‘Did he give a reason for his change of heart?’
‘Well, he claimed that he’d been granted a solution to his financial problems. Strange expression to use, I thought – “been granted”.’
Amy and Ben exchanged a look. Neither was about to reveal to the MP the source of Fitz’s ‘grant’. If Willie Sayers didn’t know about Greg Jepson’s largesse – and he appeared not to – then they were both happy to let that situation continue.
But Amy wanted to find out more while the booze was making their guest so garrulous. ‘Did Fitz say anything else?’ she asked. ‘To explain his new-found serenity?’
‘He did say that a lot of things were becoming clear to him, and that some secrets were about to be revealed.’
‘Secrets about him – or about other people?’
‘He didn’t say which.’
‘But did he imply that any of these secrets might involve you?’
‘Good Lord no!’ Willie Sayers laughed rather too heartily. ‘Never any secrets between Fitz and me.’
Amy decided it wasn’t the moment to mention the story Ianthe Berkeley had told her about a girl called Jilly who had ended up in Regent’s Canal. ‘But did he name any names?’
‘No. But he did imply that he was about to reveal a secret about someone who had shafted him at some point.’
‘Shafted him in his personal or professional life?’ asked Ben.
‘The implication was that it was professional. Something to do with his will.’
‘Was that all he said?’ she asked.
‘It was, except for a rather odd thing he said as I was leaving. “Sorry again about my misdemeanours, Willie old bean. Good luck. And remember, where there’s a will, there’s a way of finding out most things…”’
Amy and Ben exchanged another look. In both of their minds the image of Griffiths Bentley bulked large.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Meriel Dane finished arranging pieces of roast chicken left over from Sunday lunch on a bed of watercress. She added half slices of orange, cut without pith, scattered over toasted almonds, then anointed the dish with a dressing made with olive oil, a grainy mustard, and sherry wine vinegar combined with seasonings and a smidgen of honey.
She stood for a moment admiring the completed salad, then was unable to resist dabbing a finger onto a dressing-laden piece of chicken, and licking it. She closed her eyes as a flavour of chicken flesh combined with the sour-sweet vinaigrette exercised her taste buds. Heavenly! Would that divine Constable Chesterton appreciate the lunch she was sending up to the CID ‘Incident Room’, as the Admiral’s Bridge was now known? Immediately after Fitz’s death there had been a bit of a battle with the police over keeping the pub open, won when Amy had insisted that as no crime had actually been committed on the premises, there was no reason to label the Admiral Byng a crime scene and close it down. She had had to concede that the large first-floor room, Fitz’s Bridge, could be given over to their computers and screens for displaying the photos, and those funny scribbles on whiteboard that appeared on so many of the fictional crime series the television found so popular. But DI Cole avoided the place, and DC Chesterton seemed to be the only one who was ever up there, so she and Amy had had no problems getting in and out of the place.
Meriel sighed as she thought of the constable’s soulful eyes and his broad figure; surely his poorly-tailored suit concealed a powerful set of toned muscles just waiting to be flexed in someone’s bed? She gave a snort of derision at her wayward imagination, but ran a fresh coat of lip gloss on to her mouth before securing cling film over the chicken dish and placing it in the fridge. Then she turned her attention to possible changes to the bar menu.
She had never been kept so busy in this kitchen. First the excitement of the television filming, then the death of poor old Fitz, and even on the following Monday it seemed Crabwell’s inhabitants could not keep away from the pub they had ignored for so many years. She had had to make two quiches for lunches instead of the usual one, taking the opportunity to use up the remains of Sunday’s roasted vegetables that had accompanied the loin of pork escalopes. The other tart had been the usual cheese and onion, which provided the vegetarian option.
Meriel tapped her biro on her teeth as she mentally trawled her cache of recipes for something that would prove irresistible to Ben Milne, that would make him realise here was someone not only oozing sexual attraction, but a cook who could produce food the television audience was waiting for. This had to be her big chance. The small screen would lap up her combination of culinary expertise and raw sex. Cooking programmes were as much about the personalities as the food.
