Trick or Treat Part 5

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slide up with a click. I unlocked the bakery door and allowed the officers to enter.

The speaker, SC Sharon Bray according to her nametag, was a small, stocky woman who looked as though she had survived an eventful childhood with three older brothers and was consequently not going to be frightened of anything, ever again. She was good-looking, with humorous brown eyes and cropped, curly brown hair. Constable Helen Vickery was thinner, paler and solemn. They both sniffed appreciatively as they became aware of the divine scent. Jason peeked out of the bakery and slid back into it like an eel into mud. Despite his present state of virtue, Jason did not like cops.

'Well, what can I do for you on this cold morning?' I asked. 'Cup of coffee and a m.u.f.fin?'

'We're asking about the girl in the alley,' said Sharon Bray. 'And coffee and a m.u.f.fin would be very nice. It's been quite a night. And it's still not over.'

Kylie came in, dressed in a long strange garment apparently made of purple fishing net with feathers knitted into it. She widened her eyes at the sight of blue uniforms in the shop and hastened to supply coffee and two of the new jam-filled m.u.f.fins. There was a pause as proper reverence was given to the patissiere's art, then the senior constable put down her cup and produced her notebook.

'Tell me about it,' she said, and I told her everything I had observed, including the odd scent of the girl's skin. Sharon Bray made notes. Constable Vickery poked around the shop, picking things up and putting them down again in a manner calculated to drive the guilty into confession. And the innocently nervous into conniptions.

'The ambos said this was the eleventh,' I told my interrogator. 'Is there something new on the street?'

'Yep,' she replied soberly. 'Something very nasty. Trouble is, none of them have been able to tell us what they took. I've seen stuff that sends them mad, but with this stuff they stay mad. Tox screens are coming back with "unknown compound" in them.'

'That's bad,' I said inadequately.

'Have you seen anyone hanging around, perhaps dealing?' she asked. 'You're here very early, aren't you? Patrol says you start at four.'

'So I do,' I said. 'But I haven't seen anyone in the alley except the people who are usually in the alley-you know, the night people, security guards, cops, the paper boy, no strangers but the ones who collapse on my doorstep. I wonder...'

'You wonder?' she asked sharply.

'I wonder why here?' I reasoned it out. 'I mean, this alley only leads into the arcade and the arcade is closed from about eleven until eight am. But there is a little linking back alley where the rubbish men come to collect. That leads around a dogleg into Schmutter Alley and out into Flinders Lane again. I wonder if the dealer is there?'

'You can't see into the link from here?'

'No. Come into the bakery,' I said, determined to show everything I had to the police in case they got ideas. They followed me. Jason dropped to his knees and pretended to be taking bread out of an oven.

'This is my apprentice, Jason. Say h.e.l.lo to the nice ladies, Jason.'

He scrambled up and mumbled, 'H'lo.'

Sharon Bray eyed him narrowly but didn't say anything. I led them to the alley door. The Mouse Police woke up and blinked and Constable Vickery cooed at them and stroked their heads. They purred. I preceded Ms Bray out into Calico Alley.

'See, the link's right at the back, where the arcade stairs are. I can't see into it from this angle. But the victims have come down the alley towards me, and there's no other way they could have got into it.'

'We'll certainly take a look,' said the senior constable, snapping her notebook shut. 'Thanks, Miss Chapman. Come on, Constable. Say bye-bye to the puddy-tats.'

Constable Vickery blushed and followed and I watched the strong blue-clad figures move away toward Kiko's. I hoped they found that dealer. He would know that he had been in a fight.

Excitement over, I went back into the bakery to soothe Jason's shattered nerves and get on with the day's work. There were people to feed, and it was up to us to feed them.

'Cops!' he was muttering. 'In our kitchen!'

He sounded like a scruffy male version of Lady Macbeth: Ah, woe, alas! What, in our house?

'You've changed sides,' I reminded him. 'The police officers are now required to protect you, Jason dear, from people like the-'

'Person I used to be,' he finished.

