Northern suburbs, hmm? I decided to go for broke. ‘I think you’ve made good choices. Following your dreams is important. Can I ask where your family went?’
‘Kilmarnock. It sounds a bit dire. And the house? It’s like a fortress.’
‘It probably needs to be. I hear strange things about Kilmarnock.’
‘Me too. Young gay couple surrounded by bogans and warlords? There’s drugs and guns and warlords having fights and Dad’s in the middle of a gang war with people trying to kill each other all the time. No thanks! The really weird thing is that Dad’s worried about me. “Bad things happen in the city!” he’s always telling me. As if. There’s cops everywhere, CCTV cameras covering every square metre and nothing bad’s happened to us.’ Her face clouded over. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot about the break-ins in your building. But it isn’t like this normally, surely?’
‘Until this last week, no. I would have said this part of the city was really safe, unless you’re out after two in the morning. Apparently that’s when it gets a bit lively, though I wouldn’t know. I keep bakers’ hours.’ Something occurred to me. ‘Can I ask who told you about my break-ins?’
She gestured towards the interior of the shop. ‘I think it was one of the actors in there. Kate and I have done some drama ourselves, and we got talking to them yesterday. They said they’re living in your apartment block.’
‘Can you remember which one it was specifically who told you?’
She frowned, thinking. ‘The Grammar boy. Stephen I think his name is.’
At that moment Del Pandamus re-appeared with Marie’s takeaway souvlaki, and both dogs gave voice to pleadings and urgings. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘They can have some of mine.’ I ducked back inside, brought out the remains of my souvlaki and my bowl of yiaourti me meli and looked at Marie. ‘Is it all right if I feed them some scraps?’
Marie looked down at Allegro and Biscuit, who gave her the most beseeching looks I had ever seen from anybody ever. ‘All right, you two. Sit down, and the nice lady will give you something.’ She flashed her deep eyes at me. ‘A piece of meat each, and a bit of the pita bread will do them.’ I wrapped up two pieces of meat in scraps of bread and watched them. They were straining at their leashes and whining softly, but doing their very best to be Good Dogs. I could not resist their entreaties, and handed over my offerings.
These proved acceptable, and Marie rose. ‘I’ll settle up, and then I’ll have to go. Good to see you, and don’t forget to drop in to Heard It Before.’
As Marie paid her bill, I stroked the two dogs. They looked with envious eyes at the paper-wrapped souvlaki sitting in the middle of the table, but they made no improper attempts at piracy. These were undoubtedly the best behaved dogs I had ever met. Not that I was a Dog Person. Some people are ambidextrous in their love of cats and dogs, but I had never attempted to diversify into canine companionship. What Horatio would say if I brought home a dog was more than I dared imagine.
Presently Marie appeared, took the leashes in her left hand and waved with her right. ‘See ya!’
I nodded, thinking hard. No, I decided, nothing sinister should be read into the actors’ gossip about the break-ins. They had not told Marie anything they shouldn’t. But I was still possessed by the feeling that there was something missing. Some vital piece of information that would make sense of all this weirdness to which we had been subjected. But before long my reverie was interrupted again.
‘Corinna! May we join you?’
The whole world was coming to sit at my feet today, it would appear. Detective Senior Constable Letitia White sat down beside me at the table, crossed her legs and gave me a searching look. Constable Helen sat opposite, smiling encouragement to Assist the Police with Their Enquiries.
‘Sure, Letty. What’s on your mind?’
She grinned at me. It was such a copper grin. The answer to that question, she was saying silently, was: more than you could possibly imagine.
‘I was wondering if you’d managed to get through a night without being burgled again.’
‘Strange though it may be to hear, yes, I did. I could even get used to this.’
Del Pandamus hovered beside my table, and Letty gave him a look. ‘G’day,’ she said. ‘Can you get us two flat whites?’
As Del retreated to his Italian coffee machine (he does have one, for people like Letty and others unacquainted with the mysteries of Greek coffee) she leant back and sighed. ‘I have to say that your burglaries don’t look like the same person. The MO is all different. I don’t see our friend Jordan breaking into your apartment in a mask, and anyway, apparently he was in Ma’ani’s custody at the time. I’m just wondering why we have two different burglars.’ She eyeballed me long and hard. ‘Especially because Ninja Guy was looking for something in your apartment. I’m inclined to accept our friend Jordan at face value. I mean, yes, he’s looking for heresy in Dion Monk’s apartment. It’s way too weird to be a fairy tale.’ She paused. ‘Speaking of fairy tales, I’m beginning to think that there were a few subtitles in Professor Monk’s thumb drive and notebook dog-and-pony show. I think somebody might have pulled a fast one with some evidence there. Anything you’d like to tell me about?’
I returned her eyeballing and raised her an eyebrow. ‘It is possible, of course. All things are possible.’
She nodded. ‘Thought so. You know what? I don’t give a stuff about his researches into lost Gospels. And the reason I don’t give a stuff about them is that weirdo Bible stories don’t give rise to Police Matters. As you know, Corinna, there are things which are Police Matters, and things which aren’t. Unless you’ve got a kangaroo loose in the top paddock, like Jordan King, I don’t think that the Mystic Scrolls of Destiny cut it as Police Matters. If Jordan ever gets away from Sister Mary’s mountainous bodyguard, we’ll haul his arse into the Magistrates Court, and if he promises to be a very good boy in future he can get a good behaviour bond and go away forever. Assuming, of course, that you and the Professor are amenable to this?’
I nodded, and she accepted a steaming flat white from Del Pandamus. Constable Helen continued to smile winningly at me, and did not say a word. She didn’t need to. Her Look was manifest. You listen up good to what Letty says, okay?
We sipped quietly until the three of us were alone again, and Letty raked me with another piercing gaze. ‘Yeah. But Ninja Guy worries me. Either you people are hiding something from me – and in that case you can colour me a very unhappy police officer indeed – or else this is something which they think you have, and you really haven’t got it. I’m ruling out a rival bread consortium wanting to steal your sourdough.’ She gave me a look of studied innocence. ‘Daniel not with you today?’
‘He was this morning,’ I informed her.
Her appraising look gathered in my caftan, and my aroma of effulgent wellbeing.
‘Yeah, I bet. Now the problem I have with private detectives is that they have – as it were – an Agenda of Their Own. I don’t have a problem with Mr Cohen, considered as a Private Dick. He’s a lot more sensible than many others I could name, and I reckon he can handle himself in a crisis. And, of course, he has Friends.’