Forbidden Fruit Read Online Free PDF

Sawney Beane.
    I puzzled sleepily over this for awhile. Vargas Fish? Somehow he didn’t belong in a nursery rhyme, whoever he was, though some of the rhymes were fairly robust, not to say gruesome. After all, ‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’ was about the black death …
    I woke up properly as Horatio landed on my lap with all four feet. It is surprising how heavy a full-grown cat can be if it wants to make a point. He indicated it was time to go back to the flat for his before-dinner sleep. Rowan seemed pleased that he had moved of his own volition.
    ‘Now I can get the list back from the nice companion animal, we can box all the music and that’s us for the day,’ he announced. ‘Hello, Corinna! We like your book.’
    ‘Thank you, he is one of my favourite authors.’ I wasn’t going to offer to lend it, because Nichols was long out of print. ‘Must go, Horatio wants his afternoon sleep.’
    ‘Companion animals are wrong,’ Sarah told me, with that self-righteous tone which always rouses my worse nature.
    ‘Possibly they don’t know that,’ I informed her. ‘But as you see, Horatio is in complete control of his companion human.’
    I picked up my impedimenta and moved towards the door. Bec laughed then bit her lip. Sarah glared at me. Rowan said hastily, ‘I’m going back to my apartment to watch
Doctor Who.
Anyone coming?’
    I don’t know if they followed him or not. I carried my companion animal down to Hebe in an irritated frame of mind.

CHAPTER THREE
    Two star-crossed lovers take their life
    William Shakespeare
          
Romeo and Juliet     
    Daniel had awoken and was improving the shining hour by recalibrating my DVD player, which had somehow got onto the wrong TV channel or something, doubtless due to Horatio’s habit of walking on remote controls.
    Daniel completed his task, looked up, and held out his arms. I put Horatio down, dropped the junk and threw myself enthusiastically into his embrace. He smelt of soap and his signature smell, cinnamon.
    ‘
Metuka,
’ he said into my hair. Hebrew for ‘sweetie’. ‘You look flushed.’
    ‘I feel flushed. I have just been exposed to self-righteous youth and I have been very rude to a young woman.’
    ‘She probably deserved it,’ he said comfortingly. ‘Come, sit down and tell me all about it.’
    ‘It was nothing,’ I said, because it was, really. ‘Militant animal-rights people.’
    ‘This would be Rowan and his choristers?’ he guessed.
    ‘Good guess,’ I told him. ‘She told me that companion animals were wrong. In Horatio’s hearing!’
    ‘The insult seems to have passed him by,’ observed Daniel. He was right. Horatio had chosen his chair and curled up for another nap.
    ‘Indeed, and I will now stop thinking about it,’ I said firmly. ‘How are you?’
    ‘All right. I’m working on an odd case and tonight I must go out on the Soup Run. You too, I think.’
    ‘Yes. I’ve got a sack of bread and some of Jason’s rock cakes which didn’t entirely work to his satisfaction. What sort of odd case?’
    ‘A missing boy,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘A missing girl.’
    ‘Did they go missing together?’
    ‘That’s the problem,’ he said. ‘Her father thinks yes. His father thinks no. Each of them disapproves of the other. It’s tricky.’
    ‘You think? When you say disapprove, do you mean “mildly dislike” or “looking up the internet for hit men as we speak”?’
    ‘The latter. The girl is a sweet little evangelical miss from one of the best schools. Put the kettle on, eh, Corinna? If I am to stay awake I am going to need coffee.’
    ‘Kettle on,’ I reported, clicking the switch. ‘Have you got pictures?’
    ‘Here she is. Brigid Mary Rosamund O’Ryan. Sixteen years old.’
    I looked at the professional photo. Dark hair, parted in the middle. Dark blue eyes with a shade under them—‘put in with asooty finger’, my grandma used to say. Pink and white complexion and a rosebud mouth. And a chin of