Death of a Mystery Guest E-Book

Alex Coombs

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: An Old Forge Café Mystery
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 358

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Readers love the Old Forge Café mysteries! 'Another excellent addition to this superb series' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Real reader review Charlie Hunter does not like Christmas, especially the lead into it -- cooking endless servings of Christmas dinner. So when she is asked by Graeme Strickland, Michelin-starred chef, egomaniac and friend, to help out in a hotel restaurant in Edinburgh's New Town, for a fortnight, she accepts with alacrity. The Head Chef, David Jenkins, is a very old friend of Strickland's, and the job entails covering temporarily for a sous chef position, while Strickland provides cover for Charlie, gratis, in the Old Forge Café. She is scheduled to be there for a fortnight. But Charlie arrives in Edinburgh just in time to discover David Jenkins being stretchered out. An autopsy reveals the Chef has been poisoned with mushrooms. Was it an accident or a murder attempt? It looks like Charlie may be doing a rather different job…

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DEATH OF A MYSTERY GUEST

Alex Coombs

For Chef Kevin Hay, thanks for the cookery lessons

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Also by Alex Coombs

About the Author

Also in the Old Forge Café Mystery Series

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Moray Place, in Edinburgh’s New Town, is large and circular in shape, fed by four cobbled roads at the cardinal points and a funereal, residents only, garden in the centre behind sensible black railings. It’s a place of Apollonian order and unostentatious wealth.

The buildings are classically Georgian in style, semi-circles of four storey grandeur. It is beautifully proportioned. The stone of the houses is a very pale honey colour, mottled and streaked with a darker patina from years of pollution. Windows are long and narrow, here they run floor to ceiling and the doors to the townhouses are huge. But as I arrived in the black cab at the Moray Place Hotel on that dark winter afternoon, it wasn’t the architecture that drew my eye, it was the ambulance.

The one and only time I saw my new head chef, although I didn’t know it at the time, was his shiny black work boots, as the stretcher on which he lay slid into the waiting vehicle and the paramedics banged the doors shut behind him.

Then the blue light came on and the ambulance sped away into the gloomy grey afternoon.

I got out of the taxi and went up to a small group of people, shell-shocked in their kitchen whites, assembled by the side of the road.

‘Hello everybody,’ I said brightly, ‘my name’s Charlie Hunter, I’m your new chef.’

Chapter Two

A week before this dramatic start to a new job, I had no inkling I would be in Edinburgh at all.

It was the last week of October and I was in my local pub discussing Christmas menus with Graeme Strickland, Michelin starred chef in the restaurant up the road and close personal friend.

I had just finalised my Christmas menu which would run 25 November to 25 December. I was open Christmas Day. I’d give everyone else the day off and do it myself, Jess had volunteered to come in and work from twelve until three. Christmas lunch at her house was served for some reason at 4 o’clock.

My menu was straightforward but good. I was pleased with it. Starters: salmon gravadlax, homemade rye bread; celeriac and apple soup, garlic and parmesan croutons; ham hock terrine with cranberries.

Mains: turkey with all the trimmings; roast cod on a bed of roast seasonal veg, beurre blanc; goat’s cheese, walnut and vegetable tart.

Desserts: Christmas pudding, crème anglaise; sticky toffee pudding; selection of local cheeses.

I would also say that like many chefs, I cannot stand cooking turkey and Brussels sprouts every day for a month. Let’s just say you can go off things.

I pulled a face at the thought of Christmas, had a swig of red wine and pulled another face. God it was awful. You didn’t have to be a connoisseur to know that. Every so often I have a drink of the Three Bells red wine just to confirm it was as bad as I remembered. I was never disappointed.

‘Christmas, eh,’ Strickland said, smiling, ‘only time I ever overcook veg. Have you ever tried serving sprouts al dente at Christmas?’

‘Only once,’ I said, shuddering at the memory. I’d sent them out still with a bit of bite to them. It had been a disaster; people don’t want their Brussels sprouts perfectly cooked, they want them soggy. As I soon found out from the first customers to order the Christmas menu, the Thursday Group, a collection of old age pensioners. Jesus, the row from the restaurant! ‘These are raw!’ ‘Ugh, disgusting.’ ‘What are you trying to do? Poison us?’ And those were some of the milder comments.

‘So why did you want to see me?’ I asked, pushing the memory aside. Strickland had called me the night before wanting to meet up after service. This was unusual. He was a busy guy, he wouldn’t have called for simply a chat.

