Chapter TwoSeñor Padilla bowed his customer to the door and turned towards the over-crowded counter. The floor was dirty, the beamed ceiling grey with cobwebs, but the delicatessen that was piled high in every corner of the tiny shop was of good quality.
Señor Padilla was fat and lazy, but he could select a sausage or purchase a ham with a keen eye that saw through the outer skin of the article into its very heart. He could detect a flavour where his competitors least expected it. He could persuade the farmers to bring him butter made of the choicest cream and eggs that really had been laid that morning.
He waddled across the shop now, wiping his hands on his apron and contemplating with a faint sense of satisfaction that it was near his dinnertime.
The door of the inner room opened. A
