‘We’re not sure what has happened to him. It might be that he has ingested a toxin of some kind. You say you’re his friend: what has he eaten recently?’
Albert didn’t know the answer to that question. ‘I only joined him after lunch, I’m afraid,’ he admitted. ‘You think he might have been poisoned?’ he paraphrased what the paramedic told him.
The sentence, structured that way, gave the paramedic cause to pause halfway into his seat. ‘Poisoned? Possibly, but the way you said it makes it sound like a deliberate act. I’m not suggesting that, only that he might have accidentally ingested something. Lots of everyday products contain toxins such as cyanide or arsenic in small amounts.’ He grabbed the door, making it obvious he intended to shut it. ‘Excuse me now, I have to go.’
Albert stepped back a pace, allowing the ambulance driver to close his door. A heartbeat later, the ambulance pulled away, the lights on top already flashing. Both he and Rex stared at the taillights as it departed but when it moved, it revealed the other side of the street where a large man with no neck and a leather jacket was standing.
Albert’s eyes bugged right out, surprise propelling his feet forward as he shouted, ‘Hey!’
He stepped into the street, intending to confront the man. This was the third time Albert had seen him which was too many for it to be a coincidence. His right arm went taut suddenly, yanking him backward just as a screech of brakes sounded to his left.
A car skidded to a stop right where Albert would have been if Rex hadn’t pulled him back. The driver shouted something unpleasant before stomping on his accelerator again leaving Albert to cool his racing pulse. ‘Thanks, pal,’ he patted Rex’s skull. ‘You saved me there.’
As expected, when Albert looked, the man in the black leather jacket was gone. Seeing him three times made Albert want to know who he was and what connected him to the event. Who could he ask though?
Traipsing back to the marquee, Albert and Rex were thinking very different thoughts. Albert was troubled by Alan’s condition. The possibility that it was brought about by the ingestion of a toxin bothered him – he didn’t think it was accidental for one moment. The man had been inexplicably attacked just a few hours ago and had then lied about the event to the police, playing it down as a random mugging. Albert’s decision to leave it and enjoy the weekend with his son had been the right one to make at the time; or so it seemed. However, now the same man was on his way to hospital and Albert couldn’t help but question if intervening earlier might have prevented things getting this far. Who was the young man with the baton? Was it the same person who then poisoned him? Then there was still the question of the bakers’ ingredients and whether they had been deliberately messed with.
By his human’s feet, Rex wasn’t thinking about the man in the ambulance at all. He’d worked out what the smell was. Not that he had a name for it. He’d come across it once before as a police dog. When he was still little more than a puppy in training, he’d snuck into the storeroom they kept the kibble in and eaten his fill. His fill turned out to be rather more than he ought to have ingested, and more than his stomach could hold. It resulted in a visit from the vet and some medicine to make him regurgitate everything he’d ever eaten – or so it seemed. The memory still haunted him and the smell of the medicine they gave him remained ingrained in his olfactory system forever. He’d just smelled it again on the cat’s human.
Applause for the Benefactor
Gary found his dad still standing in the street with the dog sitting obediently by his side. ‘What are you up to, Dad?’
Albert heard his son clip the lead back onto Rex’s collar but didn’t bother to look his way when he replied, ‘There’s no coincidence in policework, son.’
A snort of laughter escaped Gary’s lips. ‘That again? I would be inclined to agree with you, Dad, but we are not doing police work. We were supposed to be exploring York, having a couple of drinks and some food, and then learning to bake a perfect Yorkshire pudding. Now we, or rather you, seem to be caught up in a world record attempt which you are paying for – goodness only knows what that is going to cost – and you want to add to that what … investigating something? What is it that you think might be going on here, Dad? It’s a baking competition in a Yorkshire city. Or are we back on your criminal mastermind conspiracy nonsense?’
Albert found his son’s choice of words rather harsh. There was no need to call it nonsense. Something was occurring here; he didn’t know what it was, not yet at least, but his detective brain wouldn’t rest until he dug a little deeper. Saying that now or saying what he thought of his son’s inability to see the clues he found blatantly obvious would only put a dampener on the weekend, so he bit them down.
Turning around to face Gary, Albert extended his hand to take the dog lead, and said, ‘It’s getting late. We seem to have used up quite a chunk of the day what with one thing and another. How about we wrap things up here, make sure the bakers can buy the ingredients they need, and then find ourselves a watering hole somewhere so we can taste the region’s local ales?’ He delivered his suggestion with an
