The Case of the Curious Cook

by Cathy Ace

  He disconnected, and moved as silently as possible about the bedroom, pulling on his clothes. Finally ready to leave, he bent close to Christine’s beautifully tousled hair. ‘I’m off out to find some coffee. There’s just a couple of packets of instant in the room, and I don’t hold out much hope for anything better in the little restaurant downstairs. I’ll be back as soon as possible. I’m taking a key.’

  A truffling sound from beneath the covers told him Christine had heard what he’d said, so he set off. The tall, terraced house was on the road that ran parallel to Swansea Bay, overlooking the sea. They’d only agreed to stay there because Gwen Llewellyn had said she’d get them ‘a lovely room at her cousin’s B&B’; it wasn’t until they’d arrived that they’d realized the place was a bit rundown and what an estate agent would have undoubtedly described as bijou.

  As he emerged from the building, he wondered if he should walk, or drive to find coffee. He didn’t know the area at all. Taking the advice of a local who was passing by with her dog, he headed off toward a pub she’d pointed out. She assured him it might look pretty rundown but it did good breakfasts because it catered for the guards who worked shifts at Swansea prison which, ironically, also stood right on the seafront.

  Her mention of ‘a fancy Italian coffee machine’ at the pub filled him with hope; Alexander reckoned he wasn’t exactly addicted to caffeine, but he had to admit he sometimes suspected his bloodstream was about fifty percent espresso.

  As he walked he made the call he knew he had to initiate; he didn’t like to be seen as coming to an out-and-out crook, cap in hand. After five minutes he’d managed to talk his opponent into a face-to-face meeting. He’d have to wait a while, but he hoped it would settle the matter once and for all. He tucked away his phone, hoping for a good outcome.

  When he opened the door to the pub it was as though he’d been transported back in time; he’d opened so many doors of so many pubs back in Brixton in his youth, never knowing what would be required of him, that the sight of barstools, stained carpeting and the glint of brass beer taps always took him back to his teen years. Back then he’d been a legendary and all-but-invisible transporter of packages; on this occasion he was anything but invisible, and became the immediate point of interest for a group of four burly men who were huddled at a table munching on what appeared to be bacon sandwiches, with mugs of coffee in front of them.

  Leaning across the table to grab a paper napkin to catch the tomato ketchup oozing from his lips, the biggest of the bunch said, ‘Mornin’. Nice to see the sun out for a change, isn’t it?’

  Inside Alexander’s head he was sixteen-year-old Issy, illicit courier, but he forced the adult, well-bred, moneyed man he’d become to speak. ‘Good morning, gentlemen. It certainly is a delightful day. One that could only be improved by a couple of cups of excellent coffee, which I’ve been advised I might find here. The sign outside says you serve Illy, is that correct?’ He looked at the young woman who was wiping down the bar as he spoke, hoping his response would peg him as some sort of coffee snob in the eyes of the men.

  ‘We do,’ the girl replied.

  ‘Know your coffee, do you?’ asked the slimmest of the four men, his eyes twinkling.

  ‘One has to,’ replied Alexander in his most refined accent.

  ‘Prefer Lavazza myself, but Illy will do at a pinch. Got a good machine here they have. You’ll enjoy it.’

  Alexander was surprised to be having such an exchange, but was glad these men who had clearly worked all night at the prison were affable and content to imagine he was an English tourist.

  ‘I’ll take two triple espressos, each with a topping of steamed milk, please,’ said Alexander to the woman, who was already preparing her machine.

  ‘Anything else?’ she asked. ‘The bacon butties are lovely.’

  Alexander looked at the butter dripping from the thick, soft white bread on the men’s plates, and couldn’t resist. ‘Go on then, two of those as well. All to take away, please.’

  A general chuckle rippled around the group of men. ‘Hard to resist the smell of bacon, isn’t it?’ said the big man. ‘Join us while you wait? We can all budge up a bit. Where are you visiting from, then? Staying at one of the B&Bs along the front, are you?’

  Alexander joined the men, who he judged were glad to have someone other than a work colleague to talk to, and recognized a chance to really help Christine. He threw himself into his full Alexander Bright routine, and nonchalantly asked about Swansea prison’s most famous inmate, Nathaniel Llewellyn.

