by Livia Day
As I picked up the phone, a tall, dark and handsome police officer in street uniform put his head through the swinging doors. ‘Tish, the natives are getting restless.’
I rolled my eyes at the old nickname, and handed the phone to Nin. ‘Call Monica. We’re going to need another three dozen. Might require grovelling.’
She dialled, knowing a good deal when she saw one.
‘So,’ I said to Senior Constable Leo Bishop, ‘by natives, you mean the usual gang of reprobates?’
Bishop grinned his gorgeous grin at me. ‘The accepted term is still police officers, you know.’
We went through to the café together. Two customers sat at a window table, enjoying plates of muesli trifle and plum honey toast. The other fourteen customers—sprawling on tables and generally holding up the walls—were mostly over forty, uniformed and slightly dangerous. Even the detectives were so painfully plain clothed that their police credentials were obvious.
Bishop was pushing thirty, but the other adjectives still applied. Uniformed and dangerous. ‘One of these days,’ I warned him in a low voice, ‘you’re all going to get bored with keeping an eye on me.’
‘Duty is never dull,’ he shot back, with that look in his eye. That look had made my stomach jump somersaults when I was sixteen and still innocent enough to be impressed by cute men in uniform. Good thing I got over that particular fetish.
I circulated, smiling my best smile at a horde of middle-aged men who thought of me only as Tabitha, Geoff and Rose Darling’s precious little girl. ‘G’day all. Seen my new breakfast menu?’
Inspector Bobby tapped the pretty laminated pages. ‘No pies on there, Tabby love. How’m I going to start my day without one of Rose’s steak and bacon glories?’
My smile got brighter. ‘Come on, Bobby, this isn’t Mum’s café. It’s mine. And I’m pretty sure your wife told me that eating those steak and bacon glories for breakfast is what led to your heart attack last year. I can’t have you on my conscience any more.’
‘Come on, Tabby,’ said Superintendent Graham in a genial voice. ‘Your pastry’s a work of art. Can’t go wasting skills like that.’
This is true. Excellent pastry is the one tangible thing I gained from running off to Europe with a French landscape artist instead of going to uni. Phillipe parked me at his mother’s farm in the Dordogne for six months, where I learned about soups and sauces as well as melt-in-the-mouth pastry before I found out about the other women he had waiting for him in Paris, Marseilles and Berlin.
‘I’m not wasting anything,’ I said patiently. ‘I have tomato-pear tartlets and vegan quiche on my Specials Board. And the mochaccino special comes with dunking profiteroles.’
The collective weight of the local police force muttered amongst themselves, and glared at said Specials Board.
‘What exactly is in vegan quiche?’ said Bishop in a low voice.
‘Bok choy,’ I told him.
‘And?’
‘What do you mean, and? I know you all miss my mum’s cooking, but she doesn’t run the police canteen these days. And, in case you haven’t noticed, neither do I.’
It’s not that I don’t appreciate their business. Loyalty’s a nice thing. But if you had fifty-odd honorary uncles and brothers constantly hanging around your place of work, you’d start to crack too. I never dreamed when my parents split up and Mum abandoned the police canteen to make lentil burgers at meditation retreats and folk festivals that I’d end up inheriting her old clientele.
Pies and chips are fine, but I’m not going to spend my life heating them up. This café was supposed to be a fresh start for me, and it was time for me to stand my ground.
‘So, no sausage rolls?’ asked Detective Sergeant Richo, from his little island of denial.
‘I haven’t served sausage rolls in six months.’ They were the first to go, and it hurt to do it. But every revolution has its casualties.
‘Yeah,’ Richo said sadly. ‘Rose always made great sausage rolls. But yours were better,’ he added.
I crossed my arms. ‘If no one orders the focaccia with tempeh and pepperberry dressing in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to have to ask you all to leave.’
There was a strangled pause. The effort that it took each of them to not say something patronising was monumental. I could practically see the steam coming out of their ears.
‘All right. Tabby,’ said Inspector Bobby. ‘We’ll be in later for coffee.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed one of the sergeants, brightly. ‘Those low-fat muffins of yours are almost as good as real ones.’
