Chef Maurice and the Bunny-Boiler Bake Off (Chef Maurice Cotswold Mysteries Book 3)

by J. A. Lang

  “Oui, she did not seem a woman very charmante, Mademoiselle Miranda.”

  “In truth, I cannot claim enthusiasm at the thought of running two cookery school sites. It will necessitate the transfer of some of our teaching staff. But we have also been making enquiries into opening a bistro along the Cowton High Street too, so perhaps the two will be able to work in conjunction.”

  “You’re branching out into Cowton?” said Arthur. “It’s a competitive market, I hear.”

  “But lacking in French dining options, I believe. And given how well Maurice’s little place does, one suspects there is definitely room in the market for some growth.”

  They took their leave soon after, at Arthur’s insistence, before Chef Maurice could do any damage to Chef Bonvivant with a well-placed pair of chopsticks.

  “That man, he is intolérable,” fumed the chef, as they strolled back to the car through the restaurant’s carefully tended vegetable gardens. (“Humph, it is all for show,” he added. “He buys from the same vegetable producers as I do, I have seen his invoices.”)

  “But, unfortunately, in possession of a rather good alibi. I had a quick word with one of his commis. He was at the scallop stand the whole of lunchtime on Saturday. No breaks.”

  “Bah, then he instructed one of his kitchen staff—”

  “What, to carry out murder? I don’t think employer loyalty stretches quite that far, at least not these days.”

  “Humph. Very true. The loyalty, today, it is all gone,” said Chef Maurice, bristling at the thought of his so-easily-swayed sous-chef.

  “Oh, come now, the chap’s got a hard choice to make. You can’t go making his decisions for him, you know.”

  “Why is it that everyone tells me that?” grumbled Chef Maurice.

  He reached into a pocket and pulled out his wristwatch. He was fairly certain that by now Patrick would have insisted on returning the ThermoMash. It was exactly the type of high-minded thing his sous-chef would do.

  That said, Chef Maurice would not be entirely unhappy to see the restaurant’s bank balance return to a much more healthy figure. Especially with the annual Paris Cheese Fair just around the corner, which always made a serious dent in the yearly finances.

  Just then, Arthur’s phone buzzed. It was Zara Brightwell, one of Meryl’s friends who ran a clothing boutique on the Cowton High Street, opposite The Spaghetti Tree.

  “Hi Zara, you got my message? . . . Uh-huh . . . Uh-huh.” Arthur listened for a while longer, then hung up with assurances that he and Meryl would be delighted to come over to theirs for dinner next Saturday.

  “She’s a terrible cook, but what can one do,” he said, tucking the phone away. “Anyway, it seems that Gallo did go back to his restaurant before lunchtime last Saturday, just like he said. And Maria apparently has had frozen shoulder for the last few years—can’t lift a tea tray, let alone a big piece of piping. That rather puts paid to this whole cookery school angle. So what’s our next move, old chap?”

  “Hmm. You say we are finished with the idea of the cookery school, but it is possible that Madame Angie is mistaken. There may be others that still make a bid for the site.”

  “Possible. But how do you propose we find them?”

  “Simple, mon ami. We go, as they say, to the donkey’s mouth.”

  “I think you mean horse, Maurice.”

  “Ah, oui? That is interesting. One would think that a donkey is the one who talks the most.”

  Mr Paul Whittaker, Deputy Mayor of Cowton, had the sort of face and bearing that called to mind a Thoroughbred racehorse. Arthur, who had met the man previously at a few official dinners, had described him as rather aquiline in feature, but Chef Maurice disagreed—there was nothing watery or wishy-washy, he argued, about the deputy mayor in the slightest. If anything, Paul Whittaker had a type of parchedness to his personality, and certainly his hands were dry as sandpaper as he shook their own and settled them into the two chairs across from his desk.

  His was a small, narrow office, though fitted out with all the accoutrements of a much larger room. The walls were adorned with various black-and-white photographs of vintage sports cars, and above his desk hung an oil painting of a severe-looking gentleman with a distinctly horsey expression.

