The Tasting Menu

Course 9 To Sleep for a Hundred Years

Ballotine of Rabbit stuffed with Pigeon-&-Blackberry farce, Hedgerow Herbs, Crab Apple gel, Sorrel emulsion, a Feuilles de Brick spindle, confit Cantaloupe pearls, pickled Rose Petals, and Champagne hollandaise

“Mmmph...?” Michael blinked at the ceiling of his hotel room as the rat-a-tat-tat of someone knocking on the door machinegunned through the darkness.

Why was...?

The knocking sounded again, only harder and faster. More urgent.

Urgh...

He levered himself out of bed and stumbled over to answer it. “All right, all right. Jesus.” Grabbing his jeans off the chair where he’d dumped them a mere hour and a half ago. Hopping his way into them, before wrenching the door open with an unwelcoming “What?”

It was Alex, standing there, looking back over her shoulder — jacket all crumpled and stained with mud. And when she turned to face him there was blood oozing down her top lip and chin, scrapes on her cheeks and forehead.

“What the hell happened to—”

She barged into the room, thumping the door shut behind her.

OK...

He reached for the light switch, but Alex slapped his hand away.

“Leave the lights off. And get dressed.”

“Why’s your face all—”

“I’ve been in the job long enough to know when something smells fishy. And this whole place reeks like a manky haddock.” She snatched up his bedside phone and poked at the buttons. Scowled. “No outside line. Mine’s dead too.” Slamming the phone down, then striding back to the front of the room. Making a wee gap in the curtains to stare out into the night.

Michael rubbed at his eyes. “But I don’t—”

“Get sodding dressed!”

God almighty. The woman was insane.

But he grabbed the rest of his discarded clothes and scurried off to the bathroom anyway. Because whatever the hell was going on, middle-aged men shouldn’t run about with no pants on. It was undignified.

The storm had let up a bit, swapping driving rain and howling wind for a glimmer of cold moonlight as Alex led the way around the loch, heading away from the main hotel building. Sticking to the shadows. Giving the other rooms/houses a wide berth. Acting like a crazy person.

Michael crept along behind her. “Will you please tell me why we’re—”

“Shhhh! This way...”

At the far end of the loch, Alex took a wee stone path off towards the dark mass of woodland that bracketed Am Bòrd Mòr.

It would serve her right if he just flat-out refused to take another step till she explained what the hell they were doing out here.

But instead, Michael followed her past a small picnic area and in beneath the coal-black canopy of pine needles.

It took a moment, but eventually a meandering path emerged from the gloom.

Alex marched off, following it.

Groaning, Michael slouched after her. “Serve you right if I just went back to bed.”

“Will you keep your bloody voice down?” She stomped back to him, pointing at her face. “You see this? I got jumped by the Bellboy.”

“What, he tried it on?... Sexually?”

A scowl. “No. Not ‘sexually’.” And she was off again.

“Oh, come on, Alex...” He had to jog to catch up. “If he attacked you, we need to tell the Concierge. Get him fired. Prosecuted. Whatever.”

But she just kept on going — deeper and deeper into the woods, past pale ghostly buildings that lurked far from the path. Striding on and on, in grim silence.

They emerged into a clearing five minutes later, on the shore of a wide inlet lined with trees. Water lapped at the lichen-stained rocks, but the moonlight had faded while they were playing Hansel and Gretel — swallowed by thick black cloud that covered the sky. The wind had picked up too, bringing with it a smattering of rain.

But there was still enough visibility to make out the large wooden boathouse, jutting out into the choppy water.

There were other lights out there, glimmering in the darkness, bringing with them the faint outlines of more little buildings, hidden away in the trees. Maybe that was where all the staff lived?

Michael followed Alex to the boathouse, still trying to be the voice of reason. “We need to tell the hotel he attacked you!”

“How can you be so sodding clueless?” She hauled open the boathouse door and slipped inside.

A groan rattled free. Then he went in after her.

