Zacarías has already called seven of the eleven

Previously: the laboratory measured 3.1 micrograms of benzopyrene in Celso Larrauri's crust; the inspector gave him 21 days and comes back on Thursday the 28th.

Ten.

Celso Larrauri, master baker, took the chalk from the edge of the wall, beside the recess where the firewood goes, where he writes down the temperatures of every batch of the week. Under the 3.1 he had written the Tuesday before he drew a line and, under the line, the number of schools he had left. It was twenty past five in the morning on Tuesday the twelfth of March and the call had come in on the landline five minutes earlier.

—Amalia Resano, head cook at the Santa Bárbara —the voice had said—. Celso, from Monday we are not ordering from you.

—Because of the report?

—Because of the report.

—The report says twenty-one days and a second inspection on the twenty-eighth, Amalia. It does not say the bread is bad.

—I know what it says.

—So?

—So I was told before you told me. And in a school kitchen you pay for that.

Celso stood with the receiver in his hand longer than he needed to. In twelve years of supplying the Santa Bárbara, Amalia Resano had sent back two batches: one in 2019, over salt, and another last winter, over an hour and a half's delay with snow on the pass. Both times she had rung at seven, with the bread already on the table, and both times she had said what was wrong before hanging up. A cook with a complaint does not ring at a quarter past five: at a quarter past five the person who rings has been turning over in bed.

At twenty past six Eulogio Satrústegui arrived, the dough man, thirty-three years in the house and no conversation before eight. He tipped the dough into the trough and while he was weighing it he looked at the wall, found the new number under the line and went on weighing.

—The Santa Bárbara —he said, not asking.

—The Santa Bárbara.

—The hundred and twenty small pieces.

—Maybe.

—Not maybe. That is it. —Eulogio cut, put down the scraper and turned round, which he does twice a year—. I told you in front of the marble: she would notice the moment she picked them up. And she noticed the same day. What we did not know was that afterwards a piece of paper would turn up explaining to her why they weighed less.

—The paper says nothing about weight.

—The paper does not, Celso. But she tied the two things together, because she had both of them.

At ten to seven Izaskun Larrauri came down, twenty-nine, the bakery's office manager and Celso's daughter, laptop open as always. She stopped in front of the wall before saying anything.

—How many children?

—A hundred and sixty.

—Eighty loaves and eighty rolls a day. —Izaskun was not looking at the screen; that much she knew by heart—. Four hundred euros a week. Sixteen hundred a month.

—It is nobody's wage.

—No, aita, it is nobody's wage. The nine wages come out the same in March and the same in April. —Izaskun turned the screen round, though she knew her father was not going to read it—. It is the margin. With eleven we closed the month and there was something over for the piece of hearth floor. With ten we close the month and that is all. —She shut the laptop—. And next Monday it does not come back. The inspector told you in those very words: the other supplier does not give clients back.

Celso picked up the van keys at a quarter past seven, with the round for the ten loaded and the Santa Bárbara's eighty loaves loaded too, because until Monday the order still stood.

The Santa Bárbara is the smallest school in the district and the only one you enter up a concrete ramp that leads to the kitchen door. Amalia Resano was standing there with her overall on and the metal shutter halfway up, and she did not let him past the first step.

—Leave them there, I will take them in myself.

—Amalia, tell me who told you.

—No.

—It has been twelve years.

—It has been twelve years and yesterday the head teacher asked me, in front of two teachers, whether the bread in this school has a file open on it. —She wiped her hands on her overall, though they were dry—. I did not know what to answer him. That is what you are not fixing for me today, and not on the twenty-eighth either.

—It does have a file open. I signed it on Thursday. It is about the crust and about an ash, and it says to keep supplying all eleven.

—Right. Well, said by you on Thursday afternoon, that would have done. Said by somebody else on Friday morning, no.

Celso loaded the empty trolley into the van. Before starting the engine he wound the window down.

—Does the other one start on Monday?

—The other one starts on Monday.

Amalia counted the loaves in the crate, as she did every morning, and signed the delivery note against the shutter. Eighty. Then she ran her finger along the box at the bottom, where the week's total goes, and stopped there.

—Shall I put down Friday's order?

—Put it down. Friday is the last one.

—Friday is the last one —said Celso.

Amalia tore off the pink copy and handed it to him through the gap under the shutter. She had been handing him the pink copy at a quarter to eight for twelve years, and that one was the fourth counting backwards.

At half past eight he parked at the San Jorge, the second smallest, where he goes in through the kitchen without passing the porter's lodge. Benigna Arellano, the school cook since before Celso inherited the oven, was counting trays.

—Give it here, you are late.

—I am on time.

—You are on time and you have the face of a man who is late. What is wrong?

—The Santa Bárbara has left me.

Benigna put the tray down on the trolley, dried her hands on her apron and pointed at the stool in the corner, which is where she tells people to sit when she is about to say something.

—Sit down. Has a salesman been to see you?

—Nobody has been to see me.

—He came to see me. Friday the eighth, eleven in the morning. Zacarías Urdiain, from Panificadora Duero. Thirty-odd, very pleasant, one of those with a folder and a catalogue.

—And what did he want?

—What they all want. For us to try two weeks with no commitment. I told him we had a supplier and he said he knew that, knew it perfectly well. And then he left me this.

Benigna went into the back room, came out with a blue plastic folder and put it on the stool, next to Celso's leg.

