This Private Plot (12 page)

She rested her clasped hands on his shoulder, and laid her head on top. He could feel the curls pressed against his neck.

“But a police detective who's on holiday can help,” she continued idly. It took a moment for him to realize what she meant.

“We're going to keep working on this?” he asked in wonderment. She smiled, without lifting her head.

“Sure. What else is there to do in Synne but look for sinners? But promise me this: that if we don't ravel all this matter out by the weekend—let's say by the time of Tim's play on Saturday night—we leave it and go home. Not a jot more.”

Oliver smoothed her hair. “I love you, Effie Strongitharm,” he said.

“I love you too, Ollie, even though I probably won't have all those children I'm longing for.”

***

Five minutes later, Oliver was speaking on the kitchen phone, finger pressed on his right ear to shut out the noise of his mother filling the dishwasher.

“The letter turned out to be irrelevant,” he said, having briefed his contact on all that had happened since their last meeting. “Apparently it was never sent, even though Breedlove had logged it.”

“You might still try to find out who it was meant for,” replied Hyacinthe McCaw from her room in St. Basil's, Oxford. “It does give some village malefactor a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

“Uncle Tim thinks Breedlove's victims could be anywhere in the country.”

“Then tell him from me he's a tithead. Of course it's local. Breedlove depended on his personal charm and sincerity to wheedle secrets out of people. You have to look them in the eye. What's the set-up there?”

“Synne has less than a hundred homes, say two hundred residents. There's a neighboring village called Pigsneye, a little larger, that may have been in Breedlove's purview, but nothing else for several miles around. That's our known world.”

“Then it's positively Aristotelian in its unity of place. And trust me,
mon brave
, your problem won't be finding suitable contenders for a spot of blackmail. It'll be whittling down the list to only four or five.”

The dreadful record of Synne.

“But how do I start?”

“Have you ever heard of the old prediction—that if you march up to any door in any town and say ‘the game's up, hand over the money,' then half the time you'll actually get something? Most of us just don't bother to ask.”

“I find it hard to believe that Breedlove's victims will be clamoring to confess, when it puts them into the frame for a murder investigation.” He put his hand over the microphone to muffle the noise of his mother dropping a saucepan into the sink and strained to catch Dr. McCaw's reply.

“Breedlove didn't want his victims to reform. He wanted them to keep up the bad behavior, so they'll keep up the payments. If you want the fruits of my advice, start by talking to the noted gossips of the community. Can you think of any?”

“Oh certainly,” Oliver replied, watching his mother hurry out of the kitchen to answer the doorbell. “So do I still play up the sex angle?”

“
Bien sur, mon ami
. We're British. And apart from anything else, fiddling with your neighbor's wife is a lot more interesting than fiddling the company's books. More fun for the neighbor's wife, too.
Au revoir
.”

He hung up as Chloe returned to the sunlit kitchen, followed by Lesbia Weguelin, the grim, black-bobbed verger of St. Edmund and St. Crispin's. Chloe introduced her distractedly and began to fill the kettle. The verger gave him a curt nod.

“We've already met,” Oliver reminded her. “The other day near the church.”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” Lesbia replied, and managed what she must have intended as a tight smile before turning back to Chloe.

In the garden, Oliver found Effie leafing through a copy of
Uncle Dennis's Nursery Rhyme Book
.

“Did you lift that from Simon Culpepper's briefcase?” he asked.

“Tampering with evidence, what do you take me for? No, this is a spare copy that I picked up at Breedlove's house last night, while you were distracted.” She gathered her dense curls behind her head, holding them back with two hands, then let them go again. Her hair fell back into place, fanning out around her head like a bird's wings spreading for flight. “So we have to find four sinners in Synne, with only this book to go on.”

“Five.”

“Why five?”

“Hyacinthe says we should pinpoint all five of Breedlove's targets, actual and intended.”

“Why?”

“Purposes of elimination. If we know who victim five was meant to be, we know that he or she isn't victim one, two, three, or four. And in five's case, we have two sets of clues: the content of the letter
and
the nursery rhyme Breedlove chose.”

Oliver's mother arrived at the table carrying two steaming mugs. “I say, that Sergeant Culpepper is one tall, dishy drink of ink,” she said. She placed the mugs in front of them and turned back to the house. Oliver winked at Effie.

“Mother, if you wanted to blackmail somebody in Synne, who would make a good target?” he asked.

Chloe stopped, without turning to face them. “Why are you asking me?”

“Well, you seem to have the lowdown on everyone in the village.”

“Are you implying I'm an old gossip?” Chloe said, taking a seat at the table.

“Yes, of course.”

“No.”

“No what?”

She looked at him kindly, but he could sense something hardening behind her eyes. “No I'm not going to answer that question about blackmail.”

“Now, mother, what's the matter?”

“I know what this is about, Oliver. You want to keep this Dennis Breedlove business going, just to satisfy your curiosity.”

“It's a little more than that, Chloe,” said Effie gently.

“But you were happy enough to help me at the funeral yesterday,” Oliver broke in.

