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The Bougainvillea Hideaway Beach Resort |
Mario Bonfatti is an accountant from Rome and he's written a novel. Following the trend of Italian conspiracy/detective novels, Mario strikes literary oil and, with the aid of his fictitious Chief Inspector, Arturo Pellegrino, his first book is a huge success. Tasked by his agent, Maurizio Fumagallo from Milan, with writing a follow-up and helping the BBC with a script for a film of his book, Mario escapes from Rome to Goa for some peace and tranquillity away from the humdrum of everyday life. Here's a little taster, or asaggio...................
Chapter 1
“Mushrooms, bacon, tomatoes…”
“In a cream sauce, perhaps?”
“In a cream sauce as you you so rightly suspected,” she replied with a nod of the head. “And with the addition of prawns and onions no less.”
“Spaghetti?” and there was a tremor in his voice.
“Penne,” she replied, although without a great deal of conviction.
“Well, that’s all right then,” said the man, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “And how’s the wine?” He glanced at the glass of house white nestling innocently on the table.
“Ghastly, just ghastly.”
Sitting at a the table adjacent a man with an unruly mop of curly black hair looked up at the couple from the book that he was immersed in. On his table sat a small bottle of beer, which displayed a brightly coloured kingfisher on the label. He had been fervently avoiding both pasta and wine since his arrival.
“I can’t eat this muck!” came a cry from a woman seated at the table next to the man with the book and she pointed an accusing finger at what seemed, from his view at least, a rather delicious plate of chicken curry and rice. She glared hard at the waiter. “I’ll starve if I have to eat this for two weeks,” she said with a growl.
Both the waiter and the man looked her over and, despite their diverse cultural backgrounds, came to the same conclusion that two weeks of total abstinence from all possible nourishment would barely scratch the surface of this woman’s substantial bulk.
“Might I suggest that you order something from the continental menu,” the man with the book offered helpfully, gesturing at the menu lying next to her plate.
“Sorry, love, what did you say?” She squinted her eyes and looked confused, as if she were attempting to solve a particularly complex mathematical equation. “Are you foreign or something?”
He contemplated the question and looked around the beach shack which overlooked the Arabian sea. He saw waiters of assorted shades of brown bustling about, taking orders, delivering food, cold bottles of beer and various well known and unbranded soft drinks. There was an unmistakeable aroma of coconut in the air and the heady strains of a of a sitar accompanied by a tabla in the background. He pondered whether this woman was being entirely serious and came to the unfortunate conclusion that perhaps she was.
“Yes,” he replied in a steady voice, offering the women a broad smile. “I am Italian. From Rome, in fact.”
“Oooh, from Rome! Blimey, that’s exotic, mate. Ever so exotic. Ain’t that where that Pope bloke lives. You know, the bloke with the big hat.” She nodded, as if content that she had shared this profound knowledge of the Catholic church’s hierarchy. “Is it true all you Italians eat pasta, darling?” she added, curiously.
“Indeed we do,” replied the Italian smiling again and with the index and middle middle finger of his left hand he made the traditional fork twiddling around spaghetti movement, much favoured in his home city. "And we have been known to enjoy a pizza or two," he added in the spirit of full disclosure and cultural candour.
“So, what do you think of this pasta choice then?” said the woman from table one, brandishing her menu in his general direction.
“I’m sorry?” said the Italian. He hadn’t been following their verbal denigration of the dish.
“The restaurant’s speciality,” chipped in the man at table one, “pasta Alfredo.” The woman gazed down at the menu and repeated the ingredients, punctuating the prawns and onions.
“With penne,” her husband affirmed with a nod of the head.
“Yum, sounds delicious,” exclaimed the woman from table three, licking her lips and gazing aggressively at her chicken curry. She hadn’t noticed the pasta option in the continental menu section preferring to hunt out any dish that contained the word chicken.
“I would rather not comment,” replied the Italian, although he would have been more than happy to do so.
