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

being aware of him.
    Each morning at
six he would start peeling, then hand over the
potatoes to a gangling youth called Terry who in turn would dice or cut them
according to the third chef’s instructions for the dish of the day. Monday
sauté, Tuesday mashed, Wednesday French-fried, Thursday sliced, Friday roast,
Saturday croquette... ?ark quickly worked out a routine
which kept him well ahead of Terry and therefore out of any trouble.
    Having watched
Terry do his job for over a week Mark felt sure he
could have shown the young apprentice how to lighten his work-load quite
simply, but he decided to keep his mouth closed: opening it might only get him
into more trouble, and he was certain the manager wouldn’t give him a second
chance.
    Mark soon
discovered that Terry always fell badly behind on
Tuesday’s shepherd’s pie and Thursday’s Lancashire hot-pot. From time to time
the third chef would come across to complain and he would glance over at Mark
to be sure that it wasn’t him who was holding the process up. Mark made certain
that he always had a spare tub of peeled potatoes by his side so that he
escaped censure.
    It was on the
first Thursday morning in August (Lancashire hot-pot) that Terry sliced off the
top of his forefinger. Blood spurted all over the sliced potatoes and on to the
wooden table as the lad began yelling hysterically.
    “Get him out of
here!” Mark heard the maître chef de
cuisine bellow above the noise of the kitchen as he stormed towards them.
    “And you,” he
said, pointing at Mark, “clean up mess and start slicing rest of potatoes. I
    ‘ ave eight hundred hungry customers
still expecting to feed.”
    “Me?” said Mark
in disbelief. “But-”
    “Yes, you. You couldn’t do worse job than idiot who calls
himself trainee chef and cuts off finger.” The chef marched away, leaving Mark
to move reluctantly across to the table where Terry had been working. He felt
disinclined to argue while the calendar was there to remind him that he was
down to his last twenty-five days.
    Mark set about
a task he had carried out for his mother many times. The clean, neat cuts were
delivered with a skill Terry would never learn to master. By the end of the
day, although exhausted, Mark did not feel quite as tired as he had in the
past.
    At eleven that
night the maître chef do cuisine threw off his hat and barged out
of the swing doors, a sign to everyone else they could also leave the kitchen
once everything that was their responsibility had been cleared up. A few
seconds later the door swung back open and the chef burst in. He stared round
the kitchen as everyone waited to see what he would do next. Having found what
he was looking for, he headed straight for Mark.
    ;’Oh, my God,”
thought Mark. “He’s going to “How is your name?” the chef demanded.
    “Mark Hapgood , sir,” he managed to splutter out.
    “You waste on ‘ tatoes , Mark Hapgood ,” said the
chef. “You start on vegetables in morning. Report at seven. If that cretin with half finger ever returns, put him to peeling ‘ tatoes .”
    The chef turned
on his heel even before Mark had the chance to reply. He dreaded the thought of
having to spend three weeks in the middle of the kitchens, never once out of
the maître chef de cuisine’s sight,
but he accepted there was no alternative.
    The next
morning Mark arrived at six for fear of being late and spent an hour watching
the fresh vegetables being unloaded from Covent Garden market. The hotel’s
supply manager checked every case carefully, reject- ing several before he signed a chit to show the hotel had received over three
thousand pounds’ worth of vegetables. An average day, he assured Mark.
    The maître chef de cuisine appeared a few
minutes before seven thirty, checked the menus and told Mark to score the
Brussels sprouts, trim the French beans and remove the coarse outer leaves of
the cabbages.
    “But I don’t
know how,” Mark replied hon-estly . He could feel