“I hate feeling vulnerable.”
“Yes.” He understood that.
“Come here.” He patted his lap.
“Let me tell you about my vulnerabiities. You’ve been trying to prise them out of me for weeks. Now it’s your turn to have a good laugh at my expense.”
“I won’t laugh.”
“Ah!” he murmured.
“So that’s what this is all about. You’re a cut above me. I’ll laugh at yours, but you won’t laugh at mine.
She put her arms about him.
“You’re so like Olive.”
“I wish you’d stop comparing me with the madwoman of Dawlington.”
“It’s a compliment. She’s a very nice person. Like you.”
“I’m not nice, Roz.” He held her face between his hands.
“I’m being prosecuted under the Health and Hygiene regulations.
The Environmental Health Inspector’s report describes my kitchen as the worst he’s ever seen. Ninety-five per cent of the raw meat in the fridge was so rotten it was crawling with maggots. The dry foods should have been in sealed containers, but weren’t, and rat droppings were found in all of them. There were open bags of rubbish in the larder. The vegetables had deteriorated so far they had to be discarded, and a live rat was discovered under the cooker.” He arched a weary eyebrow.
“I’ve lost all my customers because of it, my case comes up in six weeks, and I haven’t a leg to stand on.”
SEVENTEEN
Roz didn’t speak for some moments. She had invented a number of scenarios to account for what was happen at the Poacher, but never this. It would certainly explain his lack of customers. Who, in their right mind, would eat in a restaurant where the meat had been found crawling with maggots? She had.
Twice. But she hadn’t known about the maggots. It would have been more honest of Hal to tell her at the outset, she thought, her stomach protesting mildly over what might have gone into it. She felt his gaze upon her and quelled the treacherous stirrings firmly.
“I don’t understand,” she said carefully.
“Is this a genuine prosecution? I mean, you appear to have been tried and judged already. How did your customers know what the Inspector found if the case hasn’t been to court? And who are the men in ski-masks?” She gave a puzzled frown.
“I can’t believe you’d be such a bloody fool, anyway, as to flout the hygiene regulations. Not to the extent of having an entire fridgeful of rotten meat and live rats running around the floor.” She laughed suddenly with relief and smacked a slender palm against his chest.
“You creep, Hawksley! It’s a load of old flannel.
You’re trying to wind me up.”
He shook his head.
“I wish I were.”
She studied him thoughtfully for a moment then pushed herself off his lap and walked through to the kitchen. He heard the sound of a cork being drawn from a bottle and the clink of glasses. She took longer than she should have, and he recalled how his wife had always done the same thing disappeared into the kitchen whenever she was hurt or disappointed. He had thought Roz different.
She reappeared finally with a tray.
“OK,” she said firmly, “I’ve had a think.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I do not believe you’d keep a dirty kitchen,” she told him.
“You’re too much of an enthusiast. The Poacher is the fulfilment of a dream, not a financial investment to be milked for all its worth.” She poured him a glass of wine.
“And you accused me a week ago of setting you up again, which would imply you’d been set up before.” She filled the second glass for herself.
“Ergo, the rat and the rotten meat were planted. Am I right?”
“Right.” He sniffed the wine.
“But I would say that, wouldn’t I?”
A very sore nerve, she thought. No wonder he didn’t trust anyone. She perched on the edge of the sofa.
“Plus,” she went on, ignoring the comment, ‘you’ve been beaten up twice to my knowledge, had your car windows smashed and the Poacher broken into.” She sipped her wine.
“So what do they want from you?”
He eased the still-bruised muscles in his back.
