The Food Detective

by Judith Cutler

  One man erupted into the passage, gun – small, modern version – at the ready. Just as he did so the bone slipped from my hand. It hit him on the temple: nothing to do with me, honestly.

  As he thudded to the floor, the other man appeared. His gun wasn’t just ready. It was held the way Tony had told me, steady and dangerous. And he wasn’t going to mess around. I heard my voice pleading. I didn’t want it to. But words just came out.

  Pity? Compassion? No, he relished the moment. He smiled as his finger tightened on the trigger. I could see the joint whitening. This was it then. Oh, God, this was it. ‘Tony,’ I yelled.

  And for a fraction of a second, he looked over my shoulder along the corridor.

  Two gunshots, immensely loud in the confined space. Definitely two.

  Blood exploded all over the wall. His, not mine. But it could just as easily have been mine too because his bullet buried itself in the ceiling inches from my head.

  Nick. He’d come to his senses not even a second too late.

  All Tony’s training about staying cool and I started to whimper. The whimpering became sobs, just small ones at first, then great silly convulsions pushing their way from my diaphragm, or wherever sobs start from. They were so loud I didn’t hear the police at first, or rather, didn’t make sense of what they were saying. I couldn’t have responded anyway: my legs had given way and I was huddled on the floor like a baby failing in its first steps. I couldn’t even cover my face, my hands smelt so vile.

  If only I was the sort of woman who could pass out.

  But I couldn’t. At last it dawned on me the police were telling me to lie down, so I did.

  Only, a few moments later, to have Nick helping me up. It seemed we were both all right.

  With all the filth and decay outside, I hadn’t expected much of the loos, nor did I get it. But at least there was hot water and a bottle of dishwashing liquid, so in theory I could get most of the mess off my hands. But my nose insisted the stench remained, and I scrubbed and scrubbed, much as I’d have liked to see what was going on.

  I emerged into the corridor to find it full of paramedics and armed policemen, most of whom were too busy with the dog and the injured men to notice me. There was no sign of Nick anywhere. So I wandered back into the office I’d only so far glimpsed a corner of. Yes, an Aladdin’s cave of armaments and money, all prosaic and mundane, nothing like the stuff of fairy tales.

  ‘Not a bad haul,’ DCI Evans observed, putting out a restraining hand.

  ‘Don’t worry. I wouldn’t touch any of it. Blood money.’

  ‘Amazing thing, greed. A couple of years ago this was a perfectly legitimate plant – OK, it was doing unpleasant work, but as they say, someone’s got to. See?’ He pointed to certificates framed and tacked to the wall.

  ‘They were even proud of the place. Same as I was of my first hygiene certificate.’

  ‘They won’t be getting many of those!’ he snorted.

  ‘Where’s Nick?’

  ‘In an ambulance. He seems to have had – some sort of a turn. They want to take him off to Exeter, but he won’t go till he’s spoken to you. Josie,’ he added, as I headed for the door, ‘go easy on him. He’s not a pretty sight.’

  ‘Go easy! He saved my life, Evans.’ None of this first name business. Not yet. ‘Which considering his past is possibly the bravest thing he’s ever done. Like a man with shell shock going back to the trenches. That sort of brave.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘A spot of research and a lot of guesswork. And you?’

  ‘His personnel records. Seems there was an incident in some Birmingham suburb.’

  ‘Kings Heath,’ I supplied.

  ‘Right. And this nutter decided to kill his girlfriend. The police were called –’

  ‘Nick was first on the scene?’

  ‘Right. Not trained for that sort of thing. Who is? You can reason with sane folks, but not –’

  ‘Not someone who believes the girl’s pregnant with the Antichrist and wants to crucify the foetus.’

  ‘Quite. He did his best. There was even talk of a commendation. But he turned it down. And after that his career stopped in its tracks. You wouldn’t know to see him now but he was a high-flyer, tipped for the very top.’

  ‘I know. He put my husband away for life. I’d better go and talk to him.’

  ‘Josie – he’s not making a lot of sense.’ He seemed about to add something, but thought better of it. ‘I’ll get someone to go with you.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘You ask me, they’ll section him,’ the male paramedic was saying, his green overalls glowing in the still flashing lights of the ambulances and police vehicles crammed into the dusk-dark yard.

