Cooking the Books E-Book

Kerry Greenwood

• Herausgeber: Allen & Unwin
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Corinna Chapman
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 453

Beschreibung

Corinna Chapman, talented baker and reluctant investigator, is trying very hard to do nothing at all on her holidays. Her gorgeous Daniel is only intermittently at her side (he's roaming the streets tracking down a multi-thousand dollar corporate theft). Jason, her baking offsider, has gone off to learn how to surf. And Kylie and Goss are fulfilling their lives' ambition auditioning for a soap. It should be a time of quiet reflection for Corinna but quiet reflection doesn't seem to suit her - she's bored. Scenting a whiff of danger, Corinna accepts an offer from a caterer friend to do the baking for the film set of a new soap called 'Kiss the Bride'. The soap in which Kylie and Goss have parts. Twists and turns and complications that could only happen to Corinna ensue involving, bizarrely, nursery rhymes and a tiger called Tabitha. While on the other side of town, a young woman is being unmercifully bullied by her corporate employers - employers who spend a lot of time Cooking the Books.

Leseprobe

First published in 2011

Copyright © Kerry Greenwood 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior

permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968

(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever

is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational

purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has

given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone: [phone]

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Email: [email protected]

Web: www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

from the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 9781742370217

eISBN 9781925576030

Set by Midland Typesetters, Australia

ebook production by Midland Typesetters Australia

For David Greagg, an angel in wombat form . . .

With many thanks to Jenny Pausacker, Ika Willis, Chip Granger, Jean Greenwood and the people who send me intriguing emails in the middle of the night. And to Belladonna, my constant companion while writing.

Please note that although there is a film studio at Docklands, it is not called Harbour Studios and bears no resemblance to my studio. This whole book is a work of fiction. As is the city of Melbourne itself.

PRAISE FOR OTHER CORINNA CHAPMAN MYSTERIES

‘…the fifth in the Corinna Chapman series…like the previous books in the series…is an absolute delight…I can thoroughly recommend this one to anyone who is looking for a pleasurable read.’—Bookseller + Publisher

‘Fans of the series will know and new readers will soon realise, once Corinna takes control, the baddies might just as well give up; resistance is only postponing the inevitable…entertaining, enchanting and enjoyable.’—Good Reading

‘Greenwood is a modern master of the gracious detective story. We happily slip into the well-ordered ebb and flow of life around Earthly Delights and the other inhabitants of the Insula building, but she meticulously blends a hint of unease into the mix…Greenwood knows a proper feast includes the savoury and the sweet. Hers is a unique voice in crime fiction.’—The Age, A2

‘Melbourne writer Kerry Greenwood’s two sleuths could not be more dissimilar. Aristocratic dynamo Phryne Fisher inhabits her historic crime stories and the more down-to-earth Corinna Chapman finds the answers in her contemporary novels…Chapman’s eccentric staff and neighbours give readers plenty to chew over.’—Herald Sun

‘One of Australia’s cleverest mystery writers delivers a very pleasurable concoction for Christmas, involving baker Corinna Chapman’s fabulous recipes for glace cherries and a search for star-crossed runaways.’—Australian Women’s Weekly

‘A new Corinna Chapman novel is a delight—like settling into a really comfortable old sofa…It’s a gently amusing, cheerfully eccentric book as they all are and will leave you wishing you could visit the Earthly Delights bakery and feeling sorry the book is finished…Charming.’—Townsville Bulletin

‘Brimming with food, lust, friendship and the barefaced evils of our everyday world, Forbidden Fruit presents not one but two nasty surprises at the end…Fortunately there is a heavy dollop of humour, an excess of cats and enough delicious bakery delights to temper any bad taste left by the seedier side of things.’—Southern Highlands News

Kerry Greenwood is the author of many bestselling novels and the editor of two collections. The first five books in the Corinna series are Earthly Delights (2004), Heavenly Pleasures (2005), Devil’s Food (2006), Trick or Treat (2008) and Forbidden Fruit (2010). Previous novels in the Phryne Fisher series are Cocaine Blues, Flying too High, Murder on the Ballarat Train, Death at Victoria Dock, Blood and Circuses, The Green Mill Murder, Ruddy Gore, Urn Burial, Raisins and Almonds, Death Before Wicket, Away with the Fairies, Murder in Montparnasse, The Castlemaine Murders, Queen of the Flowers, Death by Water, Murder in the Dark, Murder on a Midsummer Night and Dead Man’s Chest. She is also the author of several books for young adults and the Delphic Women series. When she is not writing she is an advocate in Magistrates’ Court for the Legal Aid Commission. She is not married, has no children and lives with a registered Wizard.

Also in the Corinna Chapman series:

Earthly Delights

Heavenly Pleasures

Devil’s Food

Trick or Treat

Forbidden Fruit

I was supposed to be on holiday. So what, you may ask—in fact, Daniel was actually asking—was I doing in the bakery? Apart from, self-evidently, baking?

‘Bosworth Jumbles,’ I explained.

He smiled at me. My heart did a complete flip-flop with pike. Beautiful Daniel, my Sabra turned private detective, who out of all women in the city picked me, an ample size 20 who worked too hard making bread at my bakery, Earthly Delights. Since the advent of Daniel I have become susceptible to the idea that miracles might really happen. He is tall, dark and gorgeous with a faint whiff of mystery. I am short and mousy and smell mostly of flour and honest labour. Not seductive.

‘Why jumbles and why Bosworth?’ he asked.

My apprentice, Jason, a recovering heroin addict, had taken his holiday pay and gone surfing. My shop was closed until the end of January and my two assistants had gone to an audition for a soap of some sort. I should have been relaxing, but I didn’t seem to have the knack.

‘The cook died rather than disclose the recipe,’ I said. ‘Mrs Dawson is giving an afternoon tea and she wanted some traditional English munchies. And as she is a famous retired society hostess I like to think that the fact that she chose me as her baker is a great compliment.’

