If wits were pins, the man would be a veritable hedgehog.

Perhaps illnesses could be left behind, just like small, badly concealed china corpses.

Well, you will have to do. If you had died along with your mother, I would have taught the cat to read.

No." Mosca bit her lip and shook her head firmly. Books no longer seemed quite enough. I don’t want a happy ending, I want more story.

Making a wish is like saying, 'I can't deal with anything, I give up, somebody bigger come along and solve it all instead.

I find it hard to believe that a lady like...’ Pertellis hesitated, and coughed. ‘There is something elevated in the female spirit that will always hold a woman back from the coldest and most vicious forms of villainy.’ ‘No, there isn’t,’ Miss Kitely said kindly but firmly, as she set a dish in his hand. ‘Drink your chocolate, Mr Pertellis.

Mosca and Saracen shared, if not a friendship, at least the solidarity of the generally despised. Mosca assumed that Saracen had his reasons for his persecution of terriers and his possessive love of the malthouse roof. In turn, when Mosca had interrupted Saracen’s self-important nightly patrol and scooped him up, Saracen had assumed that she too had her reasons.