"Oooh, I just love a Hawaiian pizza, me!" table three threw into the mix, staunchly defending the traditions of the cuisine of the Italian peninsula. "Do you know, where I live up near Southend, you can get a real genuine Italian pizza with a chicken tikka topping on it! Now, don’t that just sound like the dog’s bollocks."
The Italian recoiled sharply and clutched at his beer bottle, gripping it tightly. He wondered if it might splinter.
“Italian and Indian both together,” she continued, “that’s dead funny, that is.”
At this witty observation, she burst into what he assumed must have been a fit of laughter but sounded more like a death rattle. As if to explain the racket, she reached for a packet of cigarettes and, with a fluid movement that belied her bulk, she put the packet to her mouth and extracted one, whilst the other hand scooped up a pink lighter from next to the curry and lit it. The whole process seemed to take less than a second and she inhaled deeply, sighed and the coughing seemed to just stop, contravening everything that Mario had thought he knew about smoking.
Over on table one the couple grimaced, both at the thought of the pizza and the trail of smoke that drifted in their direction. The woman went so far as to fan the smoke away from the table. They considered themselves connoisseurs of the palate and this was not the sort of fare normally served up in their native Bournemouth. They pondered pakoras.
As Mario could not think of a reply to her pizza observation, he motioned a waiter over and gave him his order. Prawn curry rice and another small Kingfisher beer, as cold as possible please. He simply could not bring myself to order the same thing as the large woman from near Southend.
“Certainly sir,” said the waiter, who had the name Vikram stitched onto his polo shirt.
“Thank you, Vikram,” Mario said and they exchanged courteous smiles. The large woman summoned the waiter over and pointed accusingly with her lit cigarette at the chicken curry and rice resting on her table, as though it's very right to existence was being called into question. They opened negotiations and Mario switched himself out of their haggling.
He was fairly sure how this would end. Waiters in Goa really didn't like to offend people. The prospect of them being fired and having to make their way back to their families in the villages, towns or cities miles away was not appealing. He suspected that there would be a potato with the woman’s name on it in the kitchen, just waiting to be sliced into chip shapes and plunged into sizzling oil.
“So, darling, are you on your holidays, like?” she asked as Vikram shuffled off to the kitchen, chicken curry and rice in hand. He was shaking his head slowly and muttering what one could only assume were local curses. Mario hoped that the cost wouldn't be deducted from his wages and vowed to make up the possible difference with a generous tip. He pondered the large woman's question. Was this a holiday? Was he escaping, running away? Working? He mulled it over and came to the conclusion that he was here in Goa to work. Yes, to find inspiration, work and to somehow change his life.
“Yes, that’s right, I’m on holiday,” he replied, having decided that if this conversation had to go on, and he would be delighted if it did not, then he would make it his endeavour to not tell the truth if he could possibly avoid it.
“Me, I’m staying at the Sand and Sea Resort. That’s just me and my daughter, Kylie. Her dad would have come but he left us ten years ago and shacked up with some strumpet from up north. Bitch!”
She paused to spit on the sand.
“They do a lovely fried English breakfast at the Sand and Sea. Sausage, egg, baked beans, the full Monty,” she said.
Mario had a pretty good idea of what a baked bean was, having lived in London for a few years, but for someone who came from a land of breakfasts consisting of milky coffees, cappuccino, biscuits and croissants, he struggled to visualise one in the context of a morning meal, and particularly a fried one.
“So, sweetheart, where are you staying?” she asked with a suggestive wink. Mario winced as if discovering that something had gone amiss with a tooth.
"I'm at the Ocean Beach Resort." He was in fact staying at the Bougainvillea Hideaway Beach Resort, a fair distance away.
“Oh, the Ocean Beach Resort. That’s where we’re staying!” chipped in Deidre from table one. “How strange that we haven’t bumped into each other.” Mario examined the label on his beer bottle. Of all the resorts to choose from, he thought.