'Well, yes,' I agreed lamely.

Kylie interrupted and saved my face. 'Those jam cakes are fantastic,' she told Jason. 'Can I have another one?'

'S'pose,' he grunted, mollified.

'Don't forget the dozen m.u.f.fins for the stock exchange.' I told Kylie about the elegant young man. 'Benson. Of course. I should have known the name, indeed. He's a wunderkind. Supposed to have the stock exchange equivalent of perfect pitch. Makes millions in a day.'

I went back into the shop. Horatio had taken his place by the cash register and the first customers were already caressing the royal whiskers. Something about my statement worried me, but there was a rush of business and I forgot about it.

The morning continued in the usual way. The police did not return. I went out into the alley to empty the bin into the big skip-yes, all right, I was curious-and found that, as I had said, the little alley only linked Calico and Schmutter alleys and didn't go anywhere else. Why anyone would want to hang about in this small, badly paved and malodorous place was beyond me. But addicts will be addicts and drugs will be drugs and I took my bin back with no further information. Except that I noticed, written on the wall in small, beautifully formed letters, the word 'wa.s.sail'. Probably not important.

We sold more bread and Megan the courier came for the restaurant orders.

'Cops all over,' she remarked as we loaded the trays into her motorcycle rickshaw. 'Had my licence checked four times.'

'All in order, I trust?'

'Of course, Corinna, this is my living. What are they doing? They wouldn't tell me anything.'

'Looking for a dealer whose drugs have sent eleven people off their rockers,' I told her. 'Should you be going to a club any time soon, I'd buy my pills somewhere else.'

Megan gave me a censorious look. 'I don't take drugs,' she said. 'I get high in perfectly legal ways. On chocolate, mostly. Especially Heavenly Pleasures Cafe Noir. That stuff could fuel rockets. Bye,' she added, and sped off, driving more circ.u.mspectly than usual in view of the police presence. Which meant that she rounded the corner on both sets of wheels.

I was mildly worried about how Daniel was managing and took a moment off from the baking consultation over the spiced buns Meroe had requested to climb the stairs. But he was fast asleep and would, with any luck, remain so until I had time to ask him some questions.

We sold bread. It was a quiet day. I opened the mail. Nothing but the usual bills, an invitation to a book launch, a few people interested in my fiscal future offering me shares in various doomed enterprises and my copy of the accountancy newsletter which my professional body occasionally sends for the edification of us numbers people.

Article by that same Benson. Strange little b.u.mp in gold exploration. Bendigo. Someone had told me that there was a lot more gold in the ground in that area than had ever come out of it, but it was in deep veins in quartz and not worth winning. In fact, hadn't someone discovered a really rich vein of ore and would have made a fortune except that the Bendigo people selfishly objected to him burrowing under their houses? Someone now thought that they could float a company on what they had found. The newsletter was noncommittal. Might be, might not. Wait and see what the Navarino Gold Company's a.s.say turned up. Sound advice. Navarino? I had heard the word before. Some sort of orange, perhaps?

I heard Daniel coming down the stairs and put the newsletter away. He looked better. The dark marks under his eyes had lightened. He was wearing his Shalom t-shirt and jeans.

'h.e.l.lo!' I kissed him. 'Lunch?'

'Got to go,' he replied. 'Have to report to the client.'

'About Old Spiro?'

'Yes,' he said uneasily.

'Well, what about dinner?'

'Not tonight,' he said, shifting his gaze. 'I have to-'

'There you are, Danny,' said a Sloane voice triumphantly. 'You're late.'

Standing in the doorway of my bakery was a vision in dark grey: bubble skirt, tights, tall shoes, cropped blazer, string tie enclosing creamy throat. Her long hair was folded into a perfect French pleat. She looked taller than I remembered and Kylie, beside her, seemed diminished and shabby. This did not make me like Georgiana Hope any better.

