Heavenly Pleasures (16 page)

Nails was brought in and a guard sat him down near the wall, where he could see anything that went on. I did not speak to him. He didn’t speak either, except to say, ‘Dude,’ to Daniel.

Sister Mary took a deep breath and so did I.

We heard the hissing before he came into sight. Well, well, Darren the God Boy had removed most of his clothes and was now patterned everywhere he could reach with the half-moons of his own fingernails. They looked disturbingly like scales. He slithered as though he had no bones, sliding along the floor. The guards, thoroughly unnerved, lifted him into a chair where he slumped, hissing occasionally and flicking out his tongue. Sister Mary made the sign of the cross.

The effect was instant. Darren reared up like a cobra about to strike. From somewhere inside him came a voice, a treacly voice, most unlike his own.

‘Who comes here?’

‘One who is not afraid of you,’ said Sister Mary, and I believed her.

‘I have taken this man for my own,’ said the thick voice. ‘Because he is worthy.’

‘You’ve got to do something about your hiring protocols,’ I said, and the strange eyes turned to me. He moved his whole body to turn his head, as though he really was a snake. I splashed him with the contents of my bottle of water, which had been marked ‘spring water’. He laughed.

Sister Mary began to pray. ‘Veni Creator Spiritus,’ she said, and Darren writhed and struggled, until the guards brought leg irons and handcuffs and secured him to his chair. She sprinkled him with water from her bottle, marked ‘holy water’, and he twisted and writhed. I dropped the silver cross over his head and he screamed until I took it away. I palmed it and replaced it with the Aquarius symbol. He screamed again.

Then it was my turn. ‘Gallia in tres partes divisa est,’ I said. Darren shrieked and the voice begged for mercy. ‘Arma virumque cano,’ I added. Darren executed a spectacular writhe and screamed, ‘No! No!’

‘Si vis pace bellum para. Caveat emptor,’ I finished, and first Daniel and then Sister Mary began to laugh. She laughed so hard that she had to sit down. Then she reached for the holy water bottle and took a gulp. Halloran looked shocked. Nails, who was not stupid, looked as though enlightenment was about to dawn on him.

‘Give it up, mate,’ Daniel advised Darren. ‘You are so entirely sprung that I doubt anyone in the world has ever been that sprung before. The first water that Corinna splashed on you. That was real holy water. Got that? The stuff in the water bottle was genuine holy water and you laughed it off. The stuff in the holy water bottle was spring water, and I could do with a swig too, Sister.’

‘The words?’ asked Nails alertly.

‘Sister Mary was praying,’ I said. ‘I was saying that Gaul was divided into three parts, that of arms and the man I sing, that if you want peace prepare for war, and that the buyer should beware. So unless someone has elevated Julius Caesar, Virgil and the anonymous writer of Latin maxims to sainthood, he is faking. And we have proved it,’ I said, looking into Nails’ cynical eyes under the perforated eyebrows. ‘He reacted identically to the cross and the Zodiac sign.We’ve got him, haven’t we?’

Nails stood up. He did not speak to me but to Daniel. ‘Dude,’ he said. ‘You got a real bright old lady. And a nun on your side. Remind me not to give you any shit.’

‘I’ll remind you,’ said Daniel.

We hadn’t been looking at Darren. We turned at a thud as he fell to the floor.

‘Oh no, not again,’ exclaimed Sister Mary. ‘Darren, don’t you learn?’

‘That looks genuine,’ observed Daniel, as the chained body jerked and whimpered. ‘Yes, foam coming from his mouth. Get something to put between his teeth. And call the police surgeon. It looks to me like Darren is having a real fit at last.’

‘God have mercy on him,’ said Sister Mary. And meant it.

They carried Darren out. ‘Are you convinced now, Halloran?’ Sister Mary demanded of the guard.

‘Oh yes, Sister, God love you, I’m convinced. You’ve been on TV, did you know?’ he told us. ‘Closed circuit. Whole prison’s been watching. The heat’ll go out of this now. Thank you,’ he said.

Sister Mary offered us a lift home in her ecumenical machine, but for some reason we preferred to walk.

‘Sooner or later even the Holy Spirit will desert that heap of rust,’ I said, fitting myself under Daniel’s arm.

‘And then there will be a little sighing noise and nothing left but a pile of red dust,’ he replied. ‘Nails is right.’

‘In what?’