‘Do you remember your first head chef?’ he asked. He was a small, neat, good-looking man, about my age. An air of steely efficiency enveloped him at all times; he was immensely self-assured. Maybe that comes with being so successful, it’s far from easy to get a star.

The question surprised me. ‘Yeah, of course… why?’

‘Mine was called Dave Holland, big bloke, kind of overweight, great cook, traditional French cuisine.’

‘Nice…’ I said.

‘Yeah, he’s a great bloke, we’ve always kept in touch, he’s probably my oldest friend.’

I was wondering where was all this leading. Strickland wasn’t one for cosy reminiscence. Things had to have a definite purpose in his universe and fond memories did not make the cut.

‘Yeah, he part owns a hotel in Edinburgh. He runs the kitchen there, his sous has left suddenly and he was asking if I knew anyone who could do a bit of temping while he sorts a replacement.’

I shrugged. What was this to do with me?

Strickland leaned forward over the table, his brown eyes boring into mine, his next question taking me by surprise. ‘You know how you’ve always wanted to go to Scotland?’

I blinked in surprise, this was news to me. Although, now he had suggested it, I wouldn’t mind. But I was pretty sure I had never raised it as a thing.

‘Do I?’ I asked. Perplexed, wondering what he was on about. Then I realised what he was suggesting.

‘No Graeme,’ I shook my head firmly, ‘I don’t want to go and work for your mate up in Edinburgh.’

‘Yes, of course you do,’ he said in exasperation, pulling a kind of ‘Doh!’ face. ‘He’s a great chef and a good guy to be around. He’s one of those larger than life people… likes a laugh, great bants, never loses his temper…’ So not like you, Graeme, I thought. ‘Not like me,’ he added. Well, I had to hand it to him, he wasn’t blind to his faults. ‘Really good with his other chefs, trainees love him.’ He smiled reminiscently. ‘Obsessed with mushrooms. I learnt a lot from him and so will you. It’ll take your cooking to another level and give you new ideas.’ He sat back, looking at me expectantly. One of the traits that made Strickland so successful was his incredible certainty about things. Even when he was totally wrong, like now.

‘And you think I should go there, do you?’ God knows why I was asking him, I knew I had no particular desire to go.

‘Of course you should.’ His confidence undented. ‘You’re always saying you never get to go anywhere and that you could do with getting out of the village for a bit.’

‘Well, yes…’ That was certainly true, but I had meant somewhere hot and sunny… Barbados maybe. Certainly not Scotland in November. And most certainly not being a sous in a fine-dining restaurant. Presumably Strickland thought that either I would benefit from some cookery lessons from his former mentor, or that it would be work that I could do without too much thinking, leaving my mind free to marvel at what I could be seeing of Scotland’s capital city if I wasn’t chained to a stove. Neither seemed overly appealing.

‘Edinburgh’s very scenic, you’ll see.’

‘Oh will I?’ I said sarcastically.

‘Yes, you will, Charlie. I’ll arrange cover for you for a fortnight.’ He smiled winningly. ‘A break from the norm is exactly what you need.’ He nodded approvingly at his wisdom. ‘It’ll reinvigorate you; a change is as good as a rest.’

‘In Edinburgh?’ I said incredulously.

‘Yes, in Edinburgh. That’s the place you need to be.’

‘Graeme,’ I said, ‘I’m not going to Scotland.’

Then, with the air and the flourish of a man laying a trump card, he said, ‘It’ll take your mind off Christmas.’

And so, of course, I did.

Chapter Three

I arrived at the Moray Place Hotel in time to see the ambulance that would take Dave Holland, Strickland’s oldest friend, off to hospital.

I got out of the taxi with my suitcase and knife box. Assembled on the pavement in front of the steps of the discreetly signposted hotel were what I assumed was the kitchen brigade. There was a burly, overweight elderly guy in a T-shirt and jeans and an apron who I assumed was the kp, the kitchen-porter or washer-upper. There was a skinny blond man, with extremely blond, practically white hair, like Julian Assange, whom he resembled slightly, and another chef, a young, dark-haired girl who looked like a teenager. I guessed she was the apprentice. The three of them looked stupefied.

I walked over to them, greeted them and then I said politely, ‘I’m looking for the head chef.’

‘You’ve just missed him, hen,’ said pot-wash guy, ‘he’s awa’ in the ambulance.’

‘Oh God, no,’ I said with alarm. ‘Nothing too serious?’

‘Heart,’ said the blond guy. Decisively. He looked around him, chin lifted as if expecting dissent.

‘We dinnae know that yet, Euan,’ pot-wash guy said. Euan frowned and opened his mouth to speak. It looked like an argument was brewing. Just then the front door of the hotel opened and a woman walked out. She was about my age I guessed, very elegant in a short black skirt and jacket. She glared down at us from the top of the stairs.