  After about five minutes the girl behind the bar called, ‘Ready to go now, it is. Let the poor man escape while it’s all hot, you lot.’

  Wry laughter was shared by the group. ‘Says that all the time she does,’ commented the slight man, ‘thinks it’s funny because we work at the prison.’

  Alexander shared the men’s jailhouse mirth, paid for his items, and left. The sea breeze felt good on his skin, and he felt he truly had escaped … something. Maybe the shadows of what might have been had his younger self not been as clever at slipping through the fingers of the coppers?

  As he walked back to the B&B, where he was sure Christine would still be snuggled down and half-asleep, he reminded himself he still had to be clever and slippery because, sometimes, some of the things he had to resort to doing to help those who needed a hand to get out of the gutter weren’t exactly the actions of a law-abiding citizen. The situation developing back on his old home turf of Brixton was a case in point.

  Climbing the creaking staircase to their room he swore he’d get it all sorted when he got back to London.

  THIRTEEN

  Carol Hill was absolutely exhausted when she dragged herself out of bed. Albert had given her a particularly sleepless night, and she wasn’t in the best of moods as she fed him and attended to the mess that had somehow accumulated in the kitchen.

  Once her son was settled, she successfully accomplished most of the filing and sorting she needed to do for the day, then opened the digital recordings coming in from Bryn Jenkins’s bookshop. She patiently scrolled through the files from that morning, not hoping for much, but knowing she had to focus on the images which passed before her eyes.

  She slowed the recording whenever a customer, or browser, entered the frame in one of the six cameras she was monitoring, but saw nothing untoward. Finally, she saw something odd, scrolled back, and replayed the recording. The camera just inside the door of the lower level of the shop had caught the book depositor in the act toward the rear of the shop. Carol was thrilled, and immediately told the now wideawake Albert how delighted she was. Albert looked utterly unimpressed, choosing instead to attend to pulling on his toes with glee.

  Carol carefully captured three excellent shots of the woman in question; she had made no effort to hide her face. Carol put her in her sixties; she had short, permed, gray hair and was quite stout. So, utterly unremarkable. Carol noted she not only deposited books, but also purchased one – The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie. Sadly, she could also see she’d paid with cash. Carol phoned the shop and had a terse conversation with Sam, who claimed not to recall the woman at all, despite the fact she’d dealt with her within the past hour.

  Carol emailed the photographs to her team to allow them to see the woman’s face, but had to admit that was all she had. Despite that sad fact, she organized a virtual meeting with her colleagues; by eleven, all the members of the agency were able to discuss the case.

  Mavis called the meeting to order. ‘Carol, you set?’ Carol nodded into the camera on her computer in her home office. ‘You, Christine?’ Christine nodded into the camera on her phone, while sitting on the seafront in Swansea. ‘Althea and I are here at the Dower House, so let’s begin. You’ve all seen what Carol saw, I believe. We have photographic evidence of a person leaving books at the Crooks & Cooks Bookshop. Neither Val nor Sam at the bookshop are able to identify the individual. Questions, observations, anyone?’

  Silenc
e.

  ‘Come along, ladies – this is a meeting. Its purpose is for us to discuss, and progress with the case. So, I’d like your input please.’

  Althea thought Mavis sounded cross and decided to do something to avoid her dagger stares. ‘Seems to me we’ve nabbed the culprit red-handed, so we give that photo to the client. We’ve done what he asked.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Christine, speaking clearly, ‘but I do have one question. Are we sure she’s the one who’s done it before?’

  ‘Good point, Christine,’ said Mavis. ‘Comments?’

  ‘We could continue with the surveillance, and we might find more people doing the same thing,’ said Carol as she soothed Albert by bouncing him on her shoulder, ‘or we could watch for another month and see nothing more at all. I was thrilled we saw something so quickly. If our client claims he only notices more books at the end of each month, it looks as though our timing was serendipitous.’

  ‘You mean you were just lucky?’ asked Althea, winking at her distant friend.

  ‘Ach, a piece of good fortune is never to be sneered at,’ retorted Mavis.

