Tampered by Ross Pennie Read Free Book Online Page A

dining room?” Zol asked. “Surely, the Belvedere Wing residents expect good food?”
    â€œYeah,” Nick agreed, “they know a proper meal when they see one. Get gussied up for dinner every night. And won’t touch slimy zucchini or mushy cauliflower, even with the brown spots cut off.” He turned to his helpers and chuckled. “Gus’s beaten-up broccoli comes back untouched every time, eh boys?”
    The men nodded, tight-lipped, except for the Somali beanpole fellow whose toothy grin lit up his dark face. Zol pictured them scraping “untouched” vegetables off dirty plates and whizzing them into soup. It wouldn’t be so bad if they boiled them before recycling them. Testing the soup for infectious pathogens was suddenly a top priority.
    Nick chuckled nervously, a cast of guilt in his eyes. “Tranh hates the smell of broccoli no matter how it’s cooked.”
    While Natasha checked out the pantry, Zol poked around the kitchen. It felt good to be back inside a professional place. His own kitchen gave him a great view over the city and the lake, but a home kitchen was small potatoes. This place had real muscle. The penny-pinching Oliveiras hadn’t scrimped on equipment. The gas stove sported six turbo burners. The pots had thick copper bottoms. And the huge cast-iron frying pan gleamed with the beautifully cured surface only an expert knew how to care for.
    Zol approached Tranh, the short guy standing by the stove, and asked if he could stir the soup. He’d always loved the satisfaction of swirling a wooden spoon through a hearty mix of stock, herbs, and vegetables. Soup could be difficult — it wasn’t easy to strike the perfect blend of flavours. You didn’t want it tasting as though you’d dropped a mess of leftovers into a pot, added salt and water, and stirred like hell. The only way to get soup right was to gradually adjust the seasonings as you tasted it. This one had the aroma of way too much cilantro, probably added to cover the bitterness of overripe broccoli. He pulled a clean spoon from a drawer and dipped it into the pot, but caught himself before putting the spoon in his mouth. The spoon felt barely warm. He looked at his watch. Eleven forty-five. This batch had a long way to go before it got hot enough for lunch. He took one of Natasha’s specimen containers and filled it with a ladleful of soup.

    They wrapped up their inspection with a look at the hot-water tank and a careful assessment of the staff toilet, then returned to the front lobby and asked the receptionist to locate the manager, Gloria Oliveira.
    The woman at the desk looked no more confident at her station than she had forty-five minutes earlier. She picked up the phone as though it were a hand grenade, then mumbled something into it. “Mrs. Gloria say she down in a few minutes.” The woman hesitated and stared at the closed-to-visitors sign beside her desk. Clearly, she had no idea what to do with visitors when none were allowed. She studied her fingernails, as if drawing inspiration from them, then pointed to a pair of wingback chairs in front of a coffee table in the common room. “Please, sit. Like a coffee?”
    Zol stifled a shudder and turned to Natasha. There was no mistaking the look on her face. He shook his head for both of them. “Thank you. No.”
    They settled in the chairs, not for comfort but for the chance to talk out of earshot of the reception desk.
    â€œGloria Oliveira’s got some cheek,” Zol said, “keeping us sitting on our hands down here. Doesn’t she know her licence is on the line?” He’d expected the manager to storm into the kitchen as soon as they arrived. He’d braced for her bravado and solemn assertions that
we take food safety extremely seriously here at Camelot Lodge
. What was she doing all this time?
    Natasha tapped her checklist with her slender forefinger. “Nick isn’t