Panic by K.R. Griffiths

Author:K.R. Griffiths [Griffiths, K.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: K.R.Griffiths
Published: 2013-05-31T04:00:00+00:00

6

Derek Graham knew Paula Roberts well, having been her source of minced beef and sausages for fifteen years.

Trade had slowed down for Derek in the last few years as the supermarket in the next town pulverized the competition with impossible prices and buy-one-get-one-free offers. Loss-leaders, for Christ's sake. Special offers designed to lose money. The free and fair market was a smirking misnomer, a barely-concealed sham.

Derek's father had been a butcher, a man who taught Derek to take pride in his work, to make the last slice of the day as carefully as he had the first, and it bewildered him that the majority of people flocked to the giant, soulless food warehouse, seemingly oblivious to the fact that every chicken breast looked identical and every slice of bacon was watery mush. After all, if you weren't going to pay care and attention to the things you put into your body then what would you pay care and attention to?

Derek stuck to his principles and his higher prices. Living creatures had died to make his produce, and to his mind, the least they deserved was to be prepared correctly for the next - and final - stage of their lives and their usefulness.

All of which meant that Graham and Son's Butchers didn't have a huge amount of customers, but the ones that did remain did so loyally, and Derek got to know them all. He knew what most would order as soon as he saw them opening the door.

Mrs Christie wanted gammon, sixteen Lincolnshire sausages, a rack of lamb and six free range eggs. Mr Bale was a poultry man: chicken and duck for week nights, a pheasant for Sunday roast and an eight pound turkey every Christmas Eve.

Mrs Roberts...well, she just wanted gossip. She was Derek's least favourite customer, always hovering around his counter for too long as though she couldn't make up her mind what she wanted (though in reality, Derek knew, she simply stayed in the hope that more people - and thus more gossip - would come in) and she never complimented him on his cuts in the same way his other patrons did. Derek worked hard to ensure that as much fat as possible never made it from animal to customer, and a little appreciation of that fact would not have gone amiss.

In the end, she always ordered minced beef and sausages. There was no artistry in minced beef and sausages.

Still, she was a customer, and Derek had gotten to know her habits extremely well.

Which was why he knew something was amiss as soon as he saw her walking down the street toward his shop. Well, not walking exactly, more...stumbling.

He paused, the sharp blade hovering an inch or two above the leg of lamb that he had been trimming, lamb that had arrived in the middle of the night, so fresh it was still chewing, and frowned.

Derek's shop was in a narrow alley leading off the small square that comprised the town's area of commerce.

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