A Bitter Feast(53)
“I’ll take him out for some practice today.” Booth had been football mad himself, had even dreamed of a professional career before a knee injury had sidelined him at sixteen. Sitting down across from his wife, he thought how much he liked the sight of her on Sunday mornings, in tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, her sandy hair falling loose round her shoulders, her freckled face free of weekday makeup.
“I was hoping he might pick up a game with some of the boys,” she said with a grin that let him know exactly what she was thinking they might do in that eventuality.
Before he could respond, his mobile vibrated. “Oh, bloody hell.” He reached for the phone where he’d left it on the work top, frowning when he saw the name on the ID. “It’s Dr. Mason,” he murmured to Jess as he answered.
“Colin.” The pathologist’s voice was loud in his ear. “Sorry to disturb you on a Sunday morning, but there’s something I think you should see.”
“Is this about O’Reilly?” he asked. He’d told Jess last night about the death of the chef they had both so admired. It was Dr. Mason who’d found the digoxin in O’Reilly’s system and she had intended to test Nell Greene as well. “And the Greene woman?”
“Not exactly. You know I’m on rota this weekend. I got a call this morning to look at the victim of a presumed hit-and-run. The accident was less than a mile from your village.”
“You mean Lower Slaughter?”
“Yes, but to the north, unlike Friday night’s accident. Still, I thought three deaths in the same vicinity was a bit much of a coincidence.”
Booth had lost all interest in his breakfast. “Are you at the scene?”
“Yes. I’m ringing from my car.” She gave him directions.
“You said presumed hit-and-run. You don’t think it was an accident.”
“There are injuries that are inconsistent with those caused by the vehicle,” Dr. Mason said carefully. “And there’s another thing, Colin. The victim was the bartender at the pub where both of the Friday-night victims had their dinner.”
Sunday-morning breakfast had been a haphazard affair in the Talbot household, with cereals, fresh fruit, and bread for the toaster set out so that everyone could help themselves. Melody’s mother had left for the early service at St. Paul’s, the church up the hill in Upper Slaughter. Ivan was sequestered in his study with newspaper business—his usual excuse when it came time to go to church. Gemma and Duncan had taken the children for a walk in the grounds.
Melody had managed a piece of toast, but a night of tossing and turning, waking up periodically to check her mobile, had left her without much appetite. Andy hadn’t texted her again. Now she was regretting not answering his calls or texts yesterday, but she couldn’t quite see how to apologize gracefully. With her second cup of coffee in hand, she went looking for Doug.
She found him in the sitting room, his laptop on the ottoman, two empty coffee cups rather precariously balanced on the arm of his chair. Unread Sunday papers were stacked on the coffee table and a small fire crackled in the grate. Through the French windows, she saw the tops of Gemma’s and Duncan’s heads traverse the view—they must be walking across the bottom terrace.
“What are you doing?” she said to Doug, a bit more sharply than she’d intended, but she was feeling cross, and for the first time that weekend, a bit territorial.
“Reading about Fergus O’Reilly.” Doug looked up at her, apparently oblivious to her irritation. “The celebrity chef had fallen on hard times, I’d say.” He glanced back at his screen. “His Chelsea restaurant won a Michelin star in 2007, but lost it the next year. Two years later, O’Reilly’s closed. There were lots of tabloid reports of a wild lifestyle—drink, drugs, rock and roll, and models. Have a look.”
Melody sank down on the sofa next to his chair as he turned the laptop screen towards her. The photo Doug had pulled up showed O’Reilly, wearing his trademark fedora, with his arm wrapped round a waif-thin, high-cheek-boned, pouty-lipped young woman. Melody’s immediate impression, as it had been when she’d occasionally caught O’Reilly on television, was how extraordinarily good-looking the man had been. The curls and dimples might have looked feminine on another man, but with O’Reilly’s strong bone structure had just made him more striking. For the first time, Melody had a real sense of the shock of this man’s death.
“Then he partnered with a London restaurateur for a couple of years,” Doug went on. “And after that, another venture on his own, reopening O’Reilly’s in a new location in Hammersmith. The reviews were only so-so. Two years later, O’Reilly’s 2.0 went the way of its predecessor. Somewhere along in there”—Doug scanned the screen— “that would have been in 2010—there was a marriage. That didn’t last much longer than the restaurant. And, then, a year after the divorce, his ex-wife died of a heroin overdose.”
Melody grimaced. “Ouch.”
“Very. Fergus O’Reilly disappears from the London scene for a while after that, although there’s no indication that he was involved with his ex at the time of her death. I think he did some American food programs.”
“Ouch again.”
“Right. I’m not coming up with anything recent. If I were Booth, I’d contact O’Reilly’s former partner, the restaurateur, fellow by the name of Colm Finlay. Another Irishman.”