“That was different, dear,” Chloe answered. “Then, you were looking for a blackmailer, a bad hat. Now you've found your blackmailer and you're looking for his victims, who may not be bad hats.” She stood up. “These are my neighbors, Oliver. These are my friends. Leave them alone.”

“But, Mother—”

“We understand completely, Chloe,” Effie interrupted, laying a hand on Oliver's arm.

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” muttered Oliver as they watched her walk away, her white hair as bright as ice in the sunlight.

Chapter Twelve

Wednesday afternoon

On Google Earth, the Shakespeare Race looks like a bull's-eye, a target for a preposterously tardy
Luftwaffe
bomber. Zoom in closer, and you can discern its pattern of recursive, enfolded pathways, like a cabalistic tattoo or a Chinese decoration, its perimeter notched by the shadow of the Synne Oak. And if the photograph had been taken that Wednesday afternoon, you could have made out two figures lying on the green circle at the center of the turf maze. But if you were one of those people who think scrutinizing aerial photography for blurry naked bodies and posting the results on YouTube is a service to mankind worthy of your brief, precious time on the planet, you'd be disappointed to notice that these figures were, on this occasion, fully clothed.

“I wish I'd listened to my mother,” said Oliver.

“And what piece of maternal advice are you currently regretting?” Effie asked, tickling his ear with a long blade of grass.

“Not advice. Gossip. Facts. Stories, complaints, jokes about the denizens of Synne. Our weekly telephone calls are full of them. I used to tune most of it out.” He brushed away a cranefly. “I was counting on Mother. Most pernicious woman!”

“There's a difference between private gossip and public exposure. Chloe's just drawn a line, that's all.”

Oliver didn't answer. He watched a cloud float across the sapphire sky, backed like a weasel, its edges steaming and morphing. The Race was the highest point for many miles, and the views toward the Vale of Evesham were breathtaking. A mild breeze caused the branches of the Synne Oak to groan slightly. He shivered with memory, despite the warmth of the afternoon.

Effie lifted her head and looking around the deserted Race. “How come we're the only ones here?”

“There's a big hole on the main road, something to do with drainage repair. Cars can get by, but the gap is too narrow for tour buses. Should be cleared up in a day or two.”

“Let's hope we are, too. Okay, who do you know who lives in Synne?”

“Apart from you and me?” Oliver answered, with a slight snort of laughter. Simon Culpepper was right, it was still funny. Although it didn't apply to their sexless time in the country. No sin in Synne so far. Maybe their luck would change tonight? After witnessing his charismatic guest-star appearance at the vicar's writers' group, Effie was bound to be overcome with lust. And his gentleman's area was starting to recover from the previous day's assault.

“I hardly know anybody,” he continued. “A smattering of neighbors and my mother's cronies. The landlord of the local pub. The vicar. Vic, the village voyeur. No, he's the peeping Tom, the voyeur's the other one. Police Constable Bostar, I suppose. The Bennets, if you stretch it to Pigsneye. Eric Mormal, God forbid. But there's a constant influx of professional people who want to escape to the smiling and beautiful countryside. They're the ones most likely to provide fodder for a blackmailer. And they're strangers to me. Although I do have one potential candidate.”

“Oh yes?”

“It was an idea that struck me yesterday. Do you recall the vicar introducing us to Lesbia Weguelin, the verger?”

“Vividly. Not much to say for herself. Clearly wearing a wig.”

“Ah good, you thought so, too. And did you happen to notice her husband, Sidney, the church organist, at the funeral yesterday morning?”

“Not really. He was already playing when we arrived. Did I get an odd impression of the wrong kind of beard?”

“That's him. Too much facial furniture, like he's hiding behind it. Same with the missus—big glasses, thick makeup.”

“You think Dennis Breedlove was threatening to report them to the Taste Police?”

“No,” Oliver replied. He swallowed. “I think they're the same person.”

“Go on,” she said warily.

“Well, first, they seem to be about the same height and weight, which is hard to disguise. Second, they both wear as much stuff on their faces as they can for their gender. Third, notwithstanding the previous point, they have the same-shaped pointy nose and firm jawline. And fourth, Lesbia has a deep voice and Sidney has a weak handshake.”

“So Lesbia's a bit butch, and Sidney's a cissy. That's still two people, not one. Does Lesbia have an Adam's apple? Is Sidney taping down a pair of size C boobs under his waistcoat? Where's the evidence?”

“Okay, Lesbia came over to the house this morning, and she acted as though she'd never met me before. Why's she so standoffish, all of a sudden?”

“Because you completely failed to make an impression on her the first time?”

Oliver shook his head. “She/he senses that I'm on to them. Him. Her. Hem. And so was Dennis Breedlove.” He tapped the copy of Breedlove's book, lying on the grass between them. “I think they're Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”

“I thought you said there was only one of them?”

“That's the point. That's why they fit that particular poem.”

Effie reached for the book of nursery rhymes and found the page. She read Carroll's words aloud.

“Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.

Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel,
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.”

“Don't see the fit,” she said.

