H.V. Coombs - Murder on the Green

I guessed that of all of the brigade he looked the most likely blackmailer. He had the kind of face that spoke of self-love, the kind of man that I suspected would have no qualms about trampling someone underfoot to get ahead. And bodybuilders are famously narcissistic. There was also an air of violence about him. Maybe it’s because I have spent time in prison where you inevitably become attuned to that kind of thing, but I can sense it in a person and I’m rarely wrong.

Then Murdo, tall and gangly with his man bun adding another couple of inches to his height. I felt that I could disregard him. He was the youngest of the brigade. Surely blackmail was not a young person’s activity?

My attention shifted to the women in the photo. Octavia, the posh intern. Because of TV showing the more glamorous side of things, the privately educated, or the university-educated come to that, were dipping their toes into the catering sea, but they were still an unusual occurrence in the kitchen. It was no surprise to find one with Justin, who had his employees working essentially civilised hours. Charlotte had described their days.

Right now, they were engaged in the run-up to the Earl’s opera fortnight, which actually ran to nearly three weeks. The pop-up restaurant would keep them busy for the last week of June, which would be the setting-up time, and then the first three weeks of July. The Marylebone restaurant was still very much going but that coasted along, its wheels oiled by Justin’s growing fame.

I had asked Charlotte how they spent their time when there wasn’t such a gig available. Their usual work was in the development kitchen for a forthcoming TV series. That was the bulk of it. I gathered that there were public cookery displays at gastro-fairs and exhibitions, and TV appearances, mainly on daytime shows. Even a five-minute Justin slot involved quite a few hours’ prep to make sure that everything was seamless and there were no glitches.

Charlotte ran everything behind the scenes while Douglas, her timid sidekick, did all the humdrum but time-consuming work, mainly involving numbers. I gathered he was indispensable. He worked out not only staff costings, expenses and the like, but also liaised with Tom on dish costs. When a dish appeared in a magazine, it was Douglas who would tot up how many calories and how much it would cost, down to the last spurt of balsamic vinegar. I had to do this for the restaurant and knew what a chore it could be.

I wondered idly if he might be the one turning the screws on Justin. He was obviously good at organising things; I couldn’t imagine Charlotte hiring him otherwise. But he seemed such an unlikely criminal. I have to say that most criminals I have met look the part, myself included.

I gathered that Octavia often played the role of the clueless viewer at home during the testing. When the team had perfected a recipe, they would try the instructions on the intern to see if it made sense.

Was Octavia smarting under the lack of respect that the others were showing her? I could sympathise.

Did the fact that she was incompetent compared to the other chefs rankle with her? I doubted she was used to being the underdog. I was pretty sure she didn’t need the money if she was the blackmailer, but she might be enjoying making Justin sweat.

Standing next to her was the jowly, petulant-looking Gregor. Four thousand would buy a lot in Hungary. I had managed to learn that much about him, that and the fact that he had been a pastry chef at the Ritz. I had worked with a fair few chefs from Eastern Europe and they tended to think that the Brits were like spoiled children and didn’t know the meaning of hard work or hardship come to that.

And then last, but not least, Aurora.

I didn’t need a picture of her to remember her. That imperious, beautiful face, the oval brown eyes, the lustrous, coarse-looking dark hair cut in an artful, tousled boyish way, the very full sensual lips, the hint of an amazing body under the T-shirt that had shown her swan tattoo. Could envy of Justin’s good fortune in having her cause someone in the team to want to poison Justin’s happiness, to bring him down even more? You could do considerable jailtime for blackmail. I should know.

I had been in prison with a guy doing two years for setting up fake social media accounts pretending to be a woman and then extorting money from men who had been conned into sending compromising photos and texts.

It was a big risk to run. But hatred of Justin could be as big a part as love of money. And surely you would have to seriously dislike someone to be able to work with them, smile with them, laugh with them, when all the while you were stabbing them in the back?

Charlotte had told me that the image, the brand, of Justin was what they were protecting and I believed her. But could there be more to it? Nothing was ever as simple as it appeared.

The pain in my bladder was intolerable and I slid off my stool. At the precise moment that I thought, ‘I don’t care if I miss anyone’, I saw Justin’s blackmailer turn into the alley and head straight for the shop door.

I quickly used the café’s facilities to relieve my aching bladder and hurried back to my place at the window.

I called Justin.

‘It’s me.’

‘I know, any news?’

At that moment, Andrea left the shop and stood for a moment, holding one of its plain blue carrier bags. He looked around him with the same cold distaste that he had used in my kitchen. I had to hand it to him, there was no furtive scuttling away or the fixed look of determination on his face that the shop’s other customers had, the kind of look that was supposed to indicate that no, they hadn’t been in the sex shop, that they’d just happened to have passed it.

Andrea, by contrast, had his usual scowl in place. His expression said, yes, I have just bought a load of porn, what are you going to do about it?

Part of me was relieved that it was him, that it wasn’t someone I’d liked – Murdo, for example – but part of me was also disappointed. I didn’t like Andrea, but he hadn’t struck me as two-faced. My feelings weren’t important though. I had done the most important part of my job.

‘It’s Andrea,’ I said. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Nothing, I need to think.’ Justin sounded confused, panic-stricken almost. I guessed, for whatever reason, that of all his suspects, Andrea had been for him the least likely. I had to guess because Justin had refused to tell me who he most suspected. He said it might prejudice me.

‘Give me that …’

There was background noise. A new voice on the phone, which I recognised as Charlotte’s.

‘Go after him, get the money back and warn him off.’ She certainly sounded decisive. Time to implement Part Two of her plan.

Andrea lit a cigarette – no vaping for him – and walked out of the alley into Greek Street. I followed him, hoping he wouldn’t turn around and recognise me. The narrow streets of Soho were no place for an argument that might get physical.

I left the café, my phone still pressed to my ear. I think I had some kind of half-baked idea that I could hide behind it, like people in the old days used to behind a newspaper. You can’t see me, I’m invisible, I have an iPhone pressed to my ear.

He didn’t turn around. I walked behind him, keeping about twenty metres back. Soho was quiet at that time of morning. The creative types who worked in film and advertising were shut up in their offices and workplaces, and it was too early for the crowds who would flock here to eat and drink at lunchtime in the long, thin, fashionable streets.

‘Threaten him?’ I wanted clarification.

‘Yes, say you’ll, oh I don’t know, break his arms or something, scare him!’ came Charlotte’s confident reply.