Read Online A Twist in the Tale by Jeffrey Archer - Free Book Online

bargain.”
    During the
holiday Mark waited for his friends outside the factory gate until their shift
had ended and listened to their stories of weekends spent watching football,
drinking at the pub and dancing to the Everly Brothers. They all sympathised with his problem and
looked forward to him joining them in September. “It’s only a few more months,”
one of them reminded him cheerfully.
    Far too
quickly, Mark was on the journey back to London, where he continued unwillingly
to hump cases up and down the hotel corridors for month after month.
    Once the English
rain had subsided the usual influx of American
tourists began. Mark liked the Americans, who treated him as an equal and often
tipped him a shilling when others would have given him only sixpence.
    But whatever
the amount Mark received Sergeant Crann would still
pocket it with the inevitable, “Your time will come, lad.”
    One such
American for whom Mark ran around diligently every day during his fortnight’s
stay ended up presenting the boy with a ten-bob note as he left the front
entrance of the hotel.
    Mark said,
“Thank you, sir,” and turned round to see Sergeant Crann standing in his path.
    “Hand it over,”
said Crann as soon as the American visitor was well
out of earshot.
    “I was going to
the moment I saw you,” said Mark, passing the note to his superior.
    “Not thinking
of pocketing what’s rightfully mine, was you?”
    “No, I wasn’t,”
said Mark. “Though God knows I earned it.”
    “Your time will
come, lad,” said Sergeant Crann without much thought.
    “Not while
someone as mean as you is in charge,” replied Mark sharply.
    “What was that
you said?” asked the head porter, veering round.
    “You heard me
the first time, Sarge .”
    The clip across
the ear took Mark by surprise.
    “You, lad, have
just lost your job. Nobody, but nobody, talks to me like that.” Sergeant Crann turned and set off smartly in the direction of the
manager’s office.
    The hotel
manager, Gerald Drummond, listened to the head porter’s version of events
before asking Mark to report to his office immediately. “You realise I have been left with no choice but to sack you,”
were his first words once the door was closed.
    Mark looked up
at the tall, elegant man in his long, black coat, white collar and black tie.
“Am I allowed to tell you what actually happened, sir?” he asked.
    Mr Drummond nodded, then listened without interruption as
Mark gave his version of what had taken place that morning, and also disclosed
the agreement he had entered into with his father. “Please let me complete my
final ten weeks,” Mark ended, “or my father will only say I haven’t kept my end
of our bargain.”
    “I haven’t got
another job vacant at the moment,” protested the manager. “Unless
you’re willing to peel potatoes for ten weeks.”
    “Anything,”
said Mark.
    “Then report to
the kitchen at six tomorrow morning. I’ll tell the third chef to expect you.
    Only if you
think the head porter is a martin-et just wait until
you meet Jacques, our maître chef de
cuisine . He won’t clip your ear, he’ll cut it off.”
    Mark didn’t
care. He felt confident that for just ten weeks he could face anything, and at
five thirty the following morning he exchanged his dark blue uniform for a
white top and blue and white check trousers before reporting for his new
duties. To his surprise the kitchen took up almost the entire base- ment of the hotel, and was even more of a bustle than the
lobby had been.
    The third chef
put him in the corner of the kitchen, next to a mountain of potatoes, a bowl of
cold water and a sharp knife. Mark peeled through breakfast, lunch and dinner,
and fell asleep on his bed that night without even enough energy left to cross
a day off his calendar.
    For the first
week he never actually saw the fabled Jacques. With seventy people working in
the kitchens Mark felt confident he could pass his whole period there without
anyone