The Food Detective (24 page)

The other tenth was less laudable. I wanted to see if she’d give anything away about her activities in Tregothnan’s house. The more I ran the picture over in my mind, the more I was convinced she was carrying something. If she’d had the keys to the surgery – perhaps they’d been in the bureau, even – she’d had time to let herself in and retrieve whatever it was while I was checking his mail. And then she’d hidden – whatever – under her coat and scuttled out. Did that mean it was she who’d planted his accounts in my shed? She might simply have wanted them to be found, not intending to incriminate me at all.

In the end I was hoist by my own alcohol. She drank it as if it were water and then simply fell asleep.

‘Well,’ Nick asked quietly, as her head sank on to her arms, ‘this is going to take two of you. All right, two of us. Which car do you reckon, Josie? Hers and walk back, or mine and make her walk the walk tomorrow?’

‘Whichever it’d be easiest to get her into and out of,’ I sighed. ‘Trouble is, neither of us is exactly legal.’

‘OK,’ he sighed, ‘we’d better get enough coffee into her to wake her up and Robin and I can walk her home.’

‘Why me? Can’t you manage on your own?’

‘I could but I’d rather not. Use your imagination, man!’ Nick added roughly.

I’d just given everything a final wipe down when they returned, in mid-argument by the sound of things. But it turned out only to be about football. The three of us stood awkwardly in the kitchen, all of us ready for sleep but all of us edgy. The way Robin looked from Nick to me, he’d obviously deduced that the reason Nick hadn’t wanted to be on his own with a drunken Sue was that he was afraid she’d jump him. OK, in her present state, crawl him. And perhaps he didn’t want to be jumped by Sue because he wanted to jump me. As for me, both Piers and Morgan were great in the sack, and had either turned up offering what he did best, I’d still have wanted nothing more than a solitary duvet. So I yawned, very ostentatiously, looked at my watch and produced a genuine gasp. Tomorrow would, as always, be another day – but it had arrived already. And after a day as long as mine, any woman my age was entitled to be knackered.

Not that I’d ever admit to age or to being knackered. Ever. So I blew kisses impartially to both men and ran as lightly as I could up the stairs.

It was only after locking my door firmly that I collapsed
ignominiously
on the bed. And even then I had the bathos of having to lever myself up and take off the slap.

Chapter Twenty-Five

My internal clock still hadn’t settled back into Greenwich Mean Time. So when my bruises and aches and pains nagged me awake, despite the painkillers, I stayed that way. The stretches were no more fun than I expected, but the results might have been a bit better. The shower definitely helped. OK. Face the day time. I told myself, forcing my walking pace into brisk mode and
persuading
my face into less of a grimace, more of a cheery grin, I’d be first in the queue for the shop.

Not today I wouldn’t. Not by a long chalk. There was quite a knot of people half way along the street, and a babble of talk
rising
from them. Jeering? That was definitely jeering.

Well, if I could walk briskly, I could run. And run I did as soon as I got a hint of what was going on.

Almost before I knew it I was jostling and pushing through the other onlookers. And stripping off my coat and wrapping it round Lindi. Lindi, tied to one of the few lampposts with which the village was blessed, stripped to her undies and tarred and feathered. She was absolutely silent.

I don’t know exactly what I yelled, but I yelled loud and long and pretty potently. By the time I’d finished, everyone had slunk away, all except one of Lucy’s younger brothers, who shyly and awkwardly produced a knife. He was right: it was quicker to slice through the binder twine than to wrestle with knots. Then he legged it.

No, not cowardice – he’d got even more sense than I’d realised. Within seconds, before I could even start mopping Lindi clean, Lucy was running up with a sheet, which she wrapped round the still silent girl. ‘Leave this to me. Get back home. Make sure that bloody Robin doesn’t come poking his nose in.’

‘But the tar –’

‘Treacle. Just push off, Mrs W. Please.’

For once in my life I didn’t argue, except a token bleat about school.

‘Half term, isn’t it? Please, Mrs W! If you go now, I’ll phone you. OK?’ She passed me my coat.

As I turned, aching with reluctance, she added, ‘And don’t you go calling the police either!’

‘So do I have to obey?’ I asked Nick, having decided not to wake the still sleeping Robin.

