'And you're going to see the Lone Gunmen,' she told me.

'I am?' I hadn't seen Nerds Inc for a week. They didn't come out much in daylight.

'Yes. Ask them if they can identify the print, what sort of computer was used, that sort of thing. Or would you rather I went?' she demanded, her voice dropping to a throaty low E full of menace.

'I'll go,' I volunteered. Nerds Inc were nice boys and they might not survive a visit from Ms Dread. She was too much woman-or something-for people who conducted most of their human relations.h.i.+ps at at least one remove. Either SMS or email. Though they might just fall to their knees in devotion, of course. They are, at least technically, male.

Mistress Dread stalked off down Calico Alley to strike terror into Kiko's heart and I went cravenly back to the shop. It was far too early for Nerds Inc to be awake. They usually surfaced around noon, when the day had been thoroughly aired. And it was no use taking them bread. They subsisted entirely on pizza, takeaway chicken, nachos and cheese Twisties, to deduce from their rubbish. However, a few bottles of their favourite drink would be welcome. They liked those pre-mixed drinks with names like Arctic Death and Russian emblems on them, and I sent Kylie for a supply while I served several hungry office workers and the man with the horse and cab. It is a very well tended horse and while Bill likes my bread, his n.o.ble steed loves my m.u.f.fins and gets one a day. I wished him good morning. He looked worried.

'What do you make of this talk about a serial killer?' he said. 'That's going to be bad for trade.'

'I think it's nonsense,'I said bracingly. 'Anyway, do a lot of junkies hire your cab?'

'None,' he said.

'Well then,' I said. 'Here's a nice m.u.f.fin for Dobbin and I hope he enjoys it.'

Bill went out but he had me worried. I did all my trading during the day, of course, and most of my bread was spoken for; I didn't really need the shop, I just liked having one. A serial killer might have the same effect on Melbourne tourism as SARS had had on Hong Kong as a pestilence-free holiday destination. Still, nothing I could do about it. Kylie came back with the drinks and let me in on the latest gossip. How that girl does it I do not know. All she has to do is stand still and gossip enters her skin by some sort of osmosis.

'The Prof 's doctor says he's allowed to walk around with a stick,' she announced. 'His nurse told me. I told her to tell him to take it easy, I can do his bit of shopping after two. Not as though there's much. I can take his bread up then too. Make sure the ditz hasn't left him with nothing to watch but Oprah. I mean, he might end up watching Jerry Springer and then ... I don't know what Jerry would do to the Prof ...'

'Neither do I,' I said frankly. 'We might never get him down off the curtains.'

'Like Horatio that time the wolfhound came into the shop,' she giggled reminiscently.

I recalled the incident. Not only had Horatio reacted entirely by instinct and scaled the highest curtain, but he was so embarra.s.sed when he came down that he didn't speak to any of us for two days. There was now a large sign on the door saying 'No Dogs Except Guide Dogs'. I exempt guide dogs from my general loathing of the canine species. They are selfconsciously Good Dogs. You can practically see the little halo above their ears. And they never, never, never notice cats, much less chase them.

Grandmother Chapman had a failed guide dog as a pet. He was very clever but easily distracted. One can imagine that this would disqualify him from work with the blind, but he was very good with the unhappy. I hadn't thought of him in years. His name had been Ebony, a black Labrador.

I shook myself alert. Kylie had more gossip: 'Then someone painted-'

'I saw it,' I said. 'That's what Mistress Dread came to talk to me about.'

'If she gets her claws into him he'll be sliced and diced,' commented Kylie. 'Did you see her nails? All silver. I reckon they're those glue-on metal ones.'

'More like talons,' I agreed.

'Do you think Mistress Dread's a man?' she asked in a whisper.

'I've never liked to ask,' I replied. 'There are six foot women with size twelve feet. In any case it isn't our business. She's a good neighbour. And she had one of those strange letters.'

'Scarlet woman letters? So did Goss and me,' said Kylie. 'I thought it was a joke.'

'Some madman leafleting all letterboxes with a female name on them, I expect,' I said. 'Don't worry about it. I'm going to see the nerds this afternoon to get some information about the letter. Have you still got yours?'

'Tossed it,' said Kylie. 'You going to see the Lone Gunmen? Ask them if they're testing any good games. Then Goss and me can come down and play with them.'

'Have you done that before?' I asked.

'Couple of times,' she said. 'They're all right. Not interested in s.e.x.'