‘How do you mean, died?’ Daniel sounded intrigued.

‘Was executed. He deserves to be remembered. He was Richard the Third’s confectioner, a highly paid position,’ I told him, forming the jumbles into little heaps on my baking sheet. ‘He went with Richard to the battle of Bosworth Field, where the King was defeated and the cook was captured. Henry VII offered him his life if he would give him the recipe for these sugary little treats. He refused, and after a week Henry VII had him executed. But the cook gave the recipe to one of his jailers and the local bakers made them for centuries, all through the Tudor period. Just to remind the rulers that there had been a good king who was usurped and murdered.’

‘Sedition by cookery. Impressive,’ he murmured. ‘What else do we have here? Isn’t that fruit mince?’

‘For Eccles cakes,’ I agreed. ‘When the parliamentarians banned Christmas, the bakers of Eccles made these little mince tarts instead of Christmas pudding. I don’t know if it was just because they had a stockpile of the main ingredient, or because they wanted to bring a little joy into people’s hearts in those joyless times.’

‘Possibly both. And these?’

‘You can have one. Or two,’ I conceded. ‘They’re singing hinnies. Like the song.’

‘She can cook an Irish stew, aye, and singing hinnies too,’ he sang, a pleasant tenor somewhat obscured by crumbs.

‘And otherwise there are some Bath buns and a sand cake.’

‘Sand cake,’ he said flatly. ‘Even for a superlative baker, sand is not a good ingredient. I recall those childhood beach picnics. It grits the teeth. Love the singing hinnies, though.’

‘Sand cake is not made of sand,’ I informed him, opening the oven to insert the jumbles and remove the cake. ‘It’s made with cornflour so it’s sandy in texture, but no real sand is used in the construction, I promise. Otherwise she has potted shrimps, which I made yesterday, to eat with brown bread, and cucumber sandwiches, which also contain—’

‘No sand. I understand now,’ he assured me. ‘How much longer will these historical sweeties detain you?’

‘Just have to get the jumbles out of the oven—ten minutes or so. Can’t ice the cake until it’s cold.’

‘I notice that none of the feline contingent have descended from the sun porch to supervise your labour,’ he observed.

‘Lazy creatures have been taking non-stop naps,’ I said, wiping flour off my forearms onto my strong green apron. ‘Though the Mouse Police are still catching rats down here at night. But they probably think that is sport, not work.’

‘Cats don’t do the “w” word,’ he agreed solemnly. ‘Even the maître d’hôtel Horatio only supervises.’

Horatio is my tabby and white gentleman and he does, indeed, oversee the moral and aesthetic standards of Earthly Delights. I sometimes feel that I cannot live up to him. He is an aristocat.

‘Have you heard from Jason?’ he asked, leaning a hip against a mixing tub.

‘Postcard,’ I said. I ducked my head at the missive on the counter, which boasted the single line: luv the beech but its hotte.

Daniel read it. ‘His spelling is very Middle English, isn’t it?’

‘The picture is of Lorne. Surely he can’t get into too much trouble in Lorne.’

‘I don’t know—can he swim?’ asked Daniel.

‘No idea,’ I replied.

‘And where are the girls?’

‘At an audition for a pilot episode of a soap called Kiss the Bride,’ I said. ‘This is their second call back so they might even get parts. I do hope so. Might even make them put on a little weight.’ The girls are fervent devotees of the Goddess Anorexia. I live to see a little more flesh on their bones.

The jumbles announced by scent that they were cooked. I took them out of the oven and tumbled them gently onto a cake cooler. Then I mixed and drizzled the lemon icing over my sand cake.

‘All finished. You want to help me carry them up?’

‘What about scones? Afternoon tea ought to have scones,’ he objected, taking up the large tin tray loaded with food.

‘She’s making her own, of course,’ I told him. ‘Up to the roof, Madame is entertaining in the garden.’

I can’t imagine how the roof garden at Insula escaped unscathed when the building was allowed to run down in the sixties. A lot of Melbourne was trashed at the time. The elevator goes right there so they can’t have missed it. Intervention of fate, I expect. Fate likes a good garden as much as anyone else. There is a statue of Ceres with her arms full of corn, copy of a Roman original, in the glassed-in temple, but there is also a rose bower, a lot of wisteria, and even Trudi’s linden tree. Mrs Dawson’s table was laid out under the wisteria. There were no blossoms on it, of course, it being January, but delightful pale green leaves and a lot of diffused light. She had lovely china, gold and blue, and a massive samovar which Trudi was even now wheeling up to the right of the hostess.

Trudi is Dutch and sixty and wears blue and is the only person whom the freight elevator obeys. Her appearance is only unusual in that she wears a ginger kitten of fiendish aspect on her shoulder. Meroe, our witch, says he is not really diabolical; only humans have the spiritual software to be devilish. He just has a small kink in his feline soul which renders him mischievous. That’s why he is called Lucifer. He’s getting bigger, which is a sobering prospect . . .

He made a wild dive for the cake—Lucifer will try to eat anything—and was hauled back by his harness. That harness has been the thwarting of a lot of potential adventures, especially those involving Lucifer and the fish pond in the atrium. For Insula is a Roman building, and what is a Roman building without its impluvium?

We don’t know much about the lunatic who built Insula like a Roman tenement. There was a fashion then for exotic buildings—Moorish, Arabic, Old English Gothick. It has some deco features but when Professor Dion ordered his apartment decorated after designs from Pompeii, they fitted beautifully. He is, for instance, the owner of the only Ancient Roman TV/DVD cabinet in the world. We are a jolly collection, except for Mrs Pemberthy, who is there to curdle the milk of human kindness and make one desire state-sponsored seclusion of everyone over eighty-five with a small rotten doggie called Traddles.

