Read Online This Private Plot by Alan Beechey - Free Book Online Page B

Xanthe’s head. She’d noticed that, among the bling, each girl was wearing a diamond-encrusted pin with the initial of her first name. It wouldn’t have surprised her if Xanthe thought it her entire signature.
    â€œSo where did you go to college?” Davina now demanded, clearly the chief hostess in her mother’s absence.
    â€œJust Hendon.”
    â€œIs there a University of Hendon? We don’t know it.”
    â€œIt’s the police training establishment, the Peel Centre,” Effie explained, as a dish of strangely soapy consommé arrived in front of her. Spoon , she thought.
    â€œSo what are you?” asked Xanthe, “a Scotland Yard superintendent, like Oliver’s uncle?”
    â€œJust a sergeant for now.”
    â€œHey, Olls,” called Mormal, between noisy inhalations of the soup, “do you make Effie keep her uniform on? It’s the black stockings, innit?”
    â€œEffie’s my uncle’s principal assistant,” Oliver explained, hoping his pride in his girlfriend would cheer her a little. He knew that her role as a guest would keep the Strongitharm Look in check, much as he longed to see Mormal zapped by it. “That means she’s a plain-clothes officer.”
    â€œHow appropriate,” murmured Davina with a private smile. Effie eviscerated a dinner roll.
    â€œWell, Effie,” said Mormal, patting her on the shoulder, “you can feel my collar any time. And not just my collar, if you know what I mean,” he added, winking at Oliver across the table.
    â€œTragically, I do,” Effie muttered, but Mormal wasn’t listening. He had jumped to his feet, holding his soup spoon as if it were a microphone.
    â€œAnd now a little recitation entitled ‘She was only the policeman’s daughter, but she let the chief inspector…’”
    Once again, all the sisters dissolved into indulgent laughter.
    â€œOh, Eric,” chortled Catriona, “you’re so leisure .”
    Mormal subsided into his chair at an angle that would let him glimpse down Effie’s neckline each time she took a sip of consommé, which, like Mormal, was thick and unwholesome.
    â€œOliver, what’s this we hear about you stumbling over bodies again?” Xanthe demanded. “We’ve been literally dying to ask you.”
    â€œMy uncle and I found Dennis Breedlove’s body last night,” Oliver confirmed. He wanted to learn more about the old man’s life, in the hope that it would provide a path to the blackmailer, but this gossipy crowd was surely not the forum.
    â€œYeah, the word is he hanged himself from the old Synne Oak,” Mormal said.
    â€œThat’s what it looks like.”
    Mormal smiled. “Got any gory details?”
    Davina glared at him fiercely across the table. “Eric, I don’t think this is an appropriate subject for a supper party,” she said. Her younger sisters let loose little sighs of disappointment.
    â€œI agree,” said Toby, who had clearly been told of the death since he had fled the Swithins’ home that afternoon. “It’s very sad. I liked Mr. Breedlove a lot. I used to visit him. He was always up for a chat about my research.”
    He seemed to tear up. Oliver noticed Mormal and Davina catch each other’s eye again, this time with a faint hint of amusement. He guessed it was some private mockery of Toby’s sentiments, a shared cynicism momentarily spanning the class chasm between them, scorning what they saw as unmanly grief, and he despised them for it.
    â€œHe seemed such a cheerful little chap,” said Catriona. “One felt one could tell him anything. Do you know what drove him to end his life, Oliver?”
    Oliver looked at Effie for guidance. She shrugged.
    â€œThe police think it was because he’d received a blackmail letter,” he said.
    â€œ He was being blackmailed?” Mormal exclaimed. “What on earth