‘Show’s over,’ she said, in a voice like a whip-crack. ‘Back to the kitchen.’

Obediently, the group shuffled away. She looked down at me, standing alone on the pavement with my cases.

‘Can I help you?’ she said, looking down at me, icily polite. I heard my dead father’s voice in my head: ‘Lady Muck.’

‘I’m Charlie Hunter,’ I said, staring up at her, ‘I’m expected.’

‘Oh,’ she said, looking momentarily nonplussed, ‘I thought you were a man.’

‘Well, I’m not,’ I said, helpfully.

‘Do come in,’ she said, somewhat put-out by being wrong-footed. I started to walk up the steps towards the entrance flanked by two high Doric columns, so it was like entering a temple or a church. She opened the door and held it open for me and shouted, ‘Donald!’

A silver-haired guy in a dark suit, medium height, slim build, appeared. He looked very neat, very well-groomed. His hair had a ruler-straight side parting and a slight flick to it at the front.

‘Come and take this lady’s suitcase, please.’

‘Certainly.’ His black brogues glinted in the dying afternoon light. I shivered; it was very cold and a breeze was getting up.

‘Thank you,’ I said as he took my bag and we walked up the last few broad steps together, me admiring his gleaming footwear. I appreciate a man who takes care of his shoes.

‘My pleasure,’ he replied with a slight head tilt and a hint of a wink, a conspiratorial gesture, as if the whole thing was some kind of game we were playing to humour the woman at the top of the stairs.

As we drew level to her she held her hand out. ‘I’m Lorna Farson. I’m the manager here.’

She was slim and good-looking, wearing black killer heels and dark tights, the kind that you just know are extremely expensive. She was wearing a gold necklace that contrasted well with the crisp white blouse. I bet it had been ironed within an inch of its life. She had a broad, generous mouth, the kind that rich women pay a fortune to surgeons to get and never do.

‘So.’ Brisk tone. ‘You’re Charlie,’ she said, ‘I do apologise for my mistake, Dave never said… do come in.’

We went inside through the tall, imposing doors of the hotel into the lobby and I got my first proper look at the Moray Place Hotel. The inside of the hotel was classic, old-school luxury. Dull gold wallpaper, heavy gilt-framed pictures of Scottish scenery and architectural drawings from yesteryears of plans and designs for Edinburgh New Town. The ceilings were very high, with an elaborate moulding picked out in gold surrounding, the mounting for a huge, glittering chandelier, and the carpet was very thick. There was a smell of pot-pourri and moneyed calm. The inevitable stag’s head on the wall looked down on us with its glassy eyes. A young guy, maybe about twenty, in a dark suit sat behind the desk, pale, with mousy hair and androgynous features. He smiled at me nervously.

‘This is Craig,’ Lorna said then introduced me. Craig murmured something about being pleased to meet me. He looked painfully shy and had a very soft voice, almost feminine. His handshake was soft and delicate.

Lorna led me past a bar, Donald was bringing up the rear with my case. I glanced inside; wood-panelling, high ceilings, leather chesterfields, more stags’ heads on the wall, stuffed birds and animals in cases, and I could see a sign pointing upstairs to the restaurant. That caught my attention. Lorna noticed this.

‘The restaurant is upstairs on the first floor,’ she informed me, ‘that way the best tables get a view over the square and the others benefit from the natural light. It’s quite sizeable.’

‘How many does it take?’ I asked.

‘Forty. We’ll go and look at it later… now, let’s go in my office. Donald will take your bags to your room.’

‘Thanks, Donald,’ I said.

‘No problem, Chef.’ He smiled at me warmly. ‘It’ll be nice having you around.’

I returned his smile. ‘Call me Charlie.’ He bowed his head in acknowledgement and turned away. I liked Donald, he looked friendly without being obsequious, and capable. Just the combination you need in a front-desk person.

We walked down the corridor, past the bar and a door leading to the toilets. There was another door at the end marked ‘Private’. Next to it, another door marked ‘Staff Only’. Indicating it, Lorna said, ‘That will take you down to the kitchen.’

‘That’s in the basement then?’

‘Yes.’ Seeing my slight confusion she explained. ‘We have a lift to send the food up to the restaurant.’

‘Oh, I see.’

