Chef Maurice and the Bunny-Boiler Bake Off (Chef Maurice Cotswold Mysteries Book 3) (25 page)

“I had to see what she had to say, didn’t I? I wasn’t going to pay her off or anything.”

Karole looked unimpressed.

“If I may continue,” said Chef Maurice, “after Mademoiselle Miranda’s cookery demonstration, Madame Angie goes to the dressing tent and urges her friend to follow her down to Warren’s Creek, where the rare otters of the river have been seen. Mademoiselle Miranda, with no reason to distrust her friend, changes her shoes and follows her.

“At the creek, they stand on the jetty. Madame Angie, perhaps, points to the otters playing in the water, encourages Mademoiselle Miranda to take a photo. And so, with her victim now in distraction, she brings out from her handbag—remember, they are so heavy, these bags!—a short iron pipe, held in a scarf or handkerchief. She is small but strong, Madame Angie. She strikes, hard, and Mademoiselle Miranda falls into the waters. The pipe, it is then thrown into the bushes, so that it may be found by the police.

“Then, at twelve forty-five, while Monsieur Rory comes to the meeting place, Madame Angie is already making her appearance back at the Fayre. Remember,
mon ami
, how she even comes to me and Patrick at the hog roast stand, and says she cannot find Mademoiselle Miranda and Monsieur Rory? Already, she wishes to plant the idea into our heads. And she plants more than just ideas. The tail we found in the bushes, that surely was put there by Madame Angie, not on the day of the Fayre, but when we went later to make a search.”

He paused and scratched his head. “I think that is all.
Voilà
, you have the story. Complete.”

There was a little smattering of applause.

“Amazing,” breathed Karole. “I can’t believe you managed to figure that all out yourself.”

Chef Maurice puffed out his chest, apparently not the only male in the room who could be swayed by the charms of a young, wide-eyed
mademoiselle
.

“But what about that new evidence that turned up?” said Arthur. “The reason they let Rory go. Was that all just part of the ploy to get Angie to confess?”

“
Non
, the evidence, it is real. But perhaps ‘new’ is not the correct word. We had, in fact, already seen it. But we did not see!” He pulled out from one pocket a creased printout from the video of Angie pinning the new bunny tail onto Mayor Gifford’s costume. “These new cameras, they are most powerful today. Mademoiselle Lucy and I watched the video again, but this time with more care. And then we saw!” He pointed at something glinting in Angie’s hand. “Before Madame Angie makes the attachment of the new tail, she brings out the little scissors to cut the first tail off!”

Arthur remembered the little boy in the video.
Look, Mummy! She’s stealing his bunny tail!

“From the mouth of babes,” he groaned.

“So Rory never actually lost his tail?” said Karole. “But I thought—”

“Ah, but when Madame Angie came to you and told you of the lost tail, she made sure that you were busy inside the face-paint tent and would not be able to see for yourself. And to her husband, she tells him she has a new tail to pin to him, and of course he believes her. Why should he not? Husbands, they let their wives brush the dust from their shoulders, the food from their beards. They do not stop to check in the mirror each of these statements.”

“But what I still don’t get,” said Gaby, “is if she wanted revenge on him so badly, why didn’t she just club
him
over the head instead?” She waved a hand at Mayor Gifford, who looked affronted at the suggestion.

“Ah, but that would not have been correct to her personality. Madame Angie, she told us herself, could never be a chef, because she wished to always see the results of her work. So for her, the best punishment for Monsieur Rory was a fate that he would have to live with. To be named a cheat and murderer for all to see.”

“Revenge is a dish best served cold, eh?” said Arthur.

“
Oui.
But one, I think, that should be left from the menu altogether. It does not, in my mind, leave a very good taste at all.”

The thick padded envelope thumped down on the doormat.

Patrick looked up from his list of pros and cons. He’d spent the afternoon adding to the columns, in an attempt to drown out his thoughts about PC Lucy.

I’m sure it won’t be a very hard decision, she’d said.

But had it been said with a tinge of sadness—or relief?

He’d be damned if he was going to move to the Lake District just to save his girlfriend the trouble of dumping him outright.

So he sat at the kitchen table of his little flat, carefully penning down new pros and cons, with the help of the Internet and an old copy of
The Intrepid Traveller’s Guide to the North of England
.

Thump.

He stopped, halfway through the latest con on his list—‘The Lake District is home to two native British carnivorous plants’—and went to investigate this oddly timed arrival. It was getting dark outside, and far past the postman’s usual hour.