‘Have you told the police everything about the abattoir and the rending plant?’

I shook my head, pushing away my coffee cup. ‘Didn’t want, to be honest, to dob you in. That’s the modern term, isn’t it?’

‘How about the usual one, grassing up? Thanks. But it’s widened our credibility gap.’

Our?
‘Evans and Co already know about my Great Beef Battle – I thought a few questions from them might stem the flow of offal. They seem just to have changed to the direction – poor, poor Lindi.’

‘Sleeping with the enemy – never really approved of.’

‘So why’s Lucy got away with it?’

He looked at me steadily. ‘I should imagine Gay – God, what a name for the poor bugger! – knows which side his bread is
buttered
. You more or less feed his family, don’t you? And no, Lucy didn’t say anything about it. It was her efforts not to that put me on to it. But how long his buddies will let him get away with allowing her to continue, goodness knows.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s time I headed into work. I want to get the water people on to that stream diversion.’

‘And its interesting colour.’

‘Quite. And I think it’s time I paid a visit to the rending plant.’

I shook my head emphatically. ‘Not without back up, you don’t. Get one of your FSA buddies to go with you. That should put the fear of God into them.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he replied, in that pseudo-ruminative way men have when they have no intention of taking sensible advice. He stood up. ‘Time I was off.’

A glance passed between us. On my side it said, ‘Look after yourself and don’t take unnecessary risks.’ I wasn’t sure about his.

A morning wielding a duster and vac., ears cocked for the phone,
lay ahead of me. If Lucy had said she’d phone me, she’d phone me. And I rather thought Sue owed me a call, too. When she didn’t phone, I tried her number, only to have to leave a message asking for an urgent response.

Nothing. Nothing till I broke for a cup of coffee at eleven. And then it was Nick, saying he’d put the fear of God into the water company, and, just to celebrate, contacted the county council about blocked footpaths.

‘I told them that walking about in the open country was an integral part of my job,’ he said.

‘Good for you. What next?’

There was the tiniest pause while he worked out his lie. Or maybe not. ‘Sorry. One of my colleagues from down the corridor returning my kettle. Any news of Lindi?’

‘I thought you might be Lucy. Nothing from Sue, either. I’m so worked up I’ve taken to housework,’ I added plaintively. But I wasn’t so full of self-pity I hadn’t noticed how he’d changed the subject. Nick was up to something, wasn’t he?

‘Mrs W?’ A tousle-headed Robin put his head round the door.

I gestured to the phone. He nodded and disappeared again, presumably to get dressed.

He was an even better diversionary tactic than anything Nick could have thought up. In a low voice, I asked Nick’s advice.

‘You’ll have to tell him if he asks. But I wouldn’t volunteer anything,’ he responded, putting down the phone.

No, he wouldn’t, would he?

The best way to say nothing would be to be out. I had after all my morning paper to collect.

‘If you want my advice,’ Molly whispered, her eyes darting back and forth though the shop was completely empty, ‘you’ll cut your losses and clear out now. You’ve got planning permission and all. And with the renovations you’ve already done, you should get a really good price.’

‘What if I don’t want to go away?’

‘What if this Lindi business won’t go away? That’s what you have to ask yourself. A matter of principle’s one thing, Mrs W. A matter of life and death’s another.’

‘All I did was change my meat supplier!’ I whispered. ‘Local vegetables, local meat, local staff – that was what I wanted. And paperwork to go with it. That’s what caused all this!’

She shook her head. ‘You brought in outsiders to do your building work – bad mistake. It’s been downhill from there, I’m afraid.’

I felt as if the floor was rocking. It was one thing hearing this from Lucy, another having it confirmed. ‘I tried to get local builders – God knows I’ve done my best in everything, Molly.’

‘I’m sure you have. Well, it was a struggle for us. But at least Jem’s got relatives from round here. You take my advice, Josie – you cut your losses and go.’

I could hardly hold the newspaper she handed over.

‘Don’t you realise, you think you’ve tried to fit in, but others see it as shoving in where you’re not wanted. The church – it takes years to get on the flower rota, and you’re decorating the altar before you’ve been here five minutes. You might have thought you were being a good Samaritan offering Tom Dearborn accommodation: others see it as coming between father and daughter.’