Mrs Dawson, urbane and elegant, was wearing what my grandmother would call a hostess gown in swirly shades of rust and apricot. She is an example to us all. She surveyed the provender as Daniel and I laid it out next to her cucumber sandwiches, the potted shrimps and their thin-sliced brown bread, and a mound of scones with concomitant jam and cream. Her scones looked very good. I would have guessed as much.

‘A feast,’ she told me. ‘Thank you so much, Corinna dear. The ladies ought to be arriving. I’ve stationed Dion in the atrium to welcome the early birds. I shall now descend and join him.’

She flung a cobweb-fine muslin cloth over the feast and departed in a flourish of skirts.

‘What a woman,’ sighed Daniel.

‘She is indeed. How about a tiny snack of our own?’ I asked, with deep political cunning. I hoped to decoy him into my apartment for a little afternoon delight. I don’t think I fooled him for a moment, but he fell in beside me willingly. In the interests of truth, I did intend to offer him tea. And cakes. As well.

All was going according to plan. He drank my Earl Grey, he ate a jumble and a slice of sand cake (I had made double, for my kitchen as well as Mrs D’s tea) and was about to kiss me with the kisses of his mouth in proper biblical fashion when the doorbell rang shrilly.

Damn.

The door was answered—however grudgingly—and Kylie and Goss danced into the room, waving bits of paper and laughing. I was not in the mood for laughing and dancing, but I tried. The whole building is sort of in loco parentis (as the Professor calls it) to the girls. They are so young and on their own.

‘What?’ asked Daniel, also uncomfortably halted in mid-kiss.

‘Contracts!’ they cried.

‘You got the job?’ he asked.

‘We got the job! We both got the job! Speaking parts! I’m the kooky girl, Goss is the loser one,’ cried Kylie. ‘It’s an office. Ooh, tea. Can we have some? We missed lunch.’

‘Certainly,’ I agreed, surprised. ‘Get yourselves a cup and a plate each—would you like one of my jumbles?’

‘Looks good,’ said Kylie, and they both tucked into jumbles in a way which would have made Richard III’s martyred cook glad. I was just wishing I had made some more when I was given a typescript to read. It was a mass of convoluted phrases but seemed to be a hiring agreement for the pilot episode of Kiss the Bride, binding them to what seemed like frightful hours—six am to nine pm with extensions if necessary—and a condition that they didn’t lose or gain weight. Or so much as breathe a word about the show to anyone at all, even their mothers, unless required to do so in supervised interviews. They could be sacked for a list of crimes, including persistent lateness, using drugs or alcohol, something which I had to read as moral turpitude, like getting in trouble with the law, and whenever the director felt like sacking them, he or she could. I would have protested but they had clearly already signed them—and the money was quite good. I nodded and handed the papers back to Kylie, or possibly Goss. They change their appearance so often that I get confused.

‘I’ve got an appointment for my hair tomorrow,’ breathed Goss, or possibly Kylie.

‘Hair?’ I asked, at a loss.

‘Well, duh, Corinna, the kooky girl always has red hair and the loser’s always a brunette. It’s sort of the way things are,’ explained the girl. ‘I’m kooky so I’m going to be fire-engine red, and Goss is going to be brown for the future.’

The speaker was thus revealed to be Kylie and I realised that I would be able to tell them apart for the duration of the pilot. Goss, brown; Kylie, red. That would be a change.

Daniel was trying to catch my eye, making drinking motions. I briefly mourned my lost orgy. But yes, their triumph ought to have champagne. I got out the glasses. Daniel got out the emergency bottle of unexpected-good-news champagne from the fridge.

We all drank. After a glass each, the girls giggled and fled, saying that they had to get online to tell Facebook the good news—so much for their contracts, I almost said, but if the employers of modern young women don’t know that every spare thought goes onto Facebook, they should not be employing them—and looked at Daniel.

‘Where were we?’ he purred, and filled my glass again.

Oh yes. That’s where we were . . .

I woke alone. Since the advent of Daniel, I had been finding my old bed a trifle constrained what with Daniel and Horatio and, of course, me, so I had bought a new bed roughly the size of a field, which easily fitted me and Horatio and Daniel with room left over for several haymakers and possibly a picnic. Horatio had tapped my cheek with an imperious paw, conveying that it was Cat Food Time and to look sharp about it. It further suggested that taking an impromptu nap was the province of the ruling species (i.e. cats) not the subservient (i.e. humans).

I can relate to that. I sat up, draped in my new blue sheets, and looked around for my lover. Gone, but there were noises suggestive of activity in the kitchen. I dragged on a silky robe and pottered out to investigate.

Thumping noises indicated that Daniel was making chicken schnitzel, so I found the peeler and began on the potatoes. We had become so used to working together that I didn’t need to be told that mashed spuds were the accompaniment to Daniel’s excellent schnitzel, and the salad was already chilling in its iced water. Yum. Making love makes me hungry.

Horatio was also hungry and discussed his gourmet cat food eagerly. Potatoes on, I wandered down to the bakery to feed the Mouse Police, a rough and ready pair who secured the night hours against rodents with tooth and claw. I was just laying out the cat meat which they get as a treat once a week—they seem disinclined to eat their prey, which is fine with me—when someone rapped, quite hard, on the bakery door. Since there was a large polite sign which indicated to the enquirer that we were closed until after Australia Day, I ignored it. Then they knocked again.

I was in a drowsy, pleasant mood. I opened the door to say, ‘Sorry, no bread,’ when a frantic hand seized me and dragged me into the street. I was about to deck my attacker—I do not allow myself to be dragged—when I recognised her. Almost. I had seen her before, somewhere . . . wearing a uniform . . . yes, of course, it was Thomasina, head girl and hockey fiend, from my very tough girls school. She had never been at all friendly towards me. But she hadn’t actually mistreated me. I freed my arm from her anxious clutch.

