Crumb & Cardamom

The sign went up on a Tuesday, and by Wednesday half of Little Ashcombe had an opinion about it.

It was a good sign. Nadia Benali had paid a man in Cirencester a frankly upsetting amount of money to paint it: deep teal, with gold letters and a little gold sprig of cardamom curling under the words CRUMB & CARDAMOM. It hung from an iron bracket over the door of what had once been the village post office, and for forty years before that, a saddler's, and before that, according to Arthur Penhaligon next door, a house of very poor reputation.

"In 1782," Arthur said, leaning on his garden gate with his crossword. "There's a mention in the parish records. Two sisters, a parrot and a constable. I'll show you the entry. It's ever so lurid."

"Please don't," said Nadia, who was up a stepladder polishing the window.

"Seven letters, 'sweet thing found in a bakery, or a village scandal.'"

"Pastry."

"Doesn't fit."

"Gossip?"

"That's six."

"Then I don't know, Arthur. I've been up since four."

"Treacle," said Arthur, with great satisfaction, and wrote it in.

Nadia climbed down and looked at her window. In it, on three tiers of white-painted shelves, were the things she had been dreaming about for eleven years in the basement kitchen of a London hotel, where she had made eight hundred identical croissants a morning for people who ate them in the back of taxis. Sourdough loaves scored with wheat ears. Cardamom buns twisted like knots of rope and glazed till they shone. Lemon and rose shortbread. Saffron brioche. And, in pride of place, on her grandmother's blue-and-white Fez plate, a pyramid of almond briouats: little triangles of crisp pastry stuffed with almond paste and orange blossom, fried and dipped in honey, each one folded with a twist at the tip the way her grandmother had taught her when she was seven years old.

"They look," said Arthur, "like jewellery."

"They taste better than jewellery."

"I should hope so. Jewellery's terrible with a cup of tea." He peered at the window. "Do you know what you've done, though?"

"Opened a bakery?"

"Opened a bakery," said Arthur, "directly across the green from Derek Fairweather's tearoom. Without asking the parish council's permission for your outside tables. On the very same week as the Harvest Fete. When Gerald Pike is chairman of the parish council and head judge of the Harvest Bake-Off." He took off his reading glasses and polished them on his cardigan. "My dear. You've declared war."

Gerald Pike came in at ten past nine.

Nadia knew who he was before he said a word, because Little Ashcombe had been describing him to her for three weeks. Tall, they said. Very particular. Ex-army. Ex-something. Nobody seemed sure what. He'll tell you how things are done.

He was tall. He wore a waxed jacket, cords and very clean brown brogues, and he had the long, disappointed face of a horse that has been asked to do something beneath it. He stood in the middle of her shop and looked around, at the teal walls and the brass lamps and the chalkboard with today's bakes in Ruby's loopy handwriting, and then he looked at the two small iron tables on the pavement outside, with their pots of rosemary.

"Mrs Benali," he said.

"Ms. Or Nadia. Can I get you anything? The cardamom buns are just out."

"I don't eat buns." He placed an envelope on the counter. "The parish council has received a complaint about your tables. They're on the village green."

"They're on the pavement."

"The pavement adjoining the green, which the parish council maintains. You need a licence. You haven't applied for a licence."

"I did apply. In August. I've got the email."

"Which I haven't seen." He smiled thinly. "The council meets on the first Thursday of the month. You can put it to us in December. Until then, the tables come in."

Behind the counter, Ruby made a noise like a kettle.

Ruby Clarke was nineteen, five foot nothing, and had been working at the bakery for exactly eight days. She had a nose stud, pink streaks in her hair and an extraordinary ability to remember every customer's order after hearing it once. She had grown up in the council houses on the Stow road, and she had told Nadia on her first morning that she'd been waiting her whole life for something interesting to happen in Little Ashcombe.

"That's not fair," said Ruby. "The Copper Kettle's got tables out. Derek's had tables out for ten years."

"Mr Fairweather," said Gerald Pike, "has a licence." He looked at the window, at the pyramid of briouats on the blue-and-white plate, and something crossed his face, quick and sharp. "What are those?"

"Almond briouats," said Nadia. "Moroccan. My grandmother's recipe. Would you like to try one?"

"No," said Gerald Pike. "I would not." He picked up his envelope again, as if he had changed his mind about leaving it, and then put it down. "I'm allergic to almonds. Severely. If I so much as touch one I'm in an ambulance. I'd be grateful if you didn't leave them in the window where people can breathe on them."

He went out. The bell over the door jangled.

"Well," said Ruby, "he's a delight."

Nadia picked up the envelope. Inside was a printed letter on parish council paper, signed in a large confident hand, G. A. Pike, Chairman. And underneath, in smaller, neater writing: cc: I. Hart, Clerk & Treasurer.

"He didn't come in about the tables," said a voice.

Nadia looked up. Arthur was in the doorway, holding his crossword.

"What do you mean?"

"Gerald never comes in person about anything. He sends Imogen with a letter. He came to look at you." Arthur tapped his pencil against his teeth. "Now why would he do that?"