Chef Maurice and a Spot of Truffle (Chef Maurice Mysteries Book 1) Read Free Page B

table in silent anticipation, forks in hand, admiring a perfectly made wobbly omelette topped with slivers of the finest white truffle.
    They dove in.
    “But if we did have these truffles around these parts,” said Alf a while later, not being one to let a good idea go, “you mean anyone could just go around and pick them up?”
    “It’s not that easy,” said Patrick. “You can’t see them from above ground. You need a special truffle dog, one that’s trained to sniff them out from under the earth. In fact, I heard in France they still use pigs to hunt truffles.”
    “Pah, you do not want a pig,” said Chef Maurice, mouth full of truffled omelette. “They are big trouble. Always, it is better to have a dog.”
    “How come, chef?” asked Alf.
    Chef Maurice held up a finger. “With a dog, you can train the dog to give you the truffle after he has found it. With a pig, the pig also wants to eat the truffle. And you do not want to fight a pig for a truffle. I know truffle hunters who have lost more than one finger to a pig who is mad for truffles.”
    Patrick tried to clear his mind of the mental image of Chef Maurice wrestling a pig for a truffle.
    Chef Maurice held the truffle to his nose again, a thoughtful look on his face. Their impromptu breakfast had barely made a dent in it.
    “So you’re definitely sure we don’t have these truffles here in Beakley?” said Alf, running a finger around the plate, then licking it.
    Patrick expected some form of emphatic denial from his boss, perhaps along with some slur on the incapacity of England’s green and pleasant lands to produce a worthwhile crop of truffles. Instead, Chef Maurice murmured, “It does not appear to be so . . . ”
    The head chef stared into the distance for a moment, then shook his head.
    “ Bon ,” he said, slapping the table. “Enough of talk, today we make a terrine of pork with the spiced Bramley apple chutney—Patrick, you know the recipe—and Alf, potatoes and the usual mélange of vegetables for the ox cheek stew. We will put it on tonight’s menu. Allez-y! ”
    He picked up the rest of the truffle, wrapped it carefully in his handkerchief and pocketed it.
    “Now, I must go see a man about a dog.”
    Patrick tilted his head to one side. There was something about the smell still lingering in the air, and the way his boss had said it . . .
    “Not a pig, chef?”
    Chef Maurice gave him a long look. “ Non . A dog, Patrick. Definitely a dog.”
    * * *
    PC Lucy Gavistone surveyed the crime scene with a grim look on her face. She was hoping this gave her a look of stern authority, something she felt she sorely lacked in her dealings with the residents of Beakley.
    That was the problem with policing in a small village. It wasn’t that the residents of Beakley didn’t respect the law; they had great respect for it, and therefore liked to turn up en masse to make sure it got done properly.
    Hence the ragtag audience currently following her as she made her way round Ollie Meadows’ cottage. Okay, she could deal with Arthur Wordington-Smythe, who lived up the top of the village and had been the one to report last night’s break-in. Unfortunately he hadn’t seen much, just an intruder dressed in dark clothes, tall and thin, most likely male.
    This ruled out the possibility of the intruder having been one of her other two spectators.
    She wasn’t too sure why Chef Maurice, who ran Le Cochon Rouge up at the top of Beakley, was also here. He’d dropped by—as if dropping by a police investigation was a normal morning activity—wanting to speak to Arthur about Arthur’s dog, or something along those lines, then had been distracted by the mess in Ollie’s kitchen.
    She’d have turfed him out if she could, on the grounds of obstructing the course of justice in general, and that of PC Lucy in particular, but that would have meant also getting rid of old Mrs Eldridge from next door, who was immovable to the crowbars of unsubtle