Meriel reckoned her physical attributes matched what she considered her exceptional ability at the kitchen stove. Her curves were, well, curvy; her lips were fantastically kissable; her eyes a wonderful green. They had had poetry written to them. All right, it wasn’t going to match a laureate’s efforts, but she would never forget: ‘Oh, goddess, I could drown in the emerald pools that see this humble suitor kneeling in worship before you.’ She knew exactly how to flutter her eyelashes (enhanced by the best false ones the market had to offer) at an attractive male. There was no shortage of prime pecs for regular sessions in her king-sized bed.
What TV producer, she held, could resist engaging a chef whose food was to die for and who matched any Hollywood siren in the looks department?
The natural move for her to make this evening would be on Ben Milne. But the cook could assess a man’s willingness to join in the seduction game as easily as she picked out fresh fish from those that had been more than a day on the slab. And Ben’s body language seemed to express an inexplicable resistance to her charms.
Apart from that, she liked men who took charge in bed, and Ben didn’t ooze that sort of appeal. ‘Rough stuff, that’s your taste, isn’t it?’ the burly gardener who’d been hired to sort her shrubs and roses had said on his second visit. She’d lavished chocolate brownies on him for his afternoon tea, together with flirtatious giggles as she’d asked how he was getting on with her beds. There’d been no suggestive moves on his part, he’d pulled her towards him in one delightfully powerful movement, and there’d just been time to take him upstairs to prove she could give as good as she got before she’d had to return to the pub for the kitchen’s evening session. The scars on his neck and biceps had taken several days to disappear. Pity he’d decided to move to Spain shortly afterwards.
Reluctantly, Meriel put the matter of who was to share her bed that evening to one side, and returned to the matter of the bar menu.
Dare she introduce Jansson’s Temptation? Just bringing to mind how potatoes, onions, anchovies, and cream could combine into a dish that married tantalising flavour with an unctuous quality that caressed your every taste bud made Meriel feel randy. Her husband had been Swedish and a chef. He had served this dish to her the night he proposed. She’d been nineteen years old. Even now, twenty-seven years later, Meriel got goosebumps remembering that evening. He’d been tall, powerful, charismatic, and fun. Life together had veered between heaven and hell, but ever since that night, physical passion and food for her went together. One appetite fuelled the other. After sex, raid the fridge!
Sven had taught her so much. Meriel had absorbed all his culinary skills, and had helped to run the small restaurant he’d opened in Northumberland. He’d go off chasing down local suppliers, leaving her to man the kitchen. Oh, it had been so cold up there! Meriel was convinced it had been the cold that had made her miscarry, not once, not twice, but three times. It was after the third occasion that she’d discovered his other women. Local suppliers they certainly had been! To add to her misery, bankruptcy loomed. Faced with her fury, he had laughed!
Meriel forced away her memories of that time. She’d been on her own since, and much the better for it. After all, who wanted the same dish every day? Back to the bar menu. However, she had not done more than note down Duck Fingers with Chilli Dip before the swing door opened to admit Amy
Walpole.
What was coming now? That bar manager title was a joke. She didn’t just do that. Amy managed – or tried to manage – every department of the pub, particularly now the Admiral was no more.
Meriel had arrived at the pub the Tuesday morning after Amy’s discovery to find police everywhere and the television crew in disorder. No one had bothered to witness her reaction to the news, she had been able to retire to the kitchen and compose herself.
She and Fitz had originally met in Northumberland, some fifteen years ago. He’d come into their restaurant, The Midnight Sun, a dapper chap heading for what Meriel in those days thought of as the twilight zones, those years after the sunshine days of fifty, but looking still up for it, with an endearing twinkle in his eyes. He’d been accompanied by a pouty blonde teenager. She’d displayed all the signs of wanting to be anywhere else with anyone else. Over dessert, the heavenly Katrinplommon soufflé, the girl had erupted, shouted at him, then walked out.
