They were approaching the museum and could see a bright banner erected on the front façade. It bragged Fifty-Seventh Annual World Yorkshire Pudding Championships in bold letters three feet high. As they turned off the street toward the main entrance Albert paused, his feet stopping of their own accord as he stared down the street.
Gary’s feet hadn’t stopped, carrying him six feet before he noticed his father was no longer at his side. Wearing a bemused smile, he retraced his steps. ‘Everything all right, Dad? Your feet still work?’
Albert scrunched his face. ‘I just saw someone.’
Gary’s worry that his father might be getting a little senile spiked again because there was no one in sight anywhere. Electing to play along, Gary said, ‘Are they gone now?’ However, having said the words, he worried what he might then do if his father claimed he could still see them.
Frowning deeply, Albert looked at his son. ‘Can you see them?’ he demanded to know. ‘Of course they’re gone. There was a man in the alleyway when the mugging occurred. I thought I just saw him again – the same black leather jacket and lack of neck.’ Albert was convinced it was the same man, which he might have chalked up to coincidence were it not for the man spotting Albert and ducking down a side road.
Sensing that his son was waiting impatiently, and no desire to listen to his father’s wild theories, Albert gritted his teeth and dismissed the notion that the man had just deliberately avoided him. Staring toward the museum again, he asked, ‘Did you get a chance to look into my question about missing persons before you left?’
Gary kept the sigh he felt inside. It wasn’t so much that he despaired of his father, it was much more the case that he loved him, and having lost mum just a little more than a year ago, he didn’t want to face the possibility that dad was going a little loopy. ‘I didn’t, dad, if I am being honest. In fact, to be brutally honest, I chose not to.’
Albert let his eyebrows rise and pulled them back under control as he said, ‘I see.’ He wanted to be annoyed; an emotion distinctly south of angry, which he never wanted to feel towards his children, but he was disappointed and shared that with his son. ‘I suppose you believe there is nothing to investigate.’
This time Gary did sigh. They had ground to a halt to have their discussion outside, rather than take it into the ticket booth they could see just inside the door.
Rex parked his bottom on the path. The humans were talking about something. It didn’t interest him. What did was the familiar scent coming out of the doors of the building they were stopped outside. It was the man he had rescued earlier, the one who was getting attacked. Rex lifted his nose to sample the air again: he was certain.
Coincidence was not a concept Rex understood. Things happened or they didn’t. If you could smell it, then it was true. The man in the sky-blue suit was here, but then he had to be somewhere. Above his ears, his human and his human’s pup – Rex understood the pack relationship – were beginning to get agitated.
‘I never said there was a master criminal at work!’ snapped Albert, feeling affronted that Gary was suggesting he needed to look for his marbles because they were lost.
Gary held up his hands defensively. ‘That’s what it sounded like, Dad. You asked me to look for missing person cases where the missing person was a chef of some kind, or linked to the food, catering, or restaurant industries. When I asked why, you said that someone might be trying to forcibly recruit them.’
Albert opened his mouth to argue again but, recalling the messages back and forth the previous evening, he had to admit those were more or less his exact words. He was about to come at the discussion from a different angle when Rex suddenly got to his feet and lurched forward, tugging his arm.
Turning his head to see what might have attracted the dog’s attention, he found the man in the flamboyant suit coming his way.
‘Hello,’ beamed Alan Crystal, leaving the museum to greet the men outside. Approaching with his right hand outstretched, he gushed, ‘I’m so pleased to see you again so soon. In all the excitement earlier, I completely forgot to thank you for coming to my rescue.’
‘You rescued him?’ asked Gary in a whisper from the side of his mouth.
Albert shook Alan’s hand. ‘That’s quite alright. I found my dog,’ he pointed out.
‘So you did,’ nodded Alan, taking in the dog sniffing his suit. ‘He’s quite the specimen.’ Bending down to speak with Rex, he said, ‘Thank you for chasing that man away.’
Rex accepted the thanks graciously, wondering if perhaps there ought to be a gravy bone involved somewhere, and still feeling irked that he hadn’t caught his target.
Switching focus from Rex to Gary, Alan thrust his hand toward the younger man who had to be the old man’s son given the marked similarity in features. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Alan Crystal, the curator of this fine museum. Your father did me quite the favour earlier.’ He stopped pumping Gary’s hand to ruffle Rex’s ears again. ‘This one too, of course.’
Now that he had his hand back, Gary folded his arms and looked down at his father. ‘Okay, Dad, what did I miss?’
‘It was nothing really,’ Albert began to protest, but Alan was having none of it.
‘Nonsense, dear fellow.’ He glanced behind to the museum
