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meant I had to send Goss to Meroe right away to get a collection of whatever fresh culinary herbs she had left before the witches bought out the shop. Meroe’s herbs come from an organic farm (probably by broomstick, I can’t imagine how she gets them into the city so fast otherwise) and they taste wonderful. The herbs have to be robust to survive baking.
    I gave Goss her orders. ‘And make sure you say “kitchen herbs”,’ I said, forcing her to repeat it. It had never happened, but I didn’t want any of the other plants to wend their way into my bread. Entrancing as the idea of turning some customers into toads might be, I couldn’t imagine trying to explain it to a sceptical police officer like, for instance, Senior Constable White. L White, her label had said. Lynn? Louisa? Lepidoptera? She looked like a Lepidoptera.
    A strangely forthcoming Senior Constable Lepidoptera White. She had told me a lot. Had she been giving me a message? Had she just been up all night? Had her mother taught her that a civil question deserves a civil answer? These were deep questions.
    Meanwhile a line was forming of people anxious not to spend their lunch hour trying to buy lunch and I snapped out of my daze and into sell mode. The cash register rang cheerily, Horatio purred, and the money rolled in as the bread rolled out (sorry). I began to wonder whether I was going to have any bread to spare for the Soup Run when the door clicked closed and suddenly the place was empty. Two pm on the dot and only the poor office assistants and shopkeepers, who had drawn late lunch, were likely to come in now.
    Goss returned, having lingered fondly outside BlackFlower Boutique, where her next dress lived until she could earn more money. Her Goth friend Carol Holland would make sure no one else bought it. It was a daring dark purple number with a peekaboo front to show her navel. I wondered again, what was this thing about navels? However you look at them, they are not aesthetic. Also, no one with my figure likes present fashions. One does not want one’s cardigans skimpy or one’s skirts short, and one definitely does not want to show one’s navel or any points adjacent. What happened to breasts? I like breasts. I’m fond of mine. Goss is as flat chested as a ten year old boy.
    Goss thrust a big parcel of herbs into my arms. The scent was heavenly, the essence of green growing things. I identified thyme, parsley, basil, rosemary, coriander, tarragon and a stick of bay leaves with that dark oriental smell.
    ‘Yum,’ I remarked.
    ‘That lady cop was at Meroe’s,’ giggled Goss. ‘Going through the herbs. Meroe isn’t happy.’
    ‘I bet she isn’t,’ I agreed.
    ‘Especially since she called Meroe “Sibyl”,’ said Goss, stroking Horatio.
    ‘Oops.’ I was not the only person to be making linguistic mistakes today. Although, I admit, Basil Fawlty’s wife was called Sibyl, the original sibyls were powerful witches who spoke oracles. I hoped that Meroe might take it as a compliment but decided that she probably wouldn’t. I don’t know where Meroe came from, she’s never said, but it was a place where they really didn’t like the police.
    With the world in the state it is that could be just about anywhere …
    ‘Did Ms White say what she was looking for in the herbs?’ I asked.
    ‘Mj,’ said Goss, going off into a fit of the giggles. Marijuana? In the Sibyl’s Cave? It was funny. Meroe is sternly against all drugs. Except, I suppose, flying ointment and essence of nightshade. She has been known to threaten smokers with eternal karmic backlash and doesn’t even approve of my gin and tonic when I finish work for the day. It dulls the chakras, apparently. I told her that I liked them dull. Senior Constable Lepidoptera White was doomed to disappointment, and probably a lecture on chakras as well.
    ‘Time to close up,’ I said, fastening the door and pulling the shutter across. Goss loaded the remaining bread into my sack while I