Authors: Kerry Greenwood
‘Not to worry,’ I said as bracingly as I could. ‘Why not take that delightful dog for a nice walk and leave it to me and Daniel and the others?’
‘Thank you, dear,’ she said, ‘but I prefer to go back to my apartment and finish my portrait of Carolus. I’m going to turn it into a tapestry pattern. Those nice young men at Nerds Inc have promised to...now, what was the word? Photoshop it for me? In return for some mending. You’ll call me if there’s anything I can do?’
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I nodded. ‘You’re a brave woman, to take on the Lone Gunmen’s mending,’ I told her. ‘They subsist entirely on junk food, especially nachos, and everything they own has chili sauce on it.’
‘I shall manage, I daresay,’ replied Therese stoutly.
I left her at her door.
When I reached the roof garden it contained a reduced cast. The Professor and Mrs Dawson remained, but the others had faded away on, I have no doubt, important errands ordered by that formidable pair. Trudi, Lucifer and Jason were on the far side of the roof, weeding the peony bed. I could hear Trudi instructing my apprentice on the difference between crocus foliage and grass. Meroe was still weeping and Daniel was still rocking her. Mrs Dawson had removed herself and her picnic into the temple, to allow Daniel and Meroe private occupation of the rose bower. She beckoned to me to join her and the Professor. Nox sat on his lap, a small jet statue of a contemplative kitten in a red harness. I noticed that Mrs Dawson was gently caressing her ears, and Nox was allowing this attention. Mrs Dawson’s friendship with the Professor seemed to have gone further than I had thought...
‘I’ve never seen Meroe cry like that,’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen Meroe cry at all,’ I added, realising this was true. ‘What’s going on, and do you think there might be any way of stopping it?’
‘Have a seat, my dear. I believe this is what the ancients called catharsis,’ Professor Monk told me.
I sat down on the warmed marble bench beside his dapper form. He smelt agreeably of tweed. The cloth, not the perfume. And that dangerous Greek coffee to which he is devoted. Mrs Dawson was wearing her signature scent, Arpège, and the two perfumes blended very nicely. We all smelt of honeyed whisky, and very nice it was too. I drank some more.
‘Catharsis?’ I asked when I regained my breath.
‘Purges the soul with pity and terror,’ explained the Professor. ‘Poor Meroe has been worrying about this soul cake poisoning for days and now she has to acknowledge it. She recoiled from the shock, and there was Daniel.’
‘Very good arms to throw yourself into and an excellent shoulder to lean on,’ I confirmed.
‘Myself, I have always preferred to rest my weary head on a suitably hospitable bosom, but I take your point,’ he replied with a hint of mischief. Mrs Dawson smiled sweetly.
‘You think it is poisoning, then?’ I asked.
‘What else could it be, dear?’ asked Mrs Dawson, sipping delicately and licking her lips. That heather honey was power
ful stuff. ‘She says that her ceremony has been profaned. We have heard people singing the soul cake song or the Gower Wassail from the inaccessible dogleg of the alley and since then we have been inundated with maniacs who have lost their senses very unexpectedly, and are not the people one would have thought would be vulnerable.’
‘Not your standard drug addicts,’ I said.
‘Well, no, they all seem to have been well dressed and so on. Even this man who leapt off the building. Did you see him?’ she asked.
‘No, the police wouldn’t let me, for which I am very grateful.’
‘There might have been some clue in his attire,’ said Mrs Dawson inflexibly.
I knew what she was suggesting and I didn’t intend to do it. ‘I’m not going to be allowed to open the back door of my bakery until the scene of the crime officers have been there,’ I explained. ‘The cops told us that the SOCO would cut off their—I mean, be very upset if anyone even so much as breathed on their crime scene.’
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‘So I understand,’ affirmed the Professor, rescuing me. ‘I believe that they work on Locard’s principle, and of course opening your door might transfer all sorts of alien matter.’
‘Locard’s principle?’ asked Mrs Dawson. She might have been at a real picnic. Both of my elderly companions were displaying a sangfroid which ought to have given them frostbitten arteries.
‘Every contact leaves a trace,’ quoted Professor Monk.
‘I see,’ said Mrs Dawson. ‘Do go on, Dion.’
‘Well, as I understand it, they will come with bottles and vapours and sticky-tape and collect and test every hair, fibre, drop of liquid and crumb.’