She unlocked the door marked ‘Private’ and ushered me inside. The office was as uncluttered as I expected. It matched its owner. Sleek, tidy, well-organised, not a hair out of place. We sat down opposite each other. An open laptop on her desk connected to a couple of screens, a black filing cabinet and a bookshelf with neatly arranged papers and a couple of awards prominently displayed. Last year she had been awarded Hotel Manager of the Year by some association I had never heard of.

‘So what’s happening with the chef?’ I asked. ‘Someone mentioned a heart attack.’

‘We don’t know. It only happened half an hour ago. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all.’ Lorna sighed. ‘Dave was overweight, never exercised, drank too much… hopefully it’s nothing too serious.’

‘So, who’s running the kitchen?’ I asked. It was kind of a stupid question really.

She looked me in the eye.

‘As of now, you are.’

Chapter Four

We left her office, my mind still processing the implications of what she had just said. It was very unwelcome news. I had been expecting a moderately hard time in Edinburgh but not the enormous task of running a strange kitchen with no real guidance.

Lorna wanted me to see the kitchen and meet the brigade before they went home. She had already explained that there was no Sunday evening food and that Room Service for food was within kitchen hours. The kitchen was closed on a Monday except for breakfast. There was a separate bar menu, most of which was taken from the main menu, but simplified.

We opened the door marked ‘Staff Only’ next to her office and descended the stairs into the basement kitchen. The door at the bottom was controlled by a keypad. ‘I’ll text you the number,’ Lorna said as she pushed the door open and ushered me inside.

The kitchen occupied the entire basement in one gigantic room. As we emerged into it and stood blinking in the harsh, bright light, I looked around at what would be my kingdom for the next couple of weeks, inventorying my workspace.

I could see in the far corner what looked like a walk-in fridge. There were a couple of other fridges, big uprights next to it, and a small walk-in freezer, about the size of a large wardrobe. There was a large range and chargrill, a dual unit deep-fat fryer, steel prep tables and sinks. By the door with its chain fly screens, I could see the large industrial dishwasher and a big double washing up sink.

Near the pass I could see two large hatches in the wall.

‘What are they?’ I asked.

‘Dumb-waiters,’ Lorna explained. ‘One up and one down. Obviously they both go up and down, but the left hand one we use for sending the food up, the other one is where the waiting staff in the restaurant send down the used dishes. That way in busy times there’s no log-jam, no having to wait down here for the lift while it’s being loaded upstairs.’

That made sense. I’d worked in basement kitchens before with a dumb-waiter and they can be problematic. I’d also worked in a prestigious hotel with a basement kitchen and no dumb-waiter, and the waiting staff had to leg it up an incredibly steep flight of stairs to the dining room above. I guess it kept them fit.

By way of demonstration she opened the door of one of them. It was capacious, and surprisingly high, you could have fitted a sizeable suitcase inside the metal compartment.

‘Any more questions for now?’ Lorna asked.

‘Chef’s office?’ I asked.

‘That glass cubicle over there.’

I nodded. I hoped I wouldn’t be there long enough to need to use it that much. Maybe Dave Holland wouldn’t be away more than a day or so.

‘Ordering?’

‘We have online accounts with the main suppliers, veg, fish, meat, game, cheese and deli and dry stores,’ she said. ‘I’ll email you the links; it’s very straightforward, just adding the numbers to the listed items. I’ll also give you budgetary guidelines so you don’t blow your allowance on caviar as a special.’

I gave her a tight, sarcastic smile.

‘That’s fine, then,’ I said. ‘I’ll have a look tonight… you’ve got the passwords?’

She nodded. ‘I’ll send them to you within the hour. Anything else?’

The kitchen staff on the other side of the pass were staring at us with unconcealed curiosity. I smiled and waved. No one waved back. Lorna glared at them and they went back to whatever they had been doing.

‘Where do people change their clothes for work?’ I asked.

‘Come on and I’ll show you…’

She clicked across the industrial lino floor in her heels followed by me. I was feeling a bit sheepish because these were outdoor shoes and shouldn’t be worn in the kitchen for hygiene reasons. But who was going to question Lorna? I glanced back. I could see the quizzical looks on the faces of the other chefs, wondering was I any good and what was I going to be like to work with.

I had been right when I had guessed the old boy was the pot-wash guy; I knew that for sure now because he was standing by the sink.

‘This is Ali,’ Lorna said, with a somewhat patronising air, ‘he’s been with us forever.’

Ali had a time-worn, craggy face, and his grey hair was cut short. He was probably in his sixties. He smiled at me warmly.

‘Nice tae see yez again,’ he said. ‘So you’re the new chef?’

‘Yes, I am.’

