This Private Plot by Alan Beechey Page B

hopefuls are clamoring for Private Eye to find out about their experiments in Eton dormitories, in hopes it’ll lead to a cabinet position. Our indiscretions sometimes serve us well. There’s a glamour in having a past. The aging pop star on the talk show who announces he’s been sober and clean for all of three days now gets a standing ovation, while the poor schmo who’s never touched the stuff in his life is dismissed as a prude. Perhaps they’re the ones I should target.”
    There was a hesitant tap on the door. She opened it. A trio of female students was waiting nervously on the landing, clutching essays and textbooks.
    â€œAny last suggestion as to where I start?” Oliver asked her quietly as the young women filed past him into the room.
    â€œRemember the ‘family secret,’” she said. “Go to the funeral. Watch the mourners. A bientôt. ”

Chapter Eight
    Tuesday morning
    â€œAt least he picked a nice day for it,” said Chloe Swithin. She and her son were standing outside the Church of St. Edmund and St. Crispin, half an hour early for Dennis Breedlove’s funeral.
    â€œI don’t think the weather has much to do with this unseemly rush to put him six feet under,” Oliver said, slipping a finger inside his tight shirt collar.
    â€œOh, there are plenty of countries that would bury a stiff much earlier than this. Especially as you get closer to the equator. It’s the heat. They tend to go off sooner.”
    â€œThanks for the mental image.”
    Oliver had returned from Oxford to discover that the funeral Dr. McCaw had just ordered him to attend was scheduled for the next morning. Detective Sergeant Culpepper had traced Breedlove’s only remaining relatives to Hull, and when the vicar had called to them to make arrangements, they had insisted on a quick funeral and burial. Edwards the Concessor’s attempt to gain a little more leeway only succeeded in getting the service moved up from Thursday to Tuesday, leaving Oliver no time to fetch his best (and only) suit from London. Forced to rob the sartorial grave that was his old Synne wardrobe, he had come up with a pair of gray flannels and his last school blazer. Toby had lent him a white shirt that was a collar size too small. At least the fashion-conscious Ben wasn’t there to despair of him—he had headed back to London earlier that morning.
    Oliver had persuaded Chloe to come early and wait with him by the church’s Norman doorway. He was following Dr. McCaw’s instructions, but he needed his mother’s help to identify the mourners.
    â€œDo you think this could be a relative?” he asked. A man had come into sight, walking briskly toward the church, humming quietly and wiggling the fingers of his right hand in time with his private music.
    â€œNo, that’s Sidney Weguelin, the church organist,” Chloe told him. “He’s one of us, moved here a couple of years back.”
    Weguelin reached them, and Chloe introduced Oliver.
    â€œMy wife mentioned that she’d bumped into you the other day,” Weguelin said, addressing Oliver as he shook hands, rather limply. Odd to think that those flaccid fingers would be powerful enough for toccatas and fugues. He mentioned a wife? Oh, yes, Lesbia, the straight-faced verger of St. Edmund and St. Crispin, she of the black plastic specs and artificial-looking bob.
    One of Mallard’s former sergeants, now Detective Inspector Welkin, had the peculiar trait that he always reminded people of somebody they knew; Sidney Weguelin had the same effect on Oliver now, although he’d surely have remembered who else possessed poorly cut, crinkly hair and a fussy moustache and goatee. Weguelin’s beaklike nose supported unfashionable gold-rimmed spectacles. Oliver always thought too much facial hair was a mistake for the habitual wearer of glasses. It gave a cluttered impression. Even his uncle’s