It was even darker inside, the air tainted with the twin scents of diesel and furniture polish, as water lapped around the vague shape of a large boat. “Of course I’m clueless. If you want people to follow what’s going on, you have to give them actual clues.”

She clunked the door shut.

“Otherwise you’re just...”

Alex flicked a switch, flooding the boathouse with bright, LED light.

“Sodding hell.” Michael covered his eyes, wincing as the glare stabbed its way through his night vision. Then, slowly, that vague shape turned into a luxury launch, with “AM BÒRD MÒR” and “THE SELKIE’S GRACE” painted across the stern.

Unlike The Happy Mermaid, this boat had a proper, striped awning over the back, providing shelter to twin rows of leather seats. Far swankier than the slippery deck of a smelly old trawler.

Alex waved a hand at The Selkie’s Grace. “Does that look like it’s having engine trouble on the mainland?”

“Well... maybe they fixed it? Or maybe they’ve got a second boat? Maybe this one’s a spare.”

“Then how come the Concierge told us there was no way off the island?”

Ah.

She had a point...

“Maybe it’s knackered too?”

“Oh yeah?” Alex climbed on board. “Then why did this bastard jump me soon as I...” She stopped, on the edge of the seating area. Turning round and round. Staring. “Son of a bitch.”

“What?” Michael hurried forward. “What’s ‘son of a bitch’?”

“He’s gone. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

From the top of the gangplank, bloodstains were clearly visible on the polished wooden floor. Sill shiny and wet.

Alex pushed past him, down onto the boathouse floor again. “Come on: before the bastard gets back here with his dodgy mates.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Unless they try to pick us off at our rooms first...” She shoved out through the boathouse door.

What?

“‘Pick us off’?”

She really had gone insane.

“Alex, wait.” Michael scurried after her, into the rain. “You sound paranoid, you know that, don’t you? OK, so the Bellboy’s a sex pest, but that doesn’t mean—”

“It wasn’t sexual!” She looked right — back toward the restaurant — then in the opposite direction, where all the little buildings hid in the gloom. “Look, when you’ve been a police officer as long as I have, you pick up vibes, OK? A weird glance, the way someone walks, what kind of coat they’ve got on. It all adds up.” Alex went left, towards the buildings. “He was hanging about in the shadows, after I dropped you off after dinner. I know when someone’s trying not to be seen. Soon as he thought we were out of the way, he hoofed it over to Victor’s room and let himself in for a rummage.”

“He what?”

“So I followed him, through the woods to—”

“Why didn’t you stop him?”

“Because I’m a police officer, you idiot. You don’t pinch a minnow when they can lead you to a whale.” The path turned into a single-track road. “Only he must’ve got wind I was after him, because he lured me into the boathouse and jumped me.” A cold smile pulled at her face. “Turns out he wasn’t nearly as hard as he thought.”

Completely insane.

“Did it actually occur to you just to ask what he was doing in Victor’s room? For God’s sake, Alex, you’re not a cop anymore!”

The first building on the road was some sort of laundry-cum-linen-storage, with steam rising from its chimney, along with the warm camomile scent of tumble-dried towels.

Alex kept going. “While you were busy writing about madey-uppy crime, I was out fighting the real thing. I know when something dodgy’s going on.”

Building number two was a bakery — the baker framed in the glowing window, kneading away at a big dod of dough, already getting ready for tomorrow’s breakfast.

“All right, all right. Suppose we say there is something shady happening here. What are we supposed to do about it? There’s thirty miles of sea between here and the nearest backup.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is? Alex!” He grabbed her arm, outside building number three — a darkened, long white building with what looked like the air vents from a refrigerator unit sticking out through one of the walls.

“We find the Bellboy, and we make him talk. We place him under arrest and demand the hotel call N Division headquarters.” She shook him off. “But first we have to find him.” Alex peered in through the nearest window. “Some sort of butchery and charcuterie operation. We...”

Rain clattered against the slate roof like a handful of gravel as the wind moaned through the trees.