  ‘Call it luck, serendipity or spectacularly good planning,’ continued Carol, ‘the fact is we’ve got the person on film, and that’s what the client asked for. I filed the contract he signed, Mavis, that was all he asked for … to find out who was doing it. We’ve done that. What he chooses to do with that information is now entirely up to him.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Mavis slowly, ‘though “finding out who’s doing it” could also mean identifying the woman in the photographs, and there’s still the question of whether the books belong to the woman who left them, or not.’

  ‘I wonder why she’s doing it,’ said Althea quietly. ‘What makes a woman wander the countryside depositing books in bookshops, willy nilly?’

  Mavis tutted. ‘There might be a very good reason for her actions …’ She paused. ‘Though I must admit one doesnae come to mind. And a photo’s not much to go on.’

  ‘It’s a start,’ said Carol, ‘and I don’t know how much more we can expect at this point; it’s hardly likely someone will walk about with their name neatly printed on a badge on their lapel, is it? If we were TV cops, or the FBI, I’d have one of those handy-dandy face-identification programs and could run this elderly lady’s photos through it. But we aren’t, so we don’t, and I can’t. But it’s not a dead end – it’s a starting point.’ Carol paused, then added, ‘Step two in identifying this person should be for us to show the photo to other shopkeepers in Hay-on-Wye. Not just the bookshops. It might be she’s known about the town. Of course we’ll have to ask Bryn Jenkins if he recognizes her. Bryn wasn’t at the shop when I phoned. Val said he was at Chellingworth Hall today, and I know I can’t send the photo to his phone because that thing he has is too old to be able to do that. Maybe you could walk it across to him, Althea? And maybe Mavis could go into Hay and show the photo around there?’

  ‘I could do both,’ said Mavis quickly. ‘Althea and I could walk up to the hall together. It wouldnae be any trouble. Then I could head off to Hay. There’s almost the whole day ahead of us.’

  Carol noticed Althea’s wrinkled brow furrowing. ‘You said earlier on you were a bit pooped, dear. Feeling revived, are we?’ The tone in Althea’s voice meant Carol had to hide a smirk.

  ‘A brisk walk will do us all good,’ retorted Mavis, ‘and it certainly won’t go amiss for McFli. I think he’s been having a few too many treats since wee Gertie joined us.’

  McFli lifted his head from his paws and looked at his human. ‘Ssh,’ hissed Althea. ‘I’ve told you to spell that word.’

  ‘T.R.E.A.T.?’ asked Mavis. Althea nodded. Mavis smiled. ‘I think McFli can spell that one, and a few other words too.’ She looked down at the pink tongue and appealing eyes and couldn’t resist saying, ‘Aww, little sweetheart,’ as she stroked McFli’s ears.

  Althea said, ‘We like to think of them as furry people, my dear, but they’re not, you know. They need their routine, and they need to be taught their boundaries. But this one? Spoiled rotten. It’s all my fault, of course; he was the runt of the litter so I raised him with tiny bottles of milk all by myself. Melted my heart, did this one. I was never the same with him as with all the dozens of other dogs I’ve had over the years. And he knows it.’ Althea stooped to rub McFli’s little head.

  ‘Right then, come away with you. Let’s get up to the hall if we’re going,’ said Mavis.

  The meeting concluded, and McFli displayed his enthusiasm for the idea of getting out and about by racing the women to the front door.

  FOURTEEN

  ‘Mother, how wonderful! Just the person,’ Henry beamed as Althea and Mavis entered his private sitting room, and showed his concern when McFli shot in behind them.

  ‘You actually want to see me, Henry?’ Althea sounded genuinely surprised. It annoyed Henry.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I wish to see you, Mother? I’m your son. You’re my mother. Of course I want to spend time with you. An appropriate amount of time, spent in an appropriate manner of course, but—’

  ‘Stop, dear,’ interrupted Althea. ‘You’ve never properly understood the concept of tact, have you? Ah well, it’s too late for you to learn now, I expect. My fault. What did you want? Just get to the point, as I am here for reasons other than to spend time with you.’