‘Corinna!’ she cried. ‘I thought it must be you! You’ve got to help me!’

This was a bit much for the hungry end of a delightful afternoon.

‘Why?’ I asked simply.

‘Because we’re old school mates,’ she said. ‘Because you’re the best baker in town—everyone says so. Please!’

‘Suppose you come inside and tell me about it,’ I said, not wanting to conduct this interview in the street. ‘But I haven’t got long—I have a dinner date.’

‘You?’ she asked with that touch of incredulity which flicks a fat woman on the raw. I resolved that I would try to do the Christian thing and forgive my enemies, but that did not require me to present the other cheek. Especially since the Thomasina I remembered had a formidable right hook.

I sat her down in the assistant’s chair. She had aged badly, looked haggard and lined. One advantage of being fat is that one does not wrinkle like the slim and gorgeous. Her hair had been a strong blonde. Now it was almost as mousy as mine. And she now wore glasses. I admit that I gloated, just a little bit. Corinna, your karma!

‘What’s this all about?’ I asked.

‘I started a company, catering for big events,’ she told me. ‘Gourmet food, you know, best of everything, hire my company and we do the works: decor, cutlery and crockery if required, flowers, staff, food, wine. The best people recommend us. You must have heard of us. Maitresse.’

‘I’ve heard of you,’ I agreed. One saw announcements in the fashionable press about weddings, for instance; dresses by someone or other, event by Maitresse. So Thomasina had done well. Good for her. ‘What has that got to do with me?’ I asked.

‘My baker has gone to Malta for his father’s funeral,’ she said, making a raking grab for my arm again. ‘I’ve got a big commission for a TV pilot. Not much going on this early in the year, most people are on holidays, this could make a big difference to us.’

‘Who’s us?’

‘Me and Julia. You remember Julia.’

‘I do. I had a crush on her in year eight.’

‘I’ve had a crush on her ever since school,’ grinned Thomasina. ‘And luckily she likes me too—we’re an item, so remember that if you recall your crush while you’re working for us.’

‘I don’t know what you want me to do . . . and time is ticking on.’ I hinted. I almost hoped that Daniel might wander down to find out what was keeping me. Even a stone butch like Tommy would have to admit that he was gorgeous . . . But nothing would deflect her from her mission.

‘Make bread!’ she screamed. ‘We’ve got this contract, food for the cast and crew, matter of twenty people, three meals a day, and snacks, mounds of salads, hundreds of sandwiches, canapés, afternoon tea—and no bread! It’s a nightmare!’

‘Plenty of bakers around,’ I murmured.

‘But not the best! I need the best. Maitresse needs the best, that’s what we do.’

‘And I’m the best?’

‘Everyone says so. The stock exchange party made a lot of talk. Even Mrs Dawson employed you for her afternoon tea.’

‘Word gets around!’ I said, amazed.

‘It’s a very small world and it never stops gossiping. Expensive, they say, but excellent.’

‘I’m on holiday,’ I temporised. ‘My apprentice is away.’

‘I can hire you as many helpers as you need. Please, Corinna!’

‘All right,’ I said. I had been bored. I don’t have a talent for relaxing. Daniel had just told me that he had a new case which would occupy a week, so we couldn’t go away. ‘What do you want, and for how long do you want it?’

We started to plan. When Daniel finally did come down to see what was holding me up, she heard his footsteps and looked up from an order sheet. And her expression was all that I could have desired.

I introduced her. Her mouth was still open in an O of astonishment. I had the orders and Daniel had made his effect and in any case I was starving.

‘What’s the name of this TV show, anyway?’ I asked as Tommy prepared to go.

‘Oh, didn’t I say? It’s a soap called Kiss the Bride,’ she answered, and took her leave.

We had the argument—well, discussion—over the excellent chicken schnitzel and veggies.

‘But you are supposed to be on holiday,’ he protested.

‘I know, but you’re working, so we can’t go anywhere, and I might as well be building up a holiday fund. And I don’t have to get up so early. Six o’clock. Not four. Only bread for twenty, not the whole city and all those restaurants. I can do it alone, use only one mixer, clean up by myself. Tommy offered me a helper—I shall see if I need one. I wouldn’t trust her helper not to nick my mother of bread and my best recipes and start up her own bakery. Apparently it is well known that I am the best,’ I said, fluffing out my feathers and preening a little.

‘Well, I suppose so,’ he conceded. ‘And you can keep an eye on the girls.’

‘I won’t be on site,’ I pointed out. ‘Just down in the bakery as usual.’

‘I wouldn’t rely on it,’ he said. ‘I know about old school friends. You can have first go at my car—and Timbo if you need a driver. I’m going to be on foot most of the time. This is a city mystery.’

‘Not another missing son or daughter?’

‘No, a missing bundle of bonds.’

‘How did that happen?’

‘Ah, there you have me. An intern had them, having just been to the Prothonotary’s Office. Her mobile was out of credit so she went into one of the few remaining phone boxes, with the papers, and rang her office. There was some panic there and she was told to return right away. She was so upset by what was said that she flew out of the phone booth and . . .’

‘Left the documents behind,’ I concluded. ‘And when she returned?’

‘They were gone,’ Daniel told me. ‘She saw a homeless man walking away, but only remembered him later. Poor girl. So I’m searching the lost and strayed for a million dollars in bearer bonds.’

‘They could have just ended up in the bin, or in the derros’ campfire down by the river,’ I commented.

‘One has been presented at a Lonsdale Street bank,’ said Daniel.

‘Oh. Were they successful?’

‘Yes, they cashed it. A man, they said, unshaven, much tattooed, dressed in an overall. So someone who knows what they are has his hands on them. And if they aren’t found that poor intern is going to be sacked.’

‘Tough call. Wide search. What’s for dessert?’ I felt I needed a change of subject. It would be a terrible thing to ruin a promising career so early . . .

