Just Desserts (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Read online

  ‘Au contraire,’ she said. ‘It’s a pleasure to have some company. The work is routine at the moment and delegation is all.’ So, on entering the kitchen, it seemed. Two large copper pots were simmering gently on the stove. Two small Chinese youths were seated at a table chopping onions and green peppers.

  ‘I didn’t really mean cooking,’ said Bognor, as she took an open bottle of Bitschwiller from the vast refrigerator which occupied most of the larder adjoining the kitchen proper. ‘I got the impression that you and Mr Petrov had something important to discuss.’

  ‘Mr Petrov?’

  ‘Yes. Dmitri Petrov. Soviet Synthetics. I was with him. We travelled down together on a number nine.’

  ‘How strange. I haven’t seen Dmitri since … since before Scoff died.’ She smiled sadly and Bognor was duly devastated. Her looks were just beginning to coarsen, but he had always had a penchant for creole ladies. Pulling himself together he said, ‘That’s odd. I mean your chap just let him in’.

  ‘Really?’ she smiled again. ‘Then I wonder where he can have got to. Which “chap” let him in?’ She indicated the two Chinese.

  ‘I don’t think it was either of these. Italian or Spanish person.’

  She frowned. ‘That must be Massimo. I hadn’t realized he was here. Just one minute. I’ll see if he’s in the office. He may be doing some accounts.’ She left the room only to return in almost exactly sixty seconds, shrugging expressively. ‘Not here,’ she said. She looked at him as if to suggest, in the nicest possible way, that he was hallucinating.

  ‘How odd,’ he said, half-convinced that he had been seeing things. ‘We had quite a long conversation.’

  ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘There must be some explanation. Cheers!’ She raised her glass. They drank. If there was an explanation she was not going to offer it. ‘Now, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Well, it was partly about Acapulco.’

  ‘Ah, Acapulco.’ She smiled. ‘Lee!’ she shouted suddenly. ‘Not like that. Skins must be off. How many times did le patron tell you? Boiling water. Vite.’ The wretched Lee bit his lip. He had progressed to tomatoes and was slicing them unpeeled. ‘I’m sorry.’ She returned to Bognor. ‘You have to watch them all the time. Otherwise, merde alors, there is a catastrophe! Imagine. Tomatoes with skin, oh my God! You were saying, “Acapulco”.’ She made it sound much more exciting and desirable than Parkinson had done earlier that morning. The consonants were softer, the vowels longer.

  ‘Yes, you see.’ Bognor launched once more into his dissertation on the top end of the market. She listened apparently attentively and finally said, ‘I am not sure how I can help you. It is true we try to maintain standards of excellence, something special. But as you know we are very small. There is no way we can be commercial enough to interest a government.’

  ‘In yourselves perhaps not,’ said Bognor, ‘but perhaps if yours was an example which was followed more assiduously.’

  ‘We don’t like to divulge too many secrets, Mr Bognor,’ she said, half-humorously. ‘We are a competitive business even though we are a small one.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of asking you to give anything away,’ he said. ‘It’s just that you are the only three-star restaurant in England, and you are going to Acapulco as a sort of ambassador for la cuisine anglaise, and, well, if we are to make something out of gastronomy we have to learn from your example. Not so much in matters of detail as in more general matters of style.’

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘So what would you like me to tell you?’

  At that moment Bognor only wanted to know what she had done with Dmitri Petrov, but instead he proceeded to ask questions about cost efficiency and buying and staff and, in short, how to run a restaurant which was better than good. At the end of half an hour he had learnt only that such excellence was a matter of flair and individuality and that all that could be taught was a technique which would ensure a mention in Michelin and Bitschwiller but would win no distinctions. By that time the bottle of Bitschwiller was finished and had gone to his bladder.

  ‘Could I use your loo, do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh.’ The question seemed to surprise her more than when he had asked what sort of rum went into the chocolate omelette (‘four different varieties,’ she had replied). ‘The public toilets are locked at the moment. You had better use the staff one. Through there.’ She pointed to a door next to the washing-up machine. ‘Go along the corridor, and it is the third on the right.’

