Forbidden Fruit (11 page)

‘Just some papers,’ said Goss. ‘They’re—a maths exam.’

‘Right. Out you go,’ Daniel told her, pushing her through the branches. ‘Go back to the market and buy yourself a present from us.’

Goss went without a backward look. I would have liked to join her.

‘What do we seek?’

‘Camping equipment, food bag, water bucket—all of those things are missing,’ he told me, peering into the maze of branches.

‘Stolen?’

‘Not usual if this was one of those assaults in company,’ he said. ‘They come upon some poor helpless person, beat them, spit on them, destroy anything they have and keep moving, the little bastards. There’s not enough blood to suggest anyone was seriously injured. I would guess that they struggled with the boy, saw the pregnant girl and took off. In the meantime, Bunny decided he had had it with a life of adventure and hopped off. Then they both packed up and left here. The phone was pressed right into the ground. Nothing else,’ he said, sifting the leaf mould through his fingers. It had a fine, earthy smell.

‘Nothing more,’ he said sadly. I strained what Meroe calls my intuition for some trace of the lovers, but all I felt was silly. So I gathered up my fine new skirts and went to find Goss in the market. She seemed to have recovered her aplomb. She had also
found a sequined T-shirt. Of course. I mobilised my credit card again. It was a rather pretty garment.

Timbo had returned by the time we made it out of the convent and into St Heliers Street. I had never heard of St Helier. Such a lot of saints in an unholy world. Who would have the heart to attack a harmless runaway and a pregnant girl? I asked Daniel this question, and he shrugged. As good an answer as any, I suppose.

Timbo giggled when asked how Jason was managing with Bunny. But he doesn’t like to talk with his mouth full and we had bought him a whole packet of the convent’s very good ginger biscuits, so we passed the journey home in a mist of spicy crumbs.

Arrived at Insula, Goss went up to her own apartment to have a shower and share her experience with Kylie. I went to mine for a wash, as well. I was hot and weary and disgusted, a nasty combination. But I felt better when I was clean, and my new clothes really were lovely. I swished when I moved.

‘That’s called a froufrou,’ remarked Daniel, sliding a hand under the skirt. And encountering my sensible Cottontails. This proved no barrier and I spontaneously decided to go and see Jason later, when he and Bunny would have had a chance to form a bond.

We barely made it to the bed. Air conditioning has done wonders for my love life.

Some time later we took a mutual shower and dressed to see Jason. My froufrou had gained a certain panache with practice. I had never worn long skirts in the daytime before. I liked them. Daniel departed to talk to the Lone Gunmen, our resident nerds, about retrieving all the messages from the SIM card of the ruined mobile phone. I ascended in the lift to the top floor, where Jason occupied an apartment which had been lent to Mrs Dawson by
the exceedingly rich owner. He had it on the understanding that he kept it neat and tidy, which he mostly did because one who has lived on the street appreciates a roof over their head. And has very few possessions.

Jason opened the door. He had an armful of rabbit. It was attempting to disembowel him with its strong clawed back feet. He was holding it very tightly.

‘Gimme,’ I said, taking Bunny and supporting him by his body. His feet fitted nicely into my hands. He stopped struggling instantly. I could feel his little heart racing against my sensitised breast.

‘What were you trying to do, Jason?’ I asked my apprentice.

‘Put the bloody ointment on his feet,’ said Jason sulkily. There had clearly been an imperfect fusion of souls between Jason and Bunny.

‘Two-person job,’ I told him. ‘Let me in.’

The apartment was, as usual, tidy. It had been augmented by a large, even luxurious bunny cage. It had a water bottle, a litter tray and a retiring room, and was heaped with hay. Jason had cut up a substantial salad for the rabbit, despite his scowl. I sat down with Bunny on my lap and stroked him on the forehead. His fur was as soft as down. His heart slowed down and he did not struggle as Jason applied the ointment to his sore feet. Then I fed him a handy bit of lettuce and put him back into his cage with the salad. He settled down to nibble. I did like the way his little brown nose whiffled. I could tell I wasn’t going to be able to eat rabbit again. Not that I had eaten it much anyway.

‘Apart from that, how has your day been?’ I asked, and Jason cracked and laughed. He ruffled his blond curls.

‘Not bad. I got a righteous serve from that thin chick for having a companion animal, when Timbo was carrying the cage inside. She was real loud until Rowan shut her down. What’s her problem?’