‘Peaches,’ said Daniel, and fetched them. They were splendid, exuding a rich cold liquor such as is served in Paradise.

Then there was no reason why we shouldn’t relax, watching Doctor Who and eating the rest of the Christmas chocolates, which even Horatio did not wish to share.

Tomorrow I was going back to the bakery, and I felt very pleased about it. Not only was my old school fellow Tommy paying above the odds, but she had stared at Daniel, gobsmacked, and something inside of me, some old school-aged injury, started to heal. And who would have guessed at Julia? Julia was a butterfly, a delicate little gauzy thing with an overprotective mother and a penchant for pink. Of course, she was sixteen when I had last seen her. She might have had a buzz-cut, adopted Gothism, or become buxom.

I went to bed early, as Daniel was going out on the Soup Run in pursuit of his papers. What could a collection of the homeless and desperate want with a packet of bearer bonds? But the sale meant that one of them must have known. Fallen stockbroker, perhaps, derelict banker . . .

I must have dozed off at this point. When next the world declared itself it was six am and time to get cooking.

I rose, I washed and dressed, I donned my overall and my solid shoes. Bakers who wear sandals find out exactly how hot spilled toffee topping is. I still had the scar from that burn. There are other ways to acquire empathy with victims of lava spills. Better ones.

Horatio was waiting, politely, for a dab of my butter as I reached the stage called toast and contemplation. He is a royal beast and only asks for a token tribute. I read through Tommy’s list again. Lots of bread, certainly, low-sugar, low-salt, no-cal health bread—erk—and real pasta douro, made with yeast. Rolls. Brioche. Muffins.

Ah, muffins. Mine were perfectly all right, but those made by Jason were superb. He, however, was learning to surf somewhere on the coast and the cast of Kiss the Bride were going to have to ruin their diets for the high-cal and high-sugar with the standard Corinna muffin. Blueberry for today, as I had a lot of blueberries in stock. Those frozen ones were perfect for muffins, thawing neatly in the mix and thus not overcooking.

Down to the bakery to stagger slightly as Heckle and Jekyll collided with my ankles, one from each side. They are rough but affable mousers and ratters (and occasionally, strangely enough, spiderers and pigeoners) who decimate the rodent population and thus earn their kitty dins. During the day they snooze on a heap of flour sacks, their preferred couch. During the night they hunt and last night they had done well. Three rats and five mice were laid out on the doormat.

I disposed of the slaughtered and fed the Mouse Police. They dived on the food in a blur of black and white fur as I put the first mix on to rise. The bakery was loud with appreciative whuffling, always a charming sound. I mixed and measured. When I sat down for my cup of coffee everything was in train.

I opened the street door so the Mouse Police could scoot out and extort endangered species scraps from Kiko or Ian of the Japanese restaurant. The weather was temperate, which is a signal that it is about to change. In Melbourne, a city whose climate can only be called ‘unstable’. If by unstable you mean that it is blowing a hot gale before lunch and raining like the Flood after lunch. This makes Melburnians flexible and agile. You have to be, to dodge the hailstones. Some of them are as big as tennis balls, I swear.

The paperboy slung the plastic-wrapped paper, hitting the half-open door with a thud. While Heckle seemed to have forgone his usual amusement—bringing down runners by threading between their feet—the paperboy remained fair game, if only the battle-scarred old veteran could work out a way of bringing down the bicycle safely. Heckle growled the sort of growl which a baffled tiger might have emitted when robbed by fate of his destined antelope. Then he slouched off to join his partner in demanding fish with menaces.

He went around Mrs Sylvia Dawson, retired society hostess and vision of style, even at this hour. Mrs Dawson has great authority. The Prof calls it auctoritas and says, a little sadly, that he never had it. Mrs Dawson has it. It even works on cats, a difficult audience to daunt. She gives Insula tone. Today she was wearing a light leisure suit in dark brown, the colour of bittersweet chocolate, and an apricot silk shirt. She goes for a walk every morning to assuage her puritan conscience, which then allows her to spend the rest of the day in sybaritic pursuits. I have always wondered what sybaritic pursuits are. Did they have a connection with the nymph pursued by a satyr over Professor Dion Monk’s door?

‘Corinna! You’re back at work?’

‘Special order. I was getting bored with nothing to do. Can I give you a loaf of pasta douro?’ I had made a few extra loaves for local consumption.

‘You certainly can. How very pleasant! I need some breakfast. I’ve just seen your Daniel wandering among the homeless. He told me he was getting nowhere, so expect him back soon.’

This was good news. I am always pleased to see Daniel. I wrapped a loaf and handed it over. She gave me the exact change and walked off. I watched her straight back. She had probably learnt deportment by walking with a book on her head. Mrs Dawson could carry the collected works of William Wordsworth on that trim silver hairdo.

But this wasn’t getting bread baked. I returned to my ovens. The Mouse Police returned from their fishing expedition and flopped down on their flour sacks. All was peace and tranquillity in Earthly Delights. For a change.

When the loaves and muffins were out of the oven—and smelling ambrosial—the carrier arrived from Tommy and took them all away, and I was left to clean up. End of morning’s work, and I was conscious of a glow of achievement as I locked up and climbed the stairs to my own apartment.

‘Corinna’s a baker again,’ I sang to myself. Now I too could find something sybaritic to do. Having earnt my repose.

This took the form of a bath in violet bath foam. I dressed in a light cotton gown adorned with blue batik butterflies which Jon, our global food-relief guru, had bought in Laos. It is made to a pattern which at one stage requires the sewer to turn the fabric through four dimensions and which always baffles me every time I make it. But it is loose and gorgeous and flatters my size-20 body. It was probably going to be a hot day. But see previous comments about Melbourne.

