Earthly Delights by Kerry Greenwood Page A

Political consciousness was not their main skill. Taz had once told me that the city was a lot cleaner these days and it was all down to that good bloke, our premier Jeff Kennett. I hadn’t the heart to disabuse him of this notion. But Taz, Rat and Gully were quiet, didn’t have noisy parties and ran their business well enough to pay their rates, so I had no objection to them. They might have done the graffiti. Their names sounded like tags to me. But I couldn’t imagine them either knowing what the whore of Babylon was or having the nerve to paint it across Mistress Dread’s shop and thus risk incurring her wrath. Wrath which would also descend on me if I didn’t come up with some information on that letter, of course.
    We were interrupted by a rush of customers. The herb rolls danced off the trays. I grabbed one to save for my own lunch and another for Meroe. Once you get used to the concept of a thing which looks like a coffee scroll but tastes like essence of green, you’ll find one isn’t enough. You’ll want to eat another. A satisfactory amount of olive bread was passing out of my hands as well. It isn’t the money … well, it isn’t just the money. I like to see people eating my bread. The rush died down. Everyone who was going to work had got there. Now there would be a lull until morning tea.
    I slipped out to give Meroe her herb roll before I got tempted to eat it myself. She is a vegetarian, of course. Which doesn’t mean she isn’t picky about her food. As I squeezed into the Sibyl’s Cave I saw that this was not going to be a cheery morning with tea. Dressed entirely in deepest black, Meroe was concocting something in a mortar and pestle and muttering under her breath. Every time she pounded the pestle down she gave a small, terrible smile.
    I had been given the lecture about the threefold return and had taken it with a pinch of salt. The theory was that a witch had to be careful what she did, magically, because she would get it back threefold. This meant, effectively, that she couldn’t curse anyone, because the curse would rebound upon her at triple strength, like those washing powders advertised on TV. I hadn’t quite believed it at the time—no one could be that virtuous—and now I didn’t believe it at all. I put the paper bag down on the counter and fled.
    I wondered who she was cursing, for she was certainly cursing someone. I hoped that it was the graffitist and not the cop. Lepidoptera was only doing her job. Someone had told me that the Witchcraft Act had been repealed. I hoped it was true.
    After that, serving in the shop had a certain charm—there was little chance of being turned into a cockroach and stepped on. We kept selling and Kylie kept gossiping. I hadn’t heard the half of it.
    Mrs Pemberthy had complained about me and Horatio to the council, the residents’ committee and the police. The council were used to her and said that they would investigate. The police were unlikely to bother. The residents’ committee might be a problem. Mrs Pemberthy and her husband were both on it, and so was Joe Pandamus, who didn’t like cats though he got on all right with me. But so was the Professor,who did like cats, and Taz. I didn’t know how he had ended up on the committee and quite possibly neither did he, but he might be a valuable ally. Not going to have surfaced yet, though.
    Kylie continued, telling me that Jon the exec was back and she was going to ambush him tonight. I wished her luck. She was worried about what to wear. I said that her pink dress was ravishing. She was about to go into a major sulk—Kylie can fling a sulk the length of the whole room—when she brightened.
    ‘You like the pink dress?’
    ‘It’s terrific.’
    ‘Is it hot?’ she demanded, her blue eyes pleading.
    ‘Boiling hot.’
    ‘Good,’ she said. ‘He’s about the same age as you, so if you think it’s hot so will he, don’t you think?’
    ‘Most likely.’ The pink dress had a skirt