Read Online Birthdays Can Be Murder by Joyce Cato - Free Book Online

dear.’
    Justin gave his sister an I-could-strangle-you look, but managed a nonchalant shrug. ‘Not really. It was just the usual snooping. I got sick and tired of it and told him either to cut it out or he would find himself without a job at all. Then he could devote all his time to trying to persuade the local Clarion to take him on.’
    Alicia laughed. The local Clarion , Jenny assumed, was not exactly a racy or particularly adventurous type of newspaper. A big report on the church bazaar would probably have been the topic of its front pages for days.
    ‘I’m glad you think it’s funny,’ Justin said, miffed. ‘The police seem to think it all most significant. Although why, I can’t say. Perhaps they think I topped the little sod.’
    ‘Justin!’ Sherri Greer said, shocked.
    ‘Justin!’ her husband roared in echo, knowing that his son had gone too far this time. Mark probably didn’t roar all that often, since there was another long, and this time definitely sheepish, silence.
    ‘Well. The police get on your nerves,’ Justin said defiantly. ‘Implying this, insinuating that, and all with that sickeningly polite look on their faces. That Inspector Mollineaux, for instance, is a particularly officious sod. Still, at least he didn’t try and hint that we should postpone the party. But I was beginning to wonder if he might.’
    ‘Well, I should think not,’ Alicia said hotly, and with such injured outrage it made everyone smile, including Jenny.
    ‘That reminds me,’ Mark said, his voice suddenly serious enough to make everyone’s smile fade, ‘I meant to tell you, Jenny, that there will be twenty-two for the feast, not twenty. I’ve invited Tom Banks and his wife to join us.’
    Alicia shot her brother a half-curious, half-appalled look. ‘Daddy!’
    ‘Why the hell did you do that?’ Justin asked, just managing to keep his voice on an even keel. One look at him, however, showed his extreme anger. The smiling nonchalance was gone, and in its place was a white, pinched, furious expression that was all the more unnerving for being held so severely in check.
    ‘I thought it was the least we could do.’ Mark stared at his son levelly. ‘Tom’s worked for Greer Textiles for twenty years, eight of those as assistant manager. Since he’s now retired ’ – he gave the word a strange emphasis that his son couldn’t fail to miss – ‘this is the perfect opportunity to see him go in style.’
    Justin’s lips twisted in a parody of a smile at his father’s words, and Jenny found her memory being jolted.
    When she’d been in the shop, thinking about whelks, hadn’t some of the other customers been talking about a somebody-or-other Mr Banks who’d been fired by Justin Greer? She hadn’t been paying much attention at the time, and had promptly forgotten all about it.
    ‘I still don’t think that our birthday party is either the right time or place,’ Justin’s voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘Tom has already left the company, remember?’
    ‘Left? That’s not the way I heard it.’ Mark, confirming all of Jenny’s misgivings, was openly challenging now.
    ‘Regretting your own retirement, Dad?’ Justin asked, almost on a sneer. ‘You have seen this year’s figures, I take it?’
    ‘I’m well aware that profits are up.’
    ‘I’ve made our competition look feeble,’ Justin openly boasted. ‘And our blanket-making division is more than holding its own.’
    ‘I’m well aware of that.’
    ‘And I did it all without Tom Banks.’
    ‘I’m also aware of that.’
    ‘Well, then, I think …’
    ‘Tom Banks was a loyal employee and a friend. He still is, I hope. And he’s coming to your party.’ There was a finality in the elder Greer’s voice that nobody could mistake, and Justin flushed. He would not, Jenny was sure, be magnanimous in defeat. And she was quickly proved right.
    ‘Oh, have it your way,’ he said savagely. ‘You always do.’
    Jenny watched him stomp out, and