I was reading the paper—always a dangerous proceeding, with the world in the sad shape that it is—when Horatio (who finds fresh newspapers an excellent spot on which to sprawl, sparing me the international news) raised his head and pricked up his admirable ears, which meant a visitor was impending. He always hears them before I do. And sure enough the bell rang and Meroe was there.

Meroe is our professional witch, seer and supplier of all manner of occult paraphernalia to the gentry, proprietor of the Sibyl’s Cave and devoted slave to her familiar, the black cat Belladonna. She had a basket of her magically derived salad leaves. She offered it to me.

‘For lunch or dinner,’ she said. But there was something on her mind. In a strong light, she might be seventy or forty: I have never been able to decide. Gypsies are like that.

‘Come in and I’ll make tea,’ I offered.

‘Chamomile,’ she selected, which meant that she was really worried. And it had seemed like such a peaceful morning up until now. But that was Insula for you. The price of living in a small upright village was that everyone’s worries were yours.

I conducted her and the leaves (yum) to the kitchen, that ancient female refuge. She shed today’s wrap, which was a length of blue silk figured with masks of comedy and tragedy, and I made tea. I allowed her time to sip it and gather her thoughts.

‘The girls came to me last night for a tarot reading,’ she said slowly. ‘And it showed that they would be undertaking a new enterprise in which they have every chance of success.’

‘Good,’ I encouraged.

‘But I have seldom seen a reading so hedged about with danger,’ she told me. ‘Peril. I did not know what to advise, except to tell them to be very careful.’

‘What sort of peril?’ I asked. I supposed that a studio could be dangerous—trip hazards, falling booms. I really had no idea what a film set was like. But every human endeavour these days is beset with electrical wiring.

Meroe sipped more tea. ‘Secrets,’ she said reluctantly. ‘The reading was surrounded by secrets. I don’t like it, Corinna, I don’t like it at all.’

‘But this is what they have always wanted to do,’ I said. ‘It would be too cruel to forbid them to embark on their life’s ambition.’

‘That is why I did not do so,’ she snapped. ‘I just warned them. It would be better if you could accompany them. Earthly Delights is closed. I would feel happier if there was a reliable person looking after them.’

‘Meroe, I’m on holiday!’ I protested again. ‘The girls don’t need a chaperone. They’re nineteen years old. They think they’re grown-ups. This is their great adventure.’

‘It may prove more adventurous than they can handle,’ she warned. It was too much. I had been seduced into making bread for the wretched program. I wasn’t going to waste my life hanging around the set annoying the girls. But it is never wise to say an outright ‘no’ to a witch.

‘I’ll think about it,’ I said reluctantly.

Her beautiful smile illuminated her face.

‘Thank you, Corinna, I knew I could rely on you.’

She finished her tea and took her leave. I grumpily washed the breakfast dishes and was attempting to recover my equanimity when the key sounded in the door and Daniel arrived. He kissed me hello. He smelt gamy and his cheek was scratchy. It had clearly been a long night.

‘I need a shower and some food,’ he announced, and went into the bathroom forthwith. I exchanged a glance with Horatio. Both of us were feeling a tad put-upon.

However, we got out the eggs and sliced some bacon and soon the scent of a proper cooked breakfast tempted a clean, damp, famished spectre out of the bathroom and into the kitchen.

‘Food!’ he exclaimed. ‘Corinna, I don’t deserve you.’

I refrained from murmuring agreement. I supplied him with eggs, bacon, grilled tomatoes and fresh sourdough. He ate it all. He must not have pinched a sandwich from the Soup Run or eaten at all for the whole night. I made myself coffee and tried one of my muffins. All right, though not a patch on Jason’s. I wondered how my wandering apprentice was getting on and hoped he wasn’t sunburnt. Before he had dragged himself off heroin, he didn’t go out much in the daytime.

Daniel sipped his coffee, looked at the muffins and shook his head, and spoke at last.

‘That was a long night,’ he said. ‘I must have covered miles and miles. All for nothing.’

‘Didn’t find a thing?’ I asked sympathetically.

‘Nothing but rumours,’ he told me. ‘Everyone is talking about a great treasure being in the possession of a group of drunks. I heard it at several places. But it happened on the other side of the city, wherever I was. That is the hallmark of an urban legend.’

‘The German shepherd choking on the burglar’s fingers?’ I offered.

‘The car thief with Granny on the roof rack,’ he agreed. ‘Always happened to a friend’s aunt. In another city. I’m chasing phantoms,’ he said sadly.

‘Never mind. Perhaps we can do some psychical research and nail them down to a place and time.’

‘And a reason for haunting. I’m almost at the stage when I’m ready to try it. I might ask Meroe. She’s probably on first-name terms with every spook in the city.’

‘She’s been here already, with premonitions of doom,’ I told him. I related the gist of Meroe’s tarot reading.

‘And what did you reply?’ he asked, smiling at last. Ah, the healing influence of food.

‘That I’d think about it.’

‘And?’

‘I’ve thought about it and I’m not going to do it. I can’t see a way of smuggling myself onto the set and, in any case, what could I do about the danger? She was very unspecific about the threat. It could be anything.’

‘Threats are usually people,’ he pointed out.

‘Even so,’ I said firmly. I wasn’t going to burden the girls with my presence. They didn’t need a bodyguard. And on the off-chance that they did, I wasn’t one. The only thing I am good at subduing is yeast. That takes all my energies. Having made my stand, I kissed a freshly shaven cheek. Mmm. Salty goodness, as Xander would say. ‘I can think of a way to take our minds off our problems,’ I hinted.

‘Oh, I do so need distraction,’ he said, and kissed me in turn.

It was an afternoon full of kisses. If we are talking about deserts, I do not deserve Daniel.

Answering the phone. Never a good idea. It is sure to be 1) a Mumbai call centre selling free mobile phones; 2) some lunatic doing a survey; or 3) someone who wants something. Usually money.

