‘What?’ asked Albert, not believing his ears. He’d volunteered two of the officers before they knew what was happening. Hearing Dave 2 complain that he needed more hands, and knowing the police wanted to be in the thick of the action, he didn’t bother to ask their opinion first. Sophie claimed she could make a mean Victoria sponge, and volunteered Wilson because she knew he grew up in a pub making food with his dad before he joined the police. ‘How can you not like Yorkshire pudding?’ Albert wanted to know. ‘Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding is one of the most quintessentially British dishes on the planet. When other nations think about British cuisine, they picture cups of tea, cucumber sandwiches, fish ‘n’ chips, and roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.’
Wilson just shrugged. ‘It’s bland. It doesn’t taste of anything.’
Albert felt like throwing something at the young man’s head.
Granted untested volunteers, Dave 2 had found them easy, yet necessary, tasks to perform. It freed up some of his known bakers who were taken outside to help with the fire and the giant pan and left the two police officers in the main marquee with Albert, Gary, and others where they could watch over what was happening. The bakers’ uniform of white jacket and check trousers together with the traditional white baker’s floppy hat made for the perfect disguise too. They were blending in, snooping around, and watching what was going on with perfect disguises.
After the worrying news about the fragility of the record attempt, Alan took a few moments to get the colour back into his face, but once recovered he made his excuses and went back to the competition where he was required to announce a heat winner. The heats were to be judged by him alone, with the ten heat finalists going before a panel.
Each time there were cheers from the competition floor, the bakers looked up to see another team advance to the final.
‘Is that next batch ready to mix yet?’ called Dave 2, popping his head back through the flap of the marquee. ‘I think we might have got the pan about ready. We’ll have to start pouring soon either way.’
He interrupted their conversation, but they were ready with the batter ingredients which now needed to be transferred to one of the mixers as the previous mix was taken away. It was a continuous process that had been going on for over twelve hours already. Struggling to understand why they were doing it this way, Gary asked why they couldn’t just use an even bigger mixture. The answer, apparently, was that it would never mix properly, leaving pockets of dry ingredients when it was essential the batter was smooth, thin, and even.
They each carried their measured, heavy buckets of ingredients to a mixer where a pair of men, looking sweaty and fatigued, were adding flour – plain not self-raising – using yet more of the same buckets. It was another top tip: use equal quantities of milk, flour, and eggs. Albert watched for a moment as a thousand eggs went into the mixer along with buckets of milk and bucket after bucket of flour. The flour went in last, added to the wet mix to minimise how much it clouded. After yesterday’s debacle, no one wanted to see flour in the air.
Thinking about the ‘fun’ events of yesterday afternoon, Albert looked down at Rex.
Rex was bored. Or the version of bored that a dog gets when it would much rather be doing something else. To entertain himself, Rex supposed, his human had jammed a baker’s hat on his head. It wouldn’t stay on, but the bakers had found it amusing so joined in, finding a piece of elastic to attach to the hat and go under his chin.
He didn’t much care about the hat; it wasn’t bothering him, but he wanted to explore all the magnificent smells filling the air and his human wouldn’t let him. In fact, the old man still seemed sore about the incident with the curtain pole and the tree. Rex did not consider any of the things that happened earlier to be his fault per se, but his human was being far more strict than usual about what he was permitted to do.
Albert was back to cracking eggs and thinking to himself that he was getting good at it. He’d started copying Wilson, who was doing it one handed and never getting any shell in his bowl. Albert had made the mistake of cracking the eggs straight into the bucket when he started and then found it impossible to get a small piece of shell out because there were too many eggs swimming around. Now, they were all using bowls – tap the egg to crack the shell, then hold it over the bowl and push in with two fingers and a thumb. Another egg deposited the white and yolk perfectly into the bowl, causing Albert to smile: he felt like a baker today even though he hadn’t baked anything.
He turned his mind back to the murder investigation and to the question of Alan Crystal having an accomplice. Like a jolt of electricity, a dastardly scenario hit him. The egg in his hand banged against the side of the bowl with three times the force required, smashing the egg, and sending its contents to the floor.
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said Rex, moving in with a handy tongue to remove the tasty morsel as it dripped from the table to the temporary rubber matting beneath.
‘The murder victim,’ he blurted, getting Gary’s attention along with Sophie and Wilson’s. ‘Does he own a moped?’
All three serving police officers stared at him for a second before Sophie took the radio from her pocket. ‘I can find out,’ she offered.
Gary enquired, ‘Why do you ask, Dad? Is this something to do with
