Coombs A Knife in the Back

Settle down with a bite to eat and devour this third in the Old Forge Café cosy culinary mystery series!
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-915798-77-0
Verlag: No Exit Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 3, 336 Seiten

Reihe: An Old Forge Café Mystery

Autoren/Hrsg.

Coombs, Alex

Leseproben

Chapter One

I hadn’t been outside at 7 o’clock in the evening on a Thursday in years. Before, it was because I had been working in other people’s restaurants. Now, it was because I had a kitchen of my own to run.

The outside world was the real world. The world I lived in most of the time was like the mythical world of Plato’s cave, lit by fires and guessable only by representations of reality that in my case were the food orders that the ticket machine delivered at periodic intervals. Orders that I then had to turn into edible reality. But outside the kitchen walls, I knew that if you parked your car carefully – not by the side of the common which, as the many signs point out, is strictly forbidden – and strolled around Hampden Green, you’d think to yourself, ‘What a peaceful place.’

It’s what I had thought when I’d moved here.

A hypothetical, disinterested observer would note the green, with its fenced-off play area, a couple of mothers supervising their children before bed in the late summer, some small boys playing football at the mini goal-posts and maybe a dog walker or two, exercising their animals with a fling-ball. It would seem like a nice place to raise a family or live a quiet life. The tasteful parish information noticeboard (made of wood, a kind of walnut stained finish and a glass case; you had to have permission to put notices inside) gives details of Zumba classes and yoga in the village hall – run by a new yoga teacher, a woman this time. Regulars can be spotted sitting outside the local Three Bells pub having a quiet pint. And then there’s my restaurant, the Old Forge Café.

In the calm, tranquil dining room that Thursday night, there were about twenty-five people, enjoying good food (at reasonable prices) efficiently and charmingly served by my young manager, Jess and her assistant waiter, Katie.

A peaceful place to eat in a peaceful Chiltern village. Until you go inside the kitchen…

Welcome to my world.

Heat from the stove, heat from the chargrill, heat from the hot plate, heat from the lights keeping the food warm on the pass, heat from the backs of the fridges, heat from the deep-fat fryers, heat and steam from the dishwasher…

‘Cheque on!’ I shouted to Francis over the kitchen fans. It was like a furnace in here. My jacket was sodden with perspiration and stuck to my skin. I wiped my forehead with the back of my sleeve.

‘Two hake, one fillet steak medium rare, peppercorn sauce… no starter…’

Francis’s large, red, sweaty face beamed at me from underneath his bandana that he’d taken to wearing in the kitchen, and he turned away to get the vegetable accompaniments ready.

And not just heat to contend with, but noise too. The roar of the extractor fans, which in this small space was like a jet taking off, the hiss and bubble of the deep-fat fryer, the clang of pans on the stove, the crash and bang of fridges as we frantically opened and slammed them shut, the dry crackle of the cheque machine as it printed out the new orders.

I added the cheque to the row of five that were already lined up in chronological order above the pass. At least this was an easy order to do.

I quickly finished plating the dish that I had just cooked, glanced at the clock, pulled a frying pan off the stove and balanced it on the cooker away from direct heat where it would keep warm until it was ready to be reheated before I sent it out.

‘Service…’ Jess, my manageress/waitress/confidante/friend/IT adviser, appeared, and I pointed at the pass. She was back from uni for the summer, thank God. Jess might be only twenty-two but she was by far the most mature person I knew, myself included. ‘Two lamb, one smoked aubergine feuilleté. Thank you, Jess.’

‘Thank you, Chef.’

She disappeared with the food, efficient as always. I turned to Francis as I took the cheque down and spiked it, and looked at the next three, to see they were all in hand. I opened my small locker fridge for mains and took out two pieces of hake and a steak fillet and put the piece of meat on the bars of the chargrill.

‘Francis, get the red pepper relish out.’ I liked the red pepper relish, simple to make (cheap to make, come to that), versatile, a real winner.

‘We haven’t got any, Chef!’ came the shouted reply.