I unwisely picked up the phone while I was preparing dinner. This had the effect of ruining my temper and getting onion juice on the handset, both bad things. On the line was my school acquaintance Tommy. She was in a state. The voice was as tense as a cat trespassing in the yard of a big fierce Rottweiler.

‘Corinna? Is that you?’

I suppressed the retort that I was the only one likely to be answering my phone at this number and told her that I was, indeed, Corinna.

‘I need a favour,’ she quavered.

‘I thought you might,’ I agreed.

‘I need you to come in with the bread tomorrow. Just for a few days. My pastry chef has broken a leg. Why the silly bitch wanted to go rollerblading at her age I’ll never know.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘You owe me!’ The cat had now sighted the Rottweiler and it was off its chain.

‘How?’ I asked, reasonably.

‘At school. I never told who tripped Susie into that mud puddle when she was wearing her new white pleated skirt. Not even under torture! I knew it was you! I saw you!’

‘Oh,’ I said. One of the few warming memories I had of my school days was the memory of watching Susie, in her new skirt, tumble into the puddle. And I had, actually, tripped her. I hadn’t thought anyone had been a witness to my crime and I felt a pang of not-unpleasurable guilt. Susie had been one of my chief tormentors. She had had that mud puddle coming. ‘Right.’

‘So you’ll come?’ The cat was within a pace of the fence.

I felt what Meroe calls the tides of fate turning. I succumbed gracefully. As gracefully as possible.

‘You’ll have to pay me,’ I said.

‘Full wages,’ she said. The cat was on top of the fence, out of range of the teeth. ‘As well as the fee for the bread. Just hop a lift with the carrier. It’s only Docklands. Not far.’

I put down the phone. Damn, damn, damn. I went back to chopping onions, grumbling.

‘It might be interesting,’ Daniel offered, tasting my tomato sauce with capers and anchovies and approving.

‘It’s only for a few days,’ I conceded. ‘And I might be able to keep an eye on the girls. As Meroe asked. It is always wise to accede to the requests of a powerful witch. Do you think this needs more salt?’

‘A touch more,’ said Daniel, and there we left the matter.

It was a very good sauce, anyway.

After its consumption Daniel went out to pursue his lost papers and I watched Dollhouse series 2, about which I am still ambivalent, before putting myself and Horatio to bed for an early start. I had prepared my bag: good apron, spare socks in case the freezer failed and I got soaked (this had happened before), one good knife and my favourite Venetian-glass rolling pin. If I was going to make pastry, it would be good pastry.

I fell asleep full of forebodings. I didn’t like being manipulated, even by fate. Manipulated to what end?

Presumably fate knew . . .

But there was bread to bake the next morning, so I baked it. The Mouse Police performed their morning rituals—display hunting trophies, eat breakfast, scamper off for tuna scraps—and curled up to snooze the day away on their flour sacks. I took in an order of flour, made muffins, drank coffee, sifted sugar over my not-as-good-as-Jason’s muffins (strawberry) and awaited the carrier. I hadn’t worked in a kitchen for years, not since I started Earthly Delights and abandoned paid employment.

Commercial kitchens are fraught places. Ordinary kitchens can get intense, especially when two people are trying to do things and they get in each other’s way. Domestic murders happen in kitchens, where there are a suitable array of objects both sharp and blunt with which to commit them. I had worked in places which were more like war zones than places of culinary refinement. I was, therefore, a little anxious when I hopped, as instructed, into the anonymous white van for the short trip to Docklands.

All drivers of anonymous white vans have a hidden flaw. In some it is that they channel Ayrton Senna and one arrives at a destination—if one arrives—feeling like one has fallen from space without a parachute. Some smoke like chimneys. Some avoid washing and laundry, presumably for the mortification of the flesh. It is as though they know they are multifold, and need to stand out from the pack.

This one whistled. Quite tunefully, I admit, though it was getting on my nerves by the time we arrived. ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ has never been my favourite song. Strange selection for a young man, who must have got his driver’s licence a scant six months ago. By mail.

Docklands is huge. We trolled along the avenue of palm trees to a large building, painted in a cheerful grey colour. It looked like a wartime Nissen hut. There were probably reasons for this. Over the front door was emblazoned harbour studios with a logo which vaguely resembled a boat with sails, or possibly a seagull after collision with a helicopter. We zoomed around to the back entrance, where the kitchen was, and found ourselves in a grimy paved car park spotted with a few discouraged trees (palms) and a huge stain where someone had spilled something like red wine. Or blood, of course. My driver chuckled.

‘Beef burgundy, and didn’t she go mad!’ he explained.

I expect she did. Beef burgundy takes ages to make and the ingredients are expensive. That must have been enough beef stew to feed a whole crew—utterly wasted. I felt sad.

The driver waved me towards a kitchen door—you can tell by the smell, the rubbish bins, and the butts of those slipping out for a smoke between courses. Because smoking is disapproved of, no one provides receptacles for the butts. I suppose there is logic in there somewhere. But it makes all places of tobacco resort insanitary.

The kitchen was large, full of people, steamy from various pots and noisy. As expected. Tommy sighted me and dived through the ruck.

‘There you are!’ she exclaimed, as though I had kept her waiting. ‘Pies today, pies, fillings are over there, staff toilets and lockers over there, coffee over there.’ As she was brandishing a large knife, I did not protest at my welcome. I stashed my basket, washed my hands, put on my apron and took possession of my pastry corner.

You need a light hand—and a light heart, so the saying goes—to make pastry. Mine was all right. The secret is to keep all the ingredients cold. Pastry was invented in cold countries where you could only get things warm by sticking them in an oven. You could keep things cold by merely leaving them on the bench, or, as in the old days in Wales, making your Welshcakes with snow. This may have led to excellent scones but it also led to incurable chilblains. I preferred the Australian climate and reliable refrigeration. I checked my list, which was posted next to the working surface. Ingredients. I found flour, salt and butter, granulated and powdered sugar, milk and a row of large plastic containers marked Chicken pie, Apple puree, Beef pie and Berry pie. There were also a goodly array of tins and a commodious oven.

