Death Toll

22

Shaw told Jean to ring 999 and went out into the kitchen. Most of the staff were standing in a huddle, heads together, but two of the men were already cleaning surfaces, sweeping floors, manically scrubbing pots. The oven door stood open, the meat cooling, turkey fat congealing on the metal roasting trays. A woman emerged from the store cupboard and put a large catering bottle of disinfectant on a worktop.

Shaw pushed through a pair of swing doors and found himself at the bottom of a wide wooden staircase, sagging slightly to one side, which led up to the banqueting hall. Here the double serving doors had been hooked back. The hall had a magnificent hammer-beam roof, a complex puzzle of gracefully curving oak beams from which hung six crystal chandeliers festooned with candle bulbs. The room was dominated by a statue in stone of a merchant, larger than life, set in a niche in the end wall, so that he could look towards the great west window which faced the river, as if waiting for one of his ships to come into sight.

The room was in chaos. About twenty circular tables dotted the oak floor, set for the festive charity lunch. But many of the guests were wandering from table to table, or kneeling beside others who were slumped in their seats. A Christmas tree at one end glittered with white fairy lights. The tables were crowded with unpulled crackers. Loudspeakers were still feeding in carols at a discreet if insistent volume, but over that background Shaw could hear a persistent groaning. Several of the guests were either clutching their stomachs or leaning forward, their heads in their hands. Others pressed napkins to their mouths. Several had vomited. One elderly woman was fussing, clearly distressed, telling a waitress she’d clean the mess up herself.

Shaw knelt beside her and took her hand. ‘A doctor’s on the way,’ he said. She must have heard because she tried to smile but then there was a spasm of pain and she doubled up. When she lifted her head again her skin had taken on a green tint and her eyes were bloodshot.

‘Soon,’ said Shaw, pressing her shoulder.

He surveyed the room, trying to see Valentine. A small crowd had gathered between two of the tables. Shaw pushed his way through, holding up his warrant card.

At the centre of the crowd was a man lying on the floor. He was glistening with sweat and fingering a silver chain around his neck.

‘It’s the mayor,’ said a woman in a hat. She looked around the room. ‘What on earth has happened?’

‘Give him water — actually, fresh water.’ Shaw turned and beckoned to a waitress. ‘Get fresh water — don’t let them drink this lot …’ He picked up a carafe, held it to the light. ‘Bring bottled.’

They heard a distant siren and the sound of someone retching by the Christmas tree. A waiter threw open the window and the sound of the siren swelled.

Shaw jumped as someone put a hand on his shoulder. It was George Valentine. ‘I reckon the soup’s the culprit. I gave it a miss in the end. Shellfish — always a bad idea.’

‘What have you eaten?’ asked Shaw.

‘Melon. White wine. Bread — that’s all fine. Believe me, it’s the soup.’

Shaw nodded towards a table in the far corner by the tree, around which sat some of the locals from the Flask, including Freddie Fletcher and Sam Venn. Both were slumped forward. ‘Soups all round, by the look of it,’ he said. ‘So much for “good local fare”. Check ’em out, George.’

But before he could move they heard a scream, a woman’s voice, mangling a word.

Shaw picked his way through the tight-packed tables to get to her. She was young, about twenty, with blonde hair in a neat bob. She held an elderly man’s head against her shoulder, heedless of the bib of vomit that covered his shirt, tie and waistcoat.

She looked at Shaw. ‘It’s my grandad. I think he’s dead,’ she said, brushing hair back from the man’s face. Despite the red blotches on the old man’s cheeks, and the tear which welled and then spilt into his mouth from one of his closed eyes, the line of the lips was already lifeless, parted unevenly to show tobacco-stained teeth. Shaw had no doubt she was right: the last seconds of life, he thought, were as ugly as death itself.