Free Trick or Treat by Kerry Greenwood Page A

leads around a dogleg into Schmutter Alley and out into Flinders Lane again. I wonder if the dealer is there?’
    ‘You can’t see into the link from here?’
    ‘No. Come into the bakery,’ I said, determined to show everything I had to the police in case they got ideas. They followed me. Jason dropped to his knees and pretended to be taking bread out of an oven.
    ‘This is my apprentice, Jason. Say hello to the nice ladies, Jason.’
    He scrambled up and mumbled, ‘H’lo.’
    Sharon Bray eyed him narrowly but didn’t say anything. I led them to the alley door. The Mouse Police woke up and blinked and Constable Vickery cooed at them and stroked their heads. They purred. I preceded Ms Bray out into Calico Alley.
    ‘See, the link’s right at the back, where the arcade stairs are. I can’t see into it from this angle. But the victims have come down the alley towards me, and there’s no other way they could have got into it.’
    ‘We’ll certainly take a look,’ said the senior constable, snapping her notebook shut. ‘Thanks, Miss Chapman. Come on, Constable. Say bye-bye to the puddy-tats.’
    Constable Vickery blushed and followed and I watched the strong blue-clad figures move away toward Kiko’s. I hoped they found that dealer. He would know that he had been in a fight.
    Excitement over, I went back into the bakery to soothe Jason’s shattered nerves and get on with the day’s work. There were people to feed, and it was up to us to feed them.
    ‘Cops!’ he was muttering. ‘In our kitchen!’
    He sounded like a scruffy male version of Lady Macbeth: Ah, woe, alas! What, in our house?
    ‘You’ve changed sides,’ I reminded him. ‘The police officers are now required to protect you, Jason dear, from people like the—’
    ‘Person I used to be,’ he finished.
    ‘Well, yes,’ I agreed lamely.
    Kylie interrupted and saved my face. ‘Those jam cakes are fantastic,’ she told Jason. ‘Can I have another one?’
    ‘S’pose,’ he grunted, mollified.
    ‘Don’t forget the dozen muffins for the stock exchange.’ I told Kylie about the elegant young man. ‘Benson. Of course. I should have known the name, indeed. He’s a wunderkind. Supposed to have the stock exchange equivalent of perfect pitch. Makes millions in a day.’
    I went back into the shop. Horatio had taken his place by the cash register and the first customers were already caressing the royal whiskers. Something about my statement worried me, but there was a rush of business and I forgot about it.
    The morning continued in the usual way. The police did not return. I went out into the alley to empty the bin into the big skip—yes, all right, I was curious—and found that, as I had said, the little alley only linked Calico and Schmutter alleys and didn’t go anywhere else. Why anyone would want to hang about in this small, badly paved and malodorous place was beyond me. But addicts will be addicts and drugs will be drugs and I took my bin back with no further information. Except that I noticed, written on the wall in small, beautifully formed letters, the word ‘wassail’. Probably not important.
    We sold more bread and Megan the courier came for the restaurant orders.
    ‘Cops all over,’ she remarked as we loaded the trays into her motorcycle rickshaw. ‘Had my licence checked four times.’
    ‘All in order, I trust?’
    ‘Of course, Corinna, this is my living. What are they doing? They wouldn’t tell me anything.’
    ‘Looking for a dealer whose drugs have sent eleven people off their rockers,’ I told her. ‘Should you be going to a club any time soon, I’d buy my pills somewhere else.’
    Megan gave me a censorious look. ‘I don’t take drugs,’ she said. ‘I get high in perfectly legal ways. On chocolate, mostly. Especially Heavenly Pleasures Cafe Noir. That stuff could fuel rockets. Bye,’ she added, and sped off, driving more circumspectly than usual in view of the police presence. Which meant that she rounded the