So I made pastry. The list demanded ten of each pie. I made Grandma’s shortcrust for the sweet pies and my own buttery puff for the savoury and soon I had a collection of lumps of dough chilling down for rolling. Then I had time to draw breath.

The kitchen smelt gorgeous. There seemed to be a table laid out against the far wall and I wandered over to it, hoping for a cup of coffee at least. I found that it was the Salon des Refusés of any kitchen: stuff which hadn’t quite worked which the staff were enjoined, sometimes at gunpoint, to eat. Instead of food which might be profitably sold to the starving public, of course. There were wrapped rolls and sandwiches and muffins—mine—a pot of something which smelt like minestrone and a tray of hors d’ouevres. I wasn’t really hungry, but I could certainly pick a bit after all that kneading.

Two people were already standing at the table; a young man and a young woman. By the tattoos and piercings I guessed they weren’t actors. They both smiled at me and moved aside.

‘Go ahead,’ one invited. ‘It’ll only go to the poor if we don’t eat it. I haven’t seen you before. You the new pastry Nazi?’

‘That’s me,’ I agreed. ‘Corinna Chapman. I’m actually a baker, but don’t tell anyone.’

‘Promise,’ said the young woman. Her hair, I couldn’t help noticing, was tortured into a thousand dreadlocks. I wondered if they hurt. I wondered how she slept in them. ‘I’m Gordon and this is Kendall. We’re the writers. Try the little pastry boats. Poor old Em made them just before she went off on those rollerblades and fell.’

I bit into a petit bateau. Flaky pastry, creamy asparagus filling. Poor old Em was a good pastry chef. I hoped she would be back very soon.

‘Writers? Isn’t the program already written?’ I asked, trying a little pie which proved to be filled with chicken and sweet corn.

‘TV doesn’t work like that,’ Kendall said. Tattoos, dreadlocks, piercings, to match his co-writer. He had a strange, rasping voice. Had he been yelling a lot lately? ‘TV gets written then rewritten. Especially with Madame Superbitch Molly Atkins dictating terms,’ he added, gloomily crunching up a piece of cucumber as though he personally disliked it.

‘And then rewritten,’ agreed Gordon. ‘Oops, here she comes. Remember, smile, and tell her it’s all low-fat.’

They decamped. A tall woman, clad in a fluffy pink velour gown and a turban, had stalked in through the other door and now stood next to me. She loomed.

‘Isn’t breakfast ready yet?’ she demanded. Lovely voice. Beautiful face. Eyes like chips of sapphire, lips like rose petals. Pity about the manner. It would have been considered impolite in one of the Old Regime in Russia who was dealing with a serf.

‘Just coming,’ sang Tommy, appearing at my elbow. ‘Go through and we will be serving directly. And you, Corinna, aren’t those egg and bacon pies ready?’

‘You didn’t ask me for any,’ I responded.

‘Special order, little egg and bacon pies for our star, Ms Atkins.’

‘Low-fat,’ snarled the star, departing as requested in a flurry of baby pink. I waited until the door slammed.

‘Look, Tommy, you didn’t order them, and I haven’t made them,’ I said firmly.

‘I know, I know.’ Her face crumpled. ‘But make me some? Say six? She didn’t demand them until five and I didn’t have time. Besides, I can’t make pastry. Please? She’ll be bearable if she isn’t hungry.’

‘You’re pushing this friendship further than it will go,’ I warned, but went off, securing myself a cup of coffee, to find the eggs and make more pastry. After all, I was there to make pastry.

As I rolled and crimped I was conscious of curious glances from the room. The sandwich hands had completed their mound of wrapped comestibles and were starting their clean-up, which for some reason always involves retrieving tomato slices from the floor.

Everyone in a kitchen looks superficially alike: white cap, white coat. I stashed the egg and bacon pies in the oven. They ought to be delicious: free-range eggs and the best prosciutto. But definitely not low-fat, not with all that parma ham. As I started on the beef pies I considered my company.

Not a friendly kitchen. No one had greeted me or offered to show me where the coffee was. Efficient? There was no shouting, no clanging of dropped or thrown pots. Everyone seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing, and to be doing it. Sandwiches were made, eggs were being fried, bacon crisped, tomatoes grilled, mushrooms seethed. Apparently we offered a full English breakfast, which was ambitious. My bread was being sliced and yesterday’s was being toasted. Someone was making a ratatouille; I could smell the eggplant cooking. The vegetarian option, no doubt. I missed one scent: garlic. Ratatouille needs garlic. Beef pies in the oven, I said as much to the chopper-and-slicer on the next bench, a tall thin pale cook who resembled a stick of celery. He giggled.

‘Not in this kitchen,’ he told me. ‘Hi! I’m Lance. They call me Lance the Lettuce Guy. We’re feeding actors. They spend all day breathing into each other’s faces. No garlic and precious few onions.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ I confessed. ‘Could certainly take the passion out of a love scene.’

‘Especially if it’s Ms Atkins,’ he whispered, using a piece of cucumber as cover. ‘She threw a pink fit one day because that poor camera guy was eating mints. She hates the smell of mint. Or so she says.’

‘She’s powerful?’

‘It’s all a merry round of “Who’s Queen?”. What she wants, she gets. She’s on a fearsome diet and demands low-fat everything but if it’s really low-fat she flings it away and says it has no taste. I’m glad I’m on salads. If she puts on a gram it’ll all be your fault, you watch.’

I began to wonder what I had got myself into. I could be sitting on my balcony right now, caressing a cat and drinking a G and T. Of course, I could do that when I had all the pies done.

So I got on with the pies.