Instead of chasing after her, the old boy had ordered a brandy. There were no other customers, Sven had left on one of his ‘supply hunting’ excursions, and Meriel had come and sat with the abandoned client. The blonde teenager had not been mentioned. Instead, they’d talked about the Admiral Byng, Fitz’s pub on the Suffolk coast. She’d loved the way his eyes had lit up as he described its medieval origins, the view over the North Sea from his ‘Bridge’, the first-floor room he used as an office. ‘Should be used for private functions, but there isn’t the demand.’ When he’d finally left, he’d pressed a card into Meriel’s hand and told her that if she was ever in that part of the world, she should look him up.
She hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but three years later, as the fall-out from Sven’s shenanigans was settling, the sale of the restaurant had gone through and she was looking for a job. Lo and behold, the classified columns of the Hotel & Caterer contained a ‘cook wanted’ ad for the Admiral Byng in Crabwell.
Meriel hadn’t written, she’d gone straight to Suffolk, exchanging one windy seaside location for another, but one that was much warmer, in every sense. Fitz had remembered her the moment she’d walked into the bar. ‘My Northern delight,’ he’d called her. ‘The one high spot in my tour of Roman Britain. The Romans should have kept it, I said afterwards and swore never to leave this place again. I will die right here in Crabwell. Now, what did you say your name was?’ It seemed either she hadn’t told him, or he’d forgotten. He definitely hadn’t connected her with any sordid newspaper story.
There’d been no need for references or a kitchen trial. The job was hers.
It had been the saving of her. Slowly, slowly, her finances had been sorted out. Fitz had offered to lend her money, but she’d refused. Frying pans and fires, she’d said. He’d supported her in every other way, though. There’d been hints that he’d ‘look after her’ when he’d departed for the Great Bridge in the sky. Which was very nice of him, but what Meriel needed now was the finance to open her own place. The Admiral Byng was never going to provide the clientele that would appreciate the food she wanted to cook. She’d hinted to Fitz that a backer for a chic little eating place could find it a rewarding investment, but had got nowhere.
‘Meriel, how are things going?’ The cook stiffened. Since Amy had discovered the Admiral’s corpse, she seemed to think she had carte blanche to question anybody about anything. Did she think she was Miss Marple?
‘“Things going”? What, Amy, would you be meaning by, “things going”?’ Meriel was rather pleased with her non-confrontational tone. Ever since Amy had arrived at the Admiral Byng, Meriel had had to fight a long-drawn-out battle for control of the kitchen. Amy seemed to think that as bar manager she could dictate what food Meriel cooked.
Only a few weeks ago she had climbed the stairs to the Bridge. Fitz had been writing at his desk, papers all over the place. The moment she appeared, he’d pushed the sheets together and slipped them underneath a file. Not that she would have tried to see what he’d been working on, she’d been too het up after her last confrontation with Amy.
‘She wants me to stick to steak and chips and fish and chips. Says anything else takes too long to produce.’
The Admiral rose. ‘Ah, Meriel, my dear,’ he’d said with a jovial laugh, ‘I wouldn’t dare to interfere with the way Amy runs the bar. Equally I wouldn’t dare to interfere with the way you run the kitchen.’ Then he’d twinkled at her: ‘With all your charms, I’m sure you can twist her around the little finger that’s so good at sticking into those delicious pies you produce.’
Had he been getting at her? Meriel never knew with Fitz. On the surface he was the perfect gent yet, there were these little glimpses of a quite different man underneath. She was really intrigued to know what his attitude to sex now was. What had been his relationship with the young blonde who’d walked out on him in the Northumberland restaurant? Since their early encounters when she’d first come to the Admiral Byng, she was almost affronted that he’d never made any further advance on her, never even patted her on the bottom. Nor had he ever mentioned the few afternoons of passion they had shared. As Meriel had looked at him that afternoon in the Bridge, she’d had a sudden urge to run her fingers through his hair, draw that really very handsome if slightly wrinkled face down to hers, and give him the longest, most lingering kiss he had ever had. Just to see how he reacted.