“They do a wonderful Indian breakfast there,” her husband Kenneth added. “Don’t they, darling?” He looked to his wife for reassurance.
“Haven’t a clue,” said table three, with a shake of the head.
“I think she meant me,” said Deidre. “Yes, delicious. Rotis, dosas, idli, and those lovely spicy chutneys.” She clapped her hands in glee, took a swig of her wine and made a face as if she had just tasted vinegar.
“And let’s not forget those spiced potatoes,” added Kenneth in the spirit of full Indian breakfast disclosure. In truth, much as Deidre and Kenneth might extol the virtues of a full Indian breakfast in public (included in the price of their resort, of course) they did sometimes miss their Roses English Breakfast marmalade spread thickly on wholegrain bread. The bread available at the Ocean Beach Resort was pale by comparison and the two jams available were a colour that suggested radioactivity and a lengthy half life. That they might contain fruit was not obviously apparent.
“Yum,” exclaimed Deidre as enthusiastically as she could.
“Yuk,” said table three, whose name was also Deidre. “So…” she paused, awaiting a name.
“Mario,” said Mario.
“So, Mario, how long are you staying here in Calangute?” she enquired.
“Oh, I have another week or so,” Mario replied, although he had yet to confirm his return ticket back to Rome.
“Another week in paradise, then,” said Deidre from table three, stubbing out her cigarette in the sand below. “So, here on your own, are we?” she asked, in a clearly suggestive way, and there was a twinkle in her eye and a dash of hope in her gravelly voice. Mario, stifling a second wince, thought about this. He was absolutely here on his own. There was, indeed, nobody waiting for him at the Bougainvillea Hideaway Beach Resort.
"I'm here with my boyfriend," he announced and watched as the woman's face executed a series of clumsy expressions that included both disappointment and reproach. Vikram returned with a Kingfisher beer in one hand and a promise of the imminent arrival of a prawn curry rice.
"I'm sure it will be delicious," said Mario, who returned to his book. Vikram turned to the fat woman and assured her that her chips were, even as he spoke, crisping up in the deep fat fryer and would soon be joining two fried eggs and some baked beans before winging their way over to her table. He enquired as to whether she would like condiments.
"Brown sauce?" he suggested enthusiastically and she gave him a look as if he had just proposed urinating on her food whilst dancing the fandango in a mongoose costume.
"Ketchup, for Christ's sake!" she exploded. "Don't you people know anything around here!" She turned to the Italian man with the curly mop of black hair, raised both eyebrows and tutted loudly. We Europeans, her tut expressed quite clearly, understand sauce etiquette. We could teach these damn foreigners a thing or two, it suggested. Mario was unable to nod in solidarity. His hatred for ketchup knew no bounds and he was unsure about the composition of brown sauce and was inclined to keep it that way.
Being at heart an Italian lad, and indeed a Roman to boot, his condiment predilections leaned more in the balsamic vinegar and olive oil direction and this woman was extremely unlikely to change his standpoint about anything.
Vikram leaned over to the table next to the fat lady and extracted a bottle of ketchup from it and placed it on her table with perhaps more vigour than was absolutely necessary. She glared. He glared back, having long abandoned all hope of even the smallest of tips and stomped off, muttering once more under his breath.
"So, darling, what book you reading?" asked the woman, flashing a smile that displayed an intriguing array of dentistry. Mario held up the book for her to see. The book’s cover displayed a bottle of wine in the foreground and the basilica of St. Peter in the background. There were two large wine glasses, one on either side of the bottle. The cork, presumably from the wine, lay at an angle at the base of the bottle, a dark print of the word Sassicaia burned into the side. On top of the bottle, a red Cardinal's biretta lay draped. The title of the book, The Last Drop, was displayed in bold dark red letters above the biretta and below was the name of the author, a Mario Bonfatti.