For a second, the world stood still as I digested the news, then I was back in action, mechanically turning the various pieces of meat on the chargrill, checking that the three small frying pans I had on the go with yet more meat inside were all to hand, making sure that the piece of turbot protected by tinfoil under the lights on the pass wasn’t going over, getting too cooked. I was cooking fifteen meals simultaneously, and now this.

I turned to Francis who quailed under my gaze. I was very cross indeed. At 5 o’clock he had assured me that all the mise en place was done; well, that manifestly wasn’t the case. You didn’t run out of things in restaurants; it was unacceptable.

As was sending the hake out naked, minus its dressing as clearly stated on the menu, into the world.

I was tempted to bellow, ‘What do you mean, we haven’t got any…’ adding a string of profanities, but what would have been the use?

One of the hallmarks of a good chef is being able to deal with crises and I am a good chef.

‘Go out to the walk-in, get me a red pepper, an onion, a fennel bulb – and hurry up…’ I snapped, suppressing the urge to scream at him. That would not be ladylike I told myself primly. If I’d been a man I might have said something like, ‘You’ll be wearing your effing nads for earrings if you do that again’ – but I’m not a man.

Francis stood there rooted to the spot. Like he’d been hypnotised or glued to the floor.

I lost my ability to suppress my urges. There’s a time and a place for everything. Now it was time to scream.

‘Please, HURRY UP!’

It had no noticeable effect. He didn’t leap into action; he ambled. There are times when I would dearly like to kill Francis.

Jess came into the kitchen and saw my expression, sensed the mood in the air.

‘You okay, Charlie?’ she asked.

‘I’m savouring the moment, Jess,’ I said through clenched teeth. ‘I’m very much savouring the moment in a mindful way.’

Earlier that day I had been reading another article on mindfulness. Mindfulness had become my latest obsession. If I had some free time I would research it on the internet. Obviously, when I was cooking it wasn’t a problem, I had laser focus on what I was doing, but I had noticed of late that when I was doing prep, or driving or running, my mind was becoming overwhelmed with negative thoughts. It was time to do something about it.

Whoever had written the article, I decided, had probably never worked in a commercial kitchen, but I was determined to take their comments on board, regardless. It was probably easier to be mindful if you work as a meditation teacher than a chef, but hey ho…

I crashed a pan on the stove to vent some mindfulness on metal rather than Francis’s skull. It felt so good I did it again, but harder, repressing an urge to scream at the top of my voice.

Francis returned and handed me the vegetables.

He looked stricken, his plump, red face a mask of contrition. Contrition was no good to me. I gritted my teeth and tried to enjoy the Now.

The Now was far from enjoyable.

So, while I cooked fifteen meals, (Francis doing the vegetables, silently, miserably, like a kicked dog – now I felt guilty as well as angry, sometimes you just can’t win) I frantically made a red pepper relish, buying time from the table by sending them some pâté and homemade parmesan and rosemary focaccia bread (chef’s compliments).

The relish is supposed to gently cook for about three-quarters of an hour – I had it ready in ten minutes, softening the vegetables in the microwave before frying them, frantically cutting corners. More by luck than judgement, it ended up just fine, but by the end of the night I was a sweaty, angry twitchy mass of nerves enclosed in sodden chef’s whites.

We sent the last cheque out and silence descended on the kitchen. I started turning the gas rings off on the cooker, shutting down the kitchen, tight-lipped with irritation.

‘I’m sorry, Chef, I was as much use as a chocolate teaspoon…’ Francis looked like he might cry, his lip trembling. He had taken his bandana off and his very blond hair was plastered to his head like he had been swimming.

Francis was huge, his chef’s whites padded out with muscle.

‘That’s okay, Francis,’ I said, patting him on the back (it was like stroking a horse), ‘but please don’t do it again.’ I thought for a moment, reliving the sheer panic-stricken unpleasantness of those moments. ‘Ever again,’ I added.

‘I won’t… I promise.’

‘Well, we’ll say no more about it then.’

We cleaned the kitchen down, I sent Francis home, and Jessica and I sat in the small empty restaurant and had a beer. It was becoming a bit of a tradition really, and I was beginning to realise just how much I had come to rely on Jess’s company since arriving in Hampden...