I found this hard to believe. Not interested in housekeeping, for sure. Not interested in the outside world. When I asked, in pa.s.sing, what they thought of the Coalition of the Willing invading Iraq, they asked me who published the game. Political consciousness was not their main skill. Taz had once told me that the city was a lot cleaner these days and it was all down to that good bloke, our premier Jeff Kennett. I hadn't the heart to disabuse him of this notion. But Taz, Rat and Gully were quiet, didn't have noisy parties and ran their business well enough to pay their rates, so I had no objection to them. They might have done the graffiti. Their names sounded like tags to me. But I couldn't imagine them either knowing what the wh.o.r.e of Babylon was or having the nerve to paint it across Mistress Dread's shop and thus risk incurring her wrath. Wrath which would also descend on me if I didn't come up with some information on that letter, of course.

We were interrupted by a rush of customers. The herb rolls danced off the trays. I grabbed one to save for my own lunch and another for Meroe. Once you get used to the concept of a thing which looks like a coffee scroll but tastes like essence of green, you'll find one isn't enough. You'll want to eat another. A satisfactory amount of olive bread was pa.s.sing out of my hands as well. It isn't the money ... well, it isn't just the money. I like to see people eating my bread. The rush died down. Everyone who was going to work had got there. Now there would be a lull until morning tea.

I slipped out to give Meroe her herb roll before I got tempted to eat it myself. She is a vegetarian, of course. Which doesn't mean she isn't picky about her food. As I squeezed into the Sibyl's Cave I saw that this was not going to be a cheery morning with tea. Dressed entirely in deepest black, Meroe was concocting something in a mortar and pestle and muttering under her breath. Every time she pounded the pestle down she gave a small, terrible smile.

I had been given the lecture about the threefold return and had taken it with a pinch of salt. The theory was that a witch had to be careful what she did, magically, because she would get it back threefold. This meant, effectively, that she couldn't curse anyone, because the curse would rebound upon her at triple strength, like those was.h.i.+ng powders advertised on TV. I hadn't quite believed it at the time-no one could be that virtuous-and now I didn't believe it at all. I put the paper bag down on the counter and fled.

I wondered who she was cursing, for she was certainly cursing someone. I hoped that it was the graffitist and not the cop. Lepidoptera was only doing her job. Someone had told me that the Witchcraft Act had been repealed. I hoped it was true.

After that, serving in the shop had a certain charm-there was little chance of being turned into a c.o.c.kroach and stepped on. We kept selling and Kylie kept gossiping. I hadn't heard the half of it.

Mrs Pemberthy had complained about me and Horatio to the council, the residents' committee and the police. The council were used to her and said that they would investigate. The police were unlikely to bother. The residents' committee might be a problem. Mrs Pemberthy and her husband were both on it, and so was Joe Pandamus, who didn't like cats though he got on all right with me. But so was the Professor, who did like cats, and Taz. I didn't know how he had ended up on the committee and quite possibly neither did he, but he might be a valuable ally. Not going to have surfaced yet, though.

Kylie continued, telling me that Jon the exec was back and she was going to ambush him tonight. I wished her luck. She was worried about what to wear. I said that her pink dress was ravis.h.i.+ng. She was about to go into a major sulk-Kylie can fling a sulk the length of the whole room-when she brightened.

'You like the pink dress?'

'It's terrific.'

'Is it hot?' she demanded, her blue eyes pleading.

'Boiling hot.'

'Good,' she said. 'He's about the same age as you, so if you think it's hot so will he, don't you think?'

'Most likely.' The pink dress had a skirt fully ten centimetres long, more of a belt, really, and a slashed neckline. I could not imagine any man holding out against it for any length of time. I spared a moment to try to remember what I had worn when I was eighteen, sighed, and reflected that the world might be in a terrible state but at least the reign of the bubble skirt had been mercifully brief.

'Don't worry,' said Kylie, patting my hand. 'You had your time, didn't you, though you're old now?'

I was about to tell her that thirty-eight wasn't actually pensionable age when I remembered how old thirty had seemed when I was eighteen. I just nodded. Besides, yesterday someone had told me I was beautiful. And sounded as though he meant it.

An odd thing happened. The phone rang and when I answered it was my ex, James. I hadn't heard from him in months. While we weren't actually friends, we hadn't split with great bitterness. Just loathing. He was a high flyer, I was a low flyer, if not actually earthbound. He liked merchant banking and I liked baking. He wanted me to stay home and look after his children and soothe his furrowed brow when he came home from a hard day's accounting, and I didn't. We were not a match made in heaven and I couldn't, offhand, think of anything we had in common now. That had always been the problem. But he sounded just the same as he always had. In a hurry.

'h.e.l.lo, James, this is a surprise-' I had got as far as that when he cut me off.

'I know. You still running that bakery? Come to dinner on Sat.u.r.day night? Meet you at the Venetia at seven thirty? My treat. Want to talk to you.'

