Part 22 (2/2)

'Both,' said the Professor severely. 'The addicts are probably first in time. Explain, young woman! Expound!' He waved a professorial finger and I began with Suze, Daniel, Jason, the bakery, the soup van and the Goths.

'Lestat was at the club two days on and one day off, when he went to visit his Alzheimer's mother in a nursing home,' I said. That accounted for the pattern. The different places of death depended on how far the junkie travelled before they took their hit. He gave them the full syringe. He didn't think it was odd that they died because he's insane and thinks his gift is death. But he was handing out full-strength heroin that Vic stole from the dealer's car. A terrible thing. Of course, if my friend Jason, who worked in the club, had been more forthcoming, we might have solved it earlier, but he makes superlative m.u.f.fins so we forgive him. Anyway, he told Daniel all about it as soon as he could.'

Jason blushed. Goss was sitting close to him, so I went further.

'And he prevented Lestat from escaping back into the club, which was very brave.'

Goss smiled at Jason. He took her hand. She scowled and s.n.a.t.c.hed it back. Oh, well. I had tried. I went on with my story.

'I did wonder where Lestat got the money to run those three big rooms, a crypt and a dungeon, when the entrance fees were so low. He had a nasty blackmail game going which ensured that once a person had been suckered into the inner chamber, he had a tape which would ensure that they helped him with the upkeep of his kingdom. Mistress Dread?'

She smoothed her beautifully coiffed short brown hair.

'Call me Pat when I'm out of uniform, dear,' she said. 'I never had anything to do with his rooms,' she said. 'But I thought there was something unpleasant going on there. But he was a vampire, what did the Goths expect? Vampires are not nice people.'

That was true. I went on.

'Mr P always intended to kill his wife, but he wanted it to look like the work of the phantom wall painter. So he sent the scarlet woman letters, made up on his own computer which his wife made him learn so he could do her bridge club minutes and email them to all the other crones.'

'I still feel sorry for him,' said Kylie.

'Feel sorry for his victim,' said Senior Constable White flatly. 'He could have gone away, divorced her, gone on the pension. He didn't need to kill her.'

'True. Though it is hard to feel sorry for Traddles, he gave me the clue. He tried to nip me and missed. Twice. And a nice fat leg within easy munching distance. Something was wrong with him. I knew the vet's name and I asked Ms White-Ms White, what is your first name? We must be on first name terms by now.'

'Laet.i.tia,' she said. 'Known as Letty.'

'I asked Letty to check with the vet if he was being poisoned. I knew Mrs P always gave the little mongrel t.i.tbits from her plate. Ergo, if he was bring poisoned, so was she, and then I thought, who would want to kill her?'

'Wide field,' said Professor Monk.

'Everyone here,' said Goss.

'Yes, but I mean really actually kill her definitely dead? And it had to be Mr P. Also, he was a lay preacher and the language was biblical. But it all went wrong for him. She was so scared that she was going to sell up and go, thus taking away what he was poisoning her to get.'

'So it worked,' said Meroe with deep, guilty satisfaction. 'But we didn't guess about him. He said he was happy as a slave. I suppose even happy slaves get fed-up eventually.'

'Yes,' I said. 'Now, give me a drink. That's all I know.'

The Professor obliged. It was very good champagne.

'Not to cast a blight on this gathering,' he commented, 'but this does mean that we get Mrs P-and Traddles-back, you know.'

'Oh, well,' said Andy Holliday. 'Maybe she'll be nicer. Weirder things have happened,' he said, glancing at his daughter.

'Letty, what's going to happen to Lestat and Mr Pemberthy?' asked Kylie.

'I don't know,' said Letty White. 'We've got Mr P absolutely. He confessed to you, confessed to me, confessed to the desk sergeant, confessed to Legal Aid. Clothes had red paint and metho, fingerprints on the wall near that air brick where he poured the metho in. Remains of the Buggy Death in the kitchen cupboard. They'll lock him up for life. Lestat? The forensic psych says he's sane enough to plead. We might not get him on the murders but he's got a great video library. It sort of argues against him being insane that he could keep such meticulous blackmail records. He might end up at the Governor's Pleasure in a loony-bin. Where, by the way, they'll take away those contact lenses that make his eyes black. Mental custody's much harder to get out of than a jail. And my sergeant,' she added with a rather nasty smile, 'will not leave me out of any new investigations, because, like your yeast, I always rise. Here's to crime!' she said, and we drank.

'To bread!' chorused Jason and Goss. We drank again. I felt obscurely worried. There should be three toasts and I could not think of another. Except possibly 'To s.e.x!', which might be considered uncool. But Daniel thought of something. One of the reasons why I love him is that he can always think of something.

'To life!' he said exultantly. 'L'chaim!'

We drank to life, and Horatio brought out his present. A thin calico cat trailed him from the undergrowth, followed by three fine kittens. Horatio sat down at my feet, licking an elegant paw and looking complacent.

