Trick or Treat Part 18

'All of us,' said the Professor. 'We needed a treat and Jason, Kylie and Gossamer have amply provided it. Have some of this quiche Lorraine, it's first rate.'

'Thank you,' said Daniel, and picked up the nearest fork.

There were some leftovers, though not many, when the cooks brought in dessert. It was an apple pie of ma.s.sive proportions, to be eaten with cream. Jason had also made a variety of little biscotti to have with coffee. I was eating very well since my ruin. I wasn't going to think about that. I was determined to stay in Insula. I would just have to get a job, doing something other than baking. a.s.suming I didn't go to jail for murder...

The apple pie had an unusual flavour. Instead of the clove and cinnamon I was expecting, it tasted sweetly but unmistakably of...

'Roses?' I asked.

Kylie and Goss giggled. 'We had to steal a few when Trudi wasn't looking,' they confessed. 'Jason found this old recipe. The Romans-'

'Cooked apples and roses together,' said the Professor, delighted. 'It's in Apicius! I always wondered what that combination tasted like. Wonderful! I could come round to reconstructive archaeology if it tastes this good.'

'So, you steal my roses,' growled Trudi.

Jason flinched. 'Just a few,' he said. 'And it's a nice pie, isn't it?'

'You can steal them any time you like,' she said, patting him. 'Just not the tulips.'

'No one cooks with tulips,' Jason said, crossing his heart.

Dinner concluded in a general slackening of belts. Mrs Dawson had shown great forethought in wearing that loose dress. I was very impressed by the quality of the food and the fact that Kylie, Goss and Jason had managed to work together without major tantrums.

Therese and I rose to clear away while the cooks were toasted and regaled with wine and biscotti (vanilla c.o.ke, in Jason's case). We collected the leftovers into plastic containers and sc.r.a.ped plates and stacked them for the sink. When Insula was built, the dishwasher had not been invented. And I quite like was.h.i.+ng dishes. We had pooled our resources and bought a set of plain cheap crockery for the cellar so it did not greatly matter if a fumble-fingered servitor dropped a few.

We had stacked, rinsed and washed most of them as the party outside began to wind down and our fellow tenants came to collect their particular sc.r.a.ps. The Professor got the rest of the fish pie, though I suspected that Nox would be the major beneficiary of the filling. Mrs Dawson had apple pie, the Pandamuses the rest of the spanakopita, Meroe her vegetables and the Professor the pastie. I had almost half of a steak and kidney pie, which I was intending to devour cold. Cold steak and kidney pie is a wonderful thing. Jon and Kepler joined us to do the drying and putting away.

'So, how did you like the English cuisine?' I asked Kepler.

'Very interesting,' he said diplomatically. 'I liked that anchovy tart.'

'He still hasn't got over the revolting concept of sausages,' confided Jon affectionately.

'And steak and kidney,' added Kepler. 'But they did very well, very well indeed. You can see that it was a lot of work.'

'Must have taken most of yesterday and today,' I said. 'Look out for that carving knife, it's-'

'Sharp?' asked Kepler, closing his fist on the cut on his palm.

'Stick your hand under that tap, it's cold,' I said, pulling him to an empty sink.

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Meroe came in at this point and took over the first aid. She seemed subdued. She had eaten well but hardly spoken during dinner. She grabbed Kepler's wrist and soused the wound, then wiped it clean with a piece of kitchen paper. Then she gripped it hard between both of her own palms.

Kepler, who had been looking as though he wished he was somewhere else-Laos, perhaps, in a monsoon-said, 'Wah!' I had never heard him exclaim in Chinese unless he was actually speaking the language.

'Does it hurt?' asked Jon anxiously.

'Yes,' said Kepler. 'No.'

Meroe was pressing his hand hard enough, I would have thought, to flatten it like a paper doll. But there was no pain on Kepler's smooth, shapely face though he had paled to the colour of old ivory. His expression, in fact, bordered on astonishment.

'Meroe, what are you doing?' I finished the was.h.i.+ng-up, since there didn't seem to be any need for my help, and Jon automatically dried and stacked the last of the dishes. The others had gone. Daniel, me, Jon, Kepler, Therese and Meroe were alone together in the scullery. It smelt of wet stone and soap and seemed a strange place to find a miracle.