  He followed her directions and found a large lavatory decked out in Victorian tiles, original newspaper cartoons by Jak and Osbert Lancaster and a document certifying that Escoffier Savarin Smith was a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats. Beside the pedestal was a collected Ogden Nash and a copy of Playboy. The champagne had brought an unhealthy pink to his cheeks and, while washing his hands, Bognor peered at his reflection in the mirror of the medicine cupboard above the basin. The sight was not unexpected but, as usual, it brought him less satisfaction every time he looked at it. He grimaced, then on an inexplicable whim, opened the medicine cupboard. There was Alka-Seltzer, aspirin, paracetamol, Ambre Solaire—all the assorted rubbish that one expects to find in a medicine cupboard, including one small bottle with a chemist’s handwritten label on the side. ‘Mr E. S. Smith,’ it said. ‘Tablets. One to be taken nightly before retiring.’ Bognor picked it off the shelf and unscrewed the top. It was empty. One or two grains were stuck to the sides and bottom but that was all. He replaced the cap and returned it, shutting the door. Then something in his reflection made him open the door again, take out the bottle and put it in his jacket pocket. ‘You never know,’ he said to himself. ‘There might be something in it.’

  Back in the kitchen, he thanked Gabrielle effusively, promised to be in touch, promised to see her in Acapulco, promised not to tell a soul the secret of the chocolate omelette, promised to bring Monica to dinner shortly, and finally left. On his way home he went into Mortlake garage, and pushed through a door marked ‘staff only’. A group of drivers and conductors were sitting at a table drinking tea.

  ‘Can’t you read, mate?’ admonished one. ‘“Private”. If you want the gents’ it’s outside. Next bus goes in quarter of an hour.’

  ‘It’s not that. I wonder if one of you was the conductor on the number nine which brought me here an hour or so ago.’ He looked round the table trying to pick out a memorable face. Sullen suspicion looked back at him.

  ‘You’ll have to go around to lost property direct,’ said one of them, surlily.

  ‘It’s not that,’ he said, then recognized a conductor. ‘Wasn’t it you?’ he said, pointing.

  ‘Might have been,’ said the man in the accent, he guessed, of County Cork. He remembered them now that the man had spoken. ‘It’s just,’ continued Bognor, ‘that I wondered if you had noticed the man who got off at the same time as me. Short, dark, wearing a rather square suit.’

  ‘Foreign bloke?’ enquired the man.

  ‘That’s right.’ Bognor took a five pound note from his pocket, screwed it into his hand and said, ‘Would you recognize him do you think?’

  ‘I …’ He still seemed doubtful but Bognor made as if to put the money back in his pocket and the clippie responded in the way Bognor had hoped. ‘I reckon I might if you were to point him out.’

  ‘Good,’ said Bognor, handing over the fiver. ‘How can I find you if I want to know?’

  ‘You’re not police?’ asked the man, nervous again, once he’d got the money. ‘Not police,’ said Bognor. ‘No need to worry, and if I do need you, I’ll see you’re all right. OK?’

  The man was grudging, but the thought of money bettered his worries. The name was Seamus O’Rourke, and he could be found at the garage. He always worked the number nine. Bognor thanked him and took the next one back to the office.

  Normally he would have told Parkinson of the strange vanishing trick perpetrated by Petrov, but in view of the frosty terms on which they had parted he decided
against it. Instead he sent the bottle over to the lab for analysis and spent the afternoon going through files. There was not much in them that he hadn’t already established. Blight-Purley’s was full of wartime heroics but tailed off afterwards to become a dribble of alleged meddlesomeness. Nothing in it, however, to suggest dishonesty or anything but unswerving loyalty to Her Majesty and her government. The list of his sexual conquests, though, like his heroics dwindling with the years, was still impressive—not least because of its discretion. Although some affaires were spectacular, those which were not with starlets, Resistance heroines or one of his four wives were, to Bognor, previously unknown. They were with women whose moral righteousness was universally accepted and unquestioned. Ebertson’s dossier was primarily innuendo. He just happened to have been around in some unlikely places when some odd events were taking place, notably Chile at the time of Allende’s demise. Most of his postings had been in Central or Latin America and Eastern Europe. On a personal level he looked absolutely right for the job: impeccably cultivated in an upper middlebrow Ivy League way with a Bostonian wife and four good-looking polyglot children. No known vice, just an unblackmailable liking for life’s little luxuries. Petrov had spent much longer in Britain. Before that he had been in Prague, leaving in the winter of 1968—a significant departure date since it coincided with the removal of the unfortunate Mr Dubcek and the Russian invasion. His was a very thin file. No family. No wife. A suggestion, unsubstantiated, of homosexuality. Vaunted food and drink fetishism considered bogus. Lady Aubergine rated a passing reference but neither Aubrey Pring nor Amanda Bullingdon had an entry. The late Escoffier Savarin Smith, on the other hand, had pages. The principal item was the opening essay by Parkinson’s predecessor, Tristram de Lesseps. De Lesseps had known Bruce Lockhart in Russia. He was one of the old school.

