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The Way The Cookie Crumbles
by Boudicca (Queen)

Visitors to the Fantasy Archers topic of The Archers message board are familiar with Boudicca's version of Ambridge, which reads as if scripted by David Cronenberg and directed by David Lynch. Here's Her Majesty's latest offering:

Walking across the yard, on his way to the kitchen at Lower Loxley for his morning tea-break, Titcombe could see Mrs Pugsley sitting by the open back door. Her wizened face, above the subfusc pinny she invariably wore, was grim and she resembled more than ever an ancient tortoise with an excess of spleen. She was filling a small clay pipe. As Titcombe drew closer, he called out.
"Morning Mrs P! Arthritis playing up again, is it?"
"Something fierce!"
"IÂ’ll put the kettle on and make us some tea shall I, Mrs P?"
"You do that Henry, and fetch us both a slice of that cake."
While Titcombe pottered around the kitchen making the tea and fetching cups and plates and cake, Mrs Pugsley sat smoking her pipe, silent except for the occasional heartfelt sigh.

****

Over the years, Henry Titcombe had grown fond of Mrs Pugsley. He knew perfectly well that she was a malicious old crone, with a taste for schadenfreude and doom-mongering, but she had never asked him any questions about the scandal that had wrecked his chances of a career in medical research (and which had brought him to Lower Loxley) or had any problems accepting his sexuality. If fact, he had been touched to hear from his lover, Jean-Paul, that when they had first started seeing each other Mrs Pugsley had taken Jean-Paul to one side and told him menacingly, "You treat Henry right, or youÂ’ll have me to answer to."

"TeaÂ’s ready Mrs P, feeling any better?"
"Yes, thank you Henry. This herbal mix of yours does wonders. Much better than that old **** the doctor used to give me."
"I’m glad it helps. I’ve got something new for you to try – some people find the mix works better for them if they cook with it instead of smoking it. Jean-Paul’s been helping me with some recipes and I was hoping you’d give me your opinion of some biscuits he’s made."
"IÂ’d be happy to. That man of yours has a nice, light hand with pastry, so IÂ’m sure his biscuits will be good."

Unable to pursue the glittering scientific career that he had dreamed of as a provincial grammar school boy, Titcombe had for some years been experimenting with cannabis cultivation, trying to find the best strain to provide relief to sufferers of multiple sclerosis and arthritis. He discreetly supplied the Borchester MS support group and the Ambridge over 60Â’s club with his scientifically grown weed and in return they filled in his questionnaires and enabled him to evaluate each new crop.
It had taken five years to produce a plant that really did the business.
It had many of the attributes of skunk , but lacked the pungent catÂ’s-pee-and-stale-lager smell that made it so unpopular with so many of the volunteers in TitcombeÂ’s research programme. And now his lover was helping him solve the final problem.

Many of the volunteers were non-smokers and wanted a different way to take the cannabis. An Internet search had brought up the Alice B. Toklas recipe for "Haschish Brownies" and so he had asked Jean-PaulÂ’s advice, the previous Christmas, while they were staying with his loverÂ’s mother in France.
Titcombe had brought with him a small bag of his latest crop (his interest in cannabis was primarily scientific, but he enjoyed a spliff occasionally) and so Jean-PaulÂ’s mother had been the first guinea-pig. The perfectionist chef had immediately rejected the Alice B. Toklas recipe (a sticky sweetmeat made by pounding nuts, dates and spices to a paste) and chosen to adapt another recipe that Titcombe had found on the web for "Scooby Snacks". That first batch of biscuits had been far from satisfactory as far as Jean-Paul was concerned, but the change in his beloved mother after she had eaten them had been such a joy that he at once began to plan new ways of using this remarkable plant. With scientific, culinary and romantic interests united, Titcombe and Jean-Paul were the happiest couple in Borsetshire.

