‘Great-Uncle Ted took her in off the street?’ asked Cam, casting his mind back. He must have come across her working in the shop in his youth.
‘He did. She initially started turning up night after night for the leftovers. She had no family, looked a bit bedraggled, and Ted gave her a chance, offered her a job as his apprentice and they became an excellent, unstoppable team.’
‘So how is her disappearance linked to a baking scandal? I’m not sure I’m following,’ Molly said.
‘Ted and his apprentice were always creating new recipes and not just at competition time. The two of them perfected a recipe with a chocolate element that Ted sat on for nearly seven years after she disappeared. Then, once again, the gold sealed envelope arrived inviting the top three bakers in Scotland to compete for the title and the special element was chocolate. Ted was over the moon as he had been waiting for this.
‘This is when all hell broke loose. That year, there were two bakers who baked similar recipes and when I mean similar recipes, I mean they were nearly exactly the same. The other baker involved in the scandal claimed that Ted was a cheat, that Ted had copied him somehow, which was impossible. Maybe it was just a strange coincidence, maybe their creative brains were just similar, God knows. But it nearly ended in fisticuffs with each baker discrediting the other. The judges had no option except to disqualify them both from the competition, yet they both still claimed it was their own original idea.’ Dixie took a breath. ‘Ted knew he had done nothing wrong but Barney Miller – the other baker involved – went to the local press and from there the story spread nationally. You could never imagine how it affected Ted. He thought his reputation was in tatters and wanted to close The Old Bakehouse and move away, but I talked some sense into him and reminded him that he had a clear conscience, that’s all that mattered.’
Cam was silently racking his brains. He recognised that name … and then it came to him. ‘Barney Miller is one of the judges in this year’s competition.’
Dixie rolled her eyes. ‘That should be interesting,’ she stated.
‘And what exactly did they both bake?’ asked Cam.
Dixie held up the plate with the chocolate slab. ‘This. Layers Treats chocolate slabs. They even used the same name for it.’
‘Woah! How is that even possible?’ asked Cam.
‘That’s what we couldn’t fathom out,’ replied Dixie.
‘Did Ted and Barney know each other, move in the same circles?’ probed Molly.
Dixie was shaking her head. ‘They only came across each other when they were competing. It was all just pure madness.’
‘How could anyone come up with the same recipe and the same name if their paths had never crossed?’ Cam picked up the plate and stared at the slab of chocolate. ‘That’s an unbelievable coincidence.’
‘I absolutely agree, especially when it was Ted’s assistant who came up with the name. I was there the moment she did; I heard it with my own ears.’
Cam was still looking at the slab of chocolate as Molly gripped his leg. She was staring at Dixie.
‘Ted’s assistant. What was her name?’ asked Molly, her pulse beginning to race.
‘Lilian … Lilian Allen.’
Molly brought her hands up to her heart and swallowed.
‘Lilian was blooming brilliant at baking the chocolate slabs. Her Easter Eggs were also off the scale and my personal favourite was the lemon drizzled cake bar. There was even talk that we could possibly turn this front room at Bumblebee Cottage into an extension of The Old Bakehouse, making it into a chocolate shop of the same name.’
Molly and Cam were now just staring at each other.
‘What I’m not understanding,’ said Dixie, breaking the slab of chocolate in half, ‘is how you found the recipe, as I know Ted ripped it out of his book after all the controversy. How have you stumbled across it?’
Molly was still in a state of shock as she blew out a breath. ‘You aren’t going to believe this.’
‘Bree – the homeless girl – showed me how to bake this,’ shared Cam.
‘But I don’t understand. How would Bree know all about Layers Treats?’ asked Dixie, looking confused yet intrigued as she sat forward on the edge of the chair.
‘Because Lilian Allen was her mother,’ replied Molly.
‘And that’s not all,’ continued Cam. ‘Molly thinks that Lilian Allen could possibly have been her biological mother too.’
Shock was written all over Dixie’s face. ‘Christ on a bike,’ she spluttered. She stood up and walked straight to the dresser. ‘I need another drink.’ Then she turned back around. ‘How… Why… And you just said you think she could have possibly been your birth mother? Been?’
‘Lilian has passed away,’ shared Molly.
‘Jeez. I need a double sherry,’ confirmed Dixie, pouring a large tumbler full. ‘Tell me everything.’
