CHAPTER ONE
Cry Havoc! And let slip the dogs of war!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, JULIUS CAESAR, ACT 3, SCENE 1
There should be a law against four am.
Unfortunately there isn’t, which meant that I had to get up. I left my beautiful Daniel asleep in my new big bed (what with the two of us and one very sprawly cat, there wasn’t room in my old one) and found my sheepskin slippers. I shoved one sleepy foot down and felt something moist and furry and heard a crunch.
Horatio raised his stripy head, ears pricked. I suddenly understood. I had complained about the last mouse because he had left it on the kitchen table. So he had found another place to store it. Somewhere safe. Somewhere hidden.
I disposed of the corpse and left my slipper on the balcony to be dealt with later. Perhaps Daniel could cope with it. He was an ex-soldier, after all. The Israeli army’s loss was my gain. I put on the coffee then had a shower, scrubbing my feet with a lot of soap and a nailbrush. A size-twenty woman does really unpleasant things to a dead mouse in her slipper.
I hate four am.
Insula, where I live and work, is as quiet as an Egyptian pyramid at this hour. I am the only one awake, save for my faithful apprentice Jason, whose proud duty it is to open the bakery and get everything fired up for my arrival. Therese Webb, a craftsperson extraordinaire with a medieval bent, would be dreaming of ladies and unicorns, while Professor Dion Monk, retired professor of classics, murmurs Juvenal’s satires in his sleep. Mrs Dawson would be quietly smiling at reminiscences of a life well-lived in society. Trudi would be dreaming of tulips and speculaas. Meroe would be slumbering virtuously in pagan bliss, and Mrs Pemberthy and her revolting little dog Traddles – the only flies in Insula’s otherwise harmonious ointment – would be tossing and turning, if there was any justice in the world. Mistress Dread might be still out and about, of course; I couldn’t say. Hers is an exciting world of Bondage, Discipline and Leather which I am content to admire from a distance. In other words, all was calm, quiet and serene.
As was I, so long as I had coffee. No one bakes bread without drinking coffee. I paired my second cup with a slightly failed croissant. I still can’t get them right. They are perfectly canonical croissants, I suppose, but not anything like those of the proper artisan boulanger in Montparnasse, where I used to live. My theory is that croissants are like wine. Terroir – the environment in which the grapes are grown – is critically important in winemaking. No doubt croissants needed flour milled from wheat grown in French earth and butter made from the milk of French-speaking cows. And I probably needed to bake them in a French oven. In France.
Still, toasted and eaten in conjunction with some of Therese Webb’s raspberry jam, they tasted fine. Horatio got plain ordinary cat food. Putting that mouse into my slipper had been mischievous. He did, however, get his dab of butter. I am mere putty in the paws of my felines.
Into the stout overall and cap and the stouter shoes. Down the stairs to the bakery – aptly named Earthly Delights – where the big air conditioners have already come on, along with the ovens. Jason was there, reading a comic while waiting for his first rising to mature.
‘Cap’n on deck!’ he said, jumping to his feet and saluting.
Jason is an ex-heroin addict who was saved by patisseries and now lives in Insula in a grace-and-favour apartment. He is thin, growing all the time, with curly blond hair like Harpo Marx. I bless the day he discovered Hornblower and then Patrick O’Brian. Barely literate, he was nevertheless sufficiently spellbound to persevere with Master and Commander and decided he wanted to be a midshipman. I love having a midshipman. Also, he is going to be a very good baker. Happily, his ardour for bread has not been cooled by falling in love with a lot of unsuitable girls. He has a weakness for tall, aloof blondes. So far, they don’t have a weakness for him.
Colliding with my ankles in a furry scrum were Heckle and Jekyll, aka the Mouse Police, a rough-and-ready pair of pied old comrades. They are the first, last and best defence against rodents in my bakery. I viewed the place of slaughter. Two rats, seven mice and a spider. Quite a big spider. I approved, and doled out cat food with a liberal hand. The Mouse Police, at least, knew how to present their prey. Out in the open, for a start.
‘Steady as she goes, Midshipman,’ I ordered, and began pulling out the tins for my sourdough, a staple of the business. My sourdough had originally come from Italy, nestled in my old master’s wife’s bosom, or so he claimed. Yeast is immortal. In every little cell the strain of yeast which a certain prophet’s people did not have time to allow to rise may even now be multiplying. A charming thought for four am, when charming thoughts are few.
‘It’s gonna be hot again,’ said Jason, shaping loaves and dropping each one into an oiled tin. The first load went into the oven.
‘Bugger,’ I commented in a heartfelt tone. If it had not been for my new air-conditioning system, which rendered the temperature in the bakery ‘hot’ rather than ‘infernal’, I would have melted into a large puddle with shoes in its centre.
Knead, shape, bake, knead, shape, bake. Jason took over the challah, because he was very proud of his ability to break eggs with one hand. I started crushing spices for the fruit loaves. Bara brith today: a Welsh recipe. Everything went along smoothly. The bakery filled with the enchanting scent of baking bread. Loaves went in flabby and came out shiny.
At six I opened the door onto Calico Alley, and the Mouse Police shot out with cries of starvation. They were going to stand over Kiko of the Japanese restaurant for fish scraps. So menacing were they I would not be at all surprised to see them hauling home a whole tuna by the tail.
The sun was already striking hot and golden down the alley. Once summer arrives in Melbourne it invariably outstays its welcome. Bushfires. Parched lawns. Trudi, our gardener, swearing and collecting every drop of wastewater to keep her flowers alive. Relentless heat. I was sick of it before it started. Alas, the thing about weather is that it’s compulsory.
I caught the plastic-wrapped paper as the delivery cyclist flung it at my head. I wasn’t going to read it until the baking was over. Bad news makes for soggy bread, and that’s all the news we get these parlous days. Best to skip straight to the crossword.
Mrs Dawson, retired society hostess and example to us all, was coming back from her early-morning walk. She was clad in scarlet cotton trousers and a hand-knitted cotton jumper with a Welsh dragon on the front. She asked for sourdough, was duly given the first loaf out of the oven, and gave me in return the exact change and a sweet smile.
The city was beginning to wake. Inside, Jason had put his challah in the oven and was compounding the muffin of the day. I could smell the ingredients: orange flower water, dates, pistachio nuts and candied peel. Yum! Oasis muffins. The boy is a genius with muffins.
I knew I ought to go back to the kitchen and mould my pasta dura, a light, white Italian bread with a hard crust that my customers loved. But instead I remained in the doorway, brushing flour from my green apron, because down the alley came a man.
The light was behind him. He was of medium height. Stocky, with short hair. Jeans and a khaki T-shirt. Something about him said ‘cop or soldier’. His eyes flicked from side to side, as if hunting for enemies. Snipers in Centre Arcade? I didn’t think it likely. He was moving uncertainly. Drunk? It must have been a monumental night, to be weaving his way home at six-thirty.