Cooking the Books (19 page)

‘Oh, Corinna, I’m so sorry,’ she wailed in her turn.

I comforted her as best I could.

‘Not your fault,’ I told her. ‘Jason is behaving like a child. Never mind. Let’s pack up those cakes carefully. Here comes good old Moon River.’

He was whistling ‘Camptown Races’ today, as though that made anything better. Doo-dah, doo-dah.

The kitchen was tense. After yesterday’s alarms I suppose that was inevitable. But when I took some scrambled eggs out to the set the cast and crew were all tense as well. Ethan was barricaded away from the rest behind a lot of technological junk. He was, however, eating, which is always a cheering sign. His followers, the crew, sound men, lighting people and so on were with him. On the other side were the actors, pecking at breakfast and sipping at their coffee suspiciously, as though it might be doped with some colourless, odourless South American poison unknown to science. Everyone was glaring at everyone else. It was going to be a long day.

However, there is always food. Tommy inspected Bernie’s cakes, thanked me, and was directed to thank Bernie.

‘I’m no good at decoration,’ I said. ‘Bernie did it all. She even brought the sugar roses with her.’

‘Well done, Bernie,’ said Tommy. Bernie beamed. Well, at least someone was happy.

The fish chef was still furious about the wasabi. The salad makers were sullen. The middle persons were nervous and the underlings apprehensive. I advised Bernie to stick entirely to comments on food and try not to set anyone off. A policy I intended to pursue myself. One thing about working with food is that if you get through the day without any disasters, or no more than the usual number of disasters, then tomorrow really is another (culinary) day.

Besides, I had Jason to think about. The moment when the blood drained out of his tanned face stayed with me. Damn! Now what would he do? Dive back into the world he had previously haunted? The other inhabitants of Insula would not allow a drug addict to continue to live in his grace-and-favour apartment. He would be back on the streets, only fed by the Soup Run, prey to all the monsters who lurked in the shadows. My Jason, who had been doing so well!

Equally, I was extremely annoyed with him, and yearned to clip him over the ear for being silly. I was uncomfortable with all this emotion and not likely to be patient with any more foolishness, so I inwardly groaned when Tash came into the kitchen and leant on my pastry board.

‘You heard what happened?’ she asked, looking like a milkmaid who has just been kicked by her favourite Jersey.

‘I heard.’ Several people had told me apart from Bernie. Tash crossed her arms under her considerable bosom.

‘Ethan says your partner’s a detective,’ she began.

‘That’s true,’ I acknowledged. I was cutting bread and I had a large knife, sharpened to a streak, and I was not afraid to use it. Tash watched me a little nervously, as one should always watch people with long, sharp knives.

‘Do you think he might be able to find out who’s doing this?’ she asked diffidently. ‘I mean, everyone thinks it’s Ethan, but I really can’t see how he could have got into Ms Atkins’ dressing room. She keeps it locked now and she’s got the only key. It must have been someone who came in while she was there and I can’t see Ethan dropping in to wish her well, can you?’

‘No,’ I said. Ethan might wish Ms Atkins many things, but well was not one of them. ‘You’ll have to find Daniel some sort of job,’ I suggested.

‘We can do that,’ she told me. ‘Lots of hangers-on in TV. Will you ask him?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But he’s got several matters on at the moment. Why don’t you call the cops?’

Tash gave me a scornful look. ‘Now you’re being funny,’ she said. ‘Do me a favour! I’m trying to hold together two dis- parate elements and out of it might come a good series which will make us all rich. Bad publicity and we are right down the gurgler with a lot of other successful Australian series. The crew are solid with Ethan. The actors are with Ms Atkins—however reluctantly. They’ve polarised. You can see the problem.’

I could see it, so I nodded. She took a cupcake as a pretext for her visit and stalked away. Still, the cupcake would taste good, as pretexts go. I had just been reading a book about D-day. There were similarities.

Thanking the Goddess that I was not attacking a defended beach under cover of daylight, I continued to make fruit scones, which were required for lunch. When they were in the oven I went looking for the girls, with Meroe’s package of inoffensive weeds in hand.

