“Yes,” said Roz, remembering, “Alice always measured love with her hands. I’d forgotten.”
She tried to take the photograph away, but he moved it out of her reach and tilted it to the light.
“There’s a very determined glint in her eyes.”
“She liked her own way.”
“Sensible woman. Did she always get it?”
“Most times. She had very decided views. I remember once…” But she fell silent and didn’t go on.
Hal shrugged into his shirt and started to button it.
“Like mother, like daughter. I bet she had you wound round her little finger before she could walk. I’d have enjoyed seeing someone get the better of you.”
Roz held a handkerchief to her streaming eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“Being embarrassing.”
He pulled her against his shoulder and rested his cheek against her hair. What a terrible indictment of Western society it was, that a mother should be afraid to shed tears for her dead daughter in case she embarrassed someone.
“Thank you.” She saw the question in his eyes.
“For listening,” she explained.
“It was no hardship, Roz.” He could sense how insecure she was.
“Are you going to agonise over this all night and wake up tomorrow morning wishing you hadn’t told me about Alice?”
He was far too perceptive. She looked away.
“I hate feeling vulnerable.”
“Yes.” He understood that.
“Come here.” He patted his lap.
“Let me tell you about my vulnerabiities. You’ve been trying to prise them out of me for weeks. Now it’s your turn to have a good laugh at my expense.”
“I won’t laugh.”
“Ah!” he murmured.
“So that’s what this is all about. You’re a cut above me. I’ll laugh at yours, but you won’t laugh at mine.
She put her arms about him.
“You’re so like Olive.”
“I wish you’d stop comparing me with the madwoman of Dawlington.”
“It’s a compliment. She’s a very nice person. Like you.”
“I’m not nice, Roz.” He held her face between his hands.
“I’m being prosecuted under the Health and Hygiene regulations.
The Environmental Health Inspector’s report describes my kitchen as the worst he’s ever seen. Ninety-five per cent of the raw meat in the fridge was so rotten it was crawling with maggots. The dry foods should have been in sealed containers, but weren’t, and rat droppings were found in all of them. There were open bags of rubbish in the larder. The vegetables had deteriorated so far they had to be discarded, and a live rat was discovered under the cooker.” He arched a weary eyebrow.
“I’ve lost all my customers because of it, my case comes up in six weeks, and I haven’t a leg to stand on.”
SEVENTEEN
Roz didn’t speak for some moments. She had invented a number of scenarios to account for what was happen at the Poacher, but never this. It would certainly explain his lack of customers. Who, in their right mind, would eat in a restaurant where the meat had been found crawling with maggots? She had.
Twice. But she hadn’t known about the maggots. It would have been more honest of Hal to tell her at the outset, she thought, her stomach protesting mildly over what might have gone into it. She felt his gaze upon her and quelled the treacherous stirrings firmly.
“I don’t understand,” she said carefully.
“Is this a genuine prosecution? I mean, you appear to have been tried and judged already. How did your customers know what the Inspector found if the case hasn’t been to court? And who are the men in ski-masks?” She gave a puzzled frown.
“I can’t believe you’d be such a bloody fool, anyway, as to flout the hygiene regulations. Not to the extent of having an entire fridgeful of rotten meat and live rats running around the floor.” She laughed suddenly with relief and smacked a slender palm against his chest.
“You creep, Hawksley! It’s a load of old flannel.
You’re trying to wind me up.”
He shook his head.
“I wish I were.”
She studied him thoughtfully for a moment then pushed herself off his lap and walked through to the kitchen. He heard the sound of a cork being drawn from a bottle and the clink of glasses. She took longer than she should have, and he recalled how his wife had always done the same thing disappeared into the kitchen whenever she was hurt or disappointed. He had thought Roz different.
She reappeared finally with a tray.
“OK,” she said firmly, “I’ve had a think.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I do not believe you’d keep a dirty kitchen,” she told him.
“You’re too much of an enthusiast. The Poacher is the fulfilment of a dream, not a financial investment to be milked for all its worth.” She poured him a glass of wine.
“And you accused me a week ago of setting you up again, which would imply you’d been set up before.” She filled the second glass for herself.
“Ergo, the rat and the rotten meat were planted. Am I right?”
“Right.” He sniffed the wine.
“But I would say that, wouldn’t I?”
A very sore nerve, she thought. No wonder he didn’t trust anyone. She perched on the edge of the sofa.
“Plus,” she went on, ignoring the comment, ‘you’ve been beaten up twice to my knowledge, had your car windows smashed and the Poacher broken into.” She sipped her wine.
“So what do they want from you?”
He eased the still-bruised muscles in his back.
“Presumably they want me out, and fast. But I haven’t a clue why or who’s behind it. Six weeks ago I was a contented chef, presiding over a healthy little business without a care in the world. Then I came home from the markets at ten o’clock one morning to find my assistant being berated by the Environmental Health Inspector, my kitchen stinking to high heaven of corruption, and me on the wrong end of a prosecution.” He ruffled his hair.
“The restaurant was closed for three days while I cleaned it. My staff never came back after the closure. My customers, predominantly policemen and their families which, incidentally, is how the news of the Inspector’s visit got out deserted in droves because they reckoned I’d been cutting corners to line my pockets, and the local restauranteurs are accusing me of giving the whole trade a bad name through my lack of professionalism. I’ve been effectively isolated.”
Roz shook her head.
“Why on earth didn’t you report that breakin last Tuesday?”
He sighed.
“What good would it have done me? I couldn’t tie it in to the Health Inspector’s visit. I decided to work with some live bait instead.” He saw her bewilderment.
“I caught two of them at it, wrecking the place. I think it was a chance thing.
They discovered the restaurant was empty and took their opportunity.”
He laughed suddenly.
“I was so angry with you that I had them both upstairs, gagged and handcuffed to my window bars, before they even knew what had hit them.
But they were a tough pair,” he said with genuine admiration.
“They weren’t going to talk.” He shrugged.
“So I sat it out and waited for someone to come looking for them.”
No wonder he had been frightened.
“Why did you decide it was chance that brought them and not me?” she asked curiously.
“I’d have thought it was me every time.”
The laughter lines rayed out around his eyes.
“You didn’t see yourself with that table leg. You were so terrified when the kitchen door opened, so relieved when you saw it was me, and so twitched when I told you I hadn’t called the police. No one, but no one, is that good.” He took a mouthful of wine and savoured it for a moment.