There it was! An unpleasant chemical tang that had been artificially flavoured. He didn’t know the name for it, and though the scent alone made his stomach queasy, he was locked on now, and would find it in minutes.
His eyes opened again, and his paws leapt into action. But no sooner had he started to home in on the source of the smell, than he caught a trace of another smell – the cat.
The cat was still here somewhere. Its human was dead, but cats didn’t care too much about such things in Rex’s experience. They would happily move to the next human in line. Rex bared his teeth automatically upon thinking about his local nemesis but bit his rising ire down to focus on the thing he needed to find.
Getting closer to the revolting medicinal smell brought him to the back of the stage. There were lots of people around, any of whom might decide he ought not to be there, so Rex went under the tables, keeping his belly low to avoid detection. He crept along like that, sneaking between people until he found his target. It was inside a trash receptacle.
Now that he was on top of it, the smell made him want to gag. Not because it was that revolting, it had kind of a sweet note behind the medicinal, chemical tang, but the memory of ingesting it turned his stomach each time he inhaled.
Steeling himself to do what needed to be done, Rex flipped the waste bin over with his front paw. It made a dull metallic sound as the side of the bin hit the rubber matting, and the contents spilled out over the floor. A half-eaten burger rolled out too. Rex inhaled it swiftly, certain that it had been left there just for him to find. Then, he had to use his nose to root through the debris until he could see the broken plastic bottle. The lid was still on it, but the contents were gone where it had cracked down one side.
It stank now that it was right under his nose so, holding his breath, Rex picked it gingerly up and carried it between his teeth.
Perfect Yorkies Every Time
Rosie turned out to be an excellent tutor. For Albert, it defied logic that she struggled to find work when she was not only capable, willing, and intelligent, but qualified also. She attended catering college and at eighteen had a worthwhile career ahead of her. Falling accidentally pregnant before she could start her first job had not been part of the plan, she sighed.
Albert wanted to condemn her foolishness, he would have been quite verbal were she one of his own children, but she was not. She never mentioned the child’s father, leaving Albert to guess that she either didn’t know who that was, or he was out of the picture.
Still holding Teddy, who appeared content to watch and listen to his mother, Albert focussed on her top tips. ‘If you want to avoid a soggy pudding or a pudding that fails to rise there are a few basics things to remember. Firstly, use equal quantities of milk and flour to eggs – you can do this by cracking eggs into a measuring jug. Essentially this works out at around two spoons of flour and two spoons of milk per egg. Always ensure that the batter mixture is smooth and there are no lumps.’ She was holding her injured right hand awkwardly but had two fingers and a thumb on the whisk and made short work of demonstrating how little effort was required to get the batter smooth.
‘I should use plain flour, right?’ he tried to confirm one of the things he’d heard in the last day.
‘That’s right,’ she nodded, putting the jug down. ‘The rise comes from the eggs but to get a really good rise, we want to add beer.’
‘Beer?’ Albert’s eyebrows flew away toward the top of his skull as he echoed the word.
‘Uh-huh. Beer. There’s a stall selling it just over there. Do you fancy a glass? I could do with one.’ She was reaching for her handbag when he stopped her.
‘I shall get the drinks, my dear. We’ll call it payment for the lesson if you like.’
‘Are you sure?’ she tried to argue. It was silly really after crying about having no money and living in a hovel but also human nature to reject charity.
Albert smiled at her. ‘It would be my pleasure. Does it matter what beer?’
‘Not really,’ she shrugged. ‘Something hoppy might be best.’
The stall serving pints in plastic glasses was busy, forcing Albert to wait his turn. It took a couple of minutes, which he spent looking around the marquee for his son. He could have used his phone but wanted to dedicate some more time to Rosie before he did. There were serving police here so if the killer were here also, they were the ones who would tackle him – if they could work out who it was first, of course. They would be looking for Alan Crystal and making appropriate enquiries he felt sure.
Served his two drinks, he turned to head back to Rosie, but his path was blocked by a man with an angry face.
‘Where did Crystal go?’ the man demanded, a rough-looking man enquired. His hair had been cropped-short so it was little more than bristles and he had tattoos on his hands. To match the rough look, his nose had clearly been broken at some point in the past and was rather squashed now.
Albert offered him a pleasant smile. ‘Mr Crystal is the organiser, sir. He doesn’t tell me where he might be going.’ Albert had seen the man yesterday when he came through the tent with Alan the very first time and he got accosted by some of the contestants. He hadn’t spoken to
