B O O K S B Y A L E X A N D E R M c C A L L S M I T H
I N T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B S E R I E S
The Sunday Philosophy Club
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
I N T H E N O . 1 L A D I E S ’ D E T E C T I V E A G E N C Y S E R I E S
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
Tears of the Giraffe
Morality for Beautiful Girls
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
The Full Cupboard of Life
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
I N T H E P O R T U G U E S E I R R E G U L A R V E R B S S E R I E S
Portuguese Irregular Verbs
The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs
At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances
The Girl Who Married a Lion and Other Tales from Africa F R I E N D S, L O V E R S, C H O C O L A T E
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F R I E N D S, L O V E R S,
C H O C O L A T E
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h p a n t h e o n b o o k s
n e w y o r k
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2005 by Alexander McCall Smith All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Alfred A.
Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Originally published in Great Britain by Little, Brown, London.
Exerpt from “Streams” by W. H. Auden reprinted by kind permission of the Estate of W. H. Auden.
Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McCall Smith, Alexander, [date]
Friends, lovers, chocolate / Alexander McCall Smith.
p. cm.
eISBN 0-375-42392-3
1. Women editors—Fiction. 2. Heart—Transplantation—Patients—
Fiction. 3. Italians—Scotland—Fiction. 4. Edinburgh (Scotland)—
Fiction. 5. Delicatessens—Fiction. 6. Housekeepers—Fiction.
7. Nieces—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6063.C326F75 2005 823'.914—dc22
2005046430
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v1.0
For Angus and Fiona Foster
F R I E N D S, L O V E R S, C H O C O L A T E
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C H A P T E R O N E
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THE MAN in the brown Harris tweed overcoat—double-breasted with three small leather- covered buttons on the cuffs—
made his way slowly along the street that led down the spine of Edinburgh. He was aware of the seagulls which had drifted in from the shore and which were swooping down onto the cob-blestones, picking up fragments dropped by somebody who had been careless with a fish. Their mews were the loudest sound in the street at that moment, as there was little traffic and the city was unusually quiet. It was October, it was mid-morning, and there were few people about. A boy on the other side of the road, scruffy and tousle-haired, was leading a dog along with a makeshift leash—a length of string. The dog, a small Scottish terrier, seemed unwilling to follow the boy and
