"Thank you." She saw the question in his eyes.

"For listening," she explained.

"It was no hardship, Roz." He could sense how insecure she was.

"Are you going to agonise over this all night and wake up tomorrow morning wishing you hadn"t told me about Alice?"

He was far too perceptive. She looked away.

"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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 gla.s.ses. 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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.

"Presumably they want me out, and fast. But I haven"t a clue why or who"s behind it. Six weeks ago I was a contented chef, presiding over a healthy little business without a care in the world. Then I came home from the markets at ten o"clock one morning to find my a.s.sistant being berated by the Environmental Health Inspector, my kitchen stinking to high heaven of corruption, and me on the wrong end of a prosecution." He ruffled his hair.

"The restaurant was closed for three days while I cleaned it. My staff never came back after the closure. My customers, predominantly policemen and their families which, incidentally, is how the news of the Inspector"s visit got out deserted in droves because they reckoned I"d been cutting corners to line my pockets, and the local restauranteurs are accusing me of giving the whole trade a bad name through my lack of professionalism. I"ve been effectively isolated."

Roz shook her head.

"Why on earth didn"t you report that breakin last Tuesday?"

He sighed.

"What good would it have done me? I couldn"t tie it in to the Health Inspector"s visit. I decided to work with some live bait instead." He saw her bewilderment.

"I caught two of them at it, wrecking the place. I think it was a chance thing.

They discovered the restaurant was empty and took their opportunity."

He laughed suddenly.

"I was so angry with you that I had them both upstairs, gagged and handcuffed to my window bars, before they even knew what had hit them.

But they were a tough pair," he said with genuine admiration.

"They weren"t going to talk." He shrugged.

"So I sat it out and waited for someone to come looking for them."

No wonder he had been frightened.

"Why did you decide it was chance that brought them and not me?" she asked curiously.

"I"d have thought it was me every time."

The laughter lines rayed out around his eyes.

"You didn"t see yourself with that table leg. You were so terrified when the kitchen door opened, so relieved when you saw it was me, and so twitched when I told you I hadn"t called the police. No one, but no one, is that good." He took a mouthful of wine and savoured it for a moment.

"I"m in a catch twenty-two. The police don"t believe me. They think I"m guilty, but trying to use doubt or cunning to wriggle out of the prosecution. Even Geof Wyatt, who was my partner and who knows me better than anyone, claims to have had the runs since he saw the Inspector"s photographs. They all ate there regularly, partly because I gave them discounts and partly out of a genuine desire to see an ex-copper succeed." He wiped a weary hand across his mouth.

"Now, I"m persona non grata and I can"t really blame them. They feel they"ve been conned."

"Why would you need to con them?"

"The recession." He sighed.

"Businesses are going down like ninepins. There"s no reason mine should have been immune. What"s the first thing a restauranteur"s likely to do when he"s running out of money? Hang on to dodgy food and serve it up in a curry."

There was a twisted logic to it.

"Won"t your staff speak up for you?"

He smiled grimly.

"The two waitresses have agreed to, but the only one whose word might carry weight is my a.s.sistant chef, and he was last heard of heading for France." He stretched his arms towards the ceiling, and winced as pain seared round his ribs.

"It wouldn"t do me any good anyway. He must have been bought. Someone had to let whoever framed me into the kitchen and he had the only other key." His eyes hardened.

"I should have throttled him when I had the chance but I was so d.a.m.n sh.e.l.l-shocked I didn"t put two and two together fast enough. By the time I had, he"d gone."

Roz chewed her thumb in thought.

"Didn"t that man tell you anything after I left? I a.s.sumed you were going to use my hat ping on him."

Her candour brought a smile to his bleak face.

"I did, but he didn"t make much sense.

"You"re costing money on the foreclosures." That"s all he said." He arched an eyebrow.

"Can you make anything of it?"

"Not unless the bank"s about to pull the rug from underneath your feet."

He shook his head.

"I borrowed the absolute minimum.

There"s no immediate pressure." He drummed his fingers on the floor.

"Logically, he should have been referring to the businesses on either side of me. They"ve both gone bankrupt and in each case the lenders have foreclosed."

"Well, that"s it then," said Roz excitedly.

"Someone wants all three properties. Didn"t you ask him who it was and why?"

He rubbed the back of his head in tender recollection.

"I was clobbered before I had the chance. There was obviously a fifth man who went upstairs during the brawl to release Tweedledum and Tweedledee from the window bars. For all I know, it was that hammering we heard. Anyway, by the time I came to, a chip pan was in flames on the stove, the police had arrived in force, and my nextdoor neighbour was rabbi ting on about how he"d had to call an ambulance because I"d tried to boil a customer in fish stock." He grinned sheepishiy.

"It was a blasted nightmare.

So I hit the nearest copper and legged it through the restaurant. It was the only thing I could think of." He looked at her.

"In any case the idea that someone was trying to get hold of the Poacher was the first thing I thought of. I checked out both the adjoining properties five weeks ago and there"s no common factor between them. One was bought privately by a small retail chain and the other was sold at auction to an investment company."

"They could be fronts. Did you go to Companies" House?"

"What do you think I"ve been doing for the last three days?" He gritted his teeth angrily.

"I"ve checked every d.a.m.n register I can think of and I"ve got sweet FA to show for it. I don"t know what the h.e.l.l"s going on except that the court case will be the last nail in the Poacher"s coffin and presumably, at that point, someone will make me an offer to buy the place. Rather like you kept doing the other day."

She let his anger slide past her. She understood it now.

"By which time it will be too late."