“Ooh,” exclaimed Deidre on table three, “I think I’ve heard of that one. Bit of a bestseller, I’m told. A mate of mine read it. Said it was a bit too complicated for her. Something to do with that Pope bloke getting himself knocked off. I'm a bit more of a magazine reader, me," she said. "'Ello, that kind of thing. Love a bit of gossip, don’t you know," she added as is if she was bearing the very essence of her soul.
"Knocked off?" said the Italian, whose English was excellent but certainly not flawless.
"Yeah. You know. Killed, bumped off, brown bread," she said in a manner that implied that this Italian really should be more au fait with English slang. Vikram approached with two plates in his hands. One held a prawn curry rice and the other eggs, beans and mounds of chips. He placed the meals on their appropriate tables, scowled at the fat English woman, smiled warmly at the Italian and walked off, once more muttering to himself.
"Well, not the Pope exactly, but a Cardinal, which is the next best thing. Oh, and the American Ambassador to the Vatican,” Mario added, clarifying a potentially complicated misunderstanding.
"A Cardinal, well I never! So, the Pope wasn't there, then?" She pricked the yolk of her egg and it bled into the baked beans as she smothered the entire plate in tomato ketchup. Mario took a mouthful of his prawn curry. It tasted utterly delicious; coconut, coriander and the tastiest, freshest of prawns.
“No,” he answered, “he was nowhere near the scene of the crime.”
“Please,” implored Kenneth on table one, holding up a copy of the same book with a bookmark clearly showing around the forty percent mark. “Don’t say another word! I don’t want to know!” he pleaded and closed his eyes tight.
“Well, he just told you, didn’t he,” Deidre (table three) said through a mouth of red chips, glancing over to the Italian’s table and pointing at him with her knife. “It was the Cardinal that got knocked off.” Kenneth put his hands over his ears. He hadn’t quite arrived at the murder as yet, although he could sense that it was well on its way. Hints had been bandied about and clues lightly scattered.
“I won’t say another word,” Mario said. “My lips are sealed.” He made a “lips are sealed” motion and then opened them to admit another forkful of prawn curry.
“Why thank you,” said Kenneth from table one.
“You’re welcome,” he replied graciously. Mario Bonfatti took a large slug of his beer and resumed reading, both for a little inspiration and also a gentle reminder or two for his future. This book, The Last Drop, was indeed a book that he was more than just familiar with.
“In a cream sauce, perhaps?”
“In a cream sauce as you you so rightly suspected,” she replied with a nod of the head. “And with the addition of prawns and onions no less.”
“Spaghetti?” and there was a tremor in his voice.
“Penne,” she replied, although without a great deal of conviction.
“Well, that’s all right then,” said the man, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “And how’s the wine?” He glanced at the glass of house white nestling innocently on the table.
“Ghastly, just ghastly.”
Sitting at a the table adjacent a man with an unruly mop of curly black hair looked up at the couple from the book that he was immersed in. On his table sat a small bottle of beer, which displayed a brightly coloured kingfisher on the label. He had been fervently avoiding both pasta and wine since his arrival.
“I can’t eat this muck!” came a cry from a woman seated at the table next to the man with the book and she pointed an accusing finger at what seemed, from his view at least, a rather delicious plate of chicken curry and rice. She glared hard at the waiter. “I’ll starve if I have to eat this for two weeks,” she said with a growl.
Both the waiter and the man looked her over and, despite their diverse cultural backgrounds, came to the same conclusion that two weeks of total abstinence from all possible nourishment would barely scratch the surface of this woman’s substantial bulk.
“Might I suggest that you order something from the continental menu,” the man with the book offered helpfully, gesturing at the menu lying next to her plate.
“Sorry, love, what did you say?” She squinted her eyes and looked confused, as if she were attempting to solve a particularly complex mathematical equation. “Are you foreign or something?”
