Free In the Kitchen by Monica Ali Page B

see how zees little flowers are ...'
    Gabriel shivered and moved away slightly, trying to make his movement invisible by coughing at the same time. He respected Chef Albert's perfectionism but, like all the self-sacrificing virtues, it was best appreciated at a safe remove. It was cold in here, anyway, particularly standing close to Albert.
    Inclining his head to indicate that he was still listening, Gabe looked over the pastry kitchen. The Rondo machine still had a few scraps of fresh dough clinging between the rollers but everything else was sparkling clean.
    Every pastry chef he had known was lugubrious. It went with the territory, he supposed. There had been one exception, Terry Sharples, down at the Brighton Grand. Terry was always laughing. Until he threw himself off Beachy Head, New Year's Eve, 1989.
    Gabriel caught sight of himself in the refrigerator door. He had fancied he would look contemplative but his expression was somewhere between dismissive and harassed. He yawned in order to rearrange his face. In Blantwistle people would say, doesn't he look like his dad, but they said that no matter what.
    There was some resemblance but you had to search for it. Gabe didn't have his father's hard lines. Perhaps if you peeled the flesh back, you would see it: Ted as the prototype and Gabe the end result. He had the hair, though: thick, dark and curling on top, oddly foppish, like a playboy Italian count. Gabe worked his finger into the sparse patch at the crown. He wondered what age Dad had been when he started to go bald. Perhaps, when you lose your hair, that's when you really know that you're going to die, just like everyone else. Dad was going to d ie. An image exploded in his mind: the floor at Rileys, a hundred thundering looms, the battlefield noise, and Dad, striding around like a colossus, taming the machines with his big strong hands.
    Dad would live to see Gabe open his own restaurant. That had to mean something, even if Dad would pretend that it didn't. Dad had to live long enough to see it. Come on, Dad, exhorted Gabe, as though everything would be fine as long as his father pulled up his socks.
    Gabe glanced back at his reflection. He rubbed his hand across his face.
    'Everything is not so good,' said Chef Albert. He spread his arms. 'You see for yourself how is all zis mess.'
    Gabe administered a pep talk and fled. Gleeson and Ivan were holding a furtive conference in the passageway that led to the dining room. Why would a restaurant manager need to speak privately to a grill chef? Gleeson pranced on his toes, ready at any moment to cut and run. He had the wind up him all right. Every day, since Yuri's 'sad accident', he'd been a flutter of spite and nerves. Ivan stood fast but he was agitated, plucking at his red bandanna.
    Loitering at the corner, Gabriel wished he could read their lips. There was one thing he could tell from their body language: they did not wish to be overheard.
    Gleeson saw Gabriel. 'Ah, Chef, you lost again? Kitchen's that way, I do believe. I've just directed your detective friend – Parks, is it? – to your lair. Try to keep him out of the dining room, would you? We don't want to frighten the horses.'
    'I don't think I'll be able to stop him, Stanley,' said Gabriel, beginning to walk away. He smiled back over his shoulder. 'I think the police go wherever they want.'
    When he reached his cubicle Parks was sitting at his desk. 'There you are,'
    said Parks. 'I've taken your seat.'
    'Feel free,' said Gabe. 'How can I help?'
    'Paperwork,' said Parks, pointing at the piles on the floor and the files poking out of the overstuffed drawers. 'Bane of all our lives.'
    'Yes.'
    'When I've got a file open that should never have been opened in the first place ... and it's all about crossing the t's and dotting the i's, no real police work ...' He trailed off. 'Not that I'm blaming the sergeant. Though someone else might have called it different, of course.'
    'Was there something in