Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

4 Kerry Greenwood
‘You’re going to afternoon tea with the Levin family. Just
watch and listen. Customs will not be different, or not noticeably.
If it’s a kosher house you won’t get milk with your tea if
there are meat sandwiches. Talk to Simon about it—he’ll brief
you. Now, this afternoon I will see the autopsy report on the
poor young man, and we’ll go from there.’
‘But, Miss Fisher,’ protested the scion of the Abrahams fortune,
‘you haven’t given me a task! I’m part of this team, too, aren’t I?’
‘I have a task for you,’ said Phryne, with such deep meaning
that Simon blushed and took a sip of wine the wrong way.
When he had finished coughing, the conversation turned to
the Eastern Market and the changing face of the city. Dessert
was fruit salad with a little cointreau. Jane and Ruth stayed to
toast Cec’s coming nuptials in a little champagne before they
went for their briefing with Simon on Jewish Customs and How
Not To Outrage Them.
He found them disconcerting. They sat either side of him on
the couch, looking sweet and very young, and asked acute questions
which indicated that they had not only heard everything
he had said but had analysed it.
‘So the kosher laws are derived from Leviticus,’ mused Jane.
‘Cloven-hoofed mammals that chew the cud. Would that include
giraffe?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Simon.
‘What about whale?’
‘I don’t know,’ he repeated. ‘A whale isn’t a fish, is it?’
‘No,’ replied Jane patiently, ‘it’s a cetacean, but in the bible
the whale that swallows Jonah is called “a great fish” so the desert
fathers probably thought a whale was a fish, and it certainly has
bones. Unlike a shark, which is cartilaginous.’
‘Well, we cannot eat flake.’ Simon was delighted to have
something to offer.
‘Hmm. I can see that I should have talked to Rebecca about
her customs before. They are really interesting,’ said Jane. She
collected Ruth and they left the room to find the Bible and read
Leviticus in preparation.