I found them nibbling bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches. I delivered the herbal cigarettes in silence. They were the cause of Jason losing his faith in Earthly Delights. And me. I was still angry with them. However, since I was now an investigator, I need to talk to them.

‘You heard what happened yesterday?’ I asked.

‘Like, Corinna, how could we not?’ asked Goss. ‘She came rushing out of her dressing room screaming. It was terrible.’

‘Any idea who did it?’ I asked.

‘Well . . .’ Kylie hastily filled her mouth with bacon so as to muffle her answer. She pointed her chin in the direction of the film crew.

‘Ethan?’ I asked, and they both nodded.

‘Why would he sabotage his own job?’ I asked.

They both goggled at me.

‘Come on, think,’ I urged. ‘If this continues Tash will lose backers and have to call the whole thing off. That would be bad for Ethan, too.’

‘He likes practical jokes,’ said Kylie. ‘And . . .’

‘He doesn’t like Ms Atkins,’ concluded Goss.

‘On set,’ announced Tash, and they squeaked and fled.

Well, that was helpful. I looked at the plate that Goss had thrust into my hand. Bacon, lettuce and tomato. Yum.

I ate it. I had just finished when Tommy grabbed me and hissed, ‘Come into the kitchen!’ I complied ungracefully. Anyone who seriously annoyed me today was cruisin’ for a bruisin’. That included Tommy, who had got me into this. She must have divined something from my expression because she let me go and spoke softly.

‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.

‘What do you mean “we”, white man?’ I capped the old joke. She didn’t laugh. ‘This isn’t my problem. It isn’t even yours, in fact.’

‘Yes it is. They’re using our condiments.’

‘That was your wasabi? How on earth do you know?’

‘From the taste,’ Tommy said. I could not imagine gradations of savour in that searing stuff but apparently it was so. ‘We mix it with sake. The stuff in the tube isn’t mixed with sake. So we can tell that this wasabi was ours.’

‘Where’s it kept?’

‘In the condiment cupboard. Open shelves. Anyone could have taken some.’

‘Then we shall have to wait for another incident,’ I said.

‘Maybe there won’t be another incident,’ she said, more in hope than in confidence.

‘Maybe. But why not thin down the suspect list by closing the kitchen to everyone except the staff?’

‘I’ll think about it,’ she said, and went away to soothe the fish chef, who was declaring that he could walk into a job at Vue de Monde and was thinking of applying.

Nothing more to do except bake. I set out the ingredients for my chocolate cake as Bernie began to bake savoury muffins for the variety of cold soups to be offered. Gazpacho,
potage bonne femme
, avocado and cold beef consomme. The perfect accompaniment would be the zucchini and parmesan muffins which Bernie was mixing. She did make a very good muffin.

‘I’m so sorry about Jason, Corinna,’ she said to me. ‘But if he stays away, would you consider . . .’

I was about to say something sharp to this neat opportunist, but changed my mind. She was very young.

‘I thought you didn’t want to be a baker,’ I finally announced. ‘Only someone who really, really wants to be a baker can work with me.’

‘And only then if their name is Jason?’ she asked. There was an edge to her voice.

‘Probably,’ I conceded. ‘I never wanted an apprentice, anyway. Jason happened.’ I set the electric mixer going. That abolished any further attempts at persuasion.

It was an anxious kitchen and that produces accidents. Flour was spilled, fingers were cut, pots were dropped. Each incident magnified the tension. By the time that breakfast had been cleared away and all my cakes were cooked and cooling, waiting for Bernie’s attentions, I was glad to slip into the studio, find a chair, and watch the actors. They were nervous too, but that is standard for actors.

They were shooting a scene where a bride in full wedding gear rushes into the office of
Kiss the Bride
, protesting hysterically about her dress, immediately followed by a dressmaker protesting hysterically about the client. This probably happens often enough in the real world. If you only have one chance to portray yourself as beautiful, the hysteria quotient must skyrocket. Everything that could possibly go wrong with the rehearsal was. If the lighting was right, the sound was wrong. If the positioning was correct, the camera angles were faulty. And the flyaway veil of the putative bride kept getting caught in things: scenery, doors, Kylie’s spiky hair. They played the scene over and over sixteen times before Tash called a halt.