  Henry felt somewhat disgruntled. He didn’t think he’d deserved to be snapped at, and in front of Mavis, a relative stranger. ‘It’s Clemmie, of course,’ he said. He recognized his tone as he spoke; he knew he sounded much as he had when he was a teenager complaining about his annoying little sister. He cleared his throat and added, ‘It’s not about the nurse leaving this time. It’s Clemmie’s desire to move back to London and take said nurse with her. They’re at loggerheads about it. Clemmie says there’s a contractual obligation for the woman to accompany her if she wishes to spend the last few weeks of her recuperation at the Belgravia house, whereas Nurse Thomas maintains she was retained to a post specifically here, at Chellingworth Hall. Stephanie is retrieving the original paperwork now, and we were planning to take it from there. You know, get the two of them in separate rooms and try to get them to calm down. Personally, I think Clemmie should go back to London, and the sooner the better. For all concerned.’

  Althea took a seat near the window. ‘My dear boy, you only say that because then she’ll be out of your hair. She has almost an entire wing at her disposal, I have no idea why the two of you cannot avoid each other in a place this size.’

  ‘We both need to eat, and she’s started to join Stephanie and myself in the dining room in the evenings. It’s not fair, Mother. We’re thinking about taking dinner in our own apartment until she’s gone.’

  Althea tilted her head, something Henry knew she did just before telling him off about something. He steeled himself. ‘She might be lonely, Henry, have you thought of that? You know she’s never been a girl who’s been happy with her own company. I noticed when she was not much more than an infant that she thrived only in the presence of others. As she grew up, I wondered if it was healthy, and now she’s in her fifties I’m quite sure it’s not; your sister has no sense of self-identity. She sees herself only as others reflect her. That’s why she’s seeking you out – she cannot survive alone. Despite the fact she wants to drag the poor woman to London with her, I cannot imagine Nurse Thomas pussyfoots around Clemmie. She hasn’t since she arrived, which I must admit is endearing, but maybe it’s finally worn your sister down. I tell you what, I’ll go to the estate office, which I expect is where Stephanie has stowed the contracts, then I’ll have a word with Clemmie. If she goes back to London now I can only imagine the trouble she’ll get herself into by seeking out the company of some of those questionable friends of hers. She might do something that means her leg will never mend properly. Imagine if she ended up in a wheelchair for life.’

  Henry took a moment to do so, and didn’t like the future he could imagine for himself a
nd his bride if his sister found herself becoming a permanent resident at Chellingworth Hall. He realized maybe it was worth putting up with her for just a little while longer, in order to ensure her eventual, and permanent, departure. ‘Very well, Mother. I appreciate your help. You’re right, of course.’

  ‘Will you come with me, or will you go up to see Mr Jenkins?’ asked Althea of Mavis as she set off.

  ‘I’ll head off to see Bryn, I think,’ replied Mavis.

  ‘If that’s who you’re after I should remain here, if I were you, Mavis. He was due to meet me here five minutes ago,’ said Henry, looking at his watch. ‘He promised me an update before he goes back to his shop this afternoon. You might as well wait with me. See you later, Mother.’

  Right on cue, a flushed Bryn Jenkins was ushered into the room by Edward.

  ‘Ah, Mr Jenkins,’ said Henry expansively, ‘I’m interested to hear how things are progressing with our books.’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace. All coming along very nicely. The drying out hasn’t done any damage as far as I can tell, it seems. I have some repairs to make to a little wear in places, but I think I can confidently project a fully successful restoration will be completed within the week.’

  Henry clapped his hands in glee, and was surprised when Mavis joined in. The impromptu round of applause led to the book restorer’s cheeks turning red.

  ‘Jolly good job, Mr Jenkins,’ said Henry. ‘Mother will be delighted to hear your news. She’s just popped to the estate office. Should be back in two flicks of a lamb’s tail with my good lady wife.’

  During the somewhat awkward pause that followed, Henry watched with interest as Mavis sidled toward Bryn Jenkins and pushed her telephone in front of him. ‘We have a photograph of a woman seen depositing books at your shop earlier today. We wondered if you recognized her.’

  Bryn pushed his spectacles up his nose and squinted at the phone’s screen. ‘Can’t say I do,’ he replied, ‘though she’s not a very noticeable sort of person, is she? She’s the one who’s been doing it though?’