“I’ll e-mail the agency’s phone number and you can ask them directly,” she said. “Why do you need to know the names of my staff?”
How much should I tell her? She had been quick to hang me out to dry when the letter from Caroline Aston had first appeared on her desk. Would she now simply think I was looking for a scapegoat?
“I have reason to believe that something may have been put into the dinner that shouldn’t have been there,” I said, “and I am trying to determine the names of everyone who was there and had access to the food so I can find out who was responsible.”
There was a long pause at the other end of the line.
“Are you saying that you think my staff are to blame for making people ill?” Suzanne said rather frostily.
“No,” I replied hastily. “I’m not saying that, and I don’t think it. Your staff were all last-minute replacements, so it is impossible for them to be the ones.” I thought it most unlikely that anyone could buy and prepare a large number of kidney beans on such short notice. “I would just like their names so that I can eliminate them from my inquiry.” I was beginning to sound like a policeman.
“I will look it up,” she said. “But I will have to ask them first if they are happy for you to have their names.”
“That’s fine by me,” I said.
“Do you really think that the food was poisoned on purpose?”
“Suzanne,” I said, “I know it sounds crazy, but I have absolutely no other explanation. Hospital tests have shown beyond doubt that there was stuff in that dinner that I didn’t put in there, so what am I to think?”
“What stuff?” she asked.
“I’d rather not say,” I said. I don’t know why I thought it might be useful to keep some of the facts secret. Perhaps I had hopes of catching out the culprit by him saying “kidney beans” when I hadn’t mentioned it. I was sure that I had once read a detective novel when that sort of thing had happened and the policeman had instantly solved the case.
“All sounds very cloak-and-dagger to me,” she said. “And a bit far-fetched as well, if you ask me. Why would anyone want to poison so many people anyway?”
“I don’t know why,” I said. “Why do so many people have the urge to break things? Perhaps it was just done for kicks. There’s no logic to many things.”
“Are the police looking for whoever did it?” she asked.
“Not that I’m aware of,” I said. “I think the police are preoccupied looking for last Saturday’s bomber.”
“You’re probably right,” she said. “They’re certainly still here at the racetrack, and we nearly had to cancel today’s wedding because of them, but, thankfully, we don’t use the Head On Grandstand. That’s now going to be closed for months. But surely you should inform the police if you have suspicions about the dinner?”
“Maybe I will,” I said, although privately I thought they would believe the same as Angela Milne, that I had simply served undercooked kidney beans and was not prepared to admit it.
“What else do you intend to do?” she asked.
“Probably nothing,” I said. “A bit of food poisoning that didn’t do any permanent harm to anyone is not really important compared to the bombing.” And, I thought, it might be better for my reputation, and for the restaurant, if I were to let the incident slowly fade from people’s memory rather than keep stirring it up.
“Let me know if I can be of any help,” said Suzanne.
“Thanks, I will,” I said. “And don’t forget the guest list and the agency information.”
“On their way to you right now.” I could hear her tapping away on a keyboard. “Gone,” she said. “Should be with you any moment.”
“Brilliant. Thanks.” We hung up, and I turned to my computer.
YOU’VE GOT MAIL, it told me, and, sure enough, with a couple of clicks, the guest list from the gala dinner appeared before my eyes. How did we function before e-mail?
I scanned through the list of names, but I didn’t actually know what I was looking for, or why, so I printed it out and left it lying on my pile of stuff to be dealt with. I logged on to the Internet instead.
I made a search for RPO and soon I was delving into the details of concerts and operas of the Royal Philharmonic. Sure enough, the concert program at the Royal Festival Hall was widely advertised, and, if I wished, I could purchase a ticket with just a couple of clicks of my computer mouse. I noticed that tonight, and for most of the next week, the orchestra was performing the works of Sibelius and Elgar at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Lucky Caroline Aston, I thought. I had been to New York in the springtime the previous year and had loved every moment.
I looked at Ms. Aston’s telephone number on the notepad where I had written it on Wednesday morning when Bernard Sims had called. If she was in New York, she wouldn’t be at home now. Three times I punched her number into my phone without actually pushing the button for the final digit. I wondered if there might be a voice message, so I could hear what she sounded like. The fourth time, I completed the number and let it ring twice before I lost my nerve and hung up. Maybe she didn’t live alone and someone would be there to answer after all.
I played with the phone for a while longer and then called the number again. Someone answered after a single ring.
“Hello,” said a female voice.
Oops, I thought, no recorded voice message. A real live speaking person.
“Is this Caroline Aston?” I asked, confident in the knowledge that she was, in fact, three thousand miles away.
“Yes,” she replied. “Can I help you?”
“Er,” I said, sounding like an idiot, “would you like to buy some double glazing?”
“No thank you,” she said. “Good-bye!” She hung up.
Stupid, I thought, as I sat there with my heart thumping in my chest. Really stupid. I put the phone down and it rang immediately.
“Hello,” I said.
“Would you like to buy some double glazing?”
“Excuse me?” I said.
“See. Why do you think I would want to buy double glazing from someone I don’t know who rings me up out of the blue? You don’t like it and neither do I.”
I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.” It sounded ridiculous even to me.
“Who are you anyway?” she said. “You’re not very good at selling.”
“How did you get my number?” I asked.
“Caller ID,” she said. “I didn’t think you people would have a number that was visible. More important, how did you get my number?”
I could hardly tell her the truth, but whatever else I said now was going to get me into deeper trouble. I decided to retreat gracefully.
“Look, I’m sorry, but I have to go now. Good-bye.” I hung up quickly. My hands were sweating. Really, really stupid!
I went out into the kitchen and found Carl trying to explain rather sarcastically to one of the kitchen porters that it was indeed necessary for him to get all the old food off the frying pans when washing up.
In spite of the name, kitchen porters rarely carry things. They mostly spend their lives up to their elbows in hot water washing up the pots and pans. We had two of them at the Hay Net. At least, that was the plan. But all too often a kitchen porter would be there one minute and gone the next. No explanation, no good-bye, just gone, never to return. The current incumbents of the posts included a man in his fifties whose father had come to England from Poland in 1940 to fight with the RAF against the Nazis. He had unpronounceable Polish names, with lots of ps and zs, but he spoke with a broad Essex accent, and was always “tinking.” “I tink I’ll go hame na,” he’d say. Or, “I tink I’ll ’ave a cap o’ tea.” He’d been with us for nearly a year, much longer than the norm, but he mostly kept himself to himself and communicated rarely with the other staff.
The other porter was called Jacek (pronounced Ya-check), and he was now in his fourth week and seemingly not very good at scrubbing the frying pans. He was more typical of those now sent to us by the local job center, in his mid to late twenties, and from one of the newer member countries of the European Union. He knew very little English, but he did manage to ask for my help sending money every week to his wife and baby daughter, who were still in the homeland. He seemed quite happy with life, always smiling and singing to himself, and he had been a positive influence on kitchen morale over the previous week. Now he stood in front of Carl and bowed his head, as if asking for forgiveness. Jacek nodded a lot, and I wondered how much of Carl’s tirade he was actually understanding. I was certain that he was not appreciating the sarcasm. I felt quite sorry for him, so far from home, in a strange environment and separated from his family.