‘Get a coffee and grab a break,’ she told them wearily. ‘I have to think about this.’

She retired to her corner with the laptop and the cast spread out towards the kitchen, where morning tea was being provided. Those cakes looked superb. The crew went into a huddle with Ethan. I heard the sound man talking about ‘fuzz’. That was apparently a bad thing, though I associated it with blankets. Kylie and Goss, having collected a big slice of cake each, appeared at my side.

‘Corinna! Did you make this yummy stuff?’ asked Goss.

‘Yes, it’s a Greek recipe made with semolina. Do you like it?’

‘Mmm,’ said Kylie. ‘It’s so . . . orangey.’

‘It’s soaked in orange syrup,’ I told her. ‘What’s wrong with everyone this morning?’

‘You noticed, huh? We’re scared. We really need this job. And someone is trying to kill off the series.’

‘Those tricks? Are they that serious?’ I asked.

‘Deadly serious,’ Goss told me. ‘Harrison says that the website was hacked and the profiles changed. And there was the lip gloss yesterday and the chilli oil and all the other things. The shoes. I’m scared,’ she confessed, leaning on my arm. Kylie leant on my other arm.

‘Tash has asked Daniel to investigate,’ I told them. The thin little faces lit up.

‘Wicked!’ exclaimed Kylie. ‘Well, that’s made me feel better.’

It had, too. Both of them had relaxed. I must remember to tell Daniel how much confidence he engendered.

I was watching the girls nibble semolina cake when Harrison slid into the seat beside Kylie and smiled his angelic smile. He also had a plate, though he had chosen one of Bernie’s chocolate cupcakes. A good choice. I told him so.

‘Have to watch my weight,’ he said. ‘But occasionally a little of what you fancy does you good.’

Since he was as lissom as a Greek statue I didn’t think that he had a problem. I still could not believe how beautiful he was. Kylie and Goss were drinking in his profile and I saw Goss’s hand twitch, as though she longed to run her fingers through his Byronic hair.

‘Well, well, not happy girls and boys today,’ he commented. ‘How are you, Corinna? At least you aren’t involved in all this . . .’ He waved a long-fingered hand at the clumps of people drinking tea and gossiping in low, stressed voices.

I bit back a retort that my apprentice, Jason, had created an emotional firestorm in my bakery to the detriment of everyone. Harrison could not help it.

‘The kitchen’s pretty jumpy, too,’ I said. ‘Things are tough all over.’

‘True, true,’ he sighed, like an angel mourning the frailty of humanity.

‘But I’ve heard that we’re going to be investigated,’ he breathed. Both Kylie and Goss gave me indignant looks. It wasn’t us, they conveyed. We didn’t say a word. How could you think that of us?

And I didn’t, because they had been authentically sur- prised when I announced Daniel’s advent. Harrison was getting his information elsewhere, probably from overhearing Tash. He lowered his voice further so that we had to bend down to hear him.

‘Apparently he’s a very toothsome item,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some friends in the business. Never fails, they say.’

I was delighted that Daniel had such a good reputation. This investigation might comfort him for failing to nail Pockets’ depository.

‘Good,’ I said.

‘But the thing is, no one must know,’ said Harrison. ‘If the mags get hold of this then the backers will hear and the money will get up and walk away. So not a word,’ he admonished. Kylie and Goss nodded emphatically. I added my nod and the three of them departed towards the stage as Tash emerged from her conference and called, ‘On set!’

I took up the crumb-laden plates and moved towards the kitchen, just as the hysterical bride rushed into the office and declaimed her piece again.

‘It’s tight in all the wrong places! It makes me look like Kath out of
Kath and Kim
! I hate it!’

This time, when the veil caught in the scenery, Ethan kept filming. The sound man gave him a thumbs-up. The lighting man grinned. The designer started a counterpoint with the bride. ‘She’s put on weight! She changed her specifications! She won’t listen to advice! She’s got no taste! I mean, bright white with that complexion? Should have been ivory, maybe with a hint of rose!’ Kylie pouted, Goss looked serious, the girl dressed as Tank Girl tapped on her computer console, Harrison sauntered through the set in his bicycle shorts looking ravishing.