CAROLINE AND I were packed up and away by nine-thirty. She hadn’t been too happy when I had woken her from a deep sleep, but she hadn’t protested much either.
“Where are we going?” she asked as we drove out of the gate.
“Where do you suggest?” I said.
“Somewhere with a nice soft bed.” She yawned, leaned back in the passenger’s seat and closed her eyes.
I thought about my mother’s cottage down the road. I didn’t have a key, but I knew, as I expect everyone else in East Hendred knew, that she always kept a spare under the third geranium-filled flowerpot to the left of the back door. I decided against it. If, before I went to Chicago, I had believed that it was too risky for my mother to stay there, then surely it was too dangerous for me and Caroline now.
I drove aimlessly for a while along roads I knew so well from my childhood. Maybe my conscious mind thought my driving was aimless, but subconsciously my brain took the Mondeo unerringly the twelve miles from East Hendred to the establishment overlooking the river Thames that had once been owned by my mother’s distant widowed cousin and where my passion for cooking food had been first awakened.
The place had changed during the six years since I had left. It was no longer the elegant sixteenth-century inn with restaurant that I remembered. There was a new, twenty-first-century glass extension reaching down towards the river, over what had been a well-tended lawn when I last saw it. A long brass-fronted bar had been built down one side of the old dining room, and the only food now offered was what my mother’s distant widowed cousin had always referred to with distaste as “bar snacks.”
Caroline, Viola and I sat down at an outside table with benches, set up on what once also had been part of the lawn but was now a concrete patio. Viola could not be left in the car, Caroline explained, as she was too valuable. Quite apart from the fact, Caroline added, she felt lost without her close by, to pat. At least Viola was out of sight, in her case.
It was too early for what my father had always called a proper drink, so Caroline and I had cups of coffee, while Viola just sat there. I didn’t recognize either the barman who took the order or the waitress who delivered it. I suspected that none of the happy team from six years ago would remain. But what hadn’t changed was the restful view of the ancient six-arched stone bridge that spanned the river, the endless sounds of gurgling water and the seeming calmness of a mother duck gliding along in the sunshine followed by a line of six tiny, fluffy chicks.
“What a beautiful place,” said Caroline. “Have you been here before?”
“This is where I learned to cook,” I said.
“Really.” She was surprised. She had looked at the menu while I had ordered the coffee.
“It’s changed a lot,” I said. “Where the bar is now is what used to be the restaurant. I’m rather sad to see that it’s all gone a bit down-market. The place was taken over by a chain that was obviously more interested in selling beer than in fine dining.”
“So why did we come here now?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose I wanted somewhere peaceful to think, and to plan.”
“So what is the plan?” she asked eagerly.
“I don’t know that either,” I replied. “But first, I’m going to make a few calls.”
I turned on my cell phone and used it to call the car-rental company in Newmarket. No problem, they said, keep the Mondeo as long as you like. They took my credit card details and told me that I would be charged weekly. Fine, I said, and hung up.
The phone immediately rang in my hand. It was my voice-message service.
“You have six new messages,” it told me, and then played them. One was from Clare Harding, the news editor, belatedly thanking me for dinner, and the other five were all from Carl. He needed to speak with me, his disembodied voice repeatedly told me. Over the five successive messages, he became more and more agitated that I hadn’t been in touch.
I rang him. He was relieved and delighted that I called, but I was hardly delighted with what he told me. “I need you back here,” he said urgently. “And now.” Things had clearly gone downhill quickly since we spoke on Saturday.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, concerned. It was not like Carl to be in a panic.
“I’ve had to fire Oscar,” he said. “Gary caught him in the office going through the papers on your desk, and some of the petty cash was missing too. Oscar denied it. But, then, he would, wouldn’t he? But that’s only the half of it. He was disruptive in the kitchen with Gary all last week. Then the two of them had a stand-up row on Saturday. I thought Oscar was going to stick Gary with a fish filleter at one point.” A fish filleter was a very sharp, very thin, eight-inch-bladed kitchen knife. Sticking anyone with a fish filleter was likely to prove very terminal, very quickly. I was very glad that Oscar had gone.
“But surely you and Gary can cope without him for a few days?” I said.
“We could if Gary was here,” he exclaimed. “He’s now got bloody chicken pox, and the doctor’s told him to stay at home for the next ten bloody days.”
“Can’t you get another chef from the agency?” I asked him.
“I’ve tried that,” he said. “They’ve got their back up over Oscar. They say we didn’t treat him right. I tell you, he was nothing but a bloody menace.”
“Apart from all that,” I said to him, “is everything else all right?”
“No, not really,” he replied. I wished I hadn’t asked. “Jean wants to know when we are going to replace Louisa. She claims she is being worked too hard in the dining room. I told her to shut up or get out, and now she has her back up too.”
I wasn’t surprised. Staff management had never been Carl’s strong point.
“OK,” I said. “Is everything else fine?”
“No it’s not,” he said. “Jacek says he wants more money. He says that the other kitchen porter gets more money than him and it’s not fair.” Jacek’s English must be getting better, I thought. “I also told him to shut up or get out,” Carl continued. “He’s still here today, so I presume he’s shut up. But when are you coming back?” Soon. I feared that if I didn’t get back there quickly, the whole business would be destroyed.
“I’ll call you again later to let you know,” I said.
“Please come back,” he was pleading. “I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this.” He sounded almost manic.
“I said I’ll call you,” I replied, and hung up.
“Problems?” asked Caroline, who had only been able to hear my end of the conversation.
“The ship is foundering on the rocks without the captain,” I said. “One of the chefs has been fired for threatening another with a knife, and now the threatened one has caught chicken pox. Carl, my number two, is basically on his own.” Julie, who prepared the cold dishes, wouldn’t be much use in the heat of the kitchen.
“Can he cope on his own?” she asked.
“Not really,” I said. “Not if the restaurant is more than half full.”
“And is it?” said Caroline.
“I didn’t ask,” I said. “But I hope so. And if it’s not tonight, it certainly will be towards the end of the week. But that’s not all. Carl has upset some of the other staff, and I can imagine the undercurrents running through the place. They will all be waiting for me to get back before the volcano explodes, and the longer I’m away, the worse will be the eruption when it finally happens.”
“Then you must go back there now,” said Caroline.
“I couldn’t be much help one-handed,” I said, holding up the cast.
“Even a one-handed Max Moreton would be better than most,” she said.
I smiled at her. “But is it safe?” I said. “Or is it precisely what someone wants?”
“Who?” she asked. “Komarov?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or Carl.”