'But-'

He cut me off again. I had forgotten how angry this habit made me and I was about to refuse to go anywhere with him. But my curiosity got the better of me. Me and Kipling's mongoose, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, whose motto was 'run and find out'. It's got me into more trouble.

James went on. 'Can't talk now. Waiting for a call from Singapore. Seven thirty, right? The Venetia. Bye,' he said, and hung up.

Well, the food would be good. The Venetia had been specialising in Italian food long before the days of frozen precooked supermarket lasagne in every freezer. Though mentioning the latter in the Venetia would probably get you turfed out into the street as a peasant unworthy of their food. I not only couldn't afford the Venetia, I couldn't justify spending that much on feeding myself when there were bread and eggs in the world. But if James was paying, then why not? And what on earth did he want to talk to me about?

That would have to keep. The morning tea rush had arrived.

When it was over, leaving the shop considerably emptier, Kylie informed me that she had seen the person who had bought apartment 4A, Daphne. It had a picture of a woman turning into a bush. Next to her was a very annoyed Apollo. One saw his point. All that trouble to lay hands on a recalcitrant nymph, and just when you've got her she has the nerve to turn into a tree. Heh, heh.

'What was this person like?' I asked.

'I don't know,' she confessed. This was a hard thing for Kylie to say. She has the insatiable curiosity of a magpie. 'It was a man, about the same age as you. Blue suit, pretty tall, bit bald. He only had one suitcase and a lot of boxes. I suppose he must have bought old Lady Diana's furniture. I liked her.'

'So did I.'

Lady Diana was a kindly, witty old lady with a strong British accent who had broken her hip months ago and not recovered properly. Her heirs had moved her tenderly to one of those well-staffed, five-star nursing homes on the Mornington Peninsula, where she spends her days watching the sea and skinning the other old ladies at bridge. I was sorry to see her go. I had never forgotten her reaction to viewing Mr Pemberthy's new 'undetectable' hairpiece. 'What has he done with the rest of the sheep?' she wondered, for my ears alone, and I nearly split a gusset trying not to laugh. Unavailingly. Mr Pemberthy had been most offended.

'Well, he must have registered with the residents' committee, we can ask them. But not at the moment. Horatio defended himself against Traddles yesterday and Mrs Pemberthy is a bit upset.'

'Good Horatio,' cooed Kylie, stroking the n.o.ble ears. 'Would the beautiful kitty like a bit of cheese?' she asked, slicing open rolls and putting cheese in them. The beautiful kitty graciously accepted a bit of cheese, and then another bit, before Kylie was finished with the cheese rolls. I did the ham ones. I just do ham. Or cheese. If you want avocado and turkey, go to Cafe Delicious where they will compound you a sandwich out of any ingredients whatsoever. Except possibly cement. Then again, if you had the money in your hand and asked the Pandamus family to make you a cement on rye, no b.u.t.ter, they would probably do it. They believe that the customer is always right. Samantha says that the strangest one she ever made was Vegemite, fetta cheese and cranberry sauce. I'm not sure that I believe her.

I decided that tonight I needed some solid food and would dine with the Pandamus family. By about five they were down to leftovers but their grandmother did the cooking and whatever was left over was sure to be-as the name said- delicious.

Time for me to collect my alcoholic bribe and go and rouse the Lone Gunmen. I left Kylie with the lunch crowd and went into their shop. It was open, which argued that one of them was awake, or perhaps 'conscious' might be the right word. Or maybe 'sentient'.

The walls were painted black just like every nerd's bedroom, and were layered with posters for each new video game. I would bet that somewhere right against the paint there would be an ad announcing Pacman. Someone was lurking behind the counter, trying to stay out of direct sunlight and reading William Gibson. Taz. I was in luck.

They named themselves after three characters from 'The X-Files', though Rat had a rat's tail haircut rather than stringy yellow hair and Gully had possibly heard of the concept of a suit but would certainly never have (1) owned one or (2) worn one if he had. Byers is never seen without his suit. And Frohike is a slob, whereas Taz ... well, there were some similarities. Taz didn't look up as I came in.

'New magazines come in tomorrow,' he said. 'Go away.'

'I'm not a customer,' I said. 'Though if that's how you treat them I'm amazed you can pay your rates.'

He looked up and dropped the book, bent, tried to retrieve it from under the desk, couldn't reach, grovelled, got the book, and hit his head on the way up. Taz is a person whom one cannot imagine walking a tightrope.

'Hi, Corinna,' he said, rubbing his temple. 'Ouch,' he added. 'I didn't know it was you. I thought it was Del Pandamus. He's hanging out for the new Livewire mag. I've told him a hundred times it doesn't come until tomorrow. Sorry.'