She reached out an immaculate hand and took Daniel by the arm. 'You promised to show me Melbourne,' she reminded him. The scent of Poison enveloped me, overruling the earthy smell of baking bread.

'Oh,' said Daniel. 'Yes, I suppose so. Bye, Corinna.'

And he followed her out of the shop without a backward glance. Jason swore. Kylie, however, had clasped her hands to her nonexistent bosom in rapture.

'Did you see her clothes?' she breathed.

'They were boring,' said Jason. 'Like a school uniform.'

'What do you know about it?' snarled Kylie.

'I know you look better than that b.i.t.c.h,' said Jason stoutly. 'Behave better, too.'

Kylie gave Jason the sort of look one gets when announcing a large lottery win to the lucky contestant.

'I never knew you looked at what I was wearing!' she exclaimed.

'Can't help it, can I?' asked Jason sensibly. 'You're right in front of me. You look like the girls in magazines. She looked like a schoolgirl. An old schoolgirl.'

I could have kissed him, but he doesn't like emotional scenes. Kylie, who was immensely flattered, patted Jason on the cheek. There was a moment of silence.

'm.u.f.fins,' I said. 'For the stock exchange wunderkind. You choose the m.u.f.fins, Jason, will you? You pack them, Kylie, use the dark brown tissue paper and make them look pretty. Mr Benson's PA is waiting.'

They got busy, and so did I. But I wasn't happy. It was, after all, Thursday. I have never really got the hang of Thursdays, as Arthur Dent said. Daniel hadn't seemed enthusiastic about going along with that 'old schoolgirl'-I would love Jason forever for that description-so I dismissed the incident from my mind as far as such things can be dismissed, and left Kylie and Jason with the shop. Kylie was still examining Jason as though she had never seen him before. Jason was thinking about Meroe's spiced cakes and ignoring her. That can be very attractive. Not, however, to me.

Nothing I could do about one rival, so it was time for me to have a look at the other. I went upstairs and donned polite daytime clothes, my jeans, a t-shirt and a fleecy jacket, and went forth, basket and purse in hand, to sample the wares of Best Fresh Bread. And I had found my other good shoe wedged under the dressing table, so that was a plus for the day.

On the way out through the lobby, I paused to watch Trudi and her kitten, the death-defying Lucifer, feeding the fish. That is, Trudi was feeding the fish with sweeps of her gardener's gnarled hand, and Lucifer was fighting his harness, attempting to get free and convert the koi into entrees. He was perfectly capable of leaping in and taking the fight to the fish, so the harness was a wise precaution. The coloured fins rose up, eying the cat warily. They knew those clawed ginger paws. He had almost got them on several action-packed occasions.

'Corinna!' Trudi greeted me. She is stocky, sixty-five and Dutch, our gardener and maintenance worker, the only person whom the freight lift obeys. She is always dressed in blue. Blue cotton shirt and trousers for summer and blue woollen jumper and jeans for winter. And, of course, a boldly contrasting cat, who rides on her shoulder most of the time as though he has just eaten her parrot. 'The scarlet tulips, they are out! Such beauty!'

'I'll go and see them this afternoon,' I promised. She had extorted extra gardening fees from us for those tulips, and promised they would be superb. I don't think they would have dared be otherwise. If Trudi tells something to grow, it grows.

'Bad cat,' she said to Lucifer, who had rolled into a tangled ball with one paw waving insouciantly out of the ma.s.s of tethers. 'I tell you already, no fish, I give you fish in your dinner! Not these ones!'

I left her to unravel the kitten and went on my way, refreshed. There was something fundamental about Lucifer which was very charming. He was a cat with no nuances. If it moved, he either chased it or chewed it or ate it or slept on it.