  “My father,” said Mr Whittaker, noticing their glances. “He held office as Mayor of Cowton for eighteen years. And his father before him.” He nodded at the portrait on the far wall (which, given the size of the room, was not very far at all). “He himself held office for twenty-five years, the longest term held by any mayor in Cowton’s history.”

  “How long has Mayor Gifford’s term been so far?” said Arthur.

  “I believe it will be fifteen years this summer. But, sadly for us, it appears that national politics will be taking him away from the Town Hall, if the local elections go as expected. My apologies that he couldn’t see you today, by the way. He’s attending a farming conference in Cheltenham.” Mr Whittaker squared the pad of paper before him. “You said you had an urgent matter to discuss with him. Hopefully I can be of assistance instead?”

  “Oui, we hope,” said Chef Maurice. “It concerns the cookery school site on the High Street.”

  “Oh, yes. The site next to The Spaghetti Tree. But I’m afraid that applications are now closed.”

  “Ah, but I do not wish to apply for the site.”

  “Oh?”

  “I simply wish to make enquiries as to the other applicants. It is a matter of much urgency, you see.”

  “I see.” Mr Whittaker made a small note on his pad, reminding himself to have a few words with the receptionist about what constituted an urgent request for mayoral (or at least, deputy-mayoral) attention. “I’m afraid applications are of course a confidential matter, as you—”

  “One of your applicants has been the victim of murder! Now, monsieur, is not the time for the blue tape.” He gave Mr Whittaker a stern look. “The office of the mayor, it is to serve the citizens of Cowton, is it not? And yet, here you sit, with one of them murdered, and you refuse to lend your aid? The people, they will not be happy,” he added, with the gravity of a man hailing from a country where a lot of unhappy people had, eventually, led to the fame of one Monsieur Guillotin.

  Mr Whittaker made a quick mental calculation regarding the reasonably attainable speed of ejection of his unwanted visitors versus the probability of getting into trouble for the disclosure of confidential information. “Well, as the list of applicants will technically be available on request, once the decision is formally announced later this week, I suppose there is no harm in revealing it at this point. As long as such information is not disseminated any further, you understand.”

  “You have my word, monsieur.”

  Mr Whittaker cleared his throat. “As you already seem to be aware, Miranda Matthews, along with her business partner Angela Gifford, was one of the applicants—”

  “And a strong applicant too, n’est-ce pas?”

  Mr Whittaker adjusted his face to resemble a lake with a large ‘No Fishing’ sign. “All the applications had their various merits, of course. Miranda Matthews provided the strongest marketing proposal, but this is not surprising given her media background. As a supporter of local business, there are, however, many other factors we must consider when deciding upon a new let. Now, as for the other two—”

  “Oui, Monsieur Gallo of The Spaghetti Tree and Monsieur Bonvivant of L’Epicure. These we already know of. But there were no others?”

  “Sorry? No, those are the whole list. In fact, we were fairly surprised there were that many, to tell the truth.” Mr Whittaker frowned. “I don’t quite see, given how you seem to be quite well-informed in these matters, why—”

  But Chef Maurice was already standing up, replacing his pork-pie hat on his head. “Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Whittaker, we will not take away any more of your time. You have been most helpful. Come, Arthur, let us continue, now that we have closed this angle, non?”

  They le
ft Mr Whittaker sitting alone in his small office, with only the portraits of Mr Whittaker (Snr.) and Mr Whittaker (V. Snr.) for company.

  After a few moments spent staring down at his notepad, in apparent deep contemplation, the deputy mayor roused himself and pressed the buzzer on his desk.

  “Gemma,” he said, crisply, “we need to have a discussion as to the definition of an ‘urgent matter’. Sorry, what? No, I do not want a cream bun. Thank you.”

  “Bingo!” said PC Sara, putting down the phone.

  PC Lucy looked up from her current task of trawling the Internet for all things Miranda Matthews-related. She’d only been at it for half an hour, but had already hauled in a bountiful catch. Thank goodness for the online gossip rags, was all she could say. “What’ve you found?”

  “They’ve managed to trace the missed call Miranda received on the day of the Fayre. Any guesses whose number it is?”

