Image description: The YeastEnders village of Walnutford, with baked-goods characters gathered in Almond Square outside The Queen Victoria Sponge.
Crumbs Blunt stared at the flour-white BB on the Trolley Park wall.
Roxy Rhubarb stared at Crumbs Blunt.
Peggy Cherry Bakewell stared at both of them.
“Well?” said Peggy.
Crumbs put his sunglasses back on.
“Well what?”
“You just looked at that symbol like you’d found a mouse in your muffin tin.”
“Could’ve been wind.”
“You took your sunglasses off.”
“Strong wind.”
Rye-vita stepped between them.
“Who are the Buttered Bunch?”
Crumbs’ grin disappeared.
“Ask Roxy.”
“I already did.”
“Then ask her better.”
Roxy grabbed her tartan shopping trolley.
“I’m going.”
Dotty Crumble blocked her path.
“Not until you tell me why you reacted like that when she mentioned my dad.”
Roxy stopped.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Ryan Rye wandered over.
“Maybe leave it, yeah?”
Roxy rounded on him.
“You knew, didn’t you?”
“Knew what?”
“That they were here.”
Ryan glanced towards the BB.
“Didn’t know for certain.”
Roxy shoved her trolley at him.
“You never know anything for certain!”
The trolley squeaked loudly.
Ryan looked down.
“Told you. Character.”
“Ryan!”
“Alright!”
Rye-vita opened her crumb notebook.
Ryan sighed.
“I’ve seen vans near the old flour mill. Late at night. Couple of times.”
“What vans?” asked Rye-vita.
“Plain ones. No bakery names. No company markings.”
“And you didn’t think that was suspicious?”
“This is Walnutford. Terry Teacake’s van hasn’t had matching doors since 2019.”
Peggy nodded.
“Fair point.”
Rye-vita wasn’t amused.
“When did you first see them?”
“About three weeks ago.”
Roxy went quiet.
Peggy noticed.
“You know what that means, don’t you?”
Roxy looked towards the Queen Victoria Sponge.
“Can we do this inside?”
Minutes later, they were gathered around a corner table in the pub.
Roxy kept her voice low.
“The Buttered Bunch started small. Bakers doing favours for other bakers. Flour when supplies ran short. Deliveries nobody asked questions about. Someone needed something moved, they moved it.”
“Sounds almost respectable,” said Grant the Spotted Dick.
“It wasn’t.”
Roxy rubbed her hands together.
“Then the favours became debts. The debts became threats.”
Rye-vita leaned forward.
“And Sticky Nick?”
Roxy looked at Dotty.
“I knew him.”
Dotty’s face tightened.
“How?”
“Crumbford. Years ago. Nick could talk himself through a locked bakery door and come out carrying the till.”
“That sounds like Dad,” Dotty muttered.
“He ran with people connected to the Bunch. I don’t know how deep he got.”
Rye-vita watched her carefully.
“But you know enough to be frightened.”
Roxy didn’t answer.
From behind the bar, Dot Crumble had heard every word.
“My Nicholas always did fall in with the wrong crowd.”
Dotty turned.
“Gran.”
“No point whispering, dear. My hearing only goes when people ask me to wash up.”
Rye-vita closed her notebook.
“If the Buttered Bunch are using the old flour mill, and Nick has come back to Walnutford at the same time, that’s not coincidence.”
Suddenly, Fatbread called from the window.
“Er, Peggy?”
Everyone looked.
Across Almond Square, a small white envelope had been pushed beneath the windscreen wiper of Terry Teacake’s van.
On the front, drawn neatly in flour, were two letters.
BB.
Roxy went pale.
Ryan picked up the envelope.
“Who’s it for?”
He turned it over.
One name was written on the back.
ROXY.