A Sprinkle of Sabotage by Fiona Leitch (bill gates book recommendations TXT) 📗

industrial-size wheelie bin nearby. Gino must have been carrying it down the stairs and, unable to see his feet or find his footing, taken a tumble. As I headed back to the truck, though, I noticed something strange…

The stairs weren’t attached to the vehicle; they were a wooden set, five steps high, that could be picked up and presumably put inside the truck when Gino and his kitchen were on the move. I guessed that the original back door, probably with pull-down steps, had been filled in when the caravan had been fitted out as a mobile kitchen, to maximise space, and it had been simpler to just build this set to use as and when needed. But that wasn’t the strange thing.

The strange thing was, the second step down was broken right in the middle, presumably where Gino had put his foot and all of his weight, making it give way and send him tumbling to the ground. He was very lucky he hadn’t got a leg caught and twisted in the remaining stairs, otherwise he could have had another broken limb to go with his arm. What made this strange was the fact that the wood looked thick and strong enough to hold the weight of someone much heavier than Gino. So why had it broken?

And that wasn’t all. The step had snapped in half, right in the middle. Half of it was still attached to the set of stairs, while the other half lay in the grass. I picked it up and studied it carefully. The end that had snapped off the edge of the stair housing was jagged, with splintered pointy bits sticking out. I held it up against the stair housing and it was easy to see how it fitted together. The other end, though – the bit that would have been in the middle of the stair – was smooth and straight. No jagged bits.

That really was the strange thing. I felt my phone ring in the pocket of my jeans (all phones had to go onto vibrate the minute you got near the set) and looked at the caller display; it was someone who could not have chosen a better time to call. I answered.

‘Hi, Nathan, fancy a cup of tea?’

Chapter Seven

Nathan did fancy a cup of tea. He couldn’t get away just then, but promised to come over and see me in a couple of hours. Which was just as well, because lunchtime was approaching and I had to carry on getting the food ready.

Everything was half-prepared: vegetables peeled, onions and garlic chopped, ovens on to heat. It wasn’t immediately apparent what Gino had been planning to cook, but luckily he’d written out a menu for the whole week, and I was able to work out which dishes the mushrooms had been heading for, and that the sweet potato was destined to be roasted in spicy chunks as a filling for Mexican wraps.

I made a creamy chicken and mushroom sauce to go with fettuccine pasta; a lamb curry, chunks of succulent meat with a beautiful rich gravy; a vegan jackfruit and bean chilli (so simple, and the jackfruit tasted just like pulled pork); and lots of fillings for the wraps – guacamole, the roasted sweet potato chunks, salad leaves. I even discovered some ‘vegan feta’ in the fridge: tofu marinaded in olive brine and herbs to give it that salty tang. I tried a bit, despite never really having been a fan of tofu, and it tasted great, although the texture was less crumbly than real feta.

The beauty of the hot dishes was that they could be kept on the hot buffet counter all afternoon and, if anything, they would taste even better by the end of the day, the flavours having intensified. Whenever I make a curry, I always make enough for two days, and it always tastes even better the day after it was made.

I put everything on the warming plate on the counter and then looked up. There was a queue of people, some grumbling at the wait. Time had flown by and it was already 12.30, and some of them had been here since 5 a.m., setting up lighting, so they were starving.

‘Buon appetito!’ I said, remembering Gino the day before, and everyone tucked in. I opened the back door and gingerly made my way down the steps, watching out for the broken one. It was hot inside the trailer, but out here there was a cool breeze.

I sat on the steps fanning myself for a moment.

‘So this is where you’re hiding!’ Debbie stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. ‘I didn’t think I’d have to join all the chavs queuing; I was hoping for some special treatment from the chef.’

I laughed. ‘Tell me what you want and I’ll grab you a plate. And some for me, too. I’m starving.’ I was. It had been hard work, and I’d been so busy that I hadn’t noticed my own tummy rumbling until I stopped.

I grabbed us some plates of food (Debbie went for the pasta, while I went for the vegan tortilla wrap – I’d been intrigued by Gino’s dish – and I was glad I did because it was delish). I was all for us sitting quietly round the back of the trailer but Debbie shook her head.

‘I can’t sit on those steps in this dress,’ she said, reasonably enough. So we headed round to the front and joined the rest of the cast and crew at the picnic tables that had been set out in an open-air canteen.

‘Jodie!’ Tony was sitting with Faith, looking very cosy, but when he saw us he got to his feet and came over.

‘It’s amazing how many movie stars these days have got lapdogs, innit,’ I said to Debbie, apropos of nothing. She snorted with laughter as he sat down with a rueful grin.

‘I can’t get away from her,’ he said in a low voice. ‘She’s