Puffing and panting, he put the hammer down again and pulled on a posh voice. ‘“So sorry, old bean,” says Sir Reg, “it’s completely out of my hands. I had simplyno ideahe was a bad egg.”’ Back to normal for, ‘Yeah, right. Bet he got to keep his commission, though.’
Roberta sighed. ‘The rich get richer.’
‘And the poor saps like us get screwed over. Every single time.’ Gérard leaned forward again. ‘You know, I know I shouldn’t say it, cos you’re the bizzies and everything, but I’mgladhe’s dead. Waltzing round here, like there’s a silver spoon up his arse and he’s doin’ us a favour lettin’ us sniff it.’ Gérard marched over to the fridge and returned with a net of neeps. Dug one out and bashed it down on the chopping board. ‘Come the revolution?’ The knife whistled down, bisecting the neep neatly in two.
Sergeant Moore raised a fist in salute. ‘Right on, comrade.’
And Gérard pulled the same face he’d done when Roberta rumbled him for an undercover Brummie. ‘I’m norra bleedin’Communist! I voted Conservative last five general elections, thank you very much.’
‘But—’
‘We’re nor all toffee-nosed tossers, you know! Some of us believe in small government, personal responsibility, and people actually werkin’ for a living.’ Another neep got its napper cleaved in two. Then Gérard went a bit misty-eyed, staring off into space. ‘What amma gonna do about dinner? There’s leftovers from the weddin’, but someone’s beenatthose. You should see the state of that roast beef – looks like a wolverine’s been chewin’ it.’
Sergeant Moore took a sudden interest in his notebook.
Roberta cleared her throat and picked at her fingernails.
Yeah...
She put on that innocent voice again. ‘I wouldn’t mind a slice or three?’
‘Had to chuck it in the bin. It’s nothygienic, you see. Don’t even know if the thieving bastard washed his hands ferst! I serve that, and give half the local Conservative Party botulism, I’m out on me arse.’
‘Oh.’ What a waste of lovely pink beef. They should’ve scarfed the lot this morning and no one would’ve been any the wiser. ‘Er... Nothing in the freezer?’
‘Naaaaah. Well, haunch of venison, but it won’t defrost in...’ A smile bloomed on his chubby face, making his eyes almost disappear in the folds. ‘That’sbostin’! I’ll give Albert a shout: he can nip out and shoot summit for us.’
Roberta and Moore raised their eyebrows at each other.
‘Albert?’
‘You know: the gamekeeper-slash-handyman? Albert Nairn? Old bloke, nose like a shark humping a sack of wrinkles?’
‘Ah.’ The tweedy old man who’d found her in the long grass that morning.
‘I know we’re allmeantto be confined to barracks, but you’d let him out to shoot somethin’ for dinner, wouldn’t yez? I mean, it’s not like anyone’d notice he’d gone, is it? How could you tell?’
Sergeant Moore looked up from scribbling in his book. ‘How could we tell?’
‘Well, he doesn’t live in the hotel, does he? Lucky sod’s gorra tied cottage in the woods. Can come and go as he pleases and who’d ever know?’
The mysterious stranger who disappeared into the woods: it was the bloody gamekeeper, out and about when he should’ve been in and not.
‘Tell you what, let us know how to find his cottage and we’ll go ask him for you.’ Roberta pushed off from the stovetop. ‘Sergeant Moore can take the details.’
Took a while, but eventually the chef had sketched out a passable map in Moore’s notebook, complete with arrows and dotted lines and things.
Soon as it was done, Gérard went back to his’Allo ’Alloaccent. ‘Zut alors, madame gendarme, eet ’as been my pleasure!’ Then he grabbed her hand, bent, and kissed it.
Urgh...
It was like being tongued by a slug.
Robertavwwwwwwipped up her high-vis’s zip and stood, staring through the hotel’s front doors at the miserable rain. The puddles out there had spread and deepened, the sky darkened to bruised concrete. They’d have to build an ark at this rate.
Sergeant Moore struggled into his fluorescent-yellow jacket, pulling a face. ‘Is yours all clammy? Mine is all clammy.’
Yeah. And so were her socks – the water leeching out of her squelchy trainers right through to her rapidly wrinkling toes. Trousersstillhadn’t dried out either. Going to catch her death of mildew at this rate.