The Admiral might have had an inkling of this, for he gave a quick harrumph, fingered his cravat as though to check its arrangement, and added, ‘You know, m’dear, we couldn’t do without you in the kitchen. And I know you enjoy the way it seems to be your little kingdom. But if I decide to sell, then I’m afraid there would be no guarantees over staffing by the new management.’
She’d been rooted to the spot. What was all this ‘I’ll look after you’? And was he planning to sell? Before she could stutter out a plea to let her know what he had in mind, he’d looked at his watch, muttered something about a man he had to see, and waved her off his Bridge.
Something seemed to have changed in their relationship. It was a long time since they’d been really close, but she’d thought they were friends. And friends didn’t hide monumental changes such as selling the Admiral Byng.
However, he must have said something to Amy, because the bar manager hadn’t repeated her demands for culinary changes since. No one knew better than Meriel the place steak and chips and fish and chips had on the bar menu. Together with her famous steak and kidney pies, they meant a cosy arrangement with both the butcher and the fishmonger. But there were other favourites, mostly involving chicken, scallops, and lamb shanks. These were popular with diners in the formal saloon on the other side of the bar, where tables were laid with white damask and proper napkins.
Did Amy’s appearance in the kitchen that Monday mean another demand to cut down the dishes on offer? Meriel prepared herself for battle. Surely Fitz’s death meant the pub would definitely be put up for sale? Her job, her little kingdom, would depend on the success the food side could be seen to have. With so many people cutting back on the booze these days, food receipts were vital to the balance sheet’s bottom line, and with the current popularity of the pub, these must be excellent.
Amy leaned against Meriel’s little paperwork shelf in a slightly awkward stance. She didn’t look comfortable. ‘With us being so busy at present, I wondered how you were coping.’
Meriel’s eyes narrowed. The woman had never worried about her being overworked before. ‘It’s a joy to have so many customers. I hope everyone is well satisfied?’
‘We haven’t had any complaints.’
If anybody wasn’t satisfied, they were quick enough to complain. Compliments, though, were rarer – but not unknown. Meriel knew she was a good cook, but it was always pleasant to have her skills acknowledged. As things stood currently, it was more than pleasant, it was vital.
‘And the police? I hope they’re happy with what I’ve been able to send up to… now, what is it they call the Bridge?
’ She pretended to think for a moment. ‘The Incident Room, isn’t that it?’
Amy nodded. ‘I’ve had no complaints from them either.’
‘I should hope not!’ The police should have said they’d never been better fed, or that the Admiral Byng was fortunate to have such a good cook. The sea-green-eyed Constable Chesterton suddenly lost some of his dishiness.
‘How much longer are they going to be here?’
‘Difficult to say. Their investigation doesn’t seem to be getting very far.’
‘Wasn’t suicide mentioned?’ Meriel started chopping onions, she didn’t have time to stand around nattering without getting on with her prep.
‘I hope I’ve managed to kill that one.’ Amy sounded oddly satisfied.
Meriel’s knife slipped and she narrowly missed cutting a finger. That hadn’t happened since her disastrous parting with Sven. For months afterwards she’d hardly dared cut butter.
She recovered her equilibrium sufficiently to say, ‘I got the impression when I last spoke to the revolting Cole specimen that he was still thinking in terms of suicide.’
‘Fitz would never have committed suicide,’ Amy protested. ‘He wasn’t that sort of man.’ She fiddled with some papers on Meriel’s desk shelf. ‘After all…’ she started to say, and then suddenly stopped.
Meriel paused her chopping. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked suspiciously; her eyes narrowed. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me. What is it? Have you told the police?’
‘Of course.’ A couple of menus floated off the shelf and Amy bent to pick them up. That was probably why she looked a little red and flustered as she straightened and replaced them. ‘I expect it will all come out in one of their press conferences.’
What sort of man would kill himself? Meriel wondered. Someone who had nothing left to live for? Someone who thought the world would be better off without them? The Admiral certainly didn’t fit either of those criteria, not in her estimation. No, Fitz, was a man who had an appetite for life. Who knew where he was going and wouldn’t allow anyone to deflect him. She should know!
The Sinking Admiral Page 18