Death in Brunswick Read Free

however, Carl hardly noticed him. He was always there.
    But where was he?
    â€˜Anybody round?’ Carl shouted through the service door.
    â€˜Yeah!’
    Carl saw an enormous figure floating towards him through the gloom. A cigarette glowed nearly seven feet from the ground.
    â€˜Ah, Laurie,’ Carl said nervously. ‘What are youse doing in so early?’
    Carl deliberately roughened his accent, Laurie being a bouncer and liable to be displeased at any sort of ‘poofter’ voice.
    The huge lout straddled the counter with a vast creaking of black leather pants; gold sparkled on his chest and his blow-waved hair was tipped with silver.
    â€˜So early?’ said Laurie, ‘It’s nearly quarter to six. You better get fuckin’ moving, Cookie, Yanni’s not too happy with you already. He reckons he’s going to replace you with a pie machine.’
    â€˜Yeah, well, where’s Mustafa for Christ’s sake? How can I work with no kitchen man?’
    â€˜Ah, well,’ said Laurie grinning. ‘Sorry, pal, we had to biff the little wog last night.’
    â€˜Jesus! What the hell for?’
    â€˜He reckoned we all owe him, you included, Cookie, and he really started stacking it on an’ we just gave him the big fuckin’ push, you know? So. You’ll just have to do without him—and hurry up! Yanni’ll be in soon and he’s got the fuckin’ rags on.’
    â€˜Why do I work in this shithouse?’ said Carl hopelessly.
    â€˜Same as why I do; lurks and perks,’ said Laurie, slouching off into the darkness.
    Well, fucking great! No kitchen hand, no pills, bugger all food and seventy meals to cook! Crushing his rising panic he shrugged his shoulders, muttering ‘Se debrouiller’— ‘I will get through!’
    Beef Curry—right! He went to the coolroom and fetched the beef and, looking at it with distaste, laid it on a chopping board. He unwrapped his favourite knife, a Portuguese fish filleter, and trimmed most of the fat from the noisome mass. Boy, it’s really high! Still, curry…
    He cubed it, washed it with vinegar and fried it quickly, pouring away the resulting grease.
    His knife flickering, he sliced half a kilo of onions and fried half slowly with as much curry powder as he dared. In went powdered beef stock, a packet of coconut and a jar of peanut butter—Malaysian Beef Curry! He set this fraudulent stew at a low simmer.
    OK! I’ll add some spuds later, that’ll bulk it out. Right; what’s next? Vegetable lasagne—fucking no way. It was out of the question; he had no vegetables except tomatoes…but wait! Tomatoes, onions and ham. Ham… Spaghetti Milanese! There was always plenty of spag.
    As always, like a soldier going into battle, Carl’s panic disappeared as the action commenced. Soon the sauce was simmering on the stove with the curry and Carl was slicing salad vegetables with fair contentment.
    He was shaking salad cream into a bowl of boiled potatoes, and as it landed in the bowl with an unpleasant plop the door flew open and Carl’s employer waddled into the kitchen. This was Yanni, a gross youth whose pub-owning parents had bought him the club as a sort of apprenticeship to the real world of booze selling. Carl thought he looked like the picture of the young Brendan Behan on the back of Borstal Boy. He had the same look of cherubic dissipation, but added to this was a kind of stupid cunning. He wore a tracksuit and fur-trimmed moccasins.
    â€˜Hey, Cookie,’ he cried with jovial menace. ‘What’s on tonight?’ He stuck his fat fingers into the curry and licked them.
    â€˜Jeez, that’s a bit strong!’
    â€˜Well, I had to cover up the taste of that rotten meat you bought. What are you trying to do, poison everyone? And shit, Yanni, there wasn’t enough food there to feed the staff, let alone the poor bloody customers.’
    â€˜Stiff