  ‘This person,’

  he had written in scratchy, tiny blue-inked hand,

  ‘was recruited personally by myself on 12 July 1952. He has recently returned from a spell in the kitchens of the Gritti Palace in Venice where I myself first met him, and it appears that his considerable capacities as a chef will enable him to travel widely in those countries which prize such attributes. In consequence he should be able to advise us informally of developments in the catering industry which could be of benefit to this department. We have always tried to maintain some representation in international hotels at all levels, but since the war the development of electronic listening devices and suchlike has led to a running down of our paid retainers. In my view there can be no substitute for such personal contact since an intelligent and observant hotel servant will not only see what a machine cannot but will also be able to make deductions from those observations. I am therefore hopeful that Mr Smith will be able to advise on the recruitment of such personnel. Finally I trust that he will himself be able to supply us with information on prominent and relevant personalities where required. He is presently to be employed at the Savoy Hotel where, naturally, he will have access to just such information as we will at times require.’

  De Lesseps went on to list Smith’s background (Central European), parentage (small but ambitious hoteliers), and qualities which seemed in essence to be those of the inveterate gossip and anecdotalist. Unfortunately de Lesseps had been prematurely retired soon afterwards and Bognor suspected the army of peeping torn waiters had remained largely unrecruited. A pity.

  He dutifully annotated the files, then signed them back in and decided to go home. On the way he stopped at an off licence in Soho where he bought four bottles of rum. Then he went next door to a grocer’s where he bought a dozen large brown free-range eggs and a pound of dark Bournville chocolate. Back at the flat he found Monica sprawled on the sofa reading Country Life. Her shoes were on the floor and a gin and tonic was on the table beside her. She did not look up.

  ‘Good day?’ she asked. Bognor regarded her with tolerant disapproval. Frequently nowadays he wondered why they had never bothered to get married. This surely must be what marriage was like. ‘So so.’ He went to the fridge and got a tonic, mixed it with a generous gin, and sat down in the armchair with the William Morris pattern. It was beginning to go at the corners. A wife would notice and do something about it but, as Monica reminded him when he drew her attention to such things, she was only a mistress and, as such, free to come and go as she wished. He wished she was a little more inspired in those areas in which a mistress was supposed to excel. She was undoubtedly putting on weight, and she was becoming sloppy. If she were a wife he would tell her to pack in her ludicrous job at the art gallery, which now seemed to have become full-time. It was originally supposed to have been mornings only, but she appeared to have drifted into a more time-consuming arrangement. There were occasions when, feeling ruthless, he felt like trading her in for a newer model. On the other hand he had to admit, as he had done when confronted with his reflection at the Dour Dragoon earlier, that he was not an appealing proposition. Like Monica he was not getting any prettier with time. Age had wearied him and the years condemned. In fact he was a bit of a failure. Even the flat and its fading, wearing fittings reflected it. Only the view reflected something of his earlier aspirations. The tops of the trees had that almost luminous lime green of early summer. He went over to the window and peered out at them. ‘What’s for supper?’ he asked, taking a slug of gin.

  ‘Chops,’ she said, ‘unless you want to go out.’

  ‘Can’t afford it.’

