He met her at the wake.
The small church in the village that the dead man was born in was bursting at the seams. He wasn’t sure whether that many people had actually known him, or was it just because the elderly man in the coffin had died extremely wealthy. He had certainly made good, coming from this out-of-the-way corner of the world and going on to build a food empire. Although his factories produce an enormous range of confectionary products, it all started with jelly. He really put himself on the map by coming up with an amazing variety of both jelly flavours and colours. These were such a huge success that it enabled him to go on and invest in other products. However, the original range of sweet deserts remained a top seller.
Several rival manufacturers tried to replicate the uniqueness of the taste that all these delicious jellies had in common. However, the formula for these remained a closely guarded secret. There were several challenges and court cases over the years aimed at releasing the recipe, but these all failed. Now, only a handful of employees were in possession of the knowledge. While the old man was alive none would dare to let such information leak for fear of losing their highly remunerated positions in the company, but now… There were already rumours circulating that someone in head office was talking to a rival company. Things were about to change.
It happened after the funeral.
He met her in the local pub that took those who stayed for the wake, most of whom had to stand around outside or sit at one of the few tables if they were lucky. Despite the number of people gathered there, he spotted her coming in, looking for somewhere to sit with her drink. He made a space and waved her over.
She approached with a frown. “Have we met?”
He smiled and said, “Yes, we have. Take a seat and I’ll remind you.”
As she settled down she said, “Yes, it’s coming back now. Faulkner’s was it?”
“No. Bradley and Company. I was the Finance Manager there and you came in to do some temping for us.”
“Of course! That’s right. I seem to remember you were particularly nice to me, with the ledgers I was working on, I mean. That was a long time ago.”
He nodded, saying, “It was; and I’m aware of your rise to power since then.”
“Well, that was true until a couple of weeks ago.” She dropped her voice. “They let me go.” She shrugged. “Politics. You don’t want to know.” She finished her drink.
He said, “I’m sorry, but you still came to pay your respects.”
“Oh! The old man was OK. Really nice old guy, actually. No, it was others on the management team that caused the problems. Some of them couldn’t wait for the old man to pop off. I know for a fact that one of them is having talks with a competitor.”
He said, “So, recipes may pass on after all these years, but still remain a secret, of course.”
She nodded, “Yes, but you know, it’s so simple. It’s amazing that nobody ever figured it out or even just discovered it accidentally.”
He sat, quietly waiting.
She smirked. “You know, if I told you right now, you wouldn’t be able to do anything with it. Not unless you blabbed, then you’d only get yourself into a heap of trouble.”
He leaned forward, whispering, “I’ll take the chance, if you will.”
“Well, you wouldn’t credit it, but…”
At this point the ‘time please’ bell rang loudly and the manager called out, “Everybody; there’s no need to panic, but we have a fire in the kitchen and it would be best if everyone move outside.”
A swirl of smoke came up behind him as staff ran out from the kitchen shaking their heads. The building was cleared quickly. Inside, the flames had started to run across the ceilings. By the time the fire brigade arrived the whole building was ablaze.
In the following week he went to a lot of trouble, tracking the woman down. He would have to admit it was mainly curiosity that drove him on.
When he finally got word, he was told that a couple of days after the funeral and the fire she was paddling and was fatally stung… by a box jellyfish!