‘I have got a very bright old lady,’ he said, and kissed me, in Spencer Street, in full daylight. And I kissed him back.

C
_HA
PTER THIRTEEN

I went back to Earthly Delights. Daniel went to lurk in Heavenly Pleasures and check out the customers. Trading was good but we ran out of bread early.

‘See?’ said Jason. ‘You need me.’

‘I know that,’ I told him. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Buzzed,’ he said frankly. ‘I’m going home for some sleep once I’ve cleaned up. I never slept in a skip before, not even when things were real bad.’

‘Nothing to recommend it?’ I asked as lightly as I could.

‘Nah. Cosy, though. But there were rats.’

He showed me a wound on his hand where he had been nibbled. TS Eliot rose into my disgusted mind. ‘I thought I was in rat’s alley, where the dead men left their bones.’ I was suddenly so angry with the Twins that I could have killed them. Jason backed away a pace.

‘I’m going to call Letty White and you will tell her all about it,’ I said. ‘I know you don’t like cops but if Chas hadn’t found you, Jason, what would have happened next? You know that market well.’

182

‘They would have emptied the skips,’ he said, going pale. ‘Into them trucks which crunch the rubbish to mush.’

‘Quite,’ I said, and left him to drink coffee while I called Senior Constable White. I had words I wanted to say to her. She knew that we were in all likelihood harbouring someone in our building whom lots of people—people with serious money—would like to remove. Permanently. Before he could, as it happened, testify? Janet Warren had told me about a top accountant who had been abruptly fired and made to turn in his laptop. What if he had taken all the company records with him on floppy disks? If our recluse was this accountant, then Letty was deliberately exposing us to danger. Why wasn’t he in a proper witness protection program, hiding in Shepparton under a false beard?

She came, listened carefully to what Jason had to say, and made copious notes. I shut the shop and sent Kylie and Jason to do the banking. When the door was closed and the shutters down, I opened the drawer and gave Lepidoptera the plastic bag with the foil in it.

‘That was in Jason’s pocket,’ I told her. ‘No reason to think that he put it there. Now, Senior Constable White, I’ve heard an interesting story from my friend who is an accountant and I’d like your opinion of it. Shall we go up to my apartment?’

‘Here’s good,’ she said, leaning on a mixing tub. ‘Tell me.’

I told her everything Janet Warren had told me. At the end of it I said, ‘And I’ve just denatured Darren the God boy.’

‘I heard. Good work,’ she approved.

‘He’s sick, so Daniel couldn’t talk to him. But I don’t believe he had a lot to do with what’s been happening here. Someone has been trying to find something, if not someone. The bomb threat got us all out on the street in our jammies with everything we hold most dear. The Prof took his Aristophanes translation, his life’s work. Kylie and Goss took their make-up. Cherie Holliday took her father and her Pumpkin bear. I would have taken my Grandma’s bluebird brooch and my photos if I’d had the time. And my pasta douro yeast. Are you seeing a pattern here?’

‘Go on,’ she said evenly.

‘Our Mr Recluse was found in the alley after the bomb threat, all beaten up and robbed,’ I said. ‘Someone searched him rather roughly for something they meant to find. And I don’t believe they found it, did they?’

‘Maybe,’ she murmured. ‘Go on, Ms Chapman.’

‘I think that they are still looking,’ I said through my teeth, ‘because my apprentice was assaulted, forcibly injected with heroin, and bled of everything he knew about this building and the people in it. Then they threw him in a skip as though he was garbage. So now these two gentlemen know all that Jason knows, and Mr White is still here and still a threat, and what are you going to do about it? Is he the accountant who was sacked from Megatherium? Did he take something away with him—proof of fraud, perhaps? And if so why isn’t it in a safe in that ugly police building? What are you doing about protecting us?’

‘I can’t answer any questions,’ said Letty White. ‘Except that you are not alone. You are never alone. You might not see your protectors, but they are there. Jason was out by himself. We are keeping an eye on him now. He’s safe enough.’

‘That isn’t an acceptable answer,’ I seethed.

‘I know,’ she said sadly. ‘But it’s the only answer I can give you.’

‘I just had a horrible thought about why the proof isn’t in a safe in St Kilda Road,’ I told her

She looked at me. I thought I saw a faint nod of the head, but it could have been a trick of the light. Then she gave me a half-salute and was gone through the bakery into the shop.