Daniel Hebden-Lloyd was silent as his mother drove him home from school. He had carefully analysed the reasons why his most recent attempt to kill his step-father had failed and was now considering his next move. Until her remarriage, Daniel had been the centre of his motherÂ’s universe. He had been cosseted and pandered to, just as one might expect such a wanted, precious child to be, and his real fatherÂ’s early death had made Shula over protective of her son to an obsessive degree. The result was, that when Daniel first decided to kill his step-father he was entirely convinced that his own needs were far more important than AlistairÂ’s life and that it would be a simple matter to dispose of him. His failed attempts on AlistairÂ’s life had disabused him of the belief that murder would be a simple business, but Daniel remained utterly convinced that there was no greater moral authority than his own desires.

Daniel had decided to approach the problem from an entirely new angle. The first question to ask, he decided, was ‘how do people usually die?’. Old age. Disease. Accidents. Although from Daniel’s point of view Alistair seemed pretty ancient, he knew plenty of grown-ups who were miles older, so he couldn’t rely on his step-father just to keel over. Disease was a better bet; animals could get some pretty nasty things wrong with them, maybe Alistair would catch some lurgy that would bring him out in huge boils before he died squealing horribly. Daniel giggled. It was a nice daydream, but again it wasn’t something he could rely on. That left accidents. Lots of people have car accidents. When Uncle Nigel got in trouble for drinking and driving, Mummy had said that he could have killed someone and that he deserved to be punished for doing something so dangerous. Daniel’s real father (who he knew would have been a billion times better than stinky Alistair) had died in a car crash too.

Suddenly Daniel was struck by the absolute rightness that Alistair should die in a road accident. All he had to do was sabotage AlistairÂ’s car and then everything would go back to the way it was meant to be. What he needed to do now was find out a bit about the brakes and steeringÂ…

It was a couple of days before Jean-Paul had the chance to bake some more biscuits for Titcombe, so it was Wednesday lunch time when Titcombe went to take them to Mrs Pugsley. Wednesday was Mrs P.Â’s half day and she never stayed later than 12.30, but it was only quarter past so Titcombe expected to find her in the kitchen, stowing mysterious packages in her capacious handbag and knotting her sludge-green head scarf under her cascading chins. Unfortunately Titcombe was out of luck.

Mrs P had left on the dot of 12 to go to Felpersham. There, in the Felpersham Roxy (a dingy flea-pit behind the university that called itself a ‘cinema club’ and specialised in obscure art-house films and anything with subtitles) she would indulge her secret passion for gangsters and hardmen with a Jean Gabin double bill. It didn’t matter to Mrs Pugsley that she couldn’t always keep up with the subtitles, she was perfectly happy just watching Jean Gabin looking menacing.

The kitchen was deserted. Knowing that in the absence of Mrs Pugsley, the Pargetters would be using the kitchen (Mrs P.Â’s first job every Thursday morning was to clear up the mess theyÂ’d left behind them) Titcombe decided not to leave the biscuit tin on the kitchen table. He placed it carefully, at the back of the cupboard, behind the cake tin and the hideous teak and brass biscuit barrel that some misguided Pargetter younger son had brought back from his colonial service. The family wouldnÂ’t notice it there, but Titcombe knew that Mrs P would spot it at once.

"God, Nigel youÂ’re such an idiot!"
Elizabeth was spitting even more bile than usual today.
"But Lizzie, if David says they need the money to reduce the farmÂ’s overdraftÂ…"
"HeÂ’s just being selfish and trying to cheat me. Either that or heÂ’s as much of a moron as you are!"
Nigel bit his bottom lip and told himself that she didnÂ’t really mean it.
" Oh Nigel, donÂ’t stand there looking like youÂ’re about to blub, go and do something useful! Go and make sure that Reg isnÂ’t doing anything nasty with the rare breeds while that party of school kids is here."
As Nigel slunk away he heard her murmur contemptuously,
"Pathetic little worm"

Second and final part