Fanny Flooter's Knitting and Stitching Emporium

'Heavenly Father, please make that fat pig burst like a water balloon' Pickering Risk prayed as he closed his eyes at night.

'I hope that skinny shrimp has snapped in half like a dry twig' Humphrey Gamble wished as he opened his eyes in the morning.

Mr Pickering Risk and Mr Humphrey Gamble were cousins, and they lived together above Fanny Flooter's Knitting and Stitching Emporium in the middle of a parade of shops in north London.

Nelson Parade was made up of eight shops, four on each side of the street. A newsagent, health food store, hair salon and the sewing shop on one side, and an off licence, tattoo parlour, laundrette, and hardware store on the other.

The Knitting and Stitching Emporium was boarded up. The shop had closed down when the elderly Miss Fanny Flooter died. The current inhabitants of the building were Miss Flooter's nephews, and the sole beneficiaries of her estate. After the funeral, the cousins were bestowed an equal share in the property, and immediately fell out about the future of the store.

Pickering Risk and Humphrey Gamble each thought the other a ghastly sort of person, and once they'd moved into five Nelson Parade, they went out of their way to avoid one another. If they met it was usually in the hallway. Humphrey was an enormous man and Pickering had to back up or down the stairs to let him squeeze past.

'Thank-you, Pickering' Humphrey would murmur inaudibly.

'My pleasure, Humphrey' Pickering would mutter through gritted teeth.

Pickering's dream was to sell antiques in the shop downstairs.

In the evenings, as the streetlights flickered on, Pickering would wheel out his rickshaw and ride off into the night, scouring the streets of London for treasures to sell in his shop. If he spotted a valuable item that wasn't locked up, like a beautiful plant pot or a shiny new bicycle, he'd pull over and park.

'Finders keepers, losers weepers!' He'd whisper with glee, as he loaded the loot into the rickshaw.

Pickering stored his plunder in the garden behind the Emporium. It had started as an ordered process, but as the hoard grew over the years and Pickering piled furniture on top of bric-a-brac on top of furniture, it became a mess, and eventually the yard was full to bursting with junk.

Looking down from his kitchen window, Pickering would crack his knuckles with satisfaction, imagining the towers of furniture transforming into money.

Hidden in his bedroom, under the mattress, away from the spying eyes of his fat cousin, was a shop sign, a large metal rectangle of racing green with gold looping letters spelling out the words Mr Pickering Risk's Antiques and Peculiarities.

The only thing stopping Pickering from living his dream was Humphrey.

Humphrey Gamble was a gigantic man with a passion for pies. He especially loved pies the size of dinner plates smothered in cranberry sauce. He rarely bothered with cutlery, favouring his spade-like hands as larger and faster utensils for shovelling food into his mouth. He had the eating habits of a dog and for this reason Pickering refused to dine with him.

'You make me want to vomit, Humphrey.'

'The feeling is mutual, my dear fellow,' Humphrey would reply, spraying gobbets of spittle-soaked food in his waspish cousin's face.

Humphrey had no intention of allowing Pickering to turn the Emporium into a junk shop. He had dreams of his own. He wanted to open a pie shop, selling unusual and exotic pies.

Humphrey spent his days inventing recipes for lip-smacking, belly-filling pies and scribbling them down in his special red notebook. A flick through the pages of HUMPHREY GAMBLES FANTASTIK PYE RESIPEES would reveal the secret ingredients for The Skunk Chunk, Hopping Toad Pie, Kitten Mash-up and The Pink Panda.