“It seems that a man did die on Friday night from something that was originally thought to be the food poisoning but turned out not to be. He hadn’t been at the dinner. He died from something else.”
“Are you sure?” she said suspiciously.
“Absolutely,” I said. “You should check with the hospital.”
“They wouldn’t tell me,” she said, “due to their damn privacy policy.”
“Then you’d better ask your unofficial source,” I said. “It was because of that same incorrect and damaging information that the Food Standards Agency shut down this kitchen, in spite of it not being where the dinner was even cooked. You can see for yourself how clean it is.”
“Mmm,” she mused. “I have to admit that it doesn’t seem very fair.” Another round to Moreton.
I pressed home my advantage. “And I was ill too. Do you really think I would have eaten the food myself if I had any thoughts that it might contain toxins?”
“How about if you were ill before you cooked it. It may have been that it was you that contaminated everything and not the ingredients.”
“No, I’ve thought of that,” I said. “I wasn’t ill beforehand, and my symptoms were exactly the same as everyone else’s. I was poisoned in the same way by the same thing. I just don’t know what.” I poured myself another cup of coffee and held out the pot to her. She shook her head. “So will you write a piece for your paper that exonerates my restaurant?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she said. “It depends. Will you give me any interesting new angles on the racetrack bomb blast?”
“Maybe,” I echoed. “If you promise to print it all.”
“I can’t promise anything without it going through the editor,” she said, and smiled. “But since he’s my husband, I ought to be able to swing it.”
Damn, I thought, another possible romantic opportunity had just slid past me. I quite liked the feisty Ms. Harding. What a shame she was a Mrs.
Carl and Gary needed to get into the kitchen to start preparing for lunch, so Mrs. Harding and I went back to the bar for the rest of the interview, but not until I had insisted on having my photograph taken in the kitchen with as much gleaming stainless steel in the background as I could manage.
I gave her the new angles on the bombing that she had hoped for without fully recounting the graphic details of the blood and the gore. I told her a little about MaryLou, and how horrible it was to have discovered afterwards that she had died. I tried to describe the frustration of not knowing how to cope with the situation without actually admitting to having been a sobbing, shaking wreck.
Finally, she looked at her watch, closed her notebook and said she had to dash, since she had things to finish before the newspaper went to press.
“This will not make it into today’s,” she said. “Look for it tomorrow.”
“Fine,” I said. We shook hands, this time without even the slightest hesitation on her part. “Have you ever been here to eat?” I asked her.
“No, never.”
“Then come as my guest. Bring your husband. Anytime you like.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling, “I’d love to.”
Moreton wins by a knockout.
7
A ngela Milne called first thing on Thursday morning, and I could tell at once that she was more than slightly irritated at having received my message. She told me in no uncertain terms that the testing at the hospital was not wrong or mistaken, and that I should look at myself carefully in the mirror and ask who is fooling who here.
“You served kidney beans that hadn’t been properly cooked,” she said. “Why don’t you just admit it?”
Was I going mad? I knew there were no kidney beans in that dinner. Or did I? What I was absolutely sure of was that I hadn’t put any kidney beans in it myself, cooked or otherwise. Could I be so sure that no one else had? But surely, I thought, I would have seen them. Red kidney beans are pretty obvious, as anyone who has eaten chili con carne can testify. Perhaps they had been chopped up and added by someone. But why? And by whom?
There had been plenty of us in the kitchen tent that night, not just my usual team. There had been at least five or six temporary assistants plating the meals, and all the waitstaff had had access as well. Most of these had been from a catering agency, but some were friends of my crew, and one or two had been late recruits from the racetrack caterers when others had dropped out. Did someone purposely poison the dinner due to some catering war? Was it jealousy? Surely not. It just didn’t make sense. But I was increasingly steadfast in the knowledge that since I hadn’t put the beans in that dinner, someone else must have.
It might be difficult, however, to convince anyone else that I was right. They, like Angela Milne, would simply believe that I had made a basic culinary mistake and was not prepared to admit it.
Wednesday evening had been depressing, with the dining room far less than a quarter full, although one couple who did come had also been at the racetrack event the previous Friday and they had both been ill afterwards.
“Just one of those things,” the wife had said. “I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.” I wished all my customers were like them. I had asked them what they had eaten, but they couldn’t remember. I had asked them if they were vegetarians. No, they’d assured me, they were not, and they had ordered a steak each to prove the point.
Thursday proved to be slightly more encouraging with the arrival on my desk of the Cambridge Evening News, courtesy of Richard, who went into town to get it. As he said, he had plenty of time on his hands since we had just three tables in the restaurant for lunch, just eight covers in all.
The article in the paper centered mostly around my answers to Ms. Harding’s questions concerning the bombing, which I suppose was fair. It did mention, lower down, that further to the article in Monday’s edition the Hay Net restaurant was now open for business, having been inspected by the local food inspectors and found clear of any contamination. Ms. Harding also had written that she herself had visited the kitchen of the Hay Net and had been impressed by the standard of hygiene. Good girl. The picture of me with all that gleaming stainless steel had been included next to the article, and I suppose I should be happy even if it was on page seven rather than on the front page as I would have liked.
I thought it would be too soon for the paper to have had any real effect, but Thursday night showed a little improvement, with the numbers up into the mid-thirties. This was far below our usual Thursday-night complement, and still not enough to cover our costs, but, nevertheless, the place felt better, with a slightly livelier atmosphere in the dining room. Perhaps things were looking up. We were going to be closed all day on Friday, for Louisa’s funeral, so maybe Saturday evening would tell.
FRIDAY WAS A busy day for funerals in and around Newmarket, at least for people I knew.
Elizabeth Jennings was first up at Our Lady and St. Etheldreda Catholic Church on Exeter Road, near the town center, a modern building constructed in the 1970s but in a traditional style, with rows of Norman arches and columns set either side of the nave and a rose window high above the west door. It was a big church, designed for a town where many of the residents, or their parents, came from Ireland, that most Catholic of countries. Needless to say, for the funeral of the wife of one of the country’s most successful and popular trainers the building was packed, standing room only.
I squeezed in to the end of an already-crowded pew. If we had realized that the service would last for well over an hour, with a full Eucharist, I might have found somewhere more comfortable, and my neighbor may not have been so keen to move up to accommodate me.
Bravely, Neil Jennings delivered the eulogy for his wife, and he reduced most of us to tears. He himself managed to hold everything together and get through it with a firm voice, but he looked much older and more vulnerable than his sixty years warranted. He and Elizabeth had never had any children, and I wondered if that was because they were unable to. Consequently, they had always conferred on their horses the love that others might have showered on their offspring. Now, with the untimely and violent passing of his partner, I worried that Neil might go into decline, both personally and in his business.