Pausing briefly before phoning Gary, Albert listened to the voice booming out of the speakers dotted around the marquee. ‘… and then he said, it’ll cost you twice that for a ferret!’ the crowd burst into spontaneous laughter. Having missed most of the joke, Albert had no idea why the price of a ferret might be funny, but the comedian was done. Wafting an arm around behind him in the traditional manner of welcoming someone onto the stage, he said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for indulging my silliness. I won’t keep you any longer. Here is today’s biggest contributor and the man who so generously paid my cheque,’ more laughter, ‘only joking. I give you the man who put up today’s generous prize money and the chance to have a line of goods in his stores nationwide, Ethan Bentley.’
Polite, rather than riotous applause rippled around the crowd as a handsome man in his early fifties stepped forward and into the limelight. Ethan Bentley, so far as Albert knew, was a self-made man. The story was that he and his elder brother had come up with the idea for the luxury brand supermarket chain but that his brother then died tragically only days after the foundations for the first store were cut. Ethan made his brother’s baby son the replacement partner in the firm and the child was a millionaire before he started school. That was thirty years ago. Now he was a household name and appeared on his Brilliant Business Ideas television show every week.
Everything about him was a public relations dream come true and the current offer to give a small firm or a keen chef cooking at home the opportunity to have their wares in his stores was just another example of his keen marketing mind at work. The story would make the papers, in fact, Albert could see microphones and cameras at work at the front of the stage now – the press getting the shots and soundbites they needed.
The chatter died down as Ethan came to the front of the stage. ‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. There’s no need for me to say much, other than to wish the entrants the best of luck. I look forward to sampling some of the offerings …’
‘It’s a fix!’ a voice rang out from the crowd. Heads snapped around, everyone looking to see who might have spoken. The guilty person wasn’t trying to hide and was now making his way through the press of people, who were parting to let him pass. ‘It’s a fix I tell thee!’ he insisted loudly.
On the stage Ethan Bentley waited patiently for the heckler to get closer. A few feet above the heads of the crowd where he stood on the mixer loading platform, Albert got to see who it was when the crowd opened slightly to show the man. It was one of the competitors: Mr Ross of Ross Bakery, a man Albert had seen complaining to Alan Crystal the previous afternoon.
Now close enough that Ethan could look him in the eye, he said, ‘I can assure you, sir, there is nothing fixed in this competition. Only the finest goods go into my stores and I shall have final say on the winning entry.’
Mr Ross, wearing the livery of his firm, stopped right in front of the stage. ‘You’ll not get to taste the best entries, Mr Bentley, because it’s a fix. The winners of the so-called heats have been decided in advance somehow. You should see the abysmal monstrosity that beat my own tray of towering, crisp Yorkshire puddings in heat two. There needs to be an adjudication, I tell thee.’ Mr Ross was red in the face, angry and feeling cheated, but also embarrassed by all the attention now focussed on him.
Albert remembered him distinctly, he was the owner of Ross Bakeries, the one who had been proudly showing off his puddings, yesterday. They had been towering, crisp and impressive. Had his entry today not risen as expected?
On the stage, Ethan called for calm, shushing the growing susurration of his audience. ‘I believe, sir, that you should accept defeat graciously and move on. There will be many disappointed entrants today but being beaten does not mean that your version of the Yorkshire pudding is in any way diminished.’
‘Beaten?’ Mr Ross said as if he’d just been slapped. ‘I wasn’t beaten. I was cheated! It’s as plain as day. Come and see for yourself, Mr Bentley. Thou’s being cheated too.’
Event security were moving through the press of people, hurrying toward the troublemaker but having to do so slowly as they negotiated their way around old ladies, mothers with pushchairs, and people with dogs.
Ethan did the sensible thing and moved along. ‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Enjoy your day and good luck to all the competition entrants.’ He turned and headed for the rear of the stage away from Mr Ross.
Security were with the vocal baker now, quietly asking him to leave but he was getting angrier by the second. ‘Where’s that Alan Crystal? That’s who I want to speak with. Where is he? This whole thing is a fix and I paid good money to enter this competition.’
It was going to get physical if he didn’t calm down soon, but Albert echoed Mr Ross’s question. ‘Where is Alan Crystal?’ The crowd moved again, revealing Gary’s location. He was talking with Sophie the redhead and one of her other colleagues here in plain clothes. It was time to join them and see what they might have discovered, but as he started down the steps from