I had already told him that but he was probably one of those people who like to have things confirmed so there’s no mistake later on. It’s very much a kitchen thing, when a waiter gives you an order you repeat it back verbatim; a misunderstanding can be very costly.

‘Aye,’ he nodded. ‘Davie telt me ye’d be here. Charlie isn’t it?’

I nodded. ‘That’s me.’ I noticed that the other kitchen staff, the girl and the blond man were staring at me with renewed interest. They were probably wondering what else Dave Holland had told him about me. Well, they’d find out in due course.

‘Hi, everyone,’ I said, addressing them, ‘I’m Charlie Hunter, temporary cover…’

‘And Acting Head Chef,’ Lorna’s voice was steely. ‘As of now, she runs the kitchen, I hope that’s understood.’

The young girl, pretty, innocent looking, with a pleasant, roundish face, smiled at me. ‘I’m Innes,’ she said, ‘pleased tae meet you, Chef.’

‘Likewise,’ I said.

‘I’m Euan,’ said the blond guy, sulkily. He turned away in a kind of disrespectful manner signalling discontent. Oh dear, trouble ahead.

Lorna’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed as she glared at his back. It kind of confirmed my worst suspicions. She shook her head and then turned to me. ‘This way, Charlie.’

The kitchen door led out into a yard at the back of the building. We went outside. The ground must have fallen away or been levelled during construction, then I remembered that I had gone up a flight of steps from the street to the ground floor. It was nearly dark now, startling after the brilliantly lit kitchen. A bitter wind was blowing. Edinburgh felt very cold all of a sudden. Lights were on in the rear rooms of the tenements, five or six storeys in height, that backed onto the hotel, I shivered as I looked around. There was a row of wheelie bins on one side of the yard. Opposite us was a high stone wall with a large gate set in it and behind that the tenement blocks rising high above us into the blackness of the night.

‘Where does that lead to?’ I asked, pointing at the gate.

‘An access passage for the bin men,’ she said, ‘comes out in a kind of little alleyway behind us.’

She indicated a small outhouse to the right of the kitchen door.

‘That’s the toilet,’ she said, then she pointed to a kind of cabin brightly lit in the darkness, ‘and that’s the changing area. Come and see.’ She led me across the flagstones and we went inside. It was surprisingly nice inside. I’d been expecting a frowsty old place with a locker-room smell. There was a couple of toilet stalls and opposite them were wash basins with mirrors and half a dozen metal lockers with padlocks, and a couple of benches. Everything was remarkably clean. The sinks gleamed, there was even a vase with flowers on the window ledge. I commented on this.

‘That’s down to Ali,’ said Lorna. ‘We pay him overtime for keeping the external areas clean.’

‘Money well spent,’ I said approvingly. I had seen staff changing areas that would shame a pigsty.

‘Seen enough?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, I guess.’

‘Good. Let’s go back up to my office.’

We walked back through the kitchen. Ali gave me an ironic salute, the teenager smiled shyly, Euan’s back radiated displeasure. Someone’s got the hump, I thought.

Chapter Five

‘Well, what do you think?’ Lorna asked.

I made a few comments then asked, ‘Who else is in the kitchen team?’

‘Just Martin, the breakfast chef. You can meet him tomorrow morning, he does six until ten in the morning. Erik, the sous, has left, as you know. He was the one you were supposed to replace so you’ll be a man down, I’m afraid.’

There was no mention of getting a temp in. I wasn’t expecting one. Kitchens run on very fine margins and it costs a lot to bring in an agency chef, plus, by the time you’ve trained them up, it’s time for them to go. You just have to work twelve hour days and kiss goodbye to your day off.

She sighed. ‘Dave, of course, is at the Royal Infirmary.’ She paused. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot, and there’s Rosa, she’s our part time pastry chef. She just works two days a week, usually a Tuesday and a Friday. She makes the desserts, she’s very good.’

I digested this; I was thinking in terms of work-loads. It seemed okay, apart from one potential problem area. I was glad we had a bespoke pastry chef. I love making desserts but they are time consuming. Time would be something I would be very short of from now on. Mentally I cursed myself for allowing Strickland to persuade me to come here. I might have known something like this would happen. Things rarely run smoothly in the catering trade.

‘Tell me about Euan,’ I said, thinking of the sulky blond guy.

‘Oh, Christ,’ Lorna shook her head. ‘He came about twelve years ago and has never left. He was a junior sous then…’

‘And he’s still a junior sous!’ I said incredulously.