One by one, the officers trooped out of the café. I sagged a little. It wasn’t working. Possibly it wouldn’t work if I served nothing but flavoured oxygen. I was doomed to run a café under constant police surveillance.
‘Reckon you were a bit hard on them,’ said Bishop, who had stayed behind.
I gave him a dirty look. ‘Do you know how good my side salads are? In the year since I started this place, I’ve had three reviews that specifically mention how awesome my side salads are. I’ve turned side salads into a work of art. So the day that one of you bludgers actually eats one of my side salads, instead of pushing it to the side and ordering another slab of pie, is the day that you get to have an opinion about my menu.’
He folded his arms. ‘Do you really think we come here for the food?’
‘Thanks,’ I said, stalking behind my counter. ‘Nice to know.’
A couple of people came in to collect lunch bagels. I served them, ignoring Bishop the whole time. My muesli customers finished their breakfast, and paid for their meals.
‘You know I didn’t mean that in a bad way,’ he said, when they were gone. ‘We keep an eye out for you, that’s all. Since your dad…’
‘I know,’ I said between gritted teeth. And boy, did I. Good old Superintendent Geoff Darling, my beloved dad. In the days between his retirement party and eloping to Queensland with his soon-to-be second wife, he took it upon himself to ask every single member of Tasmania Police to keep an eye out for his precious girl. Imagine how grateful I was for that now. ‘I feel very safe and warm and protected.’
So protected that most days it’s hard to breathe.
The café door clattered open, and a uniformed constable walked in—one I didn’t actually know.
‘Are you advertising in the police department foyer now?’ I complained.
Bishop ignored me. He was good at that—he’d been practising the art since he knew me only as his boss’s teenage daughter, and his sister’s bratty best friend. ‘Looking for me, Heather?’
The constable gazed around at my colourful pop-art tables, my wall of vintage Vogue covers, and my 1960s frock posters. ‘They said you’d be here,’ she answered, as if not quite believing it.
Yep. The décor had been my first assault in the War against Tasmania Police, long before I went to the lengths of taking red meat off the menu. Sometimes I glue glitter to the windows.
Lesbian lunchtime poetry readings were only a phone call away.
‘Constable Heather Wilkins, meet Tabitha Darling,’ said Bishop.
I waited for the spark of recognition, but there wasn’t one. ‘You haven’t heard the name, Constable Heather?’
‘Should I have?’ she asked politely. ‘I only started a few weeks ago.’
I smiled happily at Bishop. ‘There’s my answer. I just have to out-wait you dinosaurs. Thirty years and you’ll all be replaced by bright young things who’ve never heard of me or Superintendent Darling.’
Bishop made the sensible decision to ignore me again. ‘What’s up, Constable?’
‘Burglary in this building—the top floor.’
‘Crash Velvet?’ I said. ‘I’ll come up with you.’ I leaned into the kitchen. ‘Nin! The cavalry are gone. Come mind the front, and bring me the blue muffins for upstairs.’
‘Crash Velvet?’ It meant nothing to Bishop.
‘A rock band,’ said Constable Heather.
‘Not just a rock band,’ I said. ‘Crash Velvet are the new wave in formal kink. The latest YouTube sensation, right here in Hobart.’
Bishop tilted his head at me, as if I was speaking Mandarin. ‘You can’t come with us,’ he decided. ‘This is official police business.’
Nin came out from the kitchen with a basket full of bright blue muffins and a particularly expressive eyebrow lift.
‘Thanks, hon.’ I made a face at Bishop. ‘As if I’m interested in your burglary. I have food to deliver.’
BUY A TRIFLE DEAD
Chapter 2
There are people who should be trusted with ownership of beautiful old sandstone buildings, and people who shouldn’t. I’m not entirely sure where our Mr Darrow fits on the scale. He’s rich as all hell, and owns several almost-heritage listed buildings around Hobart. But instead of doing the sensible thing—installing yuppie apartments with skyrocketing urban rents—he fills the rooms with artists and other oddballs, at bargain lease rates.