He sliced open the packet, half-expecting to find some newfangled kitchen gadget, courtesy of a certain French chef. Instead, he found himself staring at a small handheld voice recorder.

Press play
, instructed the message taped to the back.

So he did.

One minute later, the pros and cons list neatly filed in the recycling bin, Patrick was out of his front door and running down the lane, a huge grin on his face.

He had finally made his decision.

The little group of visitors had long since departed, and Chef Maurice and Arthur were sat at the bar, a celebratory bottle of vintage Port between them.

The front door banged open.

“You followed me around taping me?!” yelled PC Lucy, striding in waving a little black voice recorder. She was followed by Patrick, who was attempting to mirror his girlfriend’s ire, and failing miserably.

“
Pardon?
” said Chef Maurice.

“Nothing to do with me,” said Arthur.

Alf, who had been edging his way back to the kitchens, froze as four pairs of eyes zoned in on his back.

“It was all chef’s idea,” he mumbled, then made a dash for it.

PC Lucy turned her stare back to Chef Maurice, who was spreading a pungent lump of blue-veined roquefort onto a cracker.

“I thought it would be a good experiment to take a leaf from Mademoiselle Miranda’s library,” said the chef, unabashed.

“It was a private conversation! You had no right to send Alf tailing me around like that!”

“Ah, but it worked,
non
?” said Chef Maurice, with a glance at his sous-chef, who was grinning ear-to-ear.

“Looks like you’ll be putting up with me a little while longer, chef,” said Patrick, putting his arm around PC Lucy’s shoulder. “And we’ve got news. We’re moving in together.”

“Congratulations,” said Arthur.

“Ah, so you now decide to stay?” said Chef Maurice, with all the visible interest of one who has just been told the weather forecast in Sydney.

“With just a few conditions.”

“Conditions?” Chef Maurice turned to Arthur. “Do you see what happens,
mon ami
? First, he threatens me to leave. And now, he holds me at ransom!”

“Well, let’s at least hear these terms,” said Arthur.

“First of all, I want to design at least three dishes on each new menu.
Not
including the vegetable side dishes,” he added, as Chef Maurice opened his mouth.

“Humph. Very well. As long as we have no complaints from our customers.”

“And secondly, we’re reordering the ThermoMash.” There was the sound of crashing pans in the kitchen. “We won’t need it all of the time, of course, but it’ll come in useful during busy shifts.”

Chef Maurice appeared to consider this. “Of course, I will have to make a study of our accounts . . .”

“No problem,” said Patrick, who had been budgeting for the last two years for such a purchase. “And last of all”—he gave a sideways look at his girlfriend—“you have to stop, and I’m just quoting here, understand, ‘sticking your nose into police business’.”

“Bah!” Chef Maurice waved a finger at PC Lucy. “I solve another case of murder, and see what thank you I receive?
Non
, that request, I refuse!”

Patrick gave PC Lucy a shrug.

“What do you think your mum’s going to say about all this?” said Arthur.

“I already rang her up. She said she’d been expecting me to turn down the job, so she already had Jerome Archer—you know, head chef over at The Headley Arms in Warwickshire—lined up, just in case. I think she’s secretly pleased. About us, I mean,” Patrick added, squeezing PC Lucy’s shoulder again. “Said I had my priorities straight.”

“Pffft,” muttered Chef Maurice.

“She also said to say hi to you, chef, and said it was high time we found you a ‘nice lady to settle down with’.”

There was a scrape of wood against stone as Chef Maurice almost fell off his stool. “Me? Never! If we learn one thing this week, it is that
les femmes
, they are much too dangerous!”

He stomped off to the kitchens, closely followed by PC Lucy, intent on a raid for more hidden recording equipment.

Patrick pulled himself up onto the stool next to Arthur.

“I’m thinking of taking Lucy away for a long weekend sometime soon,” he said, with a quick glance towards the kitchen doorway. “Any ideas on where we should go?”

Arthur rubbed his chin. He’d been having thoughts in a similar vein, especially in light of recent events in the Gifford household. Wives, he decided, were definitely at their best when thoroughly appreciated.

“Well,” he said, glancing up at the faded black-and-white photo over the bar, which showed the winding cobble streets of Montmartre at dusk, “Paris is always a good idea . . .”

J.A. Lang is a British mystery author. She lives in Oxford, England, with her husband, an excessive number of cookbooks, and a sourdough starter named Bob.

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Also by the author

Chef Maurice and a Spot of Truffle (Book 1)

Chef Maurice and the Wrath of Grapes (Book 2)

Copyright © J.A. Lang 2015

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Published by Purple Panda Press

ISBN 978-1-910679-09-8