I kicked the mixing tub hard enough to hurt my foot. Anyone who thinks of the terrible buying power of illegal drugs doesn’t usually consider how much more money might be in corporate crime. One gigantic shipment of heroin might coin a million or so in a very hazardous operation with a good chance of total loss. Bleeding a corporate account might return you a million every day until you are caught. Vast, impossible sums of money change hands, all electronic and therefore somehow unreal, every trading day, through company transfers, currency futures, and the stock exchange. And Mr White’s proof, what
ever it was, floppy disks perhaps, was still here because that vast buying power could also buy—a police officer? That was a nasty thought. No wonder Lepidoptera looked pained. The same would apply, of course, to bribing a bank officer who cared for a safety deposit. And this state of affairs had almost got my Jason killed. It was the skip which made me most angry. They had thrown him away as though he was rubbish.

Jason came back into the shop, ran water into his bucket, and started the cleaning. This was therapeutic and I joined him. We scrubbed vengefully. When he was mopping his way out I heard him singing a little song. I had heard it before. He had made it up himself. Jason’s song had caught my attention because of the last line. It had a sort of boppy tune.

‘I travel along,’ sang Jason. ‘Singing my song. You may say it’s wrong …’ There was a pause as he emptied the bucket down the drain.

‘Bugger yer,’ he concluded. And laughed. Then he gathered up his clean clothes, gave me a casual wave, and went back to his hostel to get some sleep.

I had to tell someone about Mr Recluse, and Daniel was my best bet. Meroe had tried to understand the share market once and it had given her a headache. But I could go and tell her about Darren, so I went to do that.

Meroe had been delighted by the disenchantment of Darren, though she was most pleased, I think, by the fact that I had actually read all that witchcraft history which she had given me.

‘If I could find a picture of Sir John Holt I’d put it on the wall,’ she said. ‘That was well done, Corinna. The last thing a place like a prison needs is a witchcraft panic. Now, Bella,’ she said to her black cat, ‘you take care of the shop for me.’

She put the black cat down on her chair and Belladonna curled up into a black cushion. Meroe began to unpack several boxes which occupied the space behind the curtain.

‘I’ve found out something about our recluse,’ I said. She put her finger to her lips, turning away from the door. Then she laid a hand on my arm and conducted me out into the street.

‘Walls, as the Professor would say, have ears. What have you found out?’

‘That he might be a sacked accountant.’ I told her the whole story as Janet had told it to me. Meroe shook her head.

‘That man has shutters behind his eyes. That could be it. He is certainly afraid. I shall enquire of the spirits. Nothing to be done right now, Corinna, but beware of speech. Speech is silver. Silence is golden,’ she said.

Hungarians. They do have a streak of paranoia. I took my leave very quietly and went to Heavenly Pleasures. The shop was busy. Juliette whispered that she had removed all the boxes and refilled them, so that no nasty surprises should be expected. I didn’t tell her that this would not make a shred of difference if her stock was contaminated. I went through to find Daniel sitting behind a screen with a notepad on his knee, recording the customers. Behind him moulds banged on the metal table with unnecessary force. Vivienne didn’t like having people in her kitchen, even gorgeous dark handsome men like Daniel. She was relieving her feelings by scolding George, who, today, could not do a thing right.

‘George! That is a milk mixture!’ she yelled. ‘George! Get the pralines off the heat! George, you clumsy idiot, clean that up at once!’

Mutinously George got the mop and bucket to clean up the toffee he had spilled when Vivienne had shrieked close to his ear. Was he really confident of being able to marry this woman? And who would want to, when she was prone to moods like this one? I moved gently away from anything she might throw and leaned on the wall behind Daniel.

‘Darling,’ called a rich, deep voice from the shop. ‘Vivi, you aren’t going to come and throw something at your old uncle for old time’s sake?’

I peeked out and saw an elderly gentleman in a coat with an astrakhan collar, smiling fondly at Juliette. She was dimpling. Vivienne came out of the kitchen and threw herself into his embrace. He patted her back with his beautiful, elegant hands.

‘Darling, you’re having a bad time,’ he said consolingly. He had the most chocolatey voice I had ever heard and eyes that twinkled with benevolence, like Father Christmas. ‘Come along. Let Uncle take you out to lunch, Vivi. You let your apprentice alone. He’ll be all right if you stop screaming at him. Come along, get your coat, it’s cold out there,’ he said, and got his way.