  “I thought we agreed on a ban on guessing games.”

  “Fine. It was Adam Monroe, Miranda’s ex-boyfriend.”

  “Now, that is interesting.”

  Chef Maurice and Arthur had stopped round earlier to report the sighting of the same Adam Monroe, spotted ‘canoodling’ with Miranda’s ex-co-host, Gaby Florence, at last Saturday’s Fayre.

  They had also deigned to inform her that Signor Gallo and Chef Bonvivant were, in their view, currently free from any suspicion—at least when it came to the murder of Miranda Matthews.

  PC Lucy, ushering them back out of the office, did not bother asking them what their initial suspicions had been. She also informed Arthur that if a restaurant wished to source its tiramisu from the patisserie across the road, it was entirely its own affair and not a concern for the Cowton and Beakley Constabulary.

  “Right, I think it’s time we give this Adam Monroe a call.” PC Lucy reached over her desk to grab the handset, while PC Sara scooched her chair over and hit the ‘speakerphone’ button.

  “Hello?” said the sleepy male voice on the other end of the line. PC Lucy glanced up at the clock. It was well past three in the afternoon, and she took an instant dislike to the man.

  “Good afternoon. This is PC Gavistone of the Cowton and Beakley Constabulary in Oxfordshire. May I please speak with Mr Adam Monroe?”

  There was a pause. “How’d you get this number?” He sounded definitely more awake now.

  “Mr Monroe, I’m sure you’re aware of the unfortunate death of Miranda Matthews this w—”

  “Of course I’m bloody aware! Everybody’s been ringing me up non-stop since the weekend to tell me all about it! And it’s not like we’ve been a couple since, well, back sometime last year now. We didn’t bother keeping in touch, I can’t think why people think I give a monkey’s—”

  “If you didn’t keep in touch, do you mind me asking why our records show you tried contacting Miranda on her mobile at nine fifty-two last Saturday morning?”

  Another pause.

  “She didn’t pick up. I suppose you know that too, right?” he said, a tad snarkily. “So I gave Miranda a call. So what?”

  “Mr Monroe, we have photographic evidence showing that you were at the Beakley Spring Fayre this Saturday. With Gaby Florence, who I understand was also an acquaintance of Miss Matthews’?”

  After Chef Maurice and Arthur had left, PC Lucy had taken a quick look back through the photos from the Fayre. Sure enough, the couple showed up in the background of several shots, easily picked out by Adam Monroe’s dark glasses and Gaby Florence’s fiery locks. It galled her that it had taken a French chef and a food critic to bring this to her attention, but Adam Monroe didn’t have to know that.

  “Look,” said Adam, a tinge of worry creeping into his voice, “I’ll be straight with you, okay? I had no idea Miranda was even going to be there, till I saw one of those Bake Off posters on the drive over. It was all Gaby’s idea. I swear.”

  “And Gaby’s idea was to do what exactly?”

  “What? For us to be there, together. In front of Miranda. Gaby thought it’d be funny. After all these years, beats me why she still has it in for her. I mean, look at me. Miranda cost me my best-paying job in a long while, but you don’t see me griping on about it, do you?”

  Perhaps, thought PC Lucy, because he had soon after been picked up for a part in the award-winning period drama du moment, which was making waves on both sides of the Atlantic. PC Sara was a secret fan, and had been expounding lately on the hitherto overlooked attractiveness of men with bushy sideburns.

  “So, when we stopped to get petrol and Gaby went off into the shops, I thought I’d call Miranda, just give her a heads-up that we’d be there.”

  “That was rather considerate of you.”

  “Well, I like to keep a low profile. No sense stirring things up.”

  Or, more likely, his new producers were keen for their cast to stay out of the headlines, unless for the right reasons. And helping to start a celebrity catfight at a country fair probably didn’t count as one of those.

  “A long way for you both to travel, wasn’t it? Just for a village fair.”

  “Not really. My folks have a holiday cottage out near Chipping Norton. And like I said, it was all Gaby’s idea. She said she wanted to go to one of those fairs like the ones she went to as a kid. I mean, once I saw the posters, I twigged that all she wanted was to parade me around in front of Miranda, like a show pony. Women, eh?”

