Foxden Hotel (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 5) by Madalyn Morgan (ebook reader ink txt) 📕

‘I was only saying…’

‘Then say it in your own time. Better still, don’t say it at all,’ he bellowed, ‘Get out and don’t come back!’

‘You can’t sack me!’ Joan Sharp spat. ‘I’ll report you to Mrs--’

‘Donnelly?’ the chef said, with irony. ‘And tell her what? That you think she is a murderer? Now go!’ the chef hollered.

At that moment the door opened and Bess ducked to dodge a flying plate. ‘What on earth is going on?’ she shouted to the chef who, with his arm still raised, stood open mouthed on the opposite side of the kitchen.

‘I think you had better leave,’ Bess said to Joan Sharp, who had side-stepped the chef’s missile and, struggling to stand up, had fallen sideways into Bess.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Donnelly.’ Bess raised her eyebrows. ‘I weren’t saying you did kill that man,’ Joan Sharp fawned.

‘Of course you were, Mrs Sharp.’ Bess held the door open for her. ‘You were saying exactly that. You overheard a small part of a conversation between my husband and me, put two and two together and came up with five.’ Joan Sharp looked daggers at the chef, hung her head, and manoeuvred her stout form past Bess and out of the kitchen.

‘I am sorry about the plate,’ the chef said, picking up the broken pieces at Bess’s feet. ‘I did not intend it to hit Joan--- Mrs Sharp, or you.’

‘Well that’s all right then,’ Bess said, unable to keep sarcasm out of her voice. ‘But accidents happen, and if you had hit Mrs Sharp the hotel would have been a chef short tonight, because you’d be in a police cell - and I would have a law suit on my hands.’

Bess gave the chef time to digest the implications of his actions before saying, ‘Are you calm enough to carry on with your work, or shall I take over?’

‘No!’ Red-faced, Chef’s fat cheeks wobbled and the sagging skin around his jowls and chin quivered. ‘With all due respect, Mrs Donnelly, you are not, not…’

‘Capable?’ Bess offered.

‘Qualified,’ the chef said. He clasped his hands in front of his considerable paunch and, leaning his head on one side, gave Bess a self-satisfied grin.

Bess looked at the chef and her insides groaned. It had been a day of extreme emotions. From joyous to distressing, followed by an outpouring of feelings. And although she had slept for a short time during the afternoon, she was tired and her nerves were frazzled. But if she was going to get this damn man back to work, Bess knew she would have to play his game.

‘No, I am not qualified. And between you and me,’ she whispered, ‘I am not even a very good cook. But, Chef, it is my intention to give the guests in my hotel the dinner they are expecting tonight. So, someone has to clap their hands and shout, “Come people! Back to work!” And that I could do!’ Bess looked sternly at the fifty-year-old man who, if anyone upset him in his kitchen, reverted to being a belligerent child, and waited for him to decide whether he was going to work or throw another tantrum.

‘Mrs Donnelly?’

‘Chef?’

‘If you will excuse me,’ he said, with a courteous nod, ‘I have work to do.’

‘Of course, Chef.’ As she closed the door on the hot kitchen, Bess heard the chef clap his hands and shout the familiar words that the kitchen staff both admired and ridiculed him for, ‘Come people! Back to work!’

Feeling satisfied that she had won yet another battle with the excellent but exceedingly temperamental chef, Bess went to the dining room and walked among the tables. Crisp, white, and perfectly ironed tablecloths had been placed on the tables in such a way that ensured the same amount of fabric hung over the four sides of each table. Looking about her to make sure she wasn’t being watched, Bess straightened a couple of uneven place settings on the table nearest to the window, before counting twelve porcelain Reserved markers.

Most guests found a table on their first night and stuck to it for the time they were staying at the hotel. Tables nearest the windows were favourite, because of the views. Tonight, every table with a view was taken, which was academic because the sky was already darkening. By the time the guests came down for dinner there would be little or nothing of the grounds or the lake to see.

Checking for dust, Bess ran her fingers along the window ledge - a habit she had picked up while working in a hotel in Leicester. She glanced at her finger. There was no dust! Before leaving Bess cast her eyes over the room. Everything was in its place, everything was just as it was supposed to be.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘Mrs Donnelly?’

The nerves on the top of Bess’s stomach tightened at the sound of Detective Inspector Masters’ voice. ‘Yes,’ she said, looking up and putting on a smile.

‘Do you have room for one more at dinner tonight? I’d be very grateful. I have been staying at the Denbigh Arms in Lowarth, but I had to go up to London for a couple of days and when I got back someone new to the job, the manager said, had let my room and there isn’t another. The hotel is full.’

It flashed through Bess’s mind that the inspector was lying. The Denbigh might be full on a Friday night, but if someone had let his room by accident, surely the manager would have offered him dinner. He owed him that much. Bess gave the Detective Inspector a cautious smile. If he was lying she could easily find out. She looked around the room and pointed to three tables that hadn’t been reserved. ‘Where would you like to sit?’

‘Here will be fine,’ the inspector said, his