He contemplated the question and looked around the beach shack which overlooked the Arabian sea. He saw waiters of assorted shades of brown bustling about, taking orders, delivering food, cold bottles of beer and various well known and unbranded soft drinks. There was an unmistakeable aroma of coconut in the air and the heady strains of a of a sitar accompanied by a tabla in the background. He pondered whether this woman was being entirely serious and came to the unfortunate conclusion that perhaps she was.
“Yes,” he replied in a steady voice, offering the women a broad smile. “I am Italian. From Rome, in fact.”
“Oooh, from Rome! Blimey, that’s exotic, mate. Ever so exotic. Ain’t that where that Pope bloke lives. You know, the bloke with the big hat.” She nodded, as if content that she had shared this profound knowledge of the Catholic church’s hierarchy. “Is it true all you Italians eat pasta, darling?” she added, curiously.
“Indeed we do,” replied the Italian smiling again and with the index and middle middle finger of his left hand he made the traditional fork twiddling around spaghetti movement, much favoured in his home city. "And we have been known to enjoy a pizza or two," he added in the spirit of full disclosure and cultural candour.
“So, what do you think of this pasta choice then?” said the woman from table one, brandishing her menu in his general direction.
“I’m sorry?” said the Italian. He hadn’t been following their verbal denigration of the dish.
“The restaurant’s speciality,” chipped in the man at table one, “pasta Alfredo.” The woman gazed down at the menu and repeated the ingredients, punctuating the prawns and onions.
“With penne,” her husband affirmed with a nod of the head.
“Yum, sounds delicious,” exclaimed the woman from table three, licking her lips and gazing aggressively at her chicken curry. She hadn’t noticed the pasta option in the continental menu section preferring to hunt out any dish that contained the word chicken.
“I would rather not comment,” replied the Italian, although he would have been more than happy to do so.
"Oooh, I just love a Hawaiian pizza, me!" table three threw into the mix, staunchly defending the traditions of the cuisine of the Italian peninsula. "Do you know, where I live up near Southend, you can get a real genuine Italian pizza with a chicken tikka topping on it! Now, don’t that just sound like the dog’s bollocks."
The Italian recoiled sharply and clutched at his beer bottle, gripping it tightly. He wondered if it might splinter.
“Italian and Indian both together,” she continued, “that’s dead funny, that is.”
At this witty observation, she burst into what he assumed must have been a fit of laughter but sounded more like a death rattle. As if to explain the racket, she reached for a packet of cigarettes and, with a fluid movement that belied her bulk, she put the packet to her mouth and extracted one, whilst the other hand scooped up a pink lighter from next to the curry and lit it. The whole process seemed to take less than a second and she inhaled deeply, sighed and the coughing seemed to just stop, contravening everything that Mario had thought he knew about smoking.
Over on table one the couple grimaced, both at the thought of the pizza and the trail of smoke that drifted in their direction. The woman went so far as to fan the smoke away from the table. They considered themselves connoisseurs of the palate and this was not the sort of fare normally served up in their native Bournemouth. They pondered pakoras.
As Mario could not think of a reply to her pizza observation, he motioned a waiter over and gave him his order. Prawn curry rice and another small Kingfisher beer, as cold as possible please. He simply could not bring myself to order the same thing as the large woman from near Southend.
“Certainly sir,” said the waiter, who had the name Vikram stitched onto his polo shirt.
“Thank you, Vikram,” Mario said and they exchanged courteous smiles. The large woman summoned the waiter over and pointed accusingly with her lit cigarette at the chicken curry and rice resting on her table, as though it's very right to existence was being called into question. They opened negotiations and Mario switched himself out of their haggling.
He was fairly sure how this would end. Waiters in Goa really didn't like to offend people. The prospect of them being fired and having to make their way back to their families in the villages, towns or cities miles away was not appealing. He suspected that there would be a potato with the woman’s name on it in the kitchen, just waiting to be sliced into chip shapes and plunged into sizzling oil.
