“I’ve just made it — highly recommended.”
“Thank you, I will. Sounds great.”
“I’ve probably been watching too many cop shows; I somehow expected you to say you’re not supposed to drink on duty.”
Bliss leaned forward conspiratorially. “I don’t call that drinking. I call it eating.”
The chef smiled and sent the waiter away with an order for one. “You not having any?” Bliss enquired.
“I never eat on duty,” the chef replied with a ring of humour in his voice and an extra couple of clicks. “Have you worked here long?”
The chef relaxed back in his seat, accompanied by much rustling and a prolonged bout of lip clicking, while he considered the question. “Pretty much since the place opened. I made myself indispensable, you see. Of course I’ve had a few challenges from the odd spiky-haired nouvelle cuisine types straight out of catering college, but they didn’t last. The owner was — how shall I put it — a bit difficult.”
“Difficult?” Bliss jumped at the prospect of a motive.
“He could be a bit awkward…” the chef began, then paused and ruminated for several seconds, apparently deliberating as to whether or not he should be betraying the deceased owner. Then he shrugged and continued: “I was all right. I trained in the Army Catering Corps, so I’m used to having somebody’s boot up my jacksy most of the time. You learn to do what you’re told, keep your mouth shut, and get your own back later. What goes around, comes around, an’ I guess someone finally got their own back on him.”
Bliss shot him a look that queried, What do you know? but the chef didn’t wait for the question. “Inspector, I’m not stupid. He’s been dead nearly three weeks. You can’t tell me you just popped in to see how things are going.”
“Well, there are one or two things that don’t quite add up,” Bliss admitted. “If someone had done him in… Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying he was killed, but hypothetically, if it did turn out there was more to this than a straightforward heart attack, the first question I’d have to ask would be, What was the motive? Who had a reason to kill him? Who’s he upset?”
“Have you got a phone book?” responded the chef in a flash.
“OK. So he’s pissed off a few people.”
The other man scoffed, “A few. You are kidding aren’t you?”
“Well. What I mean is, just because he upset someone doesn’t mean they would kill him.”
“I could have.”
Bliss viewed the man through slit eyes. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly,” the chef replied in a relaxed manner. “You should put me first on your list, although I can tell you for nothing that I didn’t do it.”
“At the top of the list… That’s honest of you. But why? What reason did you have to want to kill him?”
“Same reason as hundreds of others. The man was a pompous self-righteous bastard who didn’t give a shit about anyone. He bullied his way through life, crapped on everyone, treated people like dirt. As far as I’m concerned he got what was coming.”
The culinary creation arrived — an oversized portion swimming in an alcoholic sea of orange sauce and swirled with cream.
“Tell me what happened,” said Bliss, digging in.
“We thought he was just drunk at first, as usual. Dead drunk as it turned out,” the chef continued after a taste of coffee. Bliss lifted a finger, intending to speak, but the chef carried on without waiting for him to empty his mouth. “Like a bear with a sore head when he was drunk, which was most of the time. Quite honestly, I didn’t want to wake him up. I thought he’d sleep it off.”
“So he was awkward when he’d had a few?”
“You could put it that way,” chuckled the chef. “The trouble was he couldn’t see it himself and nobody dared tell him.”
I can understand that, thought Bliss. How can you convince an unreasonable man he’s being unreasonable?
“He could be quite amiable at times, but you were never sure where you stood with him. Everything was a competition, you see. He probably got like that working in the stock exchange. He always had to win. A simple handshake could turn into a trial of strength. He always had to have whatever he wanted.”
“What about women?”
The chef thought for a second then shook his head. “He never seemed particularly bothered.”
“Men?” enquired Bliss, in a disapproving tone. “He wasn’t…” “Oh no,” laughed the chef. “Definitely not. He tried it on with a female customer from time to time, although I don’t think he got very far. He usually had a severe case of distiller’s droop by the end of the evening. Anyway he was so bleeding fat he probably couldn’t have found his whatsisname even when he was sober.”
Bliss smiled. “So what happened that evening?”
Both men knew which evening he was talking about. “I didn’t have time to deal with him. It was right in the middle of dinner. Two staff off sick with…” He glanced up at the chandelier then gave his head a quick shake. “I don’t remember now. Anyway, a couple of juniors just dragged him to his office and dumped him on the floor. Nobody had time to deal with him. Nobody wanted to deal with him. He had a nasty habit of firing people on the spot.”
Bliss glanced around the unprepared dining room. “What will happen to the place now?”
“We don’t know. The lawyers and accountants are working on it but haven’t said anything. We’re still being paid, but trade has gone down the tube since the publicity over his death. Of course the lying bastards who dine here all said how nice and quiet it would be without him, but the truth is many of them only came to watch him making an ass of himself. Rich snobs, nobody would even fart in the same room as them usually. They’d go to the opera or ballet, wouldn’t understand a bleedin’ word, say it were absolutely wonderful, then come here and he’d give ’em a right mouthful ‘Fuck this,’ he’d say, and, ‘Fuck that,’ and they loved every minute of it. They could understand it; it took them back to their roots. But they’ll soon stop coming altogether unless something happens.”
Bliss nodded sagely, doubtful they would easily find another obnoxious drunk capable of running the place. Then he checked his notes. “So what did he have for dinner that night?”
“Nothing.”
Bliss looked confused. “I thought… Wait a minute.” He clicked open his briefcase, selected the thin file and searched for a handwritten page. “I’ve got a statement here from the head waiter.”
The chef jumped in: “Malcolm, the head waiter. He took his dinner up to him — the boss had an apartment upstairs. But he didn’t eat anything. He didn’t touch it. It was quite common. He’d order dinner, but would start on the bottle and forget all about the food. It used to piss me off, especially when he ordered something special. I’d spend bloody ages making it perfect just so he couldn’t complain, then it would get chucked in the bin.”
Bliss persisted; he’d already set his line of questioning and couldn’t easily change tack. “Who could’ve tampered with his dinner that day?”
The chef replied slowly, carefully emphasizing each word by liberally interposing clicks, and insisting by his tone that Bliss should comprehend. “Like I said: he didn’t touch it. He didn’t eat anything, and the only stuff he ever drank came out of a bottle — his own bottle.”
Bliss studied the chef’s face critically asking, “Is there anything else you can tell me?”
The chef fidgeted noisily and ruminated under Bliss’s stare, but then spread his hands and shook his head.