Because when Meroe released Kepler's hand, the cut was closed. Of course, the pressure might have done it, but I did not believe this for a moment. I am something of an expert on culinary injuries and that had been a deep cut across the soft part of the palm. Usually it would take a week to heal, and only then if you kept it out of water. And Sister Mary always said the thing about miracles is, they are miraculous. Inexplicable. And happen in ordinary places, like the kitchen of an apartment house. In front of at least one sceptical witness.

'Nice work,' commented Daniel.

'How did it feel?' asked Jon.

'Like being stung by insects,' said Kepler, flexing his hand. 'Thank you,' he said, and bowed deeply, hands to forehead. Meroe returned the bow.

'At least I can still do some things,' said Meroe, pleased. 'You have an interesting hand,' she said to Kepler. 'You have the line which says that you will fall in love with only one person in your life.'

'Already have,' replied Kepler. He collected Jon and they went upstairs.

'Well, that was a most agreeable evening,' said Therese, who seemed shaken. 'And I believe that I might have an early night.'

'And if you can spare a few minutes, Meroe?' I asked her. 'I want to talk about-'

'Barnabas,' she antic.i.p.ated. 'All right. I'll just go up to Leucothea for a while.'

'If you're too tired,' said Daniel gently, 'it can wait. I imagine that healing people is fairly exhausting.'

'Actually I am a little drained,' she admitted.

'Tomorrow will do fine,' I told her.

Then Daniel and I were alone in the scullery. It was still a very ordinary little chamber, with the salad bowls wiped clean and the scent of past and gone meals lingering on the still air.

'Well,' he said.

'Well,' I agreed.

We went up to Hebe, drank a little cognac, and went to bed.

At four in the morning I woke. The alarm hadn't gone off! I was late! Reason returned. Then I tried to go back to sleep and couldn't. My eyes kept springing open. What was worrying me? I got up properly and closed the bedroom door on the sleeping Daniel.

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The Mouse Police, who were used to being fed at this hour, welcomed me without their usual pile of deceased rodentia, but I fed them anyway, along with Horatio, who even abandoned his mohair rug for kitty dins. I made myself a cup of hot chocolate. No effect. I was just wondering whether to take a sleeping pill, which would mean that I would sleep half the day, when I realised what it was.

That flour. That sack of rye flour mix which had been conveyed to my bakery by mistake. It had smelt funny. And I had sent it back to Best Fresh and retrieved my own pure organic rye. I had sent it on, even though I knew that there was something wrong with it. How could Eddie, a gormless unskilled worker, distinguish between good flour and bad flour? That idiot who worked nights in Best Fresh could barely distinguish between his a.r.s.e and his elbow. The boss would have known, but it would have been in the mixer before he arrived. It was all my fault. That boy who thought he was a bird, that girl with the missing feet, they were all my fault. And I had even gloated that Best Fresh would have a ruined batch of bread. I had laughed. I couldn't stand the thought.

I couldn't sit here, either. I couldn't bear staying in the safe quiet with such emotions burning a hole in my mind and heart. I sneaked into my bedroom and found my clothes, shoved them on and crept out into the atrium and thence into the street. Where was I to go with a load of guilt on me like Mount Atlas? I wavered. Never a wise thing to do in the predawn hours in a big city.

Someone grabbed me by the arm. I turned on him so fast that he stumbled. I was in the mood to beat something to a pulp and a chance woman-groper would do just fine. I wouldn't even mind if he beat me to a pulp. I deserved it.

I nearly fell over, pulling my punch, and I did hit him a tidy clip over the ear. He didn't even wince. It was Jason.

'Corinna, I've remembered about that sack of rye flour,' he said. His eyes were pools of dread and horror. I knew just how he felt.

I sat down on the steps and pulled him down with me. 'I know,' I said. 'First thing today we tell the cops. But this isn't down to you, Jason. You just did as I said. You're my apprentice. It's my fault.'

'I thought it was funny,' he whispered.

'So did I.'

'But I could have argued with you. I could have dumped the stuff in the alley. It's my fault too,' he insisted.

We sat still, looking at the street. A small, bitter wind blew into my face. It was getting on for dawn. Jason s.h.i.+vered. He was only wearing jeans and a t-s.h.i.+rt. His feet were bare. He must have done as I did, dragged on some clothes and run out into the open as though he could flee his guilt. But guilt runs faster than any human ever could.

'No point in dividing the blame,' I said at length. 'Not much point in sitting here grieving, either. Can I come up to your flat? I don't want to wake Daniel.'

