Interview Suspended

‘Tell us about your relationship with internationally renowned restaurant critic Emily Shiraz-Malbec, Mr Fitzpatrick.’ Detective Sergeant Constable was in no mood for messing about. He had a murder to solve and a nailed-on suspect to grill.

‘Shouldn’t you turn on the recorder first?’ Paddy asked with a smirk. Patrick ‘Paddy’ Fitzpatrick had seen enough cop shows to know what he was talking about. Besides, you don’t get to be revered in the white-hot world of high-end food service delivery without knowing how to deal with pressure and stay cool about it.

The DS rolled his eyes. There was clearly no love lost between the two men. Some hint of a former conflict hovered like a ghost in the air between them. Constable was an imposing man with hands like hams and a red face. He despised everything about the suave and fearlessly good-looking celebrity chef across the table, particularly his healthy, tanned face and hands, and his lustrous black curls tied back into a loose ponytail. With the recorder now turned on, Constable repeated the question, but with added sarcasm.

‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind, tell us about your relationship with restaurant critic Emily Shiraz-Malbec.’

Paddy smiled to himself, as if remembering some pleasant interlude. 

‘She loved me once. Then she hated me. And I despised her,’ he answered wistfully, stroking his chin.

‘That’s very interesting. You’re glad that she’s dead then, Patrick?’ Constable didn’t allow himself to even consider he had this case sewn up just yet, but he liked where the interview was going already.

‘I’d have preferred it if she hadn’t dropped dead in my restaurant, frankly.’

‘Yes, that must have been … what’s the word …?’ The Detective Sergeant had spent most of the previous week on a management course and was on the hunt for opportunities to deploy his new array of jargon. ‘… Sub-optimal?’

‘Well, it wasn’t great marketing, that’s for sure. How, exactly, did she die, Derrick? Do you know yet?’

Paddy’s use of the DS’s forename annoyed the policeman. 

‘We’re waiting for the results of the post mortem, as well you know. All we do know is that she was found in the ladies’ restroom of your restaurant.’

‘Maybe she choked on a clam,’ Paddy offered helpfully.

At this, the DS’s co-interviewer, a petite blonde woman who until now had looked as if she wished she was somewhere else, snorted with laughter.

‘I don’t like you,’ the DS said, glaring, “And I don’t like your flippant attitude. A woman’s dead, man,  a woman who by your own admission, you hated. In your restaurant. It’s not a giant leap of faith to suspect that you had something to do with it.’

‘I did have something to do with it. She died in my restaurant, as you have pointed out. I’m kind of involved, no?’

‘Would you be so cavalier, Patrick, if it was someone you loved that had been murdered?’

‘Who said she was murdered? As far as I know, all she is, is dead. You don’t know how or why she died. Until you do, there’s no crime and therefore no suspects. I’m just here to assist you in your enquiries into an unexplained death. For all I know, she decided to die in my restaurant just to spite me.’

The DS glared at Patrick. He knew he was beat. For now. ‘I don’t like you,’ he said again, ‘I don’t like your overpriced fancy food and I don’t like that you’re on television every other day. I think there’s something fishy going on and that you’re part of it. And I will prove it.’

‘Cranberry duck consommé.’

‘What?!’

‘That’s what you had when you came to my restaurant. Some customers I never forget.’

‘It was cold.’

‘It’s supposed to be.’

The DS leaned over and put his finger on the tape machine’s ‘off’ switch. ‘This interview is suspended,’ he said, and clicked the machine off decisively, ‘For now.’