It’s probably a tax dodge of some kind—but what can I say? Darrow came to the uni café for years after he graduated, because he liked my gateaux. He claims that he stole me because I was going to make his fortune, but I don’t buy it for a second. There’s not much profit in cafés, too many staff to support. Wouldn’t surprise me if he moved me in here because it’s not far to travel for his daily slice of mocha hazelnut hummingbird cake.
Not that I’m complaining.
I missed Darrow since his latest disappearance. I was used to him hanging around with his stupid laptop, bugging my customers and having pointless, batshit weird conversations with me until I felt the need to bounce cookies off his beautifully-groomed hair.
He’d be back, eventually. Unless Xanthippe was hunting him down to kill him, which was not one hundred percent unlikely. Theirs had been a bad break-up.
Our building has two roomy flats above my café. The first floor is occupied by the Sandstone City mob, a gang of twenty-somethings who blog about weird stuff in Hobart, in the hope of making the place look cool. Bizarrely, it kind of works. Someday the government will stop giving them grant money, but this is not that day.
Then there’s the top floor, and Crash Velvet.
A tiny purple-headed rock chick answered the door. Her eyes slid straight past the two police officers to focus on my basket of bright-blue muffins. ‘Oh, excellent. Just what I wanted. Any chance you can repeat the order every morning for … oh, the next three months or so?’
‘Well, I could,’ I said. ‘Why would you want me to?’ Don’t get me wrong, they were fabulous muffins—the savoury ones were parmesan and onion, with a hint of Tabasco, and the sweet ones were blue velvet with cream cheese frosting and silver sprinkles—but it wasn’t like they’d ordered them for the flavour. When they phoned down the order, all they said was blue. I did consider just using food colouring, but imported blue cornmeal is such a pretty ingredient and I can rarely justify using it. Since they were paying through the nose anyway…
She had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘It’s a publicity thing. Our new PR manager has us ordering the weirdest food we can, all around town. We’re aiming for, when people google “weird” and “food”, our band is in the top ten hits. Do you have a Tumblr? Twitter? Facebook?’
I think I was the last café in town not to have a Facebook presence. It was bad for my hipster image, but when you get up at 5AM most days to bake, something has to give. My compromise is to hire trendy teen art students as waitresses who tweet their little socks off, sometimes while pouring cappuccinos. ‘Not officially, but we’ve got a few ways to boost the signal. You should come down and eat the muffins in the café sometimes. We have big windows.’
Really, blue muffins? I’m pretty sure rock bands are supposed to be slightly edgier than that. Still, hard drugs and trashing hotel rooms is such a cliché these days. If they wanted to make their reputation through eccentric baked goods, who was I to judge?
‘Excellent idea. Every bit helps.’ She took the basket and smiled past me to Bishop, apparently unfazed by his uniform. ‘I’m kCeera. Small k, big C.’
‘Senior Constable Bishop,’ he said, trying not to look offended at how much muffin talk had taken precedence over his own business. ‘There was a burglary report from this address.’
kCeera looked genuinely startled. ‘There was?’ She backed into the apartment, making room for us all to come inside. ‘Tabitha, I’ll write you a cheque for the first month. Hey Owen, did you call the police?’
The place was a mess—it must have been a long time since Darrow sent his army of cleaning ladies to make an inspection. Towers of junk, CDs and musical instruments were stacked haphazardly against every wall. The only items of furniture were two unmatched Tip Shop couches, a kick-ass stereo system with enormous speakers, and a widescreen TV that probably cost more than my car. It was certainly about the same length as my car.
The best thing about the room was a window with a clear view of the mountain, silver grey against a bright blue sky. Hobart sits squarely between the enormous Mount Wellington, and the mouth of the River Derwent. Water views are all very well, but I’d take our mountain any day. Just looking at the thing makes me feel all Zen and at one with the universe. Plus it helps with urban navigation. If you can see the mountain, you know pretty much where you are.
Fabulous view aside, the most salient feature of Crash Velvet’s flat was that it smelled of feet. In the middle of the crappy chaos, two lean and long-haired blokes in paper-thin t-shirts stood playing laser hockey on a Wii system. A pair of boots attached to a fourth member of the band stuck out from one of the couches.
kCeera cleared her throat loudly. ‘Guys? Police? Standing in front of me?’