“Alex?”

She stepped closer to the window, doing the hands-making-a-porthole thing, and stared for a bit. Then staggered back a couple of paces. Blinking. Voice so low it was barely a breath. “Mother of fuck...” And she was off, running around the front of the building.

Great.

Michael sagged, head back, staring up into the falling rain. “Completely off her rocker.”

Just in case, he had a peer through the window himself, but there was nothing out of the ordinary inside: cutting boards; knives hanging up on magnetic strips; twin sinks; stainless-steel benches; health-and-safety posters; and a separate, walk-in chiller.

A couple of carcasses were barely visible through the fridge-door window: sides of pork, beef, and venison, waiting to be turned into delicious steaks and tartare and daube and soups and burgers and sausages...

It was the shock, that was all.

The shock, heavily seasoned with guilt for shouting at Victor last night.

She was upset. Perfectly understandable, but really sodding unhelpful.

Running about like a pair of idiots, in the middle of the night, in the thumping rain and battering wind...

Off in the distance, one of those wolves from the rewilding project howled, making every single hair on his arms and neck crawl.

Yeah, sod this.

Michael hurried after Alex.

The front of the butchery featured a half-glazed, black wooden door, and two windows that gazed out into the night like dead eyes.

Alex grabbed the door handle, hauling on it, rattling the thing in its frame.

Locked.

“Alex, listen to me — you need help.”

“Of course I bloody do.” She looked around, then pointed. “Gimme that rock.”

“Alex, please.”

“Fine.” She grabbed the rock herself. “Cover your eyes, in case there’s glass.”

“No! You can’t—”

But she did. A sharp tap in the bottom corner of the glazed panel sent cracks webbing out across the glass. A second, harder swing shattered it into a baggy sheet of glittering little cubes, still held together with some sort of coating. It took three more goes to batter it out of the frame.

Alex reached inside and fumbled about till the lock clicked. She withdrew her arm and pushed the door fully open.

If she thought the minibar was expensive, wait till she got the bill for that.

“For Christ’s sake, you’re acting like a crazy person!”

She stepped inside. “Shut up and keep watch.”

Nope.

Michael followed her. “Please, before someone gets hurt!”

Alex didn’t turn the lights on. Instead she crept across the tiled floor to the walk-in fridge.

“Alex!”

She opened the chiller door and a cold light bloomed into life, spilling out into the butchery with a whoomph of frigid air. “Holy shite...” The words plumed out in a refrigerated cloud, glowing like smoke as she stood there with her mouth hanging open.

He joined her in front of the open door. “If you don’t want to talk to me about it, I can give you Dr Palmer’s number. He’s a really good therapist. Helped me a lot after Cindy—”

Alex’s hand slapped over his mouth, cutting off Cindy’s betrayal.

The other hand came up to point into the fridge.

Storage racks lined the stainless-steel space, some with sausages dangling from hooks, others bearing long cardboard boxes marked “FREE-RANGE CHICKEN” and “RARE-BREED PORK”. And the four carcasses, hanging from the ceiling: one whole deer, skinned and gralloched; a whole leg of beef, dark and heavily marbled; a half lamb, its ribs bright white against the burgundy meat; and...

Michael blinked.

Maybe he was still drunk? All that free booze at dinner, from the other tables to celebrate Victor’s life.

He had to be drunk, because the fourth carcass looked exactly like a human cadaver. Headless, and split lengthways like the lamb. And it couldn’t be a pig, because there was only the one nipple on show. And it was pierced. And, far as he knew, no other animals wore wedding rings.

He tried to swallow, but someone had filled his mouth with dust and sand. “Oh shite...”

Behind them: a foot scrunched on the fallen cubes of shattered glass, then the butchery lights buzzed and flickered on, bathing the whole scene in an antiseptic glow.

The Concierge tutted. “I really wish you hadn’t done that, Ms Raith. It’s so hard to get an emergency glazer out here at short notice.”