Read Online Nemesis of the Dead by Frances Lloyd - Free Book Online

Ellie,’ he explained, defensively. ‘She’s vegetarian. She can’t eat this other food. She only likes lettuce and things like that.’
    Professor Gordon, who had been happily chewing on gobbets of raw, marinated squid and chatting earnestly to Yanni, suddenly rose to his feet and leaned across the table. He thrust his whiskery face, belligerent and intimidating, into Ellie’s until his nose was just inches away and his ginger hair and hers were barely separable in the twilight.
    ‘I suppose you know,’ he barked, eyes bulging, ‘that a lettuce emits a virtual scream when you tear it from the ground. Plants are living things to be studied, nurtured and conserved, not stuffed in your mouth like chocolate. They have a genesis, a fundamental life process that a silly girl like you can only wonder at.’
    The professor, now well into his stride, dismissed poor, cringing Ellie with overt contempt and turned to lecture the wider audience.
    ‘Plants are the single most important part of our lives. They generate the oxygen, fuel and medicine that allow so-called higher life forms to exist. Plants absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that in large amounts affects global climate. What more evidence do you need to treat them with respect instead of mindlessly ripping them from the ground and ramming them down your ignorant throats?’
    There was a stunned silence, then Ambrose sneered: ‘Poppycock! Everything we eat comes from plants, either directly or indirectly. They’re at the bottom of the food chain. If you’re implying we should leave them alone and eat only meat, you’re an idiot. Animals eat plants and we eat animals.’
    Professor Gordon turned and stared at Ambrose for a long time. Then he spoke in a cold, menacing tone.
    ‘You have a heart complaint, Mr Dobson. What medication keeps you alive?’
    ‘Digoxin, if it’s any of your business.’
    ‘And digoxin, now synthesized, is a drug originally derived from the foxglove plant, Digitalis lanata . I wonder, Mr Dobson, how many plants gave their lives in order to ensure yours, and if, indeed, it was an equitable exchange. Personally, I think not.’
    Ambrose jumped to his feet, fists clenched, temper blackening his puffy features. ‘How dare you!’
    Several voices joined the protest.
    ‘That was a bit much, Professor …’
    ‘Take it easy …’
    ‘Cuthbert, don’t be a jerk …’
    Corrie was startled to see Jack on his feet, ready to get between the two men. It wasn’t like him to overreact and only hours before, he had been warning her not to interfere in other people’s business. Maybe there was something particular about this conflict that Jack wanted to avert. In the event, the potentially explosive situation was defused by Sidney emerging, clench-faced, from the gents.
    ‘The prof’s right,’ he said. ‘Don’t eat the stuffed tomatoes.’
     
    The band arrived shortly after. Three solemn old men from the town of St Sophia carrying bouzoúki . They seated themselves on the edge of the terrace, now twinkling with candle lanterns, and soon they were twanging away. It might have been a jolly dinner but the unpleasantness of the disagreement still hung over them.
    Yanni, who had not understood the cause of the angry exchange but sensed an atmosphere, served copious quantities of wine from proper wine bottles, which was an improvement on the anonymous carafes, even though the bottles had no labels. Everyone agreed that for wine made locally on such a tiny island, it was astonishingly good. Sky took some food and went straight up to her room. She had come to Katastrophos, she said, to bathe her wounded spirit, not party with peasants.
    ‘What’s up with her?’ asked Sidney, refilling his glass. ‘Bit surly, isn’t she?’ He smiled his cheeky, lighthouse smile. ‘Sounds like a weather forecast.’ He pursed his lips and spoke in a camp voice. ‘Tomorrow the Sky will be Surly.’
    The professor, in that conveniently absent-minded way that