Heavenly Pleasures Read Online Free PDF Page A

as shoppers dived between fender and walls in the manner of chickens into whose yard a fox has nonchalantly wandered.
    ‘Someone moving in?’ asked Daniel.
    ‘I’ve got the residents’ group newsletter here—yes, a Mrs Sylvia Dawson. She’s moving into 4B, Minerva. Next to Cherie and Andy in Daphne. That’s been empty since old Mrs Prince died. Nice furniture,’ I commented, looking at the sheen of the table being hauled inside. ‘That’s mahogany. Lots of bookshelves.’
    ‘Lots of books,’ said Daniel, equally fascinated, as box after box was carried inside. I read the legend on the truck.
    ‘They’re the expensive movers,’ I noticed. ‘You don’t have to do a thing. They come to your house, pack everything, take it to the new place, unpack everything, put it all away, make your bed, put the kettle on, and remove all the boxes. They’ll be a while. Madame will probably only put in an appearance when it’s all done.’
    An apartment in Insula is expensive. The shops are cheaper but even so it had taken all I had from my settlement to buy Earthly Delights and I had been a bit squeezed for the first couple of years until the shop began to pay. I was now in the delightful position of being debt free and making a profit. For the moment. Until, for instance, a cheap hot bread shop opened up in my near vicinity. But that hadn’t happened yet. I didn’t know why I was being so snippy. Mrs Dawson was a woman of some wealth and refinement, and why should she unpack boxes if she didn’t feel like it?
    Still, it struck me as extravagant. Leftover from Grandma’s Presbyterian work ethic, I expect. I drank some more gin and tonic to suppress it and kept watching. That’s how I saw my favourite police officer, Letty White (known to me as Lepidoptera) following a man with a suitcase into the building. From the ground, it would not have been obvious that she was following him. But I noticed how she looked around to see if she had been noticed. I didn’t know the man. From above he was ordinary, with brown hair and a dark grey coat and a big navy blue suitcase with wheels. He went inside. So, after a moment, did she. Daniel had been looking at the unloading and didn’t see either of them. But I’m sure it was Lepidoptera. I knew her steady, back-on-the-heels way of walking and her neat cap of hair. What was going on? The residents’ newsletter didn’t mention anyone else moving in today.
    It took an hour for all of Mrs Dawson’s things to be carried inside. They were taken up in the freight elevator, a temperamental beast which has to be treated with respect. We heard it groaning up past us. Only Trudi really understands that elevator and only she would dare to use it. I hoped Executive Luxury Removals were treating both of them with respect or they’d be contemplating their lack of manners between floors for eternity. Still, they’d have plenty to read.
    Horatio leapt off the table. Daniel yawned. I finished my drink and put us all to bed for the rest of the afternoon. No one had hit him in the face so it was safe to kiss him, and I did, and then we all went byes, and it was so warm and cosy and lovely that I really didn’t want to get up when the sun crossed my face at six.
    So we didn’t. We had some more soup and bread and opened Heavenly Pleasures’ test chocolates for a treat. Daniel took one and allowed it to melt in his mouth. An expression of rapture settled on his face.
    ‘Raspberry,’ he said. ‘Essence of raspberry.’
    I bit into mine and then spat it out in sudden, jolting shock. Daniel stared at me.‘Sorry!’ I jumped up, washed out my mouth under the kitchen tap, and then did it again, spitting vulgarly into the sink. ‘There’s something really wrong with that one. I just got a mouthful of chili sauce. Ooh, yuk,’ I added, swilling and spitting again.
    Daniel retrieved the spat-out chocolate and put it on a saucer to examine it.
    ‘It’s been filled with raspberry cream,’ he