"I'd like three pounds of bananas and a quarter of your finest liquorice please."
Clare looks up from the glass she is polishing. The Cake Stop bar and grill is empty, save
for a gently snoring FatBloke getting a tan under the pool table lamp and the tortured,
hunched figure of Sam Walker, née Scott Munn, wrestling with writer's block at the end of
the bar under the hat stand, a glass of Rice Dream getting warm by his right hand. There is
no sign of the person who has spoken. "Followed by two ton of chips and a battered whale
please," comes the voice again. It wasn't endorphin overload: she had heard something. At
least, she thinks she did. There is still no sign from either Sam or FatBloke that anything
untoward is going on.
"Excuse me?" she says, somewhat hesitantly. "Is someone there?"
"I said I'd like three pounds of bananas, a quarter of liquorice, two tons of chips and a
battered whale. Please."
Clare steps forward so that her hips are pressed against the edge of the bar, and peers
over the edge. A small face, framed by a spider's web tangle of fluffy hair the colour of a
boiled lobster is looking up at her with twinkling blue eyes. The head sits atop a spindly
body, which in turn is attached to what appear to be a satyr's legs. In USPS team kit. There
is an empty packet of blackcurrant flavoured PowerBar carb gel on the floor between his —
and the creature is most definitely and unmistakably a he — Sidi-clad feet.
"Um," says Clare, wondering how best to preserve the Cake Stop's reputation for exquisite
customer service. "The death by chocolate is very nice. Or I can heat up some apple pie in
the microwave for you. We haven't started the lunch service yet, so I can't do you chips,
and we've run out of bananas. We only do liquorice by special order. If we get it in on spec
then it just vanishes and we're not sure who eats it, although we all suspect it might be
something to do with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern."
"What about the battered whale?"
Clare can't quite place the creature's accent. It sounds sort of Irish, but more Polish. Very
strange. "We don't do battered whale. We may not be members of the IWC, but after that
unfortunate incident with FatBloke and the Marine Mammals Defence Fund, we feel it's
better to be safe than sorry." She nods towards the lumpen form making bandsaw noises
on the pool table. The creature's eyebrows raise and he nods in understanding.
"I see," he says. "Well, would it be possible, do you think, to lay me hands on some malt
loaf and a pint of the black stuff?"
"Don't be silly," mumbles FatBloke, without waking up. "You can't drink a pint of marmite."
"You see if Oi can't," says the creature.
Clare shrugs. It will be some time before Ravenbait appears, if indeed she turns up at all
before tomorrow, so what little malt loaf is left can be replenished before she arrives.
"Certainly. Which table will you be taking?"
"That one over there."
"Your name?"
"Ach missy, there's just me, Lardy and the quiet one at the end there. I don't think you
need my name."
Clare ponders for a moment and then lets it slide. The creature clacks off across the
sawdust-sprinkled floor to take a seat at his chosen table. When the others started
appearing, then the goat-arsed little freak would find out how curious they could be.
* * *
Ravenbait and Fingal sweep around the final bend toward the Maltings in rural Mistley, Essex. As she and her silver and black charger carve through the deserted lanes in the final
climb where the road curves around to open the horizon into a broad sweep across the
Orwell, the usual odour of malt seems somehow altered. She draws another waft of the
warm morning air across her nostrils, searching for clues. It's slightly less strong than
before. A little... burnt, perhaps.
Out of the saddle now, and the beads of panic start to run down her tightening throat. It
can't be that...
The heavy tarred wooden gate of the maltings is displaced, making a Picasso-like slash
across the regularity of the Georgian building. Malt workers lay strewn, unconscious across
the concrete apron. A shattered artic sits smouldering, broken-backed before the ripped-open factory.
Ravenbait dismounts, leans Fingal affectionately against a post and strides into the
darkened doorway. Wooden pallettes stacked carefully on the floor have been splintered,
the packing celophane shredded. And the familiar waxed paper packages...gone.
Her mind is working at a cadence of 110rpm and thoughts rush into it like Laurent Jalabert
on an Alpine descent.
"I'm too late...what will the League say. When they find that... the
Malt Loaf has......GONE!"
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