Vivienne collected her coat and allowed him to lead her out into the street. Behind me I heard George say something fervent in Greek. Daniel chuckled.

‘No, she isn’t, and that’s not a nice thing to say about a lady,’ he said. ‘Especially your employer.’ I heard George swear. He obviously didn’t know that Daniel spoke Greek. ‘That was the magic man?’ Daniel continued.

‘Yes, Uncle Max,’ said Juliette. ‘He comes in and takes one of us to lunch sometimes. We can’t both go, of course. He’s our only relative and I don’t know what we’d do without him when Viv gets into one of her moods. George, can you manage with what work you’ve got?’

‘Yes,’ said George, who had clearly decided that silence was indeed golden, and went back to filling moulds with pineapple cream. Daniel stretched a hand back to pat the only bit of me he could reach, which was my hip. I wriggled.

‘I’m going to be here all day,’ he said. ‘Have you something else you want to do?’

‘Am I putting you off?’ I asked.

He said, ‘I don’t like people standing behind me,’ and of course, an ex-soldier wouldn’t. I did have something to do, as it happened.

‘I’ll be back in Insula,’ I said. ‘Dine with me?’

‘Delighted,’ said Daniel and I went out, taking and paying for a small box of chocolates on the way. I needed to talk to Cherie Holliday, because she probably knew where Selima was, and it was time we got this sorted out. If Selima didn’t want to talk to Daniel, perhaps she would talk to me.

Cherie Holliday lives with her father in Daphne, number 4A, opposite Mrs Dawson in Minerva, 4B. I could hear Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Ruddigore’ from 4B and something raucous and heavily accented from 4A. I rang. Cherie answered. She was wearing an apron and was more than a little floury.

‘Oh, Corinna, good, come in and help me. I’ve done something wrong with this dough,’ she exclaimed.

The upper apartments have bigger kitchens than mine and this one had seen some hard service since Holliday went off the booze and started cooking again. When he moved in, his fridge had contained nothing but frozen dinners and bottles of Stoli. Now the kitchen had ropes of hanging garlic and chilis, a lot more pots, and that scent of dishes having been made and dishes in prospect which every working kitchen gets. Cherie clicked the CD player off with her one clean finger.

She was attempting to make bread, and it wasn’t going well. The dough slumped, grey and depressed, at the bottom of the bowl. I poked it. It wasn’t absolutely chilled so it might be salvaged.

‘I wanted to make coffee scrolls because Dad likes them,’ she said. ‘But it isn’t rising.’

‘Yeast is a plant,’ I said, falling back into my instructor’s manner. ‘It needs heat to grow, just like a sprout or a blade of grass. This environment is too cold, so it’s sulking. Have you got an electric blanket on your bed? Go and turn it on full.’

Cherie came back. ‘You’re going to put dough in my bed?’

‘Not like it is,’ I explained. ‘Got a big new plastic bag? Good. Now, shove the whole thing, bowl and all, into that bag, Leave it some room to breathe, and then put it into your bed. Give it ten minutes and we shall see. Got the icing sugar and the coffee? If that dough is cactus, we can make another lot. Why don’t we tidy the kitchen a bit while we wait?’ I asked, picking up a dish cloth. There was flour on every conceivable surface.

‘I dropped the box,’ Cherie told me. ‘It spreads a lot.’

‘Believe me, I know,’ I said. ‘Lucifer tore open ten kilos of the stuff and I thought we’d never get him clean, or the bakery either. How is Calico?’

‘She stays in the parlour while I’m cooking,’ said Cherie.

I had always thought Calico to be a sensible cat. ‘She doesn’t

even seem to miss her kittens,’ said Cherie.

‘Cats are very sanguine,’ I said, wiping flour off the stove.

‘What does that mean?’

‘Optimistic,’ I said. ‘Expecting the best.’

‘But what can have happened to Soot?’ asked Cherie, clutching her dustpan to her bosom. She had more bosom than Kylie and the gesture was very affecting.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Sometimes you never know the end of the story.’

‘Yes,’ she said sadly. Determined, abused, dark-haired Cherie had run away from a father who did not believe her to find herself a new name, a job and a place to live. She knew all about what can happen to stray creatures in the city. Her eyes clouded over for a moment. ‘So she could be dead.’

‘We didn’t find a body,’ I reminded her.