fantasies involved impossibly glamorous men who would succumb to her substantial charms, but she had career ambitions too. Meriel Dane was convinced that she was about to become the next big thing in television chefs, so she regarded her participation in Ben Milne’s documentary as a kind of audition.
‘You see, Ben,’ she confided as she rolled out the pastry for the day’s pies, ‘I always add a couple of special ingredients when I’m doing steak and kidney. They impart a subtlety to the taste, which is commented on by many of the Admiral Byng’s customers. Satisfied customers, I should say. People who order my steak and kidney pie never regret their choice. They are always satisfied. One of my secret ingredients,’ she went on slyly, almost winking at the camera, ‘is Worcester sauce – just a little shake of the bottle into the mixture. I’m never one for measuring things too exactly. I have an instinct for the right amount. Most of my cooking is instinctive. I am rather a creature of impulse, you know.’
She leaned forward to the camera, fully aware of the amount of ample cleavage that the movement revealed. It was Meriel Dane’s view that there was a lack of glamour in the current stock of television chefs. Most of them were men, for a start – and not very attractive men at that. What British television needed was a series by someone who put the sex back into cookery. Someone remarkably like Meriel Dane, in fact.
‘And my other secret ingredient, Ben, no one suspects. But being here by the sea in Crabwell – and me being the kind of person who is really drawn to the sea, I do add a little maritime flavour to my steak and kidney. Oysters. Not a lot of them – it’s not a steak and oyster pie – but just enough to provide that little salty tang. And nobody – but nobody – can identify what gives the pie that oh so distinctive flavour.’
Meriel Dane smiled. A warm smile, promising who knew what delights ahead. She reckoned the little piece she’d just done to camera, confiding the secrets of her steak and kidney pie, would edit neatly into a show reel to engage the enthusiasm of even the most jaded television executive.
She looked at her watch and felt a little frisson, knowing the delights that lay ahead for her that evening… if she played her cards right… and Meriel Dane was always confident in her ability to play her cards right. In the meantime, flirting with Ben Milne was a reasonably pleasant way of passing the time. He was quite attractive in an angular way, and Meriel Dane always rather fancied herself in the role of cougar.
And then Ben went and spoiled it all by asking her about the budgetary restrictions on the Admiral Byng’s food operation.
Because they had driven up from London that morning, Ben Milne’s cameraman Stan, according to some abstruse ruling known only to his union, had to stop work at five for a three-hour break. He left then, and went to the B & B in a nearby village, which he’d booked in preference to one of the Admiral Byng’s bedrooms. Ben, though, was staying in the pub. Unable to shoot any further footage for the time being, he bought himself a large glass of Chilean Merlot and sat in a corner of the bar, drinking as though he’d earned it. Amy Walpole still didn’t trust him. Though without his cameraman he couldn’t actually record anything that happened, she still sensed that he was vigilant, listening out for those telling details that might contribute something to his eventual hatchet job.
But the absence of the camera had an immediate effect on the day’s business. All of those locals who kept away from the Admiral Byng most of the year but had ‘just happened to drop in’ that day suddenly vanished when there was no further chance of them being immortalised on video. Though Amy was in no doubt that a lot of them would be back the following morning.
The stresses of the day were catching up on her. She’d been so busy that she hadn’t had a chance to get any lunch and she felt headachey. What she needed was a brisk walk along the Crabwell front to blow away the cobwebs. And Ben Milne was now the only customer in the bar.
Grabbing from its hook the beaten-up Barbour jacket that Fitz had given her, Amy Walpole told him she had to go out for a while. If he needed a refill or anything else before she was back, he should call through to Meriel in the kitchen. She’d help him out.
The wind from the Urals was predictably invigorating once she got outside, but Amy was used to it. All the Crabwell locals instinctively adopted a particular stance, leaning into the wind as they walked. Amy comforted herself with the thought that at least it wasn’t raining. But the weather was dull and miserable, almost impossible to see where the slate grey of the sky met the slate grey of the sea. It was one of those Suffolk afternoons when there wouldn’t really be a dusk, just a darkening of the grey until it was imperceptibly transformed into black.
There weren’t many people about, though a little way up the beach Amy could see a group of Girl Guides struggling against the wind to erect some tents on the shingle. She remembered the girls’ leader Greta Knox telling her they had some camping exercise planned, though it didn’t look much fun on a cold March evening. She recognised Greta’s stocky outline amongst the girls, and waved vaguely in her direction. Whether Greta saw her or not, she couldn’t judge.
Amy also saw, lingering on the edge of the group, trying to avoid doing anything useful, a girl called Tracy Crofts to whom she had more than once refused service at the bar of the Admiral Byng. In spite of her protestations, Amy knew the girl to be underage. There was a general view in Crabwell that it was only a matter of time before Tracy Crofts, a seething mass of teenage hormones, came to no good.
Amy Walpole lived in a dilapidated little seafront cottage only five minutes’ walk from the pub, and she felt a strong temptation to go home, however briefly. Just to put her feet up, have a cup of tea. But she resisted the impulse. She knew how much more difficult it would be to force herself back to work if she succumbed to home comforts.
So she walked determinedly in the opposite direction from her cottage. Towards the end of the beach where, drawn up on the sand, there were a lot of boats. Including the dinghy owned by her boss. No surprise really that its name, picked out in silver stick-on letters across the stern, was The Admiral.
More of a surprise, though, that afternoon, was that the boat’s owner was standing by it, checking the cords that tied down the tarpaulin cover from which the mast protruded. He wore no overcoat, just his usual blazer.
‘Evening, Admiral,’ said Amy.
‘Hello there.’ There was an uncharacteristic air of complacency in his smile, of relief almost, as if he had just achieved something very necessary.
‘Problems with the cover?’
‘Just checking it, Amy. There have been rather too many thefts from boats on the beach here recently.’
‘Have you got much of value in there?’
‘Now that’d be telling,’ he replied with an enigmatic grin.
‘I’ve hardly seen you today.’
‘No, I’ve been busy in the Bridge.’
‘So I gathered. And you haven’t talked yet to Ben Milne, the Grand Inquisitor?’
‘No. That pleasure is scheduled for tomorrow. Seems to me to be a rather cocky young man.’
‘I think if you work in television that goes with the territory.’
He grinned, then his face clouded as he said, ‘Also, Amy, you and I need to have a long talk.’
‘Really?’ She spread her hands wide. ‘Well, I’m happy to talk now.’