  “You’re suggesting she wanted to make Miranda jealous? I thought Miranda was the one who ended the relationship,” said PC Lucy, brow furrowed as she clicked quickly through the tabloid articles on screen.

  “Goodness me, you can’t go believing everything you read in the papers, my dear,” said Adam, slipping into the country squire accent he used on air. But at least he seemed to be warming to the conversation. “No, I was the one who ended it. Wasn’t worth all the aggro in the end. A right crazy bitch, she was, ringing me up all the time, asking where I was. I found out later she’d even paid my building’s concierge to phone her up every time I went out the door. Paranoid, if you ask me.”

  “Even given your somewhat chequered love life, Mr Monroe?”

  Adam seemed amused by this. “Done your research, haven’t you? Look, I’m not saying I’ve always been a saint, but this time, I wasn’t up to anything. Didn’t have the time, for one. But she wasn’t having any of it. Almost made me want to go out and prove her right, you know what I mean? When a woman’s always on your case, asking why you took twenty minutes instead of ten to get from Bond Street to Soho, I mean, it makes you want to mess around, just for the hell of it. At least you’d be getting something back for all that hassle.”

  Charming, isn’t he? mouthed PC Sara.

  “Anyway, yeah, so it was me who ended things. That pushed Miranda right off the deep end. She went total bunny-boiler, if you ask me. Found out I’d started seeing someone new, and so she pulled a whole load of strings with her press chums, and suddenly they’re dragging up some stupid quotes of stuff I’ve said in the past, you know, the kind of thing you say when you’re completely rat-arsed and the press are all up in your face. Doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “But it cost you your job, I hear.”

  “Yeah. My bad luck that I made some joke about some stupid autism charity they were making me go visit, can’t even remember what I said now. Anyway, turns out the producer has a daughter with Asperger’s. He went all high and mighty on me, and that was it. Out of the job, after eight years being bad boy Derek Peterson.”

  “Mr Monroe, you’re not exactly painting me a picture of someone who had no hard feelings towards Miranda Matthews.”

  “Nah, like I said, water under the bridge and all that. I take these things easy. Not like Gaby. Now there’s a bird who can hold a grudge. She’s got a chip on her shoulder the size of Iceland about Miranda.”

  “Oh?” PC Lucy scribbled this down on her notepad. “Rather forthcoming of you, talking about your new girlfriend like that?”

  Adam laughe
d. “Oh, she’s not my girlfriend anymore. Dumped me yesterday evening, for talking about Miranda too much. I mean, the woman was murdered! What else was I expected to do, what with everyone ringing me up about it?”

  “Tell me more about Gaby and Miranda. Bit of a grudge there, I take it?”

  “You could say that. Surely you know the story? No?” Adam sounded surprised. “Everyone knows Gaby’s had it in for Miranda ever since the whole ‘Wok This Way’ debacle.”

  “That was Miranda’s first solo show, right? The one she got chosen for, over Gaby?” PC Lucy was determined to show she’d done at least a modicum of research.

  “Chosen?” Adam snorted. “More like Gaby got booted off it, before they even started filming. It was meant to be another double act, this time all about Eastern cuisine, but then Gaby got caught snorting a line of cocaine, and that was that.”

  “Cocaine?”

  “Seriously, you don’t know any of this stuff?”

  “Feel free to fill in the gaps.”

  “Okay, so it was like this,” said Adam, patently enjoying his role as police gossip informant. “Endline Productions were making the show for the BBC, a prime-time slot, meant to be family-friendly and all that jazz. So Gaby doing a line of coke off a toilet seat in the back of the Horizon Club wasn’t exactly the kind of coverage they were aiming for. Rough on her, really, that she got caught. Wasn’t as if everyone else wasn’t doing exactly the same.”

  “And she blamed Miranda?”

  “The way I heard it, Gaby’s always been convinced it was Miranda who leaked those pictures to the press. After all, she’d been there too, that night. Could have easily sneaked some paparazzi fellow in, everyone would have been too off their faces to notice.”