The Missing Waiter
Detective Taylor sat in the back of the restaurant eating his shish kebab. Each bite was delicious, nourishing, tender and moist. The meat swirled around in his mouth in sumptuous bites.
Riz was the restaurant owner. He brought the food out for the detective and said immediately:
‘For the police, no charge,’
Detective Taylor and Detective Paulson were there on business. But what would it hurt with a spot of lunch?
Just a bit of shish and then back to business.
‘From what I understand, the missing party Brad Mayson worked here,’
They clarified with Riz.
‘Yes, yes. Such a shame. He go missing. We all miss him. Such a shame,’ Riz answered in broken English.
Between each bite, the police scribbled in their notebooks and then washed the kebab down with a cold beer.
‘Such a young man. Good worker.’
Riz was empathetic, convincing and sincere. Taylor was impressed by Riz. He had come to this country as an immigrant, barely spoke the language and now he owned the finest Turkish restaurant in West London.
And they got a free lunch from the man.
Taylor would immediately go back to the office and put a cross through Riz’s name in the list of suspects.
They went into the back office of the restaurant and looked at the CCTV. The last known whereabouts of Brad Mayson. Entering the restaurant with his clean apron on. The start of his shift. A pixellated smile on his face.
‘And he left here around 10 pm?’ Paulson asked.
He must’ve taken a wrong turn down the wrong alley and got into some bother with one of the pimps or gangsters in Soho.
The boy was young, naive and probably a bit stupid. Taylor felt the family’s sadness.
He could be anywhere now. The bottom of the Thames most likely. How many bodies made their way down to the bottom of that river?
‘Thank you for your hospitality Mr Yikaz,’
They shook hands and left. On the way back to the car they applauded the man’s food. It was delicious, and famous across the city.
How does he do it?
Riz went back to the kitchen. The head chef was Ikay. Learned his trade in Paris and Hamburg. Highly trained, highly qualified. Knew his way around a butcher’s knife.
‘So, how much we got left of the meat?’ Riz asked his head chef.
‘Just the thighs and legs, sir,’ Ikay answered.
The next day Taylor and Paulson had a bad bout of diarrhoea. They spent the day glued to the toilet, texting each other, promising themselves that this would be the last time they gorge on Turkish food - as delicious as it was.
Something in the spices, something that they do with the doner meat. Not good.
Where is our son? The headline on the BBC website read. Taylor was struck by the words.
He could be anywhere, literally anywhere. Taylor thought to himself in-between plops of crap heading violently into his toilet.