The sous chef is the number two in a kitchen. He or she can also deputise for the head chef on their days off or holidays. After a while, they normally leave to become a head chef somewhere else. Sometimes they stay on, but generally only because they really like where they are, for whatever reason. The junior sous reports to the sous and is a step down the ladder. But to be a ‘junior’ after twelve years – more than a decade of being continually passed over for promotion, that was kind of alarming.

‘Yes,’ she said. Flatly. No love lost, obviously.

‘What’s going on there then?’ I wondered aloud.

‘Being a dick is a spectrum,’ Lorna said, grimly and somewhat unexpectedly. ‘In my experience, a lot of people are a bit of a dick, some people are dicks most of the time, but that man’ – she shook her head angrily – ‘is a Dick with a capital “d”, no, wait, strike that, he is a DICK, full caps. All of the time.’

‘Why’s he still here then?’

‘We can’t really get rid of him.’ She sighed. ‘His work is seemingly not awful, just not good.’ I had been wondering about that, if he was as poor a chef or as a human being. ‘And to say he lacks imagination, flair or leadership skills’ – her hands moved in an expressive gesture – ‘goes without saying. But it’s not like the old days when you could just fire someone.’ There was a wistful tone in her voice. ‘Everyone’s got “rights”.’ She spat the word out.

Well, I’d find out soon enough what his cooking skills were like.

‘So what’s his problem with me then? Doesn’t he like women chefs in particular, or is he just an old-school misogynist and doesn’t like women at all?’ Always useful to know, just in case there was some danger of him running amok. Strange things can happen in kitchens.

Lorna shook her head. ‘I doubt if he gets on with anyone, quite frankly. When Erik left he thought he was going to get the job. Dave told him he wasn’t, he’d get the job “over his dead body” and that he’d got temporary cover from, and I quote, “someone who knows what they’re doing” and that he’d be interviewing after Christmas. Euan came whining to me, said he was being discriminated against. I said, “You’re a straight, white male, how are we discriminating against you? You’re just not up to the job.”’ She grinned. ‘Then I said, “You know where the door is.” He didn’t like that.’

So, mystery solved. Resentment. Well, I only had to put up with him for two weeks.

‘So, we’re closed tomorrow, on a Monday?’ Just for confirmation.

‘That’s right, closed on Mondays. That’ll give you a day to get acclimatised. Ready for Tuesday service.’

‘And there’s a chef called Martin who covers the breakfast shift?’

‘That’s right, he gets in at six, leaves at ten.’ Lorna smiled. ‘He’s ultra-reliable.’

‘Well,’ I said, thinking, Thank God for that, ‘I’ll meet him tomorrow. I’ll get up early, give him a hand so I can get a feel of the kitchen.’

There was a knock on the door and Donald stuck his head round. ‘Your room’s ready, Charlie.’

‘I’ll see you on Tuesday,’ Lorna said. ‘I’m off tomorrow. I’ll send you those numbers and codes. Call me any time if there’s something I can help you with, but I’m afraid I know next to nothing about the kitchen, that’s Dave’s kingdom.’ She frowned. ‘You know, everyone says how easy-going Dave is, but I warn you now, Charlie, he’s stubborn as a mule when it comes to change and he will not listen to criticism.’ She ran her eyes over me in an evaluating way, ‘And he has an eye for attractive women… just saying.’

‘Okay,’ I said – what else could I say – ‘I’ll see you then.’

‘If you’d like to follow me,’ Donald said and led me out of Lorna’s office into the old-fashioned opulence of the hotel.

Chapter Six

I couldn’t fault my room. In a word, it was luxurious. It had a massive bed. The ceilings were very high; there were equally tall windows, more or less floor to ceiling, overlooking Moray Place. I stood a while looking out from my room, admiring the faultless, graceful Georgian proportions of the sweeping terraces, their stone dark and slick with rain, the Circus lit with yellow street lights. It looked like a scene from a Victorian melodrama. An austere backdrop for foul deeds. I remembered Jess reading an old novel, Confessions of a Justified Sinner, that she’d told me was set in Edinburgh way back then. Glancing out of the window at a scene more or less unchanged in a couple of hundred years apart from the cars, it was easy to imagine Moray Place as a scene for dark misdeeds, the devil disguised in a frock coat and top hat as a mysterious stranger, standing by those mottled sandstone walls.

I kicked my trainers off and lay on the bed, my fingers laced behind my head as I stared at the ceiling far above with its elaborate cornices and moulding.

I was in a strange hotel in an unknown city. The menu which I’d looked at during my train journey was a mystery. What was Cullen Skink? Ditto Cranachan. Petits fours including Tablet and Shortbread. Well, shortbread I knew, although I think I’ve only made it once in my life, but what was tablet? The head chef who should have been explaining the menu was somewhere in intensive care; the junior sous chef, currently acting sous, was not only incompetent, he hated my guts. I could just see him being a great help…

Given all that, what else could possibly go wrong?