Kylie and Goss pounced on them with cries of joy. They moderated these and soon were covered in kittens. The mother cat nestled into their laps. Between them they had just enough lap for one cat. Cherie immediately claimed the calico mother as her own as soon as we could find homes for her kittens. That shouldn't be too difficult. They were very cute.

'They can't be yours,' I said to Horatio. 'You are no longer that way inclined. How on earth did she get up here? And what has she been eating? Who fed her?'

'Him,' said Trudi, pointing to Horatio. 'I find rat tails. He bring rats every day.'

So that was where the Mouse Police's rats had been going. Horatio would not hunt for himself, of course, he might disarrange a whisker or chip a claw. He was just wandering down to the bakery, borrowing some of the Mouse Police's nightly haul, and then springing from balcony to balcony up the building to feed the mother cat. Whose kittens were certainly no offspring of his. Why had an unrelated ex-tom cat done this?

'These are mysteries,' said Meroe. And they were. The only mystery destined to be left unsolved. And that was a nice, gentle, quiet mystery. The only type that I have any intention of being involved in again. I thought of the dead boys, the furious hatred of the old man, the smooth calm of Lestat. Not nice. Not going to do that again. Memo to the universe re Corinna Chapman as an investigator: I quit.

RECIPES.

m.u.f.fINS The secret of m.u.f.fins is a hot oven, a well greased m.u.f.fin tin and speed. You want to have all the measured ingredients ready on the table, fling them together, give them a fast stir so that they blend, then glop them into the trays and into the oven before they get depressed and sink. There is nothing to be done with sunken m.u.f.fins except feed them to a pig or use them as mulch.

PLUM PUDDING m.u.f.fINS 2 cups plain flour 1/2 cup sugar 11/2 teaspoons baking powder 11/2 teaspoons bicarb of soda 1 cup chopped candied peel, sultanas, chopped dried fruit 1 teaspoon of cinnamon pinch of allspice 1 beaten egg 1 cup milk 275.

2 tablespoons melted b.u.t.ter tablespoon rum or brandy.

Heat the oven to 300C. Spray the m.u.f.fin tins with oil. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Mix the egg, milk, b.u.t.ter and alcohol together. Pour it all at once into the m.u.f.fin mix, stir it with a fork and put it into the prepared tins. Bake for about 15 minutes until they smell cooked but before they are burned on the bottom.

HERB SCROLLS Yeast is a living creature. If you heat it too hot, it dies. If you let it get too cold, it will die. If you want to capture some wild yeast, chop a handful of sultanas and leave them in a jar in warm water until they start to froth. That is the beginning of your mother of bread or starter. Don't do this unless you are prepared to feed it a cup of flour a day and otherwise to care for it like a mother. You can get the same results by adding a cup of rye flour and a cup of blood-heat water to a pint of real ale and leaving it in the sun until it starts to bubble. Water is blood heat when it feels neither cold nor warm in your mouth. Never put cold water in yeast or it will turn up its little pseudopodia and die on you.

If you just want to try the recipe, you'll need:.

12 g sachet of dried yeast 500 g of plain white flour 1 tablespoon sugar About 300 ml water (blood heat) 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup chopped fresh herbs Mix everything except the herbs together for awhile. If you have a mixer with a dough hook, use it until the dough has combined and starts to pull away from the sides. If you are using your hands, keep mixing until it does that. Flour is chancy. If it's too dry, add more blood-heat water. If it's too wet, add more flour. Flub it onto a floured board and knead until it feels elastic (this is one of those things you have to learn by doing, like s.e.x or swimming). Then pat it out into a flattish rectangle like an unrolled Swiss roll. Cover it with a damp cloth and leave it to rise (sticking the whole thing in a clean plastic bag and putting it into a warm bed works).

Preheat the oven to 180C. When the dough is all swollen, spread your herbs and a pinch of pepper on the up side, roll it up, and glue the seam together with water. Lay it on the bench and cut it into slices. Cook for about 10 minutes. Tastes gorgeous even if it's not exactly round or is a bit singed at the edges.

HAPPY BAKING!.

The Castlemaine Murders.

Kerry Greenwood.

Phryne Fisher is back-as smart and sa.s.sy as ever.

Phryne Fisher, her sister Beth and her faithful maid, Dot, decide that Luna Park is the place for an afternoon of fun and excitement with Phryne's two daughters, Ruth and Jane. But in the dusty dark Ghost Train, amidst the squeals of horror and delight, a mummified bullet-studded corpse falls to the ground in front of them. Phryne Fisher's pleasure trip has definitely become business.

Digging to the bottom of this longstanding mystery takes her to the country town of Castlemaine where it soon becomes obvious that someone is trying to muzzle her investigations. With unknown threatening a.s.sailants on her path, Phryne seems headed for more trouble than usual.

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