'Not to worry. I have a task for you,' I said, laying the scarlet woman letter on the table. On, I could not help noticing, a pile of invoices, a sheaf of receipts and a pizza box. 'What can you tell me about this letter?'

'It's addressed to you,' he said.

'Yes,' I said. 'I got that far all by myself.'

'And it says nasty things about you.'

'I got that too. So did Mistress Dread.'

Taz turned a paler shade of soap. Though I would not call him unwashed-he smelt quite acceptably of shower gel and chili sauce, which argued nachos for breakfast, yerk! -he is a slob. He habitually wears three t-s.h.i.+rts, one over the other. As they get stained, he peels them off and replaces them. I a.s.sume that someone's mum comes over and collects a huge wash and brings them back all clean and possibly ironed, for the ungrateful little ratbags to crinkle and spill chili sauce on again. If it isn't someone's mum, I can't imagine how they keep up the supply of t-s.h.i.+rts. Some of them are witty, though, and some are nostalgic. The top t-s.h.i.+rt was a satirical one. It read, in the famous Nike script, 'Pike. Just do nothing', a sentiment of which I could approve. Unfortunately Taz was living up to his t-s.h.i.+rt at present.

'Perhaps I can find ways to motivate you,' I said, aiming for Darth Vader and probably achieving 'woman with bad cold'. I put the six-pack of Arctic Death on the counter. Taz's eyes lit up.

'Yes, my Lord,' he said, in character. 'This letter was written in Calypso on an IMAC running Appleworks. Good computer but the laser printer is a bit off. See? The text doesn't sit straight on the page.'

'Could you identify the printer?'

'Negative, Master. The guy might have just put the paper in crooked. If he straightened it up for the next page it'd be straight. He uses too much bold,' said Taz, examining the letter critically. 'Bad design. Too many capital letters.'

'Not someone used to setting out announcements, then?' I asked, grasping at straws.

Taz explained with weary condescension. 'Corinna, every school-aged kid could do better than this. Most school computer courses teach design and layout. This guy is an amateur with-by the look of it-s.h.i.+t for brains. If he did send one of these to Mistress Dread.'

'Not only that, someone painted "Wh.o.r.e of Babylon" on her wall and across the gla.s.s,' I said, wondering how he would react. His pale brow wrinkled in thought.

'Wh.o.r.e of Babylon? No, I don't know that band. What are they, death thrash? They're in big trouble. Satanic revenge won't mean jack to them when Mistress Dread catches up with them. That is one scary lady.'

'Oh, I do agree. Well, thanks, Taz. Oh, by the way. Kylie asked if you had any new games. I gather she and Goss like playing with you.'

'Oh? Er ... tell her not. They're a bit ...'

I had to know. 'A bit what?'

'They scream a lot and then they drink the drinks and want to get snuggly. And we like the games, see. Not the girls.' Taz was wriggling uncomfortably. Kylie had been right. Whatever the Lone Gunmen did with their hormones, it wasn't s.e.x.

I looked in on Meroe on the way back. She had put her potion aside. She thanked me for the herb roll. Then she fell silent. She didn't even speak as she sold a pink crystal to a young woman and then filled a herb order for a middle-aged man who didn't look like a warlock to me, but if he wasn't, what did he want with all those strange plants?

'Meroe has a great gift for silence,' he told me. I agreed and went away until she felt that she had a need for speech.

That visit to Taz had been a waste of six bottles of Arctic Death. All he could tell me was that the man was an amateur and probably, by inference, over about twenty-five. Younger than that and he must have encountered a computer. The trouble was, there were a lot of people over twenty-five.

I went back to my own shop and there was Daniel, and suddenly the whole day improved. He was wearing his usual jeans, loose s.h.i.+rt and leather jacket and he looked tall, dangerous and beautiful. I took a mean pleasure in greeting him warmly in front of the enraptured Kylie.

'You're up early,' I said.

'I've got to go and see the cops, so I can't share your gin and tonic today,' he said. His hand was on my shoulder and it warmed me all the way to the bones. 'But come out with me on Sat.u.r.day night? You don't work Friday or Sat.u.r.day night, do you, with the shop closed for the weekend?'

'Of course not,' I said, and remembered James. 'But I've got a dinner engagement.' I wasn't going to call meeting James a date.

'Later than that,' he said. 'I'll come for you at midnight. I want to take you out on the Soup Run.'

'All right,' I said. He bent and gave me a modified hug, and then walked away.

'Wow,' said Kylie weakly.

'He has the same effect on me,' I agreed, sitting down.

'You're going out with him?' she asked, with the sort of emphasis that could have got her sacked if her employer hadn't been thinking about other things.

'Yes,' I said.

'Wow,' she said.

That did appear to sum up the situation rather well.