Mushrooms. Hand-p
icked with love and care. Wholesale prices available, ask inside.
In smaller writing below: No dogs, no salesmen, no TV chefs.
Arthur’s knock was answered with a speed that suggested the door’s owner had been lurking behind it the whole time. Miss Fey, though small in stature, had the kind of tough, desiccated look that told any onlookers that neither sleet nor snow nor nuclear warheads would get in her way. Her face was nut-brown from many summers spent outdoors and she wore her hair in a long white plait.
She eyed them through the wedge of open door, then flung it open and stuck out a gnarled hand.
“You must be that newspaper chappy,” she said. “I’m Miss Fey. That’s Miss with an eye and two esses. None of this mumbly Ms nonsense, got that?”
“Completely,” said Arthur. “And thank you for agreeing to this interview. This is a friend of mine—”
“You’re that chef from that little place down in Beakley,” said Miss Fey, her beady eyes roaming across Chef Maurice’s face. “I came visiting a few years ago, you might remember, but you said you already had a mushroom supplier. Not so much the case now, eh?”
Her eyes glinted as she watched for their reaction.
“Ah, it is good to see you again,” lied Chef Maurice, who had the memory of a Nobel Prize winner when it came to food, but the recall ability of a distracted goldfish when it came to names and faces. “So I see you have heard the sad tale of Monsieur Ollie?”
“Sad tale? Codswallop. He got what was coming to him in my opinion. Nasty piece of work, that boy was.”
“He was?” said Arthur, who was a perennial Believer in People.
“Dyed in the wool. Tricked me out of my best morel patch last year. Must have been following me, the little thief—not a chance he’d have found it himself. Picked the whole lot clean out after I left. Didn’t even leave the small ones, and bad business, that is. Mushroom picking ain’t a snatch-and-go. You’ve got to respect the woods. That boy, he had no respect.”
“So you were not a friend of his, madame.”
“Hah, you can say that. Then again, not many were. Oh, he had his lady friends, quite a number I heard, but when push came to shove . . . no, that boy didn’t have many friends. Enemies, now, that’s another matter.”