‘Then they will be there for weeks,’ I prophesied gloomily. ‘There’s everything in that alley from cat fur to pigeon feathers, sparrow droppings, cigarette butts and the remains of the Mouse Police’s tuna. Which would add fish scales. They are going to have a really fun time.’
‘Grammar,’ reproved Professor Monk. ‘And there is of course the soul cake itself. Something has been added to it which, I suspect, is not in Jason’s recipe.’
‘It was Meroe’s recipe,’ I interjected. ‘He only made the connection between soaling and souling because he hasn’t completely got the hang of spelling yet.’
‘No matter, English spelling is a relatively new invention,’ said Professor Monk. ‘Until the nineteenth century it was largely voluntary. One spelt it as one heard it. Just look at Chaucer. As long as the dear boy can puzzle out a recipe, it doesn’t matter a great deal.’
‘I suppose so,’ I replied. ‘But he has to pass exams if he wants to be a pastry chef.’
‘I’m sure that we can manage to teach him,’ said Mrs Dawson. ‘I notice, too, that you and Daniel seem to be reconciled,’ she said delicately. ‘I trust that all is now well between you?’
‘It was a misunderstanding,’ I said. ‘Due to him innocently importing a gorgeous female friend who had designs on him, which he hadn’t noticed.’
The Professor chuckled and Nox gave him a reproving look.
‘And then she made me a frightful dinner and tried to get me to sell her half my bakery,’ I added.
Mrs Dawson patted my hand. ‘And you declined?’
‘Very firmly.’
‘Good. You do not need a partner. The reason Dion chuckled is that we have both noticed that your Daniel is a very modest person.’
‘Chap doesn’t know he’s handsome,’ said the Professor.
‘He must have had a very good mother,’ added Mrs Dawson.
‘Sylvia, would you take Nox for a moment? Touch of cramp,’ said the Professor as he stood up and stretched. Mrs Dawson accepted Nox and, even more unusual, Nox accepted her.
‘Shall we leave Daniel with Meroe?’ he asked.
‘No, no, dear, we need to talk to her, and she will want to talk too, once she is over this fit of tears. There, see, she is already sitting up and wiping her face. If you would like an errand, perhaps you can return the beautiful kitten to her throne, and bring me back a nice soft towel, some drinking water, and another of your lovely handkerchiefs? I do so approve of your choice of linen, you know. Cats mostly dislike human emotion,’ she explained.
Professor Dion allowed Nox to ascend into his arms, where she nestled, looking unbearably poised and disdainful as she was borne away.
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Just as he left, Meroe sobbed, caught her breath, and sobbed again. She scrubbed her hands across her eyes and dried her face on her shawl. Daniel kissed her on the cheek. He helped her stand and conducted her over to the temple. She sagged down next to me, shivering as though she was cold. Mrs Dawson wrapped the Glasgow rug around her, tucking it in at the edges so that she looked like the survivor of a less than successful Highland battle. Culloden, say. Daniel sat on her other side. I caught his eye. He shrugged fluidly.
‘I should know?’ he said. ‘I was just sitting there, suddenly my arms are full of weeping witch. How do you feel, Meroe?’ he asked a little anxiously. If Meroe had thought him importunate, he might spend the next few years in a fetching green skin, croaking in the impluvium. In which event I would be happy to kiss him human again, of course.
‘Better,’ she said thickly. Daniel looked relieved.
‘Good. Ah, now here is Dion with a clean hankie and a nice fluffy towel. Wash your face, my dear, dry it, and have a good long drink of water. Crying dries one out so much,’ said Mrs Dawson in a tone which indicated that she knew precisely how much dehydration was caused by tears. She must have cried a lot of them over her dead husband—by all accounts she had loved him dearly. And here she was looking placidly pleased with Professor Monk. Humans.
Meroe did as she was told. The water washed off handfuls of rose petals which had fallen on her as she cried. She drank thirstily. Then she shook herself.
‘I need to tell you what has been happening,’ she informed us.
‘Well yes, dear, I think you do,’ replied Mrs Dawson. ‘We have all been caught up in it, whatever it is.’
‘The trouble is, I am not at all sure what is going on.’ Meroe dabbed at her eyes again. ‘All I know is that since Barnabas has come to town, there has been unauthorised and dangerous magic happening. When I was a young witch we did our surveying and asking by nice, safe scrying in water or crystal—though even that presents some dangers to the inexperienced. These followers of Barnabas are taking huge risks. Some of his ritual workings have to do with altered states of consciousness and shamanic journeys.’