  ‘Surely you get expenses on this job. Parkinson must realize you have to go out and try some pretty smart food.’

  ‘Parkinson won’t even let me go to Acapulco.’

  ‘What do you mean even. I’m not surprised. All I’m suggesting is that he might allow you a decent meal out. Acapulco is another thing altogether.’

  ‘I might be able to get to Acapulco for nothing.’ He gazed back at the window. Sometimes life seemed to be against him. Increasingly the two most important people in it, namely Monica and Parkinson, seemed to be ganging up on him. ‘I’ve got a surprise pudding.’

  ‘Oh.’ She was back in the property pages of the Country Life. ‘Look at this,’ she said, ‘only £120,000. Georgian manor house near Bath. It’s got an orangery. I’ve always wanted an orangery.’

  ‘I do wish you’d allow me to surprise you sometimes.’

  ‘How do you mean? Perhaps you should be more surprising. Work at it, I mean.’

  ‘I am. I just said, pudding.’

  ‘Oh. Pudding. Well, go on then. Surprise me.’

  ‘We’re going to have one of the amazing Scoff Chocolate Omelettes à la Dour Dragoon.’

  ‘Oh.’ For the first time that evening she did seem mildly surprised. ‘I didn’t realize they were open again. You didn’t say we were going out. I’ve got nothing to wear.’

  ‘We’re not going out. I’m making it here. I went round to the Dragoon this morning and Gabrielle gave me the ingredients. More or less. Four different sorts of rum, would you believe?’

  ‘But you don’t know what to do with it all.’

  ‘I do more or less. Anyway Anthony Ebertson says it’s quite easy to assemble. It’s the ingredients which are the problem. We have got oranges haven’t we?’

  ‘Yes. But Ebertson can probably cook.’

  ‘There’s no need to be rude. You know perfectly well I’m a jolly good cook.’

  ‘Hardly in the Scoff class. What else did you find out from Gabrielle?’

  ‘It’s not so much what I found as what I didn’t find. She made Dmitri Petrov vanish.’

  ‘She what?’ She sat up on the sofa, really interested for the first time. ‘What do you mean made him vanish?’

  Bognor told her. ‘So you see,’ he said when he’d finished, ‘a genuine piece of old black magic. Something she probably picked up from her old Mauritian mum. Here one minute, gone the next. Pouf! Up in a puff of smoke.’

  Monica looked concerned. ‘But Simon,’ she said, ‘shouldn’t you have told someone? The
police? Parkinson? Someone?’

  He shrugged with exasperation. ‘It was quite clear he didn’t want me to be in on whatever it was he was doing there, and nor did she. He was being extremely furtive. I should think he and Massimo did a bunk out of the back and waited for me to go away. It’s not that important.’

  ‘Well, if you say it isn’t,’ she said. ‘What else happened?’

  He told her about the bottle from the medicine cupboard.

  ‘Those analysts are going to be fed up with you,’ she said. ‘The last time wasn’t exactly a success.’

  ‘The last time?’

  ‘When you gave them a biscuit tin which you expected to contain the cremated remains of that poodle, and it turned out to be the sweepings from a grate or something. It was probably just aspirin.’

  ‘You don’t need a prescription for aspirin,’ he said coldly.

  ‘Oh well, anti-histamine for hay fever. Or Librium. Something perfectly ordinary.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ he said and then stopped. ‘I’m going to battle with this omelette,’ he grumbled. ‘You’re no bloody fun any more.’

  She stuck her tongue out at him, and he stalked off to the kitchen to do battle with his expensive ingredients.

  It took him a great deal longer than it took Monica to grill the chops and boil new potatoes and frozen peas. Once the mixture curdled, another time he left the whipped egg whites so that they started to subside again. When he lit some of the rum it flared up and singed his eyebrows but, fully half an hour after the chops had been eaten he marched to the table bearing a chocolate object on a dish, which looked at least passably like the pride of the Dour Dragoon.

  ‘You know,’ said Monica as she moved the first mouthful suspiciously round her mouth rather in the manner of the wine tasters at Petheram, ‘it’s actually not bad. It’s not quite right, but it’s almost there. I take it back. It really is almost a success.’