Free Trick or Treat by Kerry Greenwood Page B

corner on both sets of wheels.
    I was mildly worried about how Daniel was managing and took a moment off from the baking consultation over the spiced buns Meroe had requested to climb the stairs. But he was fast asleep and would, with any luck, remain so until I had time to ask him some questions.
    We sold bread. It was a quiet day. I opened the mail. Nothing but the usual bills, an invitation to a book launch, a few people interested in my fiscal future offering me shares in various doomed enterprises and my copy of the accountancy newsletter which my professional body occasionally sends for the edification of us numbers people.
    Article by that same Benson. Strange little bump in gold exploration. Bendigo. Someone had told me that there was a lot more gold in the ground in that area than had ever come out of it, but it was in deep veins in quartz and not worth winning. In fact, hadn’t someone discovered a really rich vein of ore and would have made a fortune except that the Bendigo people selfishly objected to him burrowing under their houses? Someone now thought that they could float a company on what they had found. The newsletter was noncommittal. Might be, might not. Wait and see what the Navarino Gold Company’s assay turned up. Sound advice. Navarino? I had heard the word before. Some sort of orange, perhaps?
    I heard Daniel coming down the stairs and put the newsletter away. He looked better. The dark marks under his eyes had lightened. He was wearing his Shalom t-shirt and jeans.
    ‘Hello!’ I kissed him. ‘Lunch?’
    ‘Got to go,’ he replied. ‘Have to report to the client.’
    ‘About Old Spiro?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said uneasily.
    ‘Well, what about dinner?’
    ‘Not tonight,’ he said, shifting his gaze. ‘I have to—’
    ‘There you are, Danny,’ said a Sloane voice triumphantly. ‘You’re late.’
    Standing in the doorway of my bakery was a vision in dark grey: bubble skirt, tights, tall shoes, cropped blazer, string tie enclosing creamy throat. Her long hair was folded into a perfect French pleat. She looked taller than I remembered and Kylie, beside her, seemed diminished and shabby. This did not make me like Georgiana Hope any better.
    She reached out an immaculate hand and took Daniel by the arm. ‘You promised to show me Melbourne,’ she reminded him. The scent of Poison enveloped me, overruling the earthy smell of baking bread.
    ‘Oh,’ said Daniel. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Bye, Corinna.’
    And he followed her out of the shop without a backward glance. Jason swore. Kylie, however, had clasped her hands to her nonexistent bosom in rapture.
    ‘Did you see her clothes?’ she breathed.
    ‘They were boring,’ said Jason. ‘Like a school uniform.’
    ‘What do you know about it?’ snarled Kylie.
    ‘I know you look better than that bitch,’ said Jason stoutly. ‘Behave better, too.’
    Kylie gave Jason the sort of look one gets when announcing a large lottery win to the lucky contestant.
    ‘I never knew you looked at what I was wearing!’ she exclaimed.
    ‘Can’t help it, can I?’ asked Jason sensibly. ‘You’re right in front of me. You look like the girls in magazines. She looked like a schoolgirl. An old schoolgirl.’
    I could have kissed him, but he doesn’t like emotional scenes. Kylie, who was immensely flattered, patted Jason on the cheek. There was a moment of silence.
    ‘Muffins,’ I said. ‘For the stock exchange wunderkind. You choose the muffins, Jason, will you? You pack them, Kylie, use the dark brown tissue paper and make them look pretty. Mr Benson’s PA is waiting.’
    They got busy, and so did I. But I wasn’t happy. It was, after all, Thursday. I have never really got the hang of Thursdays, as Arthur Dent said. Daniel hadn’t seemed enthusiastic about going along with that ‘old schoolgirl’—I would love Jason forever for that description—so I dismissed the incident from my mind as far as such things can be dismissed, and left Kylie and Jason