Dick Francis - Dead Heat

I laid my head back on the pillow and wondered who Miss Caroline Aston was, and where she was. I could wring her bloody neck. Distress and loss of earnings indeed. How about me? I’d suffered distress and loss of earnings too. Who should I sue?

THERE WAS ANOTHER letter from Miss Aston’s lawyers waiting for me when I arrived at the Hay Net. It confirmed that she was suing me personally as well as the racetrack catering company. Great. I could wring her neck twice, if only I knew who and where she was. What did she think? That I had poisoned people on purpose?

I sat in my office reading and rereading the letter. I suppose I ought to find a lawyer to give it to. Instead, I called Mark again.

“Send it to me,” he said. “My lawyers will look at it for you and they will give you a call.”

“Thanks.”

I faxed it to the number he gave me, and his lawyer called me back within fifteen minutes. I explained the problem to him.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “we’ll deal with this.”

“Thanks,” I replied. “But please let me know who this woman is so I can make a voodoo doll of her and stick pins in it.”

The lawyer laughed. “Why don’t you just poison her?”

“Not funny,” I said.

“No. Sorry,” he said. “I’ll be able to do a search and find her within the day. I’ll get back to you.”

“I could wring her neck,” I said.

“I wouldn’t advise it,” said the lawyer, laughing. “Suing is done in civil court and you can only lose your money, not your liberty.”

“Thanks, I’ll try and remember that when you find her.”

He laughed again and hung up.

I wondered what I would do if he did find her. Probably nothing. It just annoyed me that she wanted to claim damages from me for a minor bit of accidental food poisoning when the lovely Louisa had lost her life due to some deranged madman bringing his grudges two thousand miles from the Middle East to Newmarket.

Carl arrived and I shared the good news with him.

“Will they lock you up?” he asked hopefully.

“Sod off,” I said.

“Charming,” he said, smiling. “So the boss has returned in both body and mind. Shall we get this show on the road?”

“Indeed, we shall,” I replied, returning the smile.

There is a lot more to running a restaurant than cooking a few meals. For a start, the customers want a choice of dishes, and they want them without having to wait too long. At the Hay Net, we usually offered between eight and ten starters and about the same number of main courses. Some of the starters were hot and some were cold, but everything was prepared fresh to order, and our aim was to have a dish ready for the table within fifteen minutes of the order being taken. Ideally, main courses should be ready ten minutes after the starters have been cleared from the table, or, if no starters are ordered, within twenty-eight minutes of the order arriving in the kitchen. I knew all too well that if a customer was kept waiting for longer than he or she thought reasonable, it didn’t matter how good the food tasted when it arrived, only the wait would be remembered and not the flavors.

There were three of us who worked in the heat of the kitchen, Carl, Gary and me, while Julie dealt with the cold dishes, including the salads and desserts. It was not a big operation compared to the large London restaurants, but, at the height of the service, it was an energetic kitchen, with everyone working hard. The plan was that the bookings were taken to stagger our busy dinner period over at least a couple of hours, but our customers were notorious for not being on time for their reservations so sometimes we were madly rushed to get everything out on time.

Food is fickle stuff. The difference between vegetables that are just right and vegetables that are overcooked can be a matter of a minute or two. For a steak, or a tuna fillet, it can be much less time than that. Our clients, understandably, want their food delivered to the table when it is perfect. They also want all the servings for the table delivered at once-who wouldn’t? They expect their food to be attractive, to be hot and to have an appetizing aroma. And, in particular, they want the food delivered in the same sequence as the orders were taken. Nothing, I had learned, upsets the customers more than to see a party that ordered after they did being served ahead of them.

To the casual observer, the kitchen might appear as a chaotic scramble, but, in reality, it was only as chaotic as a juggler’s hands keeping four balls in the air at once. Appearances, in either case, are deceptive.

Needless to say, we didn’t always get everything right, but, overall, the number of compliments far exceeded the few complaints, and that was good enough for me. Occasionally, someone would say that they weren’t coming back, but, usually, it would be someone I didn’t want back anyway. I would just smile and politely show them the way to the parking lot. Thankfully, those were few and far between. Most of my customers were friends, and it was just like having them to my house for dinner except, of course, they paid.

My thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a delivery from my butcher. I used a man from Bury St. Edmonds who slaughtered all his own meat. He had told me that he knew all his farm suppliers personally, and he claimed that he could vouch for the well-being and comfortable life of every one of the animals. That is, of course, until he killed and butchered them. I had no reason to doubt his claims, since his meat and poultry were excellent. A fine restaurant obviously needs a good chef, but even the best chefs need good ingredients to work with and so the choice of supplier is paramount.

The driver had almost finished stacking the delivery in the cold-room by the time the rest of my staff arrived at ten o’clock. Gary was all excited that the padlocks had been removed and went around the kitchen like a little boy allowed to roam freely in a toy store. He was having one of his good days, I thought. He had the energy and the enthusiasm to be a good chef, even a great one, but I felt that he had to learn to be slightly less adventurous in his combinations of flavors. He was, like me, a great believer in using fruit with meat. Everyone was familiar with pork with apple, turkey with cranberries, duck with orange, gammon with pineapple and even venison with quince. The flavors complement one another, the fruit bringing out the best in the meat, and satisfying the palate. Gary was apt to choose exotic, strong-tasting fruits and, to my mind, serve them inappropriately with meats of a delicate flavor, such as veal or chicken. It was a matter that we had discussed at length and with passion.

Ever since he had arrived a couple of years previously, I had attempted to have at least one dish on our menu of his design, and, at the moment, it was an herb-crusted red snapper, topped with a roasted caramelized pear, over a lightly garlic mashed-potato base, with a pear reduction. It was a tasty and popular dish, and it usually kept Gary busy throughout the service.

However, the bookings for lunch on that particular Tuesday were not spectacular, and, during the morning, several calls to cancel left us looking very bare. More calls canceling dinner reservations made the day look bleak indeed.

I called a short meeting of the staff in the dining room at noon.

“It seems that a combination of the bombing on Saturday and the problems we had on Friday evening may result in a bit of a lean time this week,” I said. “But I am sure that things will pick up soon. We will continue as normal and do our best for those that do come. OK?” I tried to sound upbeat.

“How about Louisa’s job?” said Jean. “And when is Robert coming back? Ray and I can’t do the whole dining room on our own.”