Cooking the Books by Kerry Greenwood

Guy. ‘The hours fit in with mine. I have to pick up the kids from school.’
    ‘What do you think’s wrong with her?’ worried Tommy. ‘What did she have for breakfast?’
    Heads shook all round. Finally Bernie volunteered that she had been told that Ms Atkins did not want any breakfast, just a cup of tea. Black without milk or sugar. Tommy cross-examined the step-sitters. No lunch, apparently, and no dinner either. No one had seen Ms Atkins eat anything the previous day.
    Tommy heaved a sigh of relief and groped in her apron pocket for a cigarette. She lit it and said, ‘Well, at least it isn’t my food that’s to blame,’ and there was a general agreement. It struck me that no one was at all worried about Ms Atkins herself. But it wasn’t my business and I just drank my coffee. Come to think of it, I wasn’t concerned about her either. Tommy finished her smoke and said, ‘We’d better get back and see what’s happened,’ in the tone of one inviting her friends to a judicial murder.
    Tommy bustled off to find out what was happening and I fell in behind her as though I had every right to be there. The kitchen was loud with wailing about their future and I have never had any patience with wailing. Until you have reason to wail, of course.
    The filming was going on. Emily in her red suit was pro- viding the lines for which the others would react. I gaped at her for a few moments. There she was, cruel, arrogant, Ms Atkins to the life: even her voice was a ruthless mockery of the honeyed tones of the star. The crew had converged, in a huddle of cameras and booms. I was confused by the way the action kept stop- ping and starting. It wasn’t like this when Tommy and I were in the school play, when one had to keep going despite falling sets and forgotten lines. She had made a memorable Julius Caesar to my Calpurnia. Emily had to say over and over again, ‘Of course, you’ve never been interested in appearances, have you?’ and she was doing it perfectly. No droop, no loss of intensity, even through endless repetitions. Curious. This wasn’t acting as I vaguely knew it.
    We entered the little cubicle where Ms Atkins lay and were greeted by the actress herself, eyes black with outrage, and the kneeling medic, who looked like she would prefer to crawl under the couch than continue to tend her patient.
    ‘There’s nothing wrong with me!’ Ms Atkins snarled. Well. At least she wasn’t dead.
    ‘You fainted,’ the doctor pointed out. ‘People don’t faint for no reason. Your blood pressure’s a bit low. How much have you eaten today?’
    ‘Nothing,’ snapped the actor. ‘I had some tea.’
    ‘You need some food,’ said the attendant. ‘Let’s see you eat something light and then I might let you try to get up.’
    ‘Soup, then,’ conceded Ms Atkins. She caught sight of Tommy at the door. ‘Get me some chicken soup,’ she ordered.
    ‘Chicken soup, right away,’ agreed Tommy. She ushered me back into the kitchen.
    ‘She’s all right,’ Tommy announced to general sighs of relief. ‘Needs food. Make Jewish chicken soup, Henry. Slice the celery very fine, remember what happened last time.’ Then she said to me, ‘Choux pastry, I think, Corinna—profiteroles and cream puffs? We seem to still have a job.’
    ‘For the moment,’ I said, and went to find Bernie. Choux pastry is a bugger to make and I was hoping a recent graduate would have a better hand with it than me. It ought to be like the Snark, ‘meagre and hollow, but crisp’, and mine had shown tendencies to be solid, indigestible and burnt.
    When I informed Bernie that she could have the honour of making the choux pastry, she beamed at me and thanked me profoundly. I felt like a fraud.
    As I was watching chocolate melt—always an engrossing occupation—I reflected on the look I had caught on Ethan’s face as he carried Ms Atkins to her room. He had looked guilty. I knew that expression. He had looked like a boy whose mother was making