They were deployed the moment he got a sniff that Eugene and Francis might struggle with their task. His disappointment was such that he’d chosen to abandon his quest to gain a clanger baker. He suspected now that the delicacy might leave a bad taste in his mouth, much as the last few days had.
The B team, a man and a woman, were coming back to him, not picking up where the others had left off as was his direct instruction. The old man and his dog could be directly linked to two of his plans failing already, but in a moment of clarity, the earl let him go. He needed to focus on collecting the rest of his larder. There were more chefs required, more raw ingredients needed, and better security, that was paramount. Security was the primary reason he called the B team away from catching the old man. They could have taken him, but he wanted them to focus on recruiting a new B team now that they were suddenly the A team.
Savagely, he sliced into his thick piece of Japanese Wagyu beef prime fillet. He’d taken a herd from a town outside of Kyoto, using a team to steal over two hundred head of cattle in the night. They’d brought them all the way to his lair and snuck them in without anyone in the world knowing where they had gone. Two hundred head would keep him going for the rest of his life if the breeding program worked as he expected. He had two good butchers tucked away below ground as well as veterinarians, cattle wranglers, and a host of other staff to deal with all the foods he needed. He had to feed them as well, of course, it wasn’t just him that had to survive.
That was his offer: the chance to survive the coming apocalypse. None of them believed him. Not one. He was saving them, but they cried about their families. When he started, he tried to calm them by bringing their families along: saving the entire bloodline, but they hadn’t been happy with that either, so now he didn’t bother. He was merciful, he was divine, he was the only one who knew the truth.
There was still so much to do, and he alone had the will to see it through. The old man and his dog were insignificant in the greater scheme. He just needed to keep that in mind and stay focussed.
Carving off another piece of his exquisite melt-in-the-mouth steak, he could feel his pulse slowing. Then an image of the old man surfaced again, and he stabbed his knife into his steak so hard he broke the plate in two. Screaming to the sky, he raged. ‘There will be a reckoning, Albert Smith. I still want my cheese!’
The End
Author’s Note
Good day, dear reader,
I hope you enjoyed this story. Writing this note, I am sitting on my couch with the rest of my family asleep upstairs. I assume they are asleep; I should say. My wife might be awake because Hermione, our daughter who turns four months in two days, might have decided she wants milk, in which case neither one is getting any sleep. And my son, Hunter, who turns five in just a few weeks, has his father’s imagination, and struggles to sleep because he is battling time travelling alien robot dinosaurs.
Whatever the case, they are in bed, and I hope they are relaxed.
Rex and Albert are a joy to write, their adventures are just beginning as in my head I already envisage a second series of these books. Rex has a habit of waking me in the night, giving me daft ideas for story lines because he’s got it into his head that he is the star of the show. Of course, he is right, but I can never admit that to him, his head is inflated enough already.
It is late summer here, where a heat wave of unparalleled intensity has dominated England for several weeks but may finally be over. There was rain today, falling onto my parched lawn where it will struggle to penetrate, and the temperatures have cooled. Yet despite that, it was still too warm for me to work in my log cabin.
I have several new series planned, my over-active imagination suggesting new ideas all the time. Some will make it onto paper, others will not, but those that do, ought to be crackers. Those that follow me on Facebook, Amazon, or via my newsletter will find about what is coming first.
I wonder did you spot the Blue Moon reference at the start of the book? The name Maddie Hayes might mean nothing to you, but growing up in the 80s, Moonlighting was the series that dominated my adolescent years. I have made a habit of sewing small Easter eggs into my books. Some get commented on, some are too obscure, but I wonder if one day a person will discover a pattern to them.
If you read the passage about Bovril and wonder what the heck it is, then your best bet is to perform an internet search. It is a beef paste which can either be turned into a hot drink or spread on toast. Oddly, I cannot stand the flavour now, but I ate jar upon jar of it as a child. I have employed the technique of plastering a blob onto the bath to keep a large dog calm in the past and will profess that it works very well.
Take care
Steve Higgs
History of the Bedfordshire Clanger
Bedfordshire Clanger gained a reputation as suet pudding (suet crust dumpling) wrapped
