Peter James: A Twist of the Knife

The dish was eaten in complete silence, and Kettering became increasingly uncomfortable with each mouthful he took as, one by one, he ruled out all other body parts, leaving him with just one possibility. He shuddered but at the same time felt very slightly aroused.

After that, the menu continued through a series of meat dishes, different cuts from the leg, rump, shoulder. The animal was not stated and he became increasingly curious to know. Lamb, Cow, Deer, Pig? Ostrich?

But when he questioned any of his fellow diners they just smiled and replied, ‘Every dish is a unique surprise. Savour it, don’t destroy it with analysis.’

The French chef in the cardigan turned to him and said, ‘You are familiar with the words of your great poet, Pope? “Like following life in creatures we dissect, we lose it in the moment we detect.”’

So he did his best. With almost every mouthful he took, one of the numerous wine glasses on the table was filled or refilled. Whites, reds, pinks, all different hues, all steadily melding into a blur.

Then the highlight of the meal arrived: a roast, presented on a miniature campfire of burning fennel twigs, and he knew instantly from the smell and the sight of the crackling that this had to be roast pork. As he tucked in, whether it was the wine or the sheer joy of eating one magical dish after another, he was sure, quite sure, that this was the finest roast he had ever eaten, and probably ever would. He was starting to feel very happy, very contented. He was starting to like these chefs. Next time, he decided, he would give them all good scores. Enough so that perhaps they might invite him again...

Even on a Friday the thirteenth.

Because the date was turning out not to be so bad after all.

‘This is the best pork I’ve ever eaten!’ he proclaimed through a mouthful of perfect, crunchy crackling.

‘Long pig,’ said the chef opposite him.

And suddenly, as if a fuse had been tripped, all the good humour in the room seemed to evaporate. There was an awkward moment of silence. Several faces turned towards the man who had said, ‘Long pig.’ A ripple of glances passed from one chef to the next.

Then N.N. was conscious that everyone was looking at him, as if waiting for him to react.

A shiver rippled through him. Long pig. He knew what the words meant, what long pig was.

Suddenly his head was spinning. He began to feel sick. His eyes moved, in turn, to each of the twelve pairs of eyes around the table. Each stared back at him coldly.

‘Long pig’ was the term cannibals in the South Seas and in Africa used to describe white men. Because their flesh tasted like pork.

He stood up abruptly. His chair fell over behind him, crashing to the floor with a sound like a gunshot. ‘I have to go,’ he said.

No one said a word.

He ran from the room, back along the portrait-lined corridor, and reached the front door. He yanked the handle. But the door did not move.

It was locked.

The key was missing.

He turned and saw the maître d’ standing behind him, his arms crossed. A bunch of keys hung from a leather fob on his belt. ‘You haven’t had dessert yet, sir. It would be very impolite for you to leave without dessert. We have the finest desserts you will ever have tasted.’

‘I have to go,’ he said again. ‘Please open the door.’ Blind panic was gripping him now.

‘I’m afraid not, sir.’ The maître d’ took a step towards him.

N.N. Kettering had never headbutted anyone before in his life. But he headbutted the maître d’ now. It was a clumsy attempt and he did not dip his own head enough, resulting in him striking the maître d’ forehead-on and smashing both the bottle lenses of his own glasses, without which he was almost blind. Nevertheless, it was effective enough to make the maître d’ fall to his knees with a dazed grunt.

N.N. grabbed the key fob and tugged with all his strength, ripping it away from the man’s belt. He turned back to the door, tried one, then another, then another. He looked over his shoulder and, through a blurry haze, saw a posse of his dining companions storming down the corridor towards him.

He tried the fourth key, desperately, and it turned.

The door opened and he stumbled out down the steps and ran blindly across the pavement, straight into the road. Straight into the path of an eleven-and-a-half-ton double-decker bus.

It struck him at almost thirty miles per hour, catapulting him a short distance down the road. Then it braked to a slewed halt. It seemed in the brief silence that followed that the whole of London had come to a halt.

The paramedics, who arrived on the scene within minutes and lifted him carefully onto a stretcher, were unaware, just as N.N. Kettering was, of the irony that it was a number 13 bus.

Two days later, N.N. regained consciousness briefly. Just long enough to hear a murmured conversation right beside him.

A male voice said, ‘Any luck with next-of-kin?’

A female voice said, ‘No, doctor, we’ve not yet been able to trace any relatives.’

‘Any change in his condition?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Well, let’s keep him on life support for a while longer. But I don’t think we’re going to see any change. He has massive internal injuries, and his Glasgow coma score remains at three. He’s clearly brain-dead, poor sod. Nothing more we can do. Just wait.’

The man’s voice was familiar, but N.N. struggled to remember where he had heard it before. Then, just before he lapsed back into unconsciousness for the final time, he remembered.

It was the voice of the maître d’.

Two days later, the duty intensive care registrar was doing his ward round. He noted that one of the beds in the unit was now vacant. It was bed number thirteen.

The sister was staring at it sadly. ‘You OK?’ he asked.

‘Every time we lose someone, I feel like a failure,’ she replied. Then she looked at the sticking plaster on his forehead. ‘Are you all right? Cut yourself?’

‘It’s nothing. He looked back down at the empty bed. ‘Always remember the first rule of the Hippocratic Oath: “Do no harm.” Right?’

She nodded sadly.

‘It would have been harmful to keep him going. What kind of quality of life would he have had if he had lived?’

‘You’re right,’ she replied. ‘None. I suppose sometimes we have to thank God for small mercies. He’d have been a vegetable if he’d lived.’

‘You know, nurse, I’ve never liked that word, “vegetable”,’ he said. ‘Why not a “piece of meat”?’

Just two clicks and Michael’s face appeared. Margaret pressed her fingers against the screen, feeling a longing to stroke his slender, pre-Raphaelite face and to touch that long, wavy hair that lay tantalizingly beyond the glass.

Joe was downstairs watching a football match on Sky. What she was doing was naughty. Wicked temptation! But didn’t Socrates say “the unexamined life is not worth living”? The kids were gone. Empty nesters now, her and Joe. Joe was like a rock to which her life was moored. Safe, strong, but dull. And right now she didn’t want a rock, she wanted a knight on a white charger. The knight who was just two clicks away.

Just two clicks and Margaret’s face would be in front of him. Michael’s fingers danced lightly across the keys of his laptop, caressing them sensually.

They had been emailing each other for over a year — in fact, as Margaret had reminded Michael this afternoon, for exactly one year, two months, three days and nineteen hours.

And now, at half past seven tomorrow evening, in just over twenty-two hours’ time, they were finally going to meet. Their first real date.