“So, darling, are you on your holidays, like?” she asked as Vikram shuffled off to the kitchen, chicken curry and rice in hand. He was shaking his head slowly and muttering what one could only assume were local curses. Mario hoped that the cost wouldn't be deducted from his wages and vowed to make up the possible difference with a generous tip. He pondered the large woman's question. Was this a holiday? Was he escaping, running away? Working? He mulled it over and came to the conclusion that he was here in Goa to work. Yes, to find inspiration, work and to somehow change his life.
“Yes, that’s right, I’m on holiday,” he replied, having decided that if this conversation had to go on, and he would be delighted if it did not, then he would make it his endeavour to not tell the truth if he could possibly avoid it.
“Me, I’m staying at the Sand and Sea Resort. That’s just me and my daughter, Kylie. Her dad would have come but he left us ten years ago and shacked up with some strumpet from up north. Bitch!”
She paused to spit on the sand.
“They do a lovely fried English breakfast at the Sand and Sea. Sausage, egg, baked beans, the full Monty,” she said.
Mario had a pretty good idea of what a baked bean was, having lived in London for a few years, but for someone who came from a land of breakfasts consisting of milky coffees, cappuccino, biscuits and croissants, he struggled to visualise one in the context of a morning meal, and particularly a fried one.
“So, sweetheart, where are you staying?” she asked with a suggestive wink. Mario winced as if discovering that something had gone amiss with a tooth.
"I'm at the Ocean Beach Resort." He was in fact staying at the Bougainvillea Hideaway Beach Resort, a fair distance away.
“Oh, the Ocean Beach Resort. That’s where we’re staying!” chipped in Deidre from table one. “How strange that we haven’t bumped into each other.” Mario examined the label on his beer bottle. Of all the resorts to choose from, he thought.
“They do a wonderful Indian breakfast there,” her husband Kenneth added. “Don’t they, darling?” He looked to his wife for reassurance.
“Haven’t a clue,” said table three, with a shake of the head.
“I think she meant me,” said Deidre. “Yes, delicious. Rotis, dosas, idli, and those lovely spicy chutneys.” She clapped her hands in glee, took a swig of her wine and made a face as if she had just tasted vinegar.
“And let’s not forget those spiced potatoes,” added Kenneth in the spirit of full Indian breakfast disclosure. In truth, much as Deidre and Kenneth might extol the virtues of a full Indian breakfast in public (included in the price of their resort, of course) they did sometimes miss their Roses English Breakfast marmalade spread thickly on wholegrain bread. The bread available at the Ocean Beach Resort was pale by comparison and the two jams available were a colour that suggested radioactivity and a lengthy half life. That they might contain fruit was not obviously apparent.
“Yum,” exclaimed Deidre as enthusiastically as she could.
“Yuk,” said table three, whose name was also Deidre. “So…” she paused, awaiting a name.
“Mario,” said Mario.
“So, Mario, how long are you staying here in Calangute?” she enquired.
“Oh, I have another week or so,” Mario replied, although he had yet to confirm his return ticket back to Rome.
“Another week in paradise, then,” said Deidre from table three, stubbing out her cigarette in the sand below. “So, here on your own, are we?” she asked, in a clearly suggestive way, and there was a twinkle in her eye and a dash of hope in her gravelly voice. Mario, stifling a second wince, thought about this. He was absolutely here on his own. There was, indeed, nobody waiting for him at the Bougainvillea Hideaway Beach Resort.
"I'm here with my boyfriend," he announced and watched as the woman's face executed a series of clumsy expressions that included both disappointment and reproach. Vikram returned with a Kingfisher beer in one hand and a promise of the imminent arrival of a prawn curry rice.
"I'm sure it will be delicious," said Mario, who returned to his book. Vikram turned to the fat woman and assured her that her chips were, even as he spoke, crisping up in the deep fat fryer and would soon be joining two fried eggs and some baked beans before winging their way over to her table. He enquired as to whether she would like condiments.
"Brown sauce?" he suggested enthusiastically and she gave him a look as if he had just proposed urinating on her food whilst dancing the fandango in a mongoose costume.
