Chapter 8: Saturday Night - The Balti Hut

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‘You haven’t touched your Curry, darling.’

Ben waved his fork, gesticulating, trying to remove the indigestible meat from his mouth,

‘It tastes funny, Claire,’ he chomped, ‘It doesn’t taste right, even mixed in with chutney.’

Claire, 28, engaged to be married to Ben, 31, reached across the candlelit table with her fork, flashing her diamond ring for all the other diners to see. They were sitting outside, one metre from the next table, holding hands, sipping bubbly, gazing up at the stars, into each other’s eyes, the look of love was in their eyes. Claire had ordered Chicken Tikka Marsala, Vegetable Fried Rice, a Poppadom. The chicken tasted strange, quite unlike any chicken she’d ever tasted before,

‘Here let me try it,’ she helped herself to a mouthful, then immediately spat it out into her napkin, ‘Ugh! It tastes disgusting! You should complain to Mr Balti. Ask for a free meal.’

‘I don’t like to,’ protested Ben, ‘The food here is usually excellent. How’s your chicken?’

‘So-so,’ Claire pushed her food round her plate having lost her appetite, ‘It isn’t chicken.’

‘Not chicken! And this,’ her fiancé shouted, loudly, pointing, for all to hear, ‘Isn’t beef!’

There was uproar on the terrace, a clattering of cutlery on plates as other diners joined in,

‘Mine isn’t lamb!’

‘This isn’t Bombay Duck!’

‘Call this goat?!’

‘Oh my God!’ cried Claire, ‘Do you think it’s, think it’s… dog?’

‘No, it isn’t dog,’ Ben reassured her, ‘I’ve eaten dog in China. I think it might be...’

Mr Balti appeared on the terrace, covered in blood, dressed in an iron mask, rubber apron, surgical wellingtons, carrying a bloody meat saw. He admired Mae, walking towards him, daubed from head to toe in fresh blood, the ‘girl at the high school prom’, dripping scarlet!

‘Nice,’ he said, wishing he had a bunch of red roses to present to her, his beautiful heroine.

Mae smiled at him, appreciatively, morsels of Nick’s raw flesh, hanging from her teeth.

All the diners screamed!