‘Which were usually induced by fasting and drumming and drugs,’ said the Professor.
‘Yes. In the US, they use peyote as a ritual poison. In the East they use a concoction of various herbs. I believe that Barnabas is supplying them with mandrake roots, and I know that Barnabas has been researching recipes to open the inner eye.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
Daniel echoed my question: ‘Why now and here?’
‘Because he is seeking treasure,’ said Meroe. ‘We were on the beach when he said he had conjured some.’
‘You were on a beach?’ asked Daniel, sounding puzzled.
‘Williamstown, specifically,’ I told him. ‘There was a magical mob scene and Barnabas got mugged by men in balaclavas—just when he had found this jewelled plate. Meroe thinks he palmed it.’
‘Legerdemain, always a useful skill,’ commented the Professor.
‘Mugged? Were you hurt?’ asked Daniel anxiously.
‘No, just tumbled over and scared,’ I assured him.
‘So, you believe that the Barnabas witches are taking dangerous substances,’ pursued Professor Dion. It is hard to deflect a classicist: they have to learn Greek verb mutations and that produces a mind of sprung steel.
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‘I do,’ said Meroe.
‘Then how did it get out into the general populace?’ he asked. ‘And who is singing the soul cake song?’
‘That I do not know,’ she said.
‘Someone needs the money,’ I reasoned. ‘Everyone needs money. There are clubbers out there who will try anything once. And it looks like you only have to try this stuff once. Perhaps Barnabas is financing his treasure hunt with drug dealing.’
‘That is what I am afraid of,’ said Meroe on a shuddering breath.
‘But it isn’t your doing,’ said Mrs Dawson.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Daniel. ‘I know this one. A bad Christian—he’s just a bad man. A bad Jew—he’s a sign that all Jews are bad.’
‘A bad woman degrades the whole female race,’ said Mrs Dawson. ‘Isn’t that just like a woman?’
‘And a bad witch,’ said Meroe, ‘brings down oppression on all witches.’
Then there really didn’t seem to be a lot else to say. We stared at the roses. They were very pretty. But not informative.
Finally Meroe said, ‘Well, I can’t get out of it any longer. I have to go and talk to Barnabas.’
‘Like some company?’ I asked as casually as I could. Suddenly I wanted to be out of my lovely garden, away from the white-clad people I could hear scuffling in the alley below, and especially away from the dead man who thought that he could fly. I wondered if he had, just at the last minute, realised that he was falling to his death. ‘I might tag along too, if you want me,’ offered Daniel. ‘In about an hour? Jonesy and his co-ey will be popping up to have a chat any moment, I can tell.’
‘All right,’ Meroe replied, getting to her feet as if she was very old and wrapping her shawl about her shoulders. ‘I’ll go and change my clothes, make some preparations. Talk to Belladonna.’
‘And Sylvia and I shall remain here for liaison purposes,’ Professor Monk told me. ‘Do take care, won’t you?’
‘We shall,’ said Meroe grimly.
Daniel and I had only been in my apartment for long enough to put on the kettle when the doorbell sounded and
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Jonesy and Miller came in. They wanted tea. I supplied it. The Mouse Police, who had been napping on the sofa, removed themselves to the balcony. They were allowed upstairs at weekends. And, like Jason, they didn’t seem to take to cops. There were probably warrants out for both Heckle and Jekyll for mouse-molesting, rat-murder and fish-theft. Horatio can take any company as it comes. They did not seem to notice the animals, anyway.
Both looked tired and grimy. Both leaned their elbows on the table and sucked up good lapsang souchong as though the day wasn’t expected to bring them anything more pleasant. Which it probably wasn’t, at that.
‘SOCO say your alley’s a biological sink,’ grinned Jones.
‘Certainly is,’ I agreed, topping up the tea cups. ‘Would you like a biscuit, perhaps, or a piece of cake?’
‘Not for me,’ said Miller hastily. Oops. Not tactful, Corinna.
‘How about something out of a packet?’ asked Daniel.
‘There’s some of those Dutch ginger bikkies in the tin,’ I remembered. ‘Trudi gave them to me.’
‘Thanks,’ said Miller, engulfing three when Daniel pro
duced them. ‘No offence, ma’am.’
‘None taken,’ I said. ‘Have the scene of crime people found anything interesting?’