“It's possible that Uncle Dennis was thinking of Lewis Carroll's treatment of them in
Through the Looking Glass
—and Tenniel's illustration—as two identical, portly schoolboys.”

“But that's still two people.”

“Well, Sidney's trying to be two people.”

“Two people who are as unalike as possible—a thin bearded man and a chubby woman. Not two people who are indistinguishable.”

“Ah, but there's more. Dennis Breedlove was an expert in children's literature. So he would have known about the origin of the Tweedles. It goes back to the early eighteenth century, when a great rivalry developed between the German composer Handel and the Italian composer Bononcini, both working in London. The poet John Byrom, whom most people now think of as a misprint, wrote a satirical epigram about the disagreement from the viewpoint of a tone-deaf Philistine who couldn't hear why one composer's music was so much better than the other's. ‘Strange all this Difference should be/'Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee!' He meant those nonsense words to represent the sound of rococo music to his untrained ears, like ‘tra-la-la' or ‘oom-pah oom-pah.'”

“It's still about similarities, not differences.” Effie stifled a yawn and turned to another bookmarked page, the victim who was targeted three years earlier.

“Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.”

“Okay, that could also be Lesbia and Sidney,” Oliver cut in. “Jack and Jill, two sides of the same coin, linked forever in their activities—Jack can't even fall down a hill without Jill, of necessity, tumbling after him. It's clearly them.”

Effie looked at him silently, and then turned to the next rhyme. “And starting two years ago, we had ‘Mary, Mary, quite contrary…'”

“You don't have to go any further,” Oliver interrupted. “That must be Lesbia and Sidney. ‘Mary, Mary,' the same person mentioned twice—and her contrary nature is emphasized.” He laughed complacently. “And Uncle Tim said it would be hard to find the victims from the rhymes.”

Effie smacked his head with the book. “Oliver, sometimes you're the pinprick in the contraceptive of life.” She lay back and stared at the sky.

“I'll try to accept it, of course,” she continued, a slight catch in her voice. “On those days when my friends ask ‘Where did Oliver disappear to?' and I'm forced to reply ‘He's going to his mother's closet.'”

“What?”

“Well, you're clearly obsessed with cross-dressing. First it was that Oona in Plumley, who was really Barry, and now you want to dress Sidney up as Lesbia. All I ask, dearest Oliver, is that you spare me from public shame. A twinset and pearls I could take, in the privacy of our home. But if I ever find you performing in falsies and a liberty bodice in some seedy Aldgate drag club calling yourself The Lady Vulveeta, it's off.”

“Have you finished?”

“Of course, if it
is
off, it'd probably be off anyway.”

He launched himself onto her, and there were a few moments of painless, good-humored wrestling, before they lay back again, breathless and happy with each other.

“Okay, what's next?” he asked.

Effie picked up the book again. “One year ago. ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.'”

“Ah yes, another poem, not a nursery rhyme, with an actual author and several forgotten verses.” He sang the first verse to its familiar tune.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a diamond in the sky!”

“If you're going to hijack the reading, you could at least get it right,” Effie complained. “That third line is ‘Up above the world
so high.
' I don't know where you got ‘you fly' from.”

“My fault.” He thought for a second. “Oh, it's from Lewis Carroll's parody, which the Hatter sings during the mad tea party.”

“Well, at least you're not trying to make out a case for your new girlfriend Sidney with this one. Just remember that I'd prefer you to ask before you try on my lingerie.”

Oliver whispered the phrase “How I wonder what you are!” to himself.

“And our fifth and final entry is, presumably, the victim who never knew that he or she was a victim. It's a finger-play rhyme.” Effie put the book down and sat up straight, with her hands clasped in front of her face, fingers interlocked inwards.

“Here is the church.”

She lifted her index fingers until their tips were touching.

“And here is the steeple.”

She moved her thumbs apart.

“Open the doors.”

And then in one movement, she turned both hands palm upward, revealing wiggling fingertips.

“And see all the people.”

“Okay, Ollie,” she said, looking at her wristwatch and faking a sports commentator's cadences, “you have thirty seconds to find all the transvestite references there. Go! Tick, tick, tick…Church, yes, Sid and Les both work at the church. Steeple, no, no steeple on the parish church, but it's probably a phallic symbol, so we're still in the game. Do it, England! Open the door—an obvious reference to the Weguelins' bedroom, are they hiding in two closets or just the one? See all the—uh-oh—people. People plural. ‘
All
the people,' not ‘both the people,' so it's not just two, we're losing points, the clock is running down, and unless they're in the church to pray for hormone therapy, I'd say the number's up for this plucky little verse. Bzzzz! There's the final buzzer, and once again, England has failed to qualify.”

She managed the final sentence between convulsive giggles, because Oliver had jumped on her a second time and was attempting to tickle her into silence, always dimly aware that she could bring the encounter to an abrupt and painful end if she wished. Fortunately, she didn't. They concluded the tussle with a prolonged and intrusive kiss that was just damp enough. Then they brushed the grass and dust from their clothes, and headed downhill in the late afternoon sunshine.