He prefers to have his meals late (9)
I believe the answer is:
scavenger
'prefers to have his meals late' is the definition.
The answer is a person as well as being a singular noun. This is suggested by the definition.
'he' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'he' could be 'ave' and 'ave' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for scavenger that I've seen before include "sweeper" , "Garbage collector" , "carrion-eater" , "Forager" , "One feeds on carrion" .)