  Over my dead body they’d section him. Sectioning meant losing your human rights. Drugs? ECT? I didn’t know what they’d use, but I’d bet it wouldn’t be as good as home cooking and home TLC.

  I surged forward. ‘Josie Welford,’ I announced, as if the name should mean something. ‘I’m here to talk to your patient. Mr Thomas. Is he sedated?’ Without waiting for an answer – what did I know about any pharmaceuticals they might have shoved into his arm? – I stepped up into the ambulance, to find Nick in steady tears.

  ‘Come on, let’s get you out of those dirty things,’ I said. One of the police or forensic team would have a spare paper suit, for goodness’ sake, and it was better for anyone to be cold than be dirty and wet.

  As if he were a child, he let me strip him off, mopping him with paper tissues and swathing him in a blanket. Why the hell had no one got round to this basic kindness? I yelled from the ambulance for a paper suit. One appeared as if by magic.

  ‘And an evidence bag for his clothes,’ I snapped. ‘What planet are you people on? Come on, more blankets here.’ Yes, I liked a bit of round-eyed, if tight-jawed, respect. ‘Isn’t it time we headed off to A and E? I’d like him checked over. Now. And one of you –’ I summoned a PC with apparently little to do but hang round nattering to his mates ‘– tell DCI Evans where I’m going. We’ll need to talk later. Here are my car keys. The car’s parked outside the yard, a hundred yards to the south. Get someone to bring it to the hospital.’ In my experience, if you assumed people would do things, they did.

  I sat beside Nick on the long journey to Exeter, holding him till his sobs subsided and he fell into a silence I didn’t dare break. From time to time the female paramedic checked his vital signs, largely, I suspected, because she liked to look busy and efficient.

  ‘Any problems?’ I prompted, nodding sagely when she reeled off a set of figures – I’d watched enough hospital dramas, after all.

  ‘You saved my life, you know,’ I told Nick at last. ‘Without you I’d be dead. No doubt about it. None at all.’

  There might have been a twitch of interest.

  ‘It must have taken a lot of doing,’ I continued, ‘to pick up one of those guns and load it and fire it, knowing you’d got no time at all to do it.’

  ‘It just came back. And it was easy. Wasn’t so easy, seeing the girl die.’

  ‘Girl?’

  ‘The one attacking you.’

  ‘It was a bloke, Nick. A bloke. One of the guys from the rending plant. The ones holding you prisoner. The one trying to kill me. And he didn’t die.’ Though I wouldn’t give much for his chances.

  ‘I think I must have had one of my blackouts. I saw it all this time, Josie. I was in the Kings Heath nick canteen, just eating a sarnie for lunch and watching the TV. There was this news programme about CCTV, with this guy sitting in front of a whole bank of them. And then the shout went up. This emergency. It was spitting distance from the station. There was procedure in place. The team was scrambled. But we got there first. It was supposed to be a watching brief. No action, just containment. But the guy heard us arrive. And he brought this girl down the stairs using her as a shield, we thought. Not that we had any guns, anyway – we were waiting for the Armed Response Unit. I had to
do something. I was in charge, remember – the inspector. All the responsibility but none of the experience. That’s the trouble with being a high flier. Well, I was being groomed for higher management, not a lifetime on the beat. That’s what they said. So there I was, wet behind the ears, a couple of sergeants with twice my experience taking my orders. Supposedly. Orders. I couldn’t have ordered a burger in McDonald’s. So we all just stood there looking at him and this pregnant girl. And I started to tell him to put the knife down and let her go. And he moved his hand – I thought he was going to give me the knife. So I reached forward to take it. But he laughed, and shoved it into her belly. And all her guts –’ He started to sob again.

  What should I do? I was like him all those years ago – quite out of my depth. Perhaps if I engaged his brain it would be easier for him.

  ‘The first time I saw you black out was when you were in Comet or whatever. It looked as if you might be buying a TV. But you just stood there, frozen, clutching an electric kettle.’

  ‘Don’t remember it at all.’

  ‘Or the first time you saw young Lucy in church? Apparently you gave everyone a wobbly.’