‘She’s a fierce animal-rights person.’

‘Then she ought to be glad that I’m not turning Bunny into a nice
ragoût de lapin
,’ said Jason hotly. His fluency is directly proportional to the culinary use of the word. ‘Not that I didn’t think of it when he was trying to scratch me guts out.’

‘Your restraint does you credit,’ I told him.

He grinned at me. ‘I could mind any number of rabbits for you, Corinna,’ he told me with an unexpected, brief, throttling hug. I wondered what had brought on this rush of affection. I asked.

He looked away.

‘Since we’ve been looking for that girl I been remembering what the street’s like,’ he confessed. ‘Nightmares. But,’ he told me, standing up and shaking himself, ‘then I wake up and I’m here in this grouse flat and I’ve got bread to bake and it’s all down to you, Corinna. Anyway, want to see what happened when I made Yai Yai’s cherries?’

‘Yes,’ I replied, suppressing a strong urge to hug Jason hard. It wasn’t me, I wanted to say, it was you—you dragged yourself out of heroin addiction and turned yourself into a baker. I’m so proud of you, Jason! I wanted to say, but didn’t because the moment had passed.

He brought me some bright red cherries on a dish. I picked one up. It was as hard as rock and as bright as a Christmas decoration.

‘I seem to have made the first cherry toffees.’ Jason bit one. So did I. They tasted fine.

‘I like the taste,’ I said. ‘You could use them to decorate a cake, on the top.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, drooping. ‘But that’s not actually what I wanted. I wanted glacé cherries, like the bought ones but not made of plastic.’

‘Come down to my flat, I’ve got a book of preserves recipes. You can try again when you get some more cherries. Are you happy with your cake recipe?’

‘Try,’ said Jason, producing a beautiful little cake. It smelt fruity. He cut it; the crumb was even and the cake was moist but not wet. I bit and savoured. Wonderful. I guessed at some ingredients.

‘Candied peel?’

‘I candied it myself. But that method doesn’t work on cherries, you get glup. Cherry-flavoured glup, but glup.’

‘And did you use brandy?’

‘Rum. Golden Jamaica rum. Mrs Dawson gave me the bottle, she says she doesn’t know anyone now who drinks rum.’

‘It’s a wonderful cake,’ I assured my apprentice.

‘Except for the cherries, which aren’t there.’

‘Come on, I’ve a kilo of cherries you can have, get you back on the horse. And if you can spare some of the cherry toffees, I’m sure someone will like them too.’

Much cheered, Jason packaged some of the glassy cherries, checked that Bunny was secured in his cage—he had cleared his plate and now seemed to be considering an afternoon nap—and followed me down to Hebe. There I located the preserves text, which has three recipes for glacé and preserved fruit, and I surrendered my own personal kilo of fresh cherries.

‘No plans for the weekend, then?’ I asked him. He often worked at Mistress Dread’s dungeon as an Igor.

‘I been invited to rehearsal,’ he said reluctantly. ‘By Rowan.’

‘You’ll like that,’ I said. ‘Take the cake and you’ll be very popular. And pay no attention to the skinny blonde. No one else does.’

‘All right, Corinna,’ he replied, took his cherries and the book, and left.

Horatio was reminding me that a little smackerel of something in the late afternoon was provided for in his charter of animal rights. I went inside to find him some cat treats. Lately my life seemed to have been overpopulated with my furry brethren.

All poor men and humble,
All lame men who stumble,
Come haste ye, nor feel ye afraid

KE Roberts (trans.)
‘All Poor Men and Humble’           

Daniel came back after an hour or so to find me contemplating the contents of the fridge.

‘Shut the door, you’re letting the cold out,’ he told me. ‘As my mother used to say. I’ve got the messages. Did you know you can retrieve text messages from a SIM card even after they have been sent? Otherwise it just gives you a list of numbers, which is going to take some messing about and comparison best done by two people. Fortunately this can be carried out in the coolness and privacy of our own home.’

‘Hmm,’ I agreed.

‘Corinna?’ He waved a hand in front of my face. ‘Excuse me, lady, is Ms Corinna Chapman home?’

‘She is wondering what to have for dinner,’ I answered.

‘And the possibilities are …’

‘A big salad,’ I said. ‘Or several little ones. Steak? Chicken? It’s all frozen.’