I slept for an hour or so and then went out to grab a burger from Five Guys, which wasn’t far away. I got my first proper glimpse of the Scottish capital, an impressionistic blur of freezing rain and wind, dark streets, Georgian tenements and gardens behind railings.

Later that night, after ten, end of service at his place (The King’s Head was open Sunday evening), I called Strickland and told him the news about Dave Holland.

‘Oh my God, I hope he’s okay… fat bastard.’ He sounded alarmed. ‘Have you been to the hospital?’

‘No I have not, Graeme.’ I was a little testy. ‘I haven’t had time and as of now, I’m the bloody head chef here, thanks to you… cooking a menu I don’t know in a strange kitchen, with a sous chef who resents me…’

‘You’ll be fine, Charlie,’ he reassured me. ‘I have every faith. You’re a good chef, otherwise I wouldn’t have recommended you.’

Irritated as I was, I was kind of flattered by his high opinion of me. Strickland didn’t give out praise lightly.

‘Have you met the manageress?’

‘Lorna? Yes.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Steely.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘She strikes me as tough and durable with no soft edges. What do you think it means?’

He went on to ask me a slew of questions I hadn’t been expecting about the state of the hotel, the kitchen, my feeling about it.

‘What is it with all these bloody questions, Graeme?’ I didn’t really mind; face it, he was the only person I was going to speak to that evening and I was feeling kind of lonely, stuck in my room.

‘Just making conversation, Charlie,’ he said, huffily. ‘I’ll go now and I’ll be in touch to find out how Dave’s getting on.’

‘Okay, speak tomorrow.’

I ended the call, showered and crawled into bed.

What had I let myself in for?

Chapter Seven

My alarm woke me at six. For a confused moment I lay there wondering where I was before I realised I was in a hotel room in central Edinburgh. At home I sleep with my curtains open, I’m not overlooked where I live, and I had done the same here, although the windows had big, old-fashioned wooden shutters, which I rather liked. The room was softly lit by the orange light of the streetlamp outside. I got out of bed and walked over to the huge, rectangular sash window.

My usual view is over the grass common in the village where I live in South Bucks. Today I was looking over the silent Georgian buildings in their graceful curve, secretive in the darkness with the garden in the centre. It could hardly be more different. I was looking at a cityscape unchanged in a couple of centuries, history come to life.

I was suddenly elated by the novelty of my urban surrounding, so different from the Chilterns countryside, and I was desperate to explore. I pulled on my running clothes and padded down the broad carpeted stairs to reception. Nobody was visible at this early hour, not even at reception. I guessed either Donald or Craig would be asleep in their office behind the front desk.

I opened the huge front door, let myself out and started running along the street-lamp lit roads in a cold, light drizzle.

I was following a five kilometre loop that I’d set on one of my running apps on my phone and saved. The only noise as I tracked the blue triangle on my phone along its trail of blue dots, apart from a distant rumble of traffic, was of my shoes slapping on the wet pavements. The silence of the dark, empty streets was thrilling. The air was cold, damp, kind of industrial, with a hint of dank vegetation. There was nobody around, just the very occasional car. I descended a steep, narrow street; there were side streets that had obviously been mews back in the day where the carriages were stored. The roads were cobbled and there were occasional antique black-painted metal posts, waist height, which added a quaint, otherworldly air to the place, as if I was in some sort of dream.

My run took me through a boho kind of neighbourhood by a narrow, shallow river, fast flowing and tumbling over boulders and stones. I later learned it was called the Water of Leith. I leaned over the parapet and looked at the water foaming and rushing over the rocks. I shivered; it looked icy cold. I ran on down the street past the shuttered shops and closed restaurants and cafés.

I was in Stockbridge according to the screen of my phone. Always good to orient yourself. Past a church and a park. I ran by a fancy-looking school, the kind of place Harry Potter might have gone to, but this was the school, I learnt later, where a former Labour leader had been educated, and it wasn’t called Hogwarts but Fettes College. I went out on a limb and guessed it wasn’t where Murdo, the current sous chef in my restaurant, who was from Edinburgh, had been schooled. If so, his parents had really wasted their money.

I ran round a second side of the park and through a more normal-looking part of Edinburgh, that is, somewhere that did not look stratospherically expensive (Moray Place) or quite expensive (Stockbridge).

I ran up a hill. I could see that the road would take me to Princes Street where the castle dominated the city, but halfway up I turned and ran back home.