  ‘Not that. Nor any of the brown studies you lambasted me for. I didn’t mean to put you at risk, Josie – I’m sorry.’

  I squeezed his hand. ‘Forget it. Whoops!’

  ‘Not the best thing to say in the circumstances,’ he said, producing a pallid grin. ‘I’ve felt that parts of me have been missing, Josie. Great chunks.’

  ‘Post-traumatic stress disorder,’ I intoned solemnly, ‘I should imagine.’

  He nodded. ‘The police do things much better these days, apparently. You get properly de-briefed, offered support, that sort of thing. There’s an ex-policeman who’s a real expert in the subject living down here. I might just get in touch with him.’

  ‘Sounds a good idea. Looks like we’ve arrived.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘A and E in some Exeter hospital.’

  ‘Why? We’re both OK, aren’t we?’

  So he wasn’t as up to speed as I’d hoped. ‘Physically, yes. But they weren’t at all sure about your – your mental state.’

  He picked at his paper suit. ‘I suppose I must have had another …moment.’

  ‘A pretty major one, I’d say. Nick, there was talk of …hospitalising… you.’

  ‘Why? My God, I was that bad, was I? Did I hurt anyone? Apart from the guy I shot?’

  ‘No,’ I said carefully.

  ‘In that case, they’ll have to section me,’ he said. ‘I’m not going voluntarily, believe me.’

  Now was not the time to talk about the paramedics’ earlier theory. I stared down this one lest she shove in a helpful oar.

  ‘I think you might need some therapy, though,’ I ventured.

  ‘Bucketfuls, I should imagine. But not as an in-patient, thank you very much. Will you wait for me?’ he asked ambiguously.

  ‘Of course. They might even want to cast their beadies over me, since I seem to have blood all over my clothes. I’m fairly sure it’s not mine, though. And I shan’t weep for the guy whose it probably is. How on earth do you do that job of yours, Nick? It fair turned my stomach, that yard. I might even become vegetarian for a bit.’

  He threw his head back and laughed. ‘You! Vegetarian! Oh, Josie – please don’t. It’d tie your culinary hands far too tight.’

  It was in this vein we continued to natter until we were parked in the waiting area of A and E. He was summoned almost immediately, thanks, no doubt, to the paramedics’ reports. His hand fastened convulsively on mine. ‘You won’t let them section me!’

  I returned the squeeze. ‘Over my dead body! Whoops!’

  So at least he went off laughing.

  The sound rang out unnaturally in a place as cheerless as an undertaker’s waiting room, and I choked my responding chortle immediately. What, more specifically who, was emitting such palpable misery?

  ‘My God, Lucy! What are you doing here?’ I darted over, hardly realising that there was a middle-aged woman sitting protectively beside her.

  ‘Oh, Mrs W! It’s Dad!’ She turned to me her face so washed with tears it seemed to be melting.

  I sat down, putting my left arm round her shoulder to pull her into my embrace. ‘What’s happened?’ I waited while she collected herself. Some sort of drunken accident, no doubt. I always thought he shouldn’t be trusted with anything more lethal than a can opener.

  The woman – on reflection she probably wasn’t even as old as I was, just more resigned to her years – shook her head in a minatory way.

  Lucy ignored the warning. ‘Blew himself up, didn’t he?’

  ‘“Blew himself up”? How?’

  ‘Fertiliser, of course. Blew himself up. Didn’t even have the sense to do it in the outhouse. Did it in the kitchen!’ She sounded more outraged than distressed.

  This time the woman spoke. ‘You shouldn’t be saying anything yet, Lucy. It’s a legal matter now.’

  I leaned across Lucy, extending my hand. ‘Josie Welford. I’m a friend of Lucy’s. She works for me at the White Hart. The village pub,’ I added, still waiting for the woman to introduce herself and shake my hand.

  Lucy beat her to it. ‘This is Ms Barnet, Mrs W. She’s supposed to be my social worker.’