‘Or we let our fingers do the walking,’ he suggested, ‘and order a feast from the Thai restaurant. Or do you fancy Chinese?’

‘I suddenly have a yen for curry puffs,’ I replied. ‘And coconut rice and satay chicken …’

‘I’ll ring them,’ said Daniel.

Dinner was very satisfactory, but I was disturbed by the weather and worried about Brigid, so instead of watching a DVD or listening to my new Vaughan Williams CD, we divided the text messages from the numbers called and began comparisons.

I have always had a facility for figures, so it wasn’t hard for me to find the patterns in the long lists of numbers.

‘She called this one every day,’ I said, quoting it.

‘That’s Manny’s number,’ said Daniel.

‘And this one every week or so,’ I told my darling, reading off the numbers.

‘Unknown—we’ll have to find out who that is.’

‘And this one rather irregularly.’

‘Her sister Dolores.’

‘And this one eleven times.’

‘Lifeline,’ said Daniel.

‘Oh, dear.’

‘As you say,
ketschele
.’

‘This one several times.’

‘School friend Melissa Thomas from the text sig. We’ll need to talk to her,’ said Daniel. ‘I’ve never heard her spoken of by anyone in the case. No one thought Brigid had any friends.’

‘And the last she called … three times.’

‘Another unknown. All right. Here are the text messages. Do you speak text?’

‘No,’ I told him.

‘It’s easy,’ he replied. ‘Just think of shorthand. Here’s the first to one of the unknowns. “
C U soon heart B
”. Pretty obvious,
nu
?’

‘Following you so far,’ I said cautiously.

‘Then she says “
must C U soon heart B
”.’

‘Increasing level of urgency,’ I commented.

‘And the final text to Unknown is “
U R cruel gbye 4 ever
”.’

‘Poor girl. Well, we need to find out who this Unknown is. Shall we call him Swain?’

‘I’d call him Bastard,’ said Daniel. ‘Or Cad.’

‘Cad will do. What about the other Unknown?’

‘Texted every week or so. Rats.’

‘Rats?’

‘Numbers,’ he told me. ‘Only numbers. It must be some sort of code.’

‘What does she say to her sister?’

‘Chat,’ he said. ‘Just chat. Seems completely banal to me.’

‘Let’s hear it,’ I said. ‘Girls invented reading between the lines.’

‘All right,’ he sighed. The phone rang, he answered it, and there was that sort of conversation where the listener only hears ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ and ‘I’ll come right away’.

‘Where?’ I asked, as Daniel leapt to his feet.

‘A contact of Sister Mary’s repaired a boy who had been beaten up. In Collingwood. A week ago. And he had with him a heavily pregnant girl.’

‘I’m coming too,’ I told him. ‘It’s that or read all those banal messages.’

‘It would be a help if you read them,’ he said gently. ‘And her online journal.’

‘And so I shall,’ I said. ‘When we get back from Collingwood.’

He grinned at me, and phoned Timbo to bring the car round. One day I must find out why Daniel chooses not to drive. But not tonight.

After placating Horatio for our absence with a few cat treats, we were on the way to Collingwood. Again. And it is not my favourite suburb. It seems to me to be an uneasy fusion of nouveau riche and old poor, neither of whom approve of the other in the least degree. Also, I am instructed that I have to loathe their football team, for some reason. I have never understood sports.

Timbo threaded down Smith Street, which was loud with young persons getting really, really drunk. They also displayed a frightening lack of road sense, tippling out into the road and swaying back, centimetres from annihilation. This made me nervous. But I had insisted on coming along so I could not object.

‘The fall of the Roman Empire,’ remarked Daniel.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Timbo’s trying to catch up with the hospital bus,’ Daniel told me. ‘We’ll get off the main drag any minute now, if one of those drunks doesn’t fling himself in front of us.’

‘It’s this way,’ said Timbo. He had a God-given talent for driving cars. None of the bank robbers he had been persuaded into helping had cause to complain about their getaway vehicle. It was their tendency to get stuck in revolving doors which had done for them. Daniel swore that the reason Timbo didn’t go to jail was that the judge had been laughing so much that he hadn’t
the heart to send the boy away. Also, in the case of those robbers, they were just not a massive threat to public order.

Timbo was right. We left the vomiting populace behind us and sneaked along dark, quiet, respectable streets. We stopped. In front of us was a very flash new bus. I was instantly envious on behalf of Sister Mary, who would not have recognised the emotion.