"Ketchup, for Christ's sake!" she exploded. "Don't you people know anything around here!" She turned to the Italian man with the curly mop of black hair, raised both eyebrows and tutted loudly. We Europeans, her tut expressed quite clearly, understand sauce etiquette. We could teach these damn foreigners a thing or two, it suggested. Mario was unable to nod in solidarity. His hatred for ketchup knew no bounds and he was unsure about the composition of brown sauce and was inclined to keep it that way.
Being at heart an Italian lad, and indeed a Roman to boot, his condiment predilections leaned more in the balsamic vinegar and olive oil direction and this woman was extremely unlikely to change his standpoint about anything.
Vikram leaned over to the table next to the fat lady and extracted a bottle of ketchup from it and placed it on her table with perhaps more vigour than was absolutely necessary. She glared. He glared back, having long abandoned all hope of even the smallest of tips and stomped off, muttering once more under his breath.
"So, darling, what book you reading?" asked the woman, flashing a smile that displayed an intriguing array of dentistry. Mario held up the book for her to see. The book’s cover displayed a bottle of wine in the foreground and the basilica of St. Peter in the background. There were two large wine glasses, one on either side of the bottle. The cork, presumably from the wine, lay at an angle at the base of the bottle, a dark print of the word Sassicaia burned into the side. On top of the bottle, a red Cardinal's biretta lay draped. The title of the book, The Last Drop, was displayed in bold dark red letters above the biretta and below was the name of the author, a Mario Bonfatti.
“Ooh,” exclaimed Deidre on table three, “I think I’ve heard of that one. Bit of a bestseller, I’m told. A mate of mine read it. Said it was a bit too complicated for her. Something to do with that Pope bloke getting himself knocked off. I'm a bit more of a magazine reader, me," she said. "'Ello, that kind of thing. Love a bit of gossip, don’t you know," she added as is if she was bearing the very essence of her soul.
"Knocked off?" said the Italian, whose English was excellent but certainly not flawless.
"Yeah. You know. Killed, bumped off, brown bread," she said in a manner that implied that this Italian really should be more au fait with English slang. Vikram approached with two plates in his hands. One held a prawn curry rice and the other eggs, beans and mounds of chips. He placed the meals on their appropriate tables, scowled at the fat English woman, smiled warmly at the Italian and walked off, once more muttering to himself.
"Well, not the Pope exactly, but a Cardinal, which is the next best thing. Oh, and the American Ambassador to the Vatican,” Mario added, clarifying a potentially complicated misunderstanding.
"A Cardinal, well I never! So, the Pope wasn't there, then?" She pricked the yolk of her egg and it bled into the baked beans as she smothered the entire plate in tomato ketchup. Mario took a mouthful of his prawn curry. It tasted utterly delicious; coconut, coriander and the tastiest, freshest of prawns.
“No,” he answered, “he was nowhere near the scene of the crime.”
“Please,” implored Kenneth on table one, holding up a copy of the same book with a bookmark clearly showing around the forty percent mark. “Don’t say another word! I don’t want to know!” he pleaded and closed his eyes tight.
“Well, he just told you, didn’t he,” Deidre (table three) said through a mouth of red chips, glancing over to the Italian’s table and pointing at him with her knife. “It was the Cardinal that got knocked off.” Kenneth put his hands over his ears. He hadn’t quite arrived at the murder as yet, although he could sense that it was well on its way. Hints had been bandied about and clues lightly scattered.
“I won’t say another word,” Mario said. “My lips are sealed.” He made a “lips are sealed” motion and then opened them to admit another forkful of prawn curry.
“Why thank you,” said Kenneth from table one.
“You’re welcome,” he replied graciously. Mario Bonfatti took a large slug of his beer and resumed reading, both for a little inspiration and also a gentle reminder or two for his future. This book, The Last Drop, was indeed a book that he was more than just familiar with.