  Supposed to be? Something amiss there, by the sound of it. Time for a social smile as a flaccid paw barely touched mine. I responded by crunching its bones. Painfully. I was wrong, of course. I knew social workers had impossible jobs and that however they toiled against insuperable odds they were always blamed by the red-top press for all society’s ills. But every single one detailed to me while Tony had been doing his bird had had the self-same handshake. I knew I was stereotyping, that I was prejudiced, that I was doing all the things I loathed myself for. I even knew I was getting angry with her so I didn’t put my head against Lucy’s and weep with her – not for her death-wish of a dad but for all that had happened this afternoon, to me and to a decent man I’d bullied into mortal danger. I swallowed and made myself smile.

  ‘How do you do? How much are you allowed to tell me?’ There, adult to adult, woman to woman.

  She didn’t respond. All she granted me was a thin-lipped sketch of a smile. ‘It’s all sub judice.’

  ‘Lucy too?’

  ‘Very much so.’

  Lucy lifted her head. ‘Too much so! She’s only threatening me with Care, Josie. I mean, Mrs W.’

  Another hug, this one even more maternal. ‘You mean Josie. Come on, what’s this about Care?’ I gave it the same meaningful capital as she did.

  ‘Care. All of us. Split up and shared between foster homes. All because I’m not old enough!’ she raged.

  ‘To be a responsible adult,’ Ms Barnet explained. There was sufficient note of apology in her voice to make me soften towards her. ‘In any case,’ she continued, almost giving me a hint, ‘the family home’s in no fit state … If you could see the kitchen … And possible damage… We don’t know the state of the structure…’

  Almost a hint? Josie, you stupid woman, each and every one of these half-finished sentences is a hint! ‘So whatever we mustn’t talk about has made a good deal of mess. And the children can’t stay at home?’

  ‘No way.’ The youthful cliché came oddly from that tired mouth.

  ‘And we’re too many for Auntie Pen down Falmouth way, or Uncle Dave in Sidmouth.’

  Because we are too many. Where had I heard that before? Wherever it was, it tugged so angrily at my chest, I couldn’t stop the words coming out. ‘If it’s a matter of room and an adult, I can offer both. I’m geared up for bed and breakfast accommodation, currently unused, and can offer myself and an ex-policeman as temporary guardians. I know you’ll have to vet us properly. Oh, and there’s a barman you’ll need to look up too. Robin Somethingorother.’ I slapped my forehead. ‘Hang these senior moments! I’m getting quite hopeless with names.’

  We talked practicalities nine to the doz
en, me because I didn’t want Lucy to have time to get emotional with gratitude and Ms Barnet, I suspected, because that was what she did best. OK, for another reason, too: Nick was being kept suspiciously long and I was having to work very hard at not storming up to the kid on reception and demanding instant access to him. It was far easier to think about turning the pub into a temporary orphanage – hell, it had better be temporary, or what would happen to my bijou restaurant? – than worrying about how to fight against the Mental Health Act on Nick’s behalf, not to mention how to deal with Nick if he stayed on at the White Hart. The implications were beginning to overwhelm me. I dug in my pocket for a few coins, which I thrust at Lucy. ‘Be an angel and find a machine. I reckon we all need a good fix of chocolate.’

  She stood, gazing at me steadily, adult at irresponsible teenager. ‘Me and Ms Barnet, maybe. But what about you, Josie? Shouldn’t you be sticking to that diet of yours?’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Mike Evans, accompanied by a very subdued-looking Scott Short, waved away the chilled Villa Maria Reserve I was offering. Nick didn’t, raising his glass in what seemed to be a general toast. He didn’t make the mistake of singling me out: I’d made it clear that we had a lot to talk about before the word relationship even entered the general arena, let alone the bedroom. He would stay where he was, Robin too, provided the expedited vetting of his background threw up nothing untoward. The Gay family would be disposed in pairs – they were terrified by the thought of single rooms – either side of Lucy’s room. She’d insisted that she would retain responsibility for the family, even to paying bills. She conceded that Nick might deal with her probably non-existent insurance matters, adding their file to his own. ‘Don’t know why I should bother you,’ she’d said, ‘seeing as I’ve had to do everything ever since Mum passed on.’ She didn’t add, but the implication was clear, that her father’s death would actually mean she could carry one fewer burden. Back at the hospital Sue had suddenly evinced an interest in washing and ironing; after a moment’s consideration, Lucy had accepted the offer, perhaps seeing it, as I was tempted to do, as conscience-salve.