‘If the father’s got the sort of relationship with his daughter that rumour says, then it ought to be Social Services and the Law coming between father and daughter!’ Despite myself my voice rose.

In response, Molly’s dropped to a sharp whisper. ‘There you go again! People here don’t see it like that.’

‘What’s happened to her? And to Tom?’

‘Well, that’s seen as your doing. Done a bolt. Goodness knows where. And neither of them with a feather to fly with. Her dad’s off his head with worry.’

‘Well, you can tell him that certainly wasn’t my idea. My way they’d both have had a roof over their head, he’d have had a steady job and she’d have had her family – such as it is – and friends at hand.’

‘No good getting on your high horse with me, Josie – I’m just the messenger. And look at the mess young Lindi’s in.’

‘Literally. Who’s responsible for that – that outrage?’

‘Shhh.’

‘They’re doing to her what they’d like to do to me – right? Only I’m not sleeping with the enemy, I am the enemy. But they can’t be allowed to get away with such violence. Can’t be!’

‘And you’re going to play your usual trick and bring in the police to sort them out? Not if you take my advice, Josie. Just leave well alone. And get the “For Sale” notice up by the end of the week. There. I can’t put it plainer than that, can I? You’re a decent woman, men friends apart, of course, they’ll come to realise that. But you’re not one of
them
. Here,’ she added roughly, as the shop bell pinged, ‘don’t forget what you came for. And I’ll put it in my ledger. No more papers from Saturday, then.’

I was on my knees by the drain, hoping there was nothing left to vomit, when I heard a man’s voice. ‘Not much of an advert for your own cooking, eh?’

By the time I’d scrabbled up, there was no one there. Well, I couldn’t see anyone. But I’d have bet a lifetime’s takings they’d see the mascara running down my cheeks and it’d be all round the village before lunchtime.

I thought about one of my Romany curses – but once I’d cursed Nick, and look how he’d ended up. I buttoned my lip.

The lunch trade was brisker than on your usual Monday, not just with walkers but also with quite a smattering of locals. These were almost certainly the men who’d tormented Lindi. So
nine-tenths
of me wanted to tip their tipples over their heads. The other tenth was still the little girl in the playground, betraying by not so much as a sniffle that she’d been tormented. I’m afraid pride won.

‘Just get in there and do what you’re paid to do,’ I told Robin fiercely. ‘And if I hear you asking after Lindi, I shall fire you on the spot. Publicly. Get it? We’ll sort it out, don’t you worry. But we’ll do it my way.’ Which just happened, today, to include a
laxative
in the cider of certain selected boozers.

They didn’t include Lucy Gay’s father, I noticed. Funny, the only thing that separated him from his booze was work, and there wasn’t much of that going begging at this time of year. Perhaps
he was still locked in argument with Lucy, who still hadn’t phoned, any more than Sue had.

Despite my bright professional smiles and slick service, I was still screaming in my head. Whether it was hurt or fury, I didn’t know. But as soon as I could decently hang up the Closed sign, I reached for the phone. Nick. If I was
persona non grata
, he must be positively at risk. And I had a nasty suspicion he was intending to put his head in the lion’s mouth by heading out to the rendering plant with no protection. When I got no response from his office phone, my suspicions grew stronger. And all I got from his mobile was the sound of traffic and then white noise as he left range.

Grabbing my own mobile, my camera and even my walking stick, I yelled to Robin to stay put and answer any calls, either to the bar or to my private number. Without waiting for him to argue I was into the hire car, not without checking first it was still in once piece. Even as the adrenaline spurted and the blood pounded, I shivered as if someone was zipping a shroud over my head.

My response was as prosaic as they come. I pulled over to the phone box, still a village lifeline. Popping a tissue over the voice piece, I dialled 999.

‘There’s trouble out at Wetherall Enterprises,’ I said, my voice as guttural as I could make it. ‘Big trouble. And if you don’t believe me, talk to DCI Mike Evans. He’ll know what it’s about.’

He wouldn’t, of course, but he was bright enough to be interested.

At least I hoped he would. This cold dark shroud told me some one had to be.