The Food Detective Read Free

fit.’
    ‘I’m not so sure about that.’ He swallowed. ‘I’ve done my stint and taken the retirement cheque. But what with one thing and another, I – well, I needed another job.’
    I dug in one of the boxes – he’d already started to empty this one, and came up with a photo of girl celebrating something with a glass of bubbly.
    ‘Elly,’ he said. ‘When she got her A level results.’
    ‘Pretty kid. Not much like you. I suppose you had the usual police marriage. The wife comes third after the job and the boozer. And then she ups and offs. Good for her. So you’ve got to work because you’re still paying maintenance and there’s the kids to put through college. It’ll do you good to do a decent nine till five job for a change.’ So what was it? I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of having me ask.
    ‘Tea all right?’
    I mimed a spit. ‘Typhoo!’
    ‘I always thought it was a perfectly good tea.’ He put on aponcy expression: ‘What would Madam prefer to go with her lemon? Assam? Earl Grey?’
    ‘Cheeky sod. No breakfast things?’
    He flushed like a guilty schoolboy. ‘I was just shaving when –’ He stopped, grabbing his stomach as if he’d been stabbed.
    All that stuff about food last night, and then looking as if he’d thrown up in the gents – did he have an ulcer? ‘Tablets?’
    ‘In one of these boxes.’ He looked helplessly around.
    ‘You’d better eat something. Dry toast.’ I dug out a toaster and plugged it in. ‘Where’s your bread?’
    He passed a Sainsbury’s carrier.
    ‘You’ll have a round with me?’
    Thick white sliced? I didn’t think so. ‘I’ve already eaten, thanks. You’d better take yourself off to Dr Cole.’ I pointed at his midriff. ‘He’s twenty years behind the times, but at least that means he doesn’t feel bound to experiment on you.’ I perched on one leg, put my boots back on, first the left, then the right, then reached for the Barbour.
    ‘How did you get the idea the police were after you?’ he asked, twenty minutes after I’d expected him to.
    ‘Obvious. A stranger in the village. Short hair. Keeps himself to himself in the bar. It doesn’t take much to put that lot together.’
    ‘
Keeps himself to himself!
They bloody froze me out. You should have seen them!’ What a surprise. ‘And what would they be looking for, the police?’
    Tony’s fortune, of course. ‘If you can’t work that out you’re a bigger fool than I took you for. But they’d have it all wrong. I earn my own living now.’
    He managed a thin smile. ‘Josie, anything in your bank account, even in an old sock under your bed, is none of my business. Now. I’m not DI Thomas, West Midlands Police. I’m plain Nick Thomas.’
    ‘So why are you here?’ I paused, the Barbour zip halfway up.
    ‘I told you. New job.’
    ‘Which is?’
    ‘The Food Standards Agency. Investigating officer.’
    ‘Jesus Christ! You are going to be little Mr Popular round here, aren’t you! You’d be better off letting the police rumour grow.’
    He bridled. ‘I don’t see why. If people have nothing to hide.’
    ‘Nothing to hide? People here make their living out of agriculture and don’t need some government spy living slap in the middle of them.’
    ‘If I spy it’s to protect the public: I mean, farmers round here need protection from –’
    ‘Spies like you!’
    ‘Come on: how did BSE get into the food chain? Because feed manufacturers wanted quick profits and thought it would be nice to feed total herbivores recycled meat products. Those farmers didn’t know what was in the feed. So it’s my job to make sure manufacturers are putting into feed what will be good for animals . And for us. If you’ve ever seen a case of new variant CJD –’
    ‘Oh, it’s all stuff got up by the media. Old folk die every day of Alzheimer’s.’
    ‘And kids of sixteen? Eighteen? Who ate beef burgers made from nice fresh beef thinking they were safe?’
    A man with a stomach