When I got back to the hotel, I ran past it and found the alley that led to the gate I had seen in the wall of the kitchen yard. I tried the handle, but it was locked.

Of course it would be. The hotel would not want thieves breaking in the back door in the small hours, stealing hundreds of pounds worth of meat and fish from the fridges. Or maybe street drunks or drug users stumbling in looking for somewhere to drink or use. I was there because I wanted to see the breakfast chef incognito. Lorna had praised him, but I wanted to see him in action myself. It’s one thing watching someone at work when they know they are being evaluated, quite another if you can spy on them unobserved. Wandering around in the darkness, using the torch on my phone, I found someone’s wheelie bin that they hadn’t taken in and pushed it against the wall. I clambered on top of this, hoisted myself on the wall and dropped down into the shadows of the kitchen yard below.

It was just before seven now, it wouldn’t be light for another half hour I guessed. I quietly crossed the empty space, the cabin that was the changing room waiting patiently for the arrival of the chefs, slipped by the dark shape of the toilet building and peered in through the kitchen window at the brightly lit interior to see what was going on.

Chapter Eight

Breakfast chefs can be a strange bunch. Sometimes they’re chefs who just aren’t particularly good but who have found a comfortable niche doing that one meal. That’s not to throw shade on the skill of a good breakfast chef. Like everything, there’s an art to it, particularly with the eggs, but you’re working with a very limited palette of colours. You really are doing the same thing over and over again. Occasionally it’s true you get outliers, Smashed Avocado, Patatas Bravas, but generally, people are very conservative at breakfast. It’s not the place for innovation.

Sometimes you get retired chefs who need the money and not the grief. There’s certainly very little in the way of mise en place to worry about, no ‘Oh my God! I forgot to make the pâté’ moment. You crack eggs, open packets of bacon or sausage and tins of beans, occasionally slice mushrooms or tomatoes.

Personally, whenever I’ve worked in hotels I’ve tended to avoid the breakfast shift, which often runs from six in the morning until middday, plus or minus. That’s not because I mind getting up early but because customers would get arsey about breakfast in a way that doesn’t happen at lunch or dinner. Porridge, a particular nightmare. Some like it salted, some like it sweet. Different porridge brands have different cooking times. I never know if I’ve done it right or not, I can’t stand the stuff. You get complaints. ‘Oh, it’s not like I do it at home,’ or ‘Oh, it’s not done the way my mum used to do it…’ that kind of criticism. They’re not going to say that about your Sole Meunèire or White Chocolate Parfait paired with Dark Chocolate Mousse.

So, I pressed my nose up against the cold window like a Lycra-clad peeping Tom.

This is what I saw.

A muscular looking elderly man with a bald head and a drooping white moustache moving purposefully and somehow gracefully across the kitchen, carrying a large frying pan in one hand. Those old ones can weigh a ton, he held it as if it were as light as a side plate. He approached the pass and carefully and efficiently slid a couple of eggs onto a plate that had fried mushrooms and several rashers of bacon on it. He briefly inspected it, nodded to himself with satisfaction and then carried it over to the dumb-waiter, put it inside, closed the door and pressed a button.

I could see the ticket machine on the pass that sent orders down from the dining room above to the kitchen spit out another couple of breakfast cheques. I watched as he cooked these. He was obviously very good and I particularly liked the way he was attentive and present, honouring the food as well as cooking it. No swearing, no waste, no faff. He was deft, graceful, economic with his movements, and fast. I liked what I saw.

I rapped on the kitchen door. His reaction was interesting. If it had been me, I would have jumped out of my skin. Who could be in the kitchen yard at that hour of the morning?

But this guy simply turned, raised a questioning eyebrow and walked over to the kitchen door which he opened. He stood for a moment, looking at me questioningly.

‘Hello,’ I said brightly, ‘I’m Charlie Hunter, I’m the temporary acting head chef.’

‘Do come in Charlie Hunter,’ he said. He had a soft Scottish accent, a soft voice in general. ‘I’m Martin Blair, I’m the breakfast chef.’ He grinned. ‘As you may have gathered by my cooking breakfasts.’

I took my trail shoes off at the door, I didn’t want to be tracking mud and dirt through the kitchen. The ticket machine whirred and printed out another couple of cheques; he tore them off and went into action.

Between seven and eight Martin was fairly busy as he did about twenty more breakfasts. He’d done the usual thing of pre-cooking the sausages and grilled tomatoes and keeping them warm under the lights. Bacon he had par-cooked and just flashed through under the salamander as we call the eye high grill in the trade.