A Taste of Death: The gripping new murder mystery that will keep you guessing

‘What’s he like?’

‘Mean,’ she said, slightly irritably.

I couldn’t resist going to have a look myself. I knew it was ridiculous but I had never met an earl, or a lord, or any form of titled person. I wanted to go and see what he looked like. I muttered some excuse to Jess about needing some coffee and I went into the restaurant, made myself an espresso and returned to the kitchen.

It was the grey-haired man I had seen coming into the Three Bells.

‘I saw him the other day, in the pub,’ I said. He had seemed slightly sinister, his age contrasted with the youth of the girl clutching his arm, her hair very blonde against his dark suit. His choice of drinking companions made him seem Mafiosi-like too. An ageing, lecherous Don.

Will you look at yourself? I thought. You sound just like your mother.

‘Bet he was with some floozy,’ Jess said sniffily, ‘he’s on some rich man’s dating agency.’

The words ‘dating agency’ came heavily italicised.

‘He likes going to Thailand a lot.’ The way she said it made me think it probably wasn’t for the food, the temples or the beaches.

‘Bangkok?’ I asked.

‘You said it.’ She went back into the restaurant, annoyed at the aristocracy’s lack of morals and I carried on cleaning.

Later, during a lull in food orders, while a couple of tables studied dessert menus, I asked her if she knew Craig. I described him to her.

‘Well, Ben, you are getting to know the village, aren’t you?’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘If you want to buy drugs in Hampden Green, Craig’s your man.’

‘Really?’ I said. I don’t know why I should have been surprised that a country village should have its own resident dealer. Drugs are everywhere.

‘Yeah, and he is to dealing what Whitfield is to construction, i.e., crap. He nearly got beaten to death a couple of years ago when he tried to rip off a couple of guys from London.’

Yay, I thought, strike one for my home town and place of birth! Take that, yokel dealers!

Jess carried on, unaware of my flush of civic pride. ‘He got found in a lay-by on the Speen road. He said it was a mugging.’ She shook her head disbelievingly as if anyone would be so stupid as to fall for so transparent a lie. ‘Yeah, right, Craig, in the middle of nowhere,’ she said scornfully. ‘The only things off the Speen road are fields with cows and livery yards. Who did that then, who put you in hospital for a fortnight, the Pony Club?’

Time passed. I prepared seventeen meals as well as a fair amount of cakes. It was a pleasantly busy morning.

While I was cooking I reflected on Slattery and his attitude to me. If he was so worried about crime and keeping his village – this village – free of it, why wasn’t he concentrating more on Craig and less on me? It was puzzling.

‘Um, Ben.’ Jess was back, she put her tray down.

I looked up from what I was doing.

‘One of the customers said she would like a word about doing some catering for a party.’

Great, I thought, with satisfaction. ‘Oh, good,’ I said, then, ‘do you know her?’

I immediately thought, stupid question. Jess seemed to know everyone in the village, but that’s obviously part of the village way of life. Hardly surprising.

More Jess facts that I had learned during service: she’d been born in the maternity department of the local hospital in Byfield, the nearby big town, grew up in Hampden Green. She had been educated in the village primary school, then back to Byfield for a grammar school education.

Her reply to my question entailed a rolling of her expressive, dark-brown eyes. Not a good sign.

‘Naomi West.’ The name was delivered with the sort of enthusiasm with which you open an envelope marked HMRC.

‘What’s she like?’ I was curious to know what Naomi had done to attract Jess’s ire.

‘She’s a yoga teacher, very New Age.’ Jess’s voice was sniffy. Four A-stars at A level in science subjects and the legacy of relentless, Boolean mathematics had left their mark on her view of the value of mysticism. She clarified, ‘New Age in terms of beliefs, not years on this planet.’

I went through into the restaurant to meet the object of Jess’s ageist, rationalist scorn.

In my limited experience yoga teachers, women ones, tend to be cut from the same cloth. Often with a background in dance or gymnastics, they are genial, usually fairly affluent, good-humouredly bossy, and obviously very flexible physically.

Naomi lived up to the stereotype.

First impressions: wide, sincere eyes, dark hair, quite tanned or naturally brown, slim, wiry body, boho kind of dress sense, silver jewellery, late forties and a habit, as I was soon to find out, of clinging on to your forearm whilst staring intently into your face. The sort of person who tells you earnestly, ‘I’m a people person.’

She was drinking herbal tea. To be expected.

‘Hi, so good to meet you,’ Naomi said. Her voice was low-pitched and husky. She made eye contact with me, as if I was super-important.

I listened as she spoke, giving details of the proposed party. A hundred people, mid-February, a thousand-pound budget. A chance to showcase and show-off. I was delighted.

I was aware of a kind of stiff-backed resentment from Jess as the two of us ran through proposed menus. Jess moved around the restaurant deliberately clattering things. If she’d been an animal, a cat say, her fur would have been on end, angrily bristling.

‘It’s for the feast of Imbolc,’ Naomi said, meaningfully, ‘perhaps you have heard of it?’

I confessed my ignorance of pagan festivals. Naomi leaned forwards towards me, said, ‘Maybe you’d like to come over tonight to discuss the menu, we could finalise things …Wait—’ she held my arm, peering at me intently ‘—you must be an Aries, I can tell … the ram.’

‘I’m Gemini.’ I said, then, damn! I should have gone with Aries, the customer is always right.

‘Of course you are!’ I had to admire her, she didn’t miss a beat. ‘You are so fluent, so communicative, but I can sense the presence of the hornèd ram, I’m never wrong. I’ll arrange a chart reading for you, we can clear this mystery up together …’

Her long fingers with deep, pink-painted square-cut fingernails lingered long on my arm as she looked up at me. Meaningfully.

It had been a long time since a woman had put a hand on me, I felt quite overcome with excitement. And not just by the catering prospects.

‘Yeah, that’d be great, where do you live?’ I said. I’d brave an astrological reading for a firm booking.

She pointed out of the window. ‘On the green, the Kiln House.’ She stood up. ‘Eight thirty suit you?’

‘Fine, I’ll see you then,’ I said.

She smiled at me and stood up, then moved lithely out of the restaurant. I went back into the kitchen. Jess stood at the fridge, her arms folded. Her expression was as cold as the machine that she was leaning against.

‘What!’ I protested. Judging by her face Naomi and I might as well have been kissing passionately in the restaurant.

‘So, eight thirty, her place.’ Her voice dropped an octave and she turned her head, shyly looking at me out of the corner of her eye. ‘Ohh, Ben, you’re so strong and masterful …’ She pushed her hand through her hair and stuck her chest out, the fabric of her blouse straining under the pressure. ‘Ohh, Ben, you must be born under the sign of the goat,Ben …’

I started laughing, ‘Stop it, Jess, she’s not that bad. She only wants me to do a party.’