Chapter Eight
A Shortcut to Fisheseseseseses

Drake Murphy found himself alone in this dark and dusty room, wondering what would happen next. He could hear voices in the next room. The noisome stench of marzipan filled his nostrils and he felt as if he might vomit. He was trying to work out whether he could fill the waste bin without getting up, when the door opened again. A dark, silhouetted figure filled the doorway. It was Vol-au-vent wearing, or trying to wear, a pleasant smile. “Take away these marzipan-based confectionaries,” he barked to his quivering subordinates, “and bring Mr Murphy something nicer. Some chocolate cake, perhaps.” he added, with a perfect, American-looking smile.

“My name is Professor J.R.R. Rowling”, he said to Drake. “I am your friend”.
“Where did you get those teeth?”, enquired Drake, with a false grin that exposed his own sparse, yellowed and splayed fangs.
“I won them in a raffle”, said Vol-au-vent, irritated, “Now, what about some nice cake?”.
“Don’t like cake, Colin.” said Drake, petulantly. “Don’t like cake, or chocolate, or other highly processed and refined supermarket poison”, and added as an afterthought, “Bad for your teeth”.
“Well what do you like then?” asked the new, pleasant Professor Rowling, trying hard to appear friendly, “Name your fancy, and we will get you some.”
“I want something’s flesh!”, said Murphy with a sinister leer that made Vol-au-vent take a step backwards. He leant further towards Vol-au-vent. “Jellied eels!”, he said suddenly, with a smile comprising very few, leaning pegs, “Jellied eels an’ a plate o’ whelks me old son”.

In a sideways glance at his servant, Vol-au-vent nodded the order, and twenty minutes later, Drake Murphy was tucking into eels, whelks and mussels, followed by a plate of boiled beef and carrots and a glass of pale ale. “Luvverly!” Meanwhile, the tinkling piano and convivial charm of Chas ‘n’ Dave’s Greatest Hits filled the room, and a picture of the Queen Mother had appeared. Vol-au-vent had not been idle. After the reverberations had receded of some four voluminous and satisfied belches, Rowling returned to the room, having freshened up his nicest smile.

“Now Mr Murphy, I wish you’d mentioned before that you did not like cake. In my eagerness to welcome you, I would not have offered these treats flavoured with marzipan. You see, now we are better acquainted, I wish to ask you a favour.” Drake looked doubtful.
“You look doubtful”, offered Vol-au-vent, “but there’s no need to doubt my intentions. I want you to find this Weasel and bring him to me. If you find the tor… the doughnut, I will be extra grateful. It is nothing important, of course. Just a trifle … that I fancy, but it will be a measure of your good will. It will make me happy. In fact, if you bring me the doughnut, or even tell me where it is, I will take you to Rick Stein’s famous seafood restaurant, where you can order oysters, lobster, steamed mullet in a parsley sauce, sautéed scallops on a bed of finely sliced mushrooms, and baked turbot with shallots and balsamic vinegar butter, all paid for by me, personally, out of my own pocket, free, gratis, buck shee and for nowt. What more could a connoisseur of fish value more highly?”
“Jellied eels, and a plate o’ cockles, that’s what!”, cackled Drake, happy to confound Vol-au-vent’s attempts at bribery.
“Somehow I knew you would say something like that.” muttered Vol-au-vent, with a sigh, “No matter! Jellied eels you shall have!”. “And cockles, and whelks.” added Murphy.
“Done!” said Vol-au-vent, and extended his hand to shake. Only then did Drake notice that Rowling’s hand was deformed, burnt black by some previous accident or attack, and a finger was missing. He drew back a little.
“Oh just shake it!” snapped the professor irritably, “Why such a fuss? Nobody seemed to even notice Jeremy Beadle’s hand”.
“Fair enough, Colin.” said Drake, “It’s a deal.”, and he shook Vol-au-vent’s rigid and flaky hand, apparently willingly, but inside he was thinking, ‘Hmmmm fissshhh!’. There was a barely audible patter of charcoal splinters hitting the floor.

So the search began. Vol-au-vent looked askance at an assorted assemblage of assistants’ additional astonishingly asinine attempts at appeasement and avidly assessed aspects attending .. er attitudes …. er ….abject abeyance avoiding aardvark ambivalence to antelopes … OK, they were graduate students for the most part. Oh... amplitude! Nine of them donned their ridiculous caps and gowns and set off, amid much grumbling, on bicycles, north, in the general direction of Wrecsam, their mission: to find and bring back the torus, by any means at their disposal. Drake Murphy was released on the strict understanding that he brought the ‘doughnut’, or news of it, or Weasel, back to Professor Rowling at his office in HogsBaraBrith Tower, in the pretentiously named Morden College of the University of Middle England, with all haste, but instead Drake went straight to a fish stall he knew and loved next to the Iron Bridge in Staines.