Читать книгу Deadline Istanbul (The Elizabeth Darcy Series) - Peggy Hanson - Страница 46

CHAPTER 42

He will kill mice, and he will be kind to babies when he is in the house, just as long as they do not pull his tail too hard.

Rudyard Kipling, on the cat

Sultana sniffed the garbage at the house in Üsküdar not far from where Ayla fed her. Pink nose framed by delicate whiskers, she resembled an attractive coed doing a research project—probably one in a lab.

She had followed the young man who leaned down to pet her at the wharf. Sultana was a princess. She accepted homage from any source.

And, like cats of all castes, she was curious.

Most garbage in Üsküdar smelled rather good—some fish, a pile of chicken bones, left-over fruits and vegetables or rice pilav, a little oil or gas, odds and ends. This garbage smelled different—almost like almonds, though Sultana didn’t eat almonds.

Sultana didn’t know the word for ammonium nitrate, either. People used fertilizer in their gardens, where she dug holes for her own purposes. This fertilizer didn’t smell like donkey dung, however.