Best Fresh was located just beyond Heavenly Pleasures in Flinders Lane. It had been an old tailor's shop and someone had gutted it and built a new shopfront in place of the old workshop. It was pinker than one could have wished but certainly clean and shiny, with several small iron tables and chairs and a long counter, behind which one could see into the bakery. I looked at their prices and sighed. I could not match them even operating at a serious loss. Two m.u.f.fins for two dollars! Mine cost eighty-five cents to make and I sold them at five dollars each. They were, of course, superior m.u.f.fins, made by the m.u.f.fin Mage, but for one of mine you could get three of Best Fresh. I leaned the basket on the counter and a bored blonde girl in a pink uniform, nametag Janelle, said, 'Can I help you?' through a mouthful of chewing gum.

I bought a loaf of white pane di casa, a selection of rolls and three different m.u.f.fins. This did not come to much. I surveyed the action in the bakery, which seemed to consist of one working mixer and one spotty youth putting trays of rolls into a new electric oven. I could not see anyone who looked like the boss. They had a list of their products and I took one and fought off a lackl.u.s.tre attempt by the girl to enlist me in a loyalty program. Hypocrisy can only go so far.

I was in the street when someone said, 'You're buying Best Fresh?'

I turned swiftly and it was Meroe. I put a finger to my lips.

'Shh, I'm undercover.'

'Come to Pandamus for a cup of chakra-tarnishing caffeine?' she suggested.

This was so unusual that I agreed and we fell into step.

'Anything bothering you?' I asked as delicately as possible.

'No more than you, my dear, with Georgiana and Best Fresh on your plate. I've got witches.'

'Yes,' I said. I wasn't going to ask how she knew about Georgie and Best Fresh. Meroe always knows. She and the Delphic Oracle would have had a lot in common if they'd sat down for a cup of ouzo and a chat about prophecy. 'That's because you're a witch.'

'I'm a solitary,' she told me. 'I don't belong to a coven. And the reason I don't belong to a coven is...'

'You don't like other witches?'

She drew in a quick breath, was about to deny it, then laughed. 'Well, yes. And they are all here in Melbourne for the Hallowe'en festival. We call it Samhain. The feast of the dead. It's Melbourne's turn to hold it this year.'

'And you are organising it?'

She halted suddenly and I ran into her.

'G.o.ddess, no! I'm just on the edge. I don't like large groups of people. I only had to find someone to make the soaling cakes for my group, and I found you and Jason so that's all right. We shall certainly have the best cakes of the festival. No, it's some of the people. They are having a working every night.'

'Why is that a problem?'

She waved her beautiful hands. 'There's... too much magic around,' she tried to explain. 'Magic isn't like oxygen, you can have too much of it. It's interfering with my perceptions. And...I don't trust some of these New Age pract.i.tioners.'

'Too vague?' I asked, as we came in through the doorway of Cafe Delicious and found ourselves a pair of seats. Del insists on broad-bottomed cane chairs for his broad-bottomed clientele, for which we thank him.

'Too ambitious,' said Meroe darkly. 'These ones are convinced that they have found treasure.'

'Yeah, right,' I said scornfully. 'The mahogany ship, is it?'

'Funny you should say that,' said Meroe. 'h.e.l.lo, Del, can we have cafe h.e.l.lenico metriou, please, and maybe... what's the special today?'

'Yai Yai had to go to see Mrs Pappas,' said Del darkly. 'Katya's cooking. We got goulash and we got veggie soup with pebbles. What you want?'

'Pebbles,' said Meroe.

'Goulash,' I said. I wasn't going to pa.s.s up Katya's goulash, which was wonderful. It had to include, she'd told me, a stolen ingredient in order to be authentic. She stole her rosemary from the gardens on the way to work. A neat solution. Then I realised that Yai Yai's Mrs Pappas was the woman who looked after Old Spiro. 'Wait, Del, is Mrs Pappas all right?'

'She's a good woman,' Del told me.

'I know,' I said, surprised. 'Why, what's wrong with her?'

'That old man, that old Spiro, he's dead.' Del distributed plates and cutlery to our table like a man dealing cards. 'Kyria Pappas, she upset. She look after him a long time.'

'Dead?' I repeated.