Inside there was a product catalogue, a price list by school and, stapled to the front, a half-page letter on the bakery company's headed paper. Celso read it twice. In the second paragraph, typed out in full, was the number of his file.

—Benigna.

—Keep reading.

—The date is at the top. Friday the eighth of March.

—The date is at the top —she said—. Which is why I have not thrown it away.

Celso left the letter on his knee and sat looking at the kitchen, the trays, the big pot, the twenty metres of white tiling.

—I have had that number on a piece of paper since Thursday the seventh. The inspector gave it to me when I signed the report, right there on the marble.

—And in the bulletin?

—It does not come out in the bulletin until the twenty-first. She told me herself: the rulings are published a fortnight later.

Celso unbuttoned his apron pocket and took out his copy of the report, folded in four since Thursday. He unfolded it and laid it on the stool, next to the letter, without saying anything.

Benigna dried her hands and came over to look at the two sheets.

—Thursday the seventh —she read—. And yours, Friday the eighth.

—Friday the eighth.

—Did anybody else have this?

Celso dialled the bakery from the stool.

—Izaskun. Thursday's report. Who has it, apart from us?

—Public health. And the laboratory, which is where the sample goes with the number on it. —A silence with keys behind it—. Why?

—Because a salesman from Panificadora Duero has it too. Since Friday.

At the other end he heard the chair.

—Aita, it did not come out of this bakehouse. Two people signed it and I have the copy in the folder upstairs.

—I know.

—Then somebody behind one of the other two doors showed it to him. Write it down, because on the twenty-eighth they are going to ask you.

Benigna picked up another tray and loaded it without looking at him, which is her way of giving a man time.

—Then ring the others yourself. There is the stool and there is the phone, and I have two hundred lunches, so I will pretend I cannot hear.

Celso rang in the order on the wall.

The first was Jacinta Munárriz, the cook at the Hilarión Eslava, who answered quickly and answered no.

—Nobody has rung here, Celso.

—All right.

—And if somebody had rung, I would not have to tell you either.

—You would not.

—Well then. —A short silence—. Listen. Is that business about the file true?

—It is true, and it says to keep supplying all eleven until the twenty-eighth.

—Ah. —Another silence—. That is not how it was told to me.

The second was Pura Belategui, the cook at the Monte Carmelo, who took a while to pick up and, when she did, spoke quietly.

—He rang me on Friday afternoon.

—And what did you tell him?

—No. But I am going to tell you what I thought, Celso, and do not hold it against me: I thought about how much it would cost me to change. Because if the bread falls through here at midday, the one who stands there in the dining hall is me, not you. So I thought about it and then I said no.

—I am grateful.

—Do not be grateful. Tell me what happens on the twenty-eighth.

—On the twenty-eighth the inspector comes again with the oven lit, and I have to explain to her where the ash comes from.

—And do you know?

—Not yet.

—Then find out before the twenty-eighth, because I have four hundred children.

The third was Engracia Sarasibar, cook at the Jesuitas since two head teachers back, and she was the one who closed the count.

—Celso, man. Yes, he rang me. On Friday.

—Did he say anything about the file?

—He read me a number. And he said something that struck me, because it was beside the point.

—What was it.

—That from Monday on they would be supplying the Santa Bárbara. And that was on the Friday, mind. He told me that on the Friday. I hung up thinking that man knew more about your bread than you did.

The fourth was Olvido Zarranz, head cook at the Sagrado Corazón, the biggest of the eleven, and she was the only one who gave him a figure.

—Celso, I am telling you because I have to tell you. That man put a piece of paper in front of me with the price per child per day. I kept it.

—How much?

—Nine cents less than you. Per child, per day.

Celso did the sum under his breath before answering, and it came out as he knew it would: with seven hundred children, nine cents a day is sixty-three euros a day and one thousand two hundred and sixty a month in that school alone.

—I cannot come down nine cents.

—I have not asked you to come down. I have told you it is sitting on my desk. —The woman lowered her voice—. And I picked up on the second ring, Celso, when for twenty years I have picked up on the fourth. Understand me.

When he hung up, Celso sat for a moment with the biro in his hand and then dialled the bakery again.

—Izaskun. One more thing. Find me Paulino Garisoain's phone number.

—The old oven man?

—The one who laid the hearth floor in seventy-four.

—I will have to look in the paper files, aita, that is not on the computer. —A silence—. And what do you want him for?

—To come and look at the floor of the oven. He laid it himself and nobody else has touched it.

—The firewood comes in on Thursday.

—Then let him come on Thursday, and let him stay and watch it unloaded.

Celso put the letter in his apron pocket, with the report, and wrote on the back of it, with Benigna's biro, a column with all eleven names, and put a cross beside each one. The five kitchens he had left he rang standing up, in eleven minutes: two told him yes, the other three no. At twenty past nine he had the tally and he said it out loud so as not to get it wrong.

—Six of the ten I have left: the San Jorge, the Monte Carmelo, the Jesuitas, the Sagrado Corazón and two more. And the Santa Bárbara, which has already gone. Seven of the eleven.

—And four who have not —said Benigna.

—Four who have not. Yet.

Benigna finally put down the tray and sat on the edge of the trolley, which is something she never does at that hour.

—Zacarías's letter is dated Friday the eighth. When did you say the number comes out in the bulletin?

—The twenty-first.

—Then he had it thirteen days early, Celso. And on Friday morning, when nobody had left you yet, he was already going round saying the Santa Bárbara was his.