'Okay,' he agreed. We stood up. I brushed at the seat of my trousers, which were dusty.

Then someone groaned in Calico Alley.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

'No, I can't stand it,' said Jason wildly.

'Yes, you can.' I walked to the corner. A man was slumped near my back door. The police tape was gone, I noticed. I knelt down next to him, fending off Jason, who was pulling at my arm. The face turned to me.

It was Mr Vincent Wyatt from Best Fresh, and he was as drunk as several skunks. I was almost stifled by the wash of raw alcohol as he breathed out.

'p.i.s.sed,' said Jason with infinite relief.

'As a newt. Slip inside and get me a bottle of water and some paper towels, will you? After we haul him up onto the step.'

It took both of us. Mr Wyatt was in that boneless state of inebriation which means that a drunk can fall down an embankment, tumble across a couple of broken bottles and collide with a tree without bruising or cutting himself. We finally managed to gather all his limbs into a fireman's lift and sat him with his back against the Insula wall and his head inclined, rather fortuitously, over a handy gutter. Into which, 203.

joggled by our moving him, he began to throw up his last bottle of whisky.

A fairly disgusting ten minutes later, he was drinking water and throwing it up, which was an improvement. Ten minutes after that he was retaining water and wiping his face with the paper towels. There was no one about in our part of the city. Still too early for the office workers.

'You're killing yourself,' I told Mr Wyatt. 'If you want to kill yourself, go and do it somewhere else. And by some neater method.'

'Like jumping off the roof?' he sobbed. 'I poisoned that boy. It's all my fault. I did it. It was all my fault!'

'What?' asked Jason, taken aback.

'Gimme a drink,' he demanded. 'Do I know you?'

'Jason. I'm the apprentice at Corinna's bakery. This is Corinna,' he added, in case Mr Wyatt's alcoholic amnesia had progressed.

'Nice woman,' said Mr Wyatt owlishly. 'Don't deserve to be ruined. But me. I deserve it.'

'We both do. Now, where do you live, eh?' I asked.

Vincent Wyatt made a complex gesture with both arms which conveyed that he lived somewhere north of where he was presently sitting. Moving made him sick again. Jason lunged while Mr Wyatt was occupied and came back up with a wallet.

'They lose their sense of direction,' he explained to me. 'The really old blokes do, too. Now, he must have a driving licence or something.'

'I'm not even going to ask how you got so good at picking pockets,' I said, inspecting the wallet.

'I might have to go back to it,' said Jason. His eyes searched my face for signs of hope. 'If I get back on the gear.'

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'And why should you get back on the gear?' I demanded.

'It hurts,' said Jason simply. 'And junk makes it better.'

This was no time for a lecture. I gathered him into my arms and hugged him hard. Even if he didn't want to be hugged, I wanted to hug him. He didn't struggle.

'Junk makes it better for a little while,' I said. 'Then it makes it worse. You remember. We'll get through this, Jason. If we can't be bakers anymore we can be something else. I'm not going to lose you, you hear me?'

'You're a nice lady,' blurred Mr Wyatt.

'I hear,' said Jason into my shoulder. Wonder of wonders, he actually put his arms around me and hugged me back. Then he kissed me loudly on the cheek.

'You and me, eh, Corinna?' he said, almost smiling.

'You got it, Mids.h.i.+pman Jason.'

'Cap'n,' he said. He drew away from me, stood up and saluted. 'Orders, sir?'

'Let's find out where this poor sodden wreck lives and take him home. Then we can cook ourselves some breakfast. And him, too.'

'He's got one of the apartments in Cathedral Lane,' said Jason, holding a card up to the streetlight. 'Come on, mate, you can't stay out here all night. Cops'll be along any minute.'

He was right. The patrol pa.s.sed us as we rounded into Swanston Street. What we were doing was clear, however, especially as Mr Wyatt had started to cry again. They let us past without comment. Jason managed the outer lock and the lift. Luckily Vincent didn't have any contents in his stomach so there was no mess, and we got to the apartment in fair order. It was five thirty in the morning.

The flat was small and unbelievably messy, though not downright sordid, by which I mean there were no old condoms, pizza boxes or sour cartons of fulminating milk. There were clothes all over the floor and the bed had not been made. Jason lowered Mr Wyatt into a chair while I hastily rea.s.sembled his bed and then we put him into it.

'Place is a real mess,' said Jason. 'What say we clean it up for him?'