Murder on the Menu by Alex Coombs

Author:Alex Coombs [Coombs, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: No Exit Press
Published: 2023-08-16T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘There’s been a complaint about you.’

It was DI Slattery, who else? I had dropped Jess at her house on the outskirts of the village, promising to lend her a different rolling pin, one not coated in blood. Her mother, in a rare fit of Bake Off inspired enthusiasm, was going to try to make biscuits. Jess was highly sceptical.

I drove back to the restaurant. I checked my email. No word from any of the official bodies involved in the ‘food poisoning incident’, Public Health and police.

I was now totally sure that Ollie’s death was nothing to do with me. I had other suspects in the frame. There was nothing that I could do, however, business-wise, until I had some form of clearance from the powers that be. I emailed the office of Sandra Burke, the EHO, to ask if the toxicology reports were back on my food samples. In Viking mythology a man’s fate is held in the hands of the Norns, shadowy mysterious figures who live at the foot of Yggdrasil. My fate was controlled by shadowy, mysterious food analysts who lived in a lab in Colindale in North London.

I added Eamonn, Hat Man and the landlord to my suspects list for Whitfield’s death and I wrote Paul Harding’s name down beside Ollie’s. The tally of the guilty was growing, unfortunately the bodies were stacking up too. However, I felt I was making progress, of sorts. I looked at what I’d accomplished with satisfaction. When Justin had suggested I find out what was happening, I’d thought he was crazy, but it seemed he’d spotted something in me, a talent or whatever, that I had never suspected I possessed. I felt I owed him a lot, and not just for the oven. My self-esteem was rebuilding itself.

Now, here was the long arm of the law, again. I had invited him in, fully expecting some kind of official exoneration, and now this. I had never imagined that a person who had instigated an assault would have the nerve to claim to be the victim, but my naivety was about to be exposed.

‘I’m sorry, what kind of complaint?’

He took out his notebook, although I’m sure that he didn’t need it.

‘Mr Eamonn Farson from Chandler’s Ford claimed that you attacked him and his friend, Lawrence “Jacko” Jackson. At the station in Aylesbury, he made a statement saying that you broke his nose – by way of corroboration, he showed a date-stamped picture that his friend had taken, of the bloodied organ together with you, clearly visible at the wheel of your car, fleeing the scene. It was quite spectacular. . . You’re very handy with a weapon, aren’t you, Ms Hunter? First Dave Whitfield, now this.’

Was it my imagination or did I detect a trace of admiration in his voice?

I said, outraged, ‘It was self-defence; he attacked me,’ I was going to add – a defenceless woman but that was demonstrably untrue – ‘you can ask Jessica Turner, she was there with me.

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