‘Oh, right.’ One of the blokes paused the game, and elbowed the other. ‘Owen. Mate.’
‘Yeah,’ said the one called Owen. ‘Burglary. All our stuff got stolen.’
‘Stuff, what stuff?’ kCeera demanded. Obviously she was the brains of the outfit. The other two didn’t have enough spare brain cells between them to brew a cup of tea. ‘Why didn’t you tell me when I got home?’
‘Mate, laser hockey,’ said the one not called Owen. ‘Priorities.’
Constable Heather took out her notebook, looking all official. ‘Perhaps you could tell us exactly what was stolen?’
‘Everything, babe,’ said the not-Owen. ‘All of it, gone.’
Bishop looked around at the expensive stereo system, big screen TV and CD collection. ‘All of what, exactly?’
‘The clothes, mate,’ said Owen. ‘The hats and belts, even.’
‘Shoes,’ not-Owen added.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ asked kCeera. ‘I packed the gear away in the spare room this morning.’
‘Not there now,’ said Owen with a shrug. ‘Some wanker nicked it all, didn’t they?’
‘Someone stole … your clothes?’ said Bishop.
‘Wearable Art Treasures,’ I explained in an undertone. ‘The name of their first album. They collected a stash of unusual costume items from museums, antique dealers, artists … the photos looked great. They still wear a lot of the collection at their gigs.’
‘Why are you still here?’ Bishop asked in a grouchy voice.
‘I’m waiting for my muffin cheque. Excuse me for being helpful.’
‘So is that all that was taken?’ Bishop asked the guys.
Not-Owen looked at him mournfully. ‘All? Mate, isn’t that enough? What are we gonna wear to the next gig? Just turn up in plain tuxedos without leather gauntlets and vintage lace collars and spiky things around our legs? That’s not cool.’
‘Have you guys been smoking something?’ kCeera demanded. ‘I was gone for like two hours. You were here the whole time. How can someone have broken into our spare room and taken all the Wearable Art Treasures? Were there ladders involved? Is Rapunzel our prime suspect?’
Owen shrugged. ‘See for yourself, mate.’
kCeera march
ed across the room, flung open one of the doors, and stared through it. Then she turned around, and headed out of the flat.
‘Where are you going?’ not-Owen called after her.
kCeera flung her head around. ‘I’m going to get the guys from Sandstone City. Because when they arrest you for wasting police time, I want to make sure someone bloody well blogs about it!’ She slammed the door behind her.
‘Okay, then,’ I said, in the silence.
Bishop headed for the spare room. I followed him, because—oh, what the hell. It was none of my business, but when has that ever stopped me? If I never found out any gossip, my afternoon Coffee & Cake sales would halve overnight.
Inside the room, Bishop swore under his breath. Very unprofessional—not like him at all. I skidded to a halt at his elbow.
‘Tish—no,’ he said, but it was too late.
Mostly what I saw was net. It hung from the ceiling, supported by wooden beams, ropes and four upright poles, like a four-poster bed. There was something in the net, weighing it awkwardly. I recognised an arm.
What was it? A dummy?
But the long mop of dark hair hanging down looked real enough, and if it was a dummy, why would Bishop be feeling for a pulse, sliding his hand along the neck, searching for signs of life?
It began to sink in that I was in the presence of an actual dead body. I stepped back to let Constable Heather through, and my foot caught on the strap of a bright green sports bag. A violin case was leaning against it, and I only just stopped it from crashing to the floor.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said one of the blokes from the doorway. I’d lost track of whether he was the Owen or not. ‘Whoever nicked our stuff, they left that thing there. The net. And the body.’
‘The violin’s not ours,’ said the other maybe-Owen. ‘But, you know. If no one wants it…’
BUY A TRIFLE DEAD
Chapter 3
Bishop steered me out of the room. ‘Heather, call for Anderson’s team to get over here as a priority. Then call Clayton and tell him this is one for the Crime Management Unit. Suspicious death, probable drug overdose. Make sure no one goes into that room.’