Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,11
pink and blue striped tie. He was deep in conversation with a younger woman who was much shorter than he. He leaned over her while supporting himself on the doorframe and spoke quietly in her ear. I couldn’t hear what was being said but he certainly was amused by it and stood up laughing. She smiled at him but I gained the impression that she didn’t quite share his pleasure.
He turned to MaryLou with what I thought was a degree of irritation.
‘Mr Schumann,’ said MaryLou in her clipped manner, ‘can I introduce Mr Max Moreton, our chef for today.’
He looked at me in my chef’s garb and I had the feeling that he thought I should be back in the kitchen and out of sight of his guests.
Mary Lou, it appeared, must have read the same thing in his expression.
‘Mr Moreton,’ she went on, ‘is a chef of some reputation and has often been seen on TV.’
Some reputation indeed, I thought: the mass poisoner of Newmarket Town.
Mr Schumann didn’t seem impressed.
MaryLou hadn’t finished. ‘We are very lucky to have Mr Moreton cooking for us today,’ she said. ‘He is much in demand.’
This wasn’t altogether true but I wasn’t going to correct her.
Mr Schumann reluctantly stretched out a hand. ‘Glad you could help,’ he said. ‘Young MaryLou here usually gets her man.’ He spoke with more of a drawl than his marketing executive but his voice lacked warmth and sincerity.
I shook the offered hand and we looked at each other directly in the eyes. I found him somewhat intimidating and decided that retreat to my rightful place would be a wise option. However, I was prevented from going by a hand on my arm from the lady on my left.
‘Max,’ she said. ‘How lovely. Are you cooking for us today?’
Elizabeth Jennings was a regular customer at the Hay Net along with her husband, Neil, who was one of the most successful trainers in the town. Elizabeth herself was a tireless worker for charity and organizer of great dinner parties, some of which I had attended, and others that I had cooked.
‘Rolf,’ she said to Mr Schumann, ‘you are so clever to have got Max to cook for you today. He’s the absolute best chef in England.’
Good old Mrs Jennings, I thought.
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ I said, although I might privately think it.
‘Only the best for you my dear,’ said Mr Schumann turning on the charm and laying a hand on the sleeve of her blue and yellow floral dress.
She smiled at him. ‘Oh Rolf, you are such a tease.’
Rolf decided that he was needed by someone else outside on the balcony and, with a slight nod to me and an ‘excuse me’ to Elizabeth, he moved away.
‘Is Neil here with you?’ I asked her.
‘No,’ Elizabeth said. ‘He should have been but he wasn’t too well last night. Something he ate, I expect. Probably the ham he had for lunch. I told him that it was past its sell-by date but he ate it anyway. He always says that those dates are just to make you throw away perfectly good food and get you to buy new stuff all the time. Maybe now he’ll change his mind.’
‘What did he have for dinner?’ I asked as innocently as possible.
‘We went to that big do here last night, you know, I saw vou there,’ she said. ‘Now what did we have? You should Know. I always forget what we eat at these things.’ She stopped and laughed. ‘Sorry, I suppose I shouldn’t say that to a chef.’
‘Most people had chicken,’ I said.
‘That’s right. We did. And it was very good. And I loved the crème brûlée.’
‘So you definitely had the chicken?’ I asked. ‘Not the vegetarian pasta?’
‘Of course I had the chicken,’ she said. ‘Never have that vegetarian stuff. Vegetables should accompany meat I say, not replace it. I always have a steak at your place, don’t I?’
That’s true, I thought. Maybe the chicken was not guilty after all. She was beginning to look puzzled at my questions. Time for me to depart to the kitchen.
‘Sorry, Elizabeth, I must dash or you’ll get no lunch.’
The lunch service went well in spite of the poor state of the chef. Louisa, one of my staff, came into the kitchen carrying empty plates and said how pleased MaryLou was with the steak and kidney pies. Apparently, everyone had loved them.
I had learnt early on from Marguerite, my mother’s cousin’s fiery cook, that the real trick to cooking