Dead as a Scone Read Online Free PDF

afar, seemingly wanting to keep her distance.
    They’re probably annoyed that the only man at our table decided to squire me.
    Flick waved good night to Conan Davies, who stood patiently like a sentinel near the doors, waiting for an opportunity to lock up and set the alarm system. Conan, a large man of few words, returned a wink.
    The night air felt chilly. Flick tightened the belt on her Burberry and tried to ignore the cars speeding by on Eridge Road. Marjorie and the others didn’t seem to notice, but Flick found them alarmingly close—even with tall, solid Matthew Eaton walking next to her on the sidewalk. Happily, she knew the Pantiles and the Swan were only a five-minute walk away.
    When Flick had first visited England at the age of eleven, some twenty-five years ago, the country’s narrow lanes, high hedgerows, and twisty curves had enchanted her. Back then, the English favored small cars, appropriate to the width of their roads. But now, like Americans, they drove full-sized sport-utility vehicles and minivans. These big vehicles seemed to overflow the still-narrow roads and overpower the woefully inadequate in-town car parks. She marveled that local drivers managed to whiz past each other without colliding and then park their big Mercedes SUVs and Range Rovers in “stalls” that were laid out decades ago for tiny Austins and Morris Minors.
    Matthew Eaton gently tapped her arm. “If I may ask a possibly impertinent question, Dr. Adams… how did a woman born and raised in faraway Pennsylvania acquire two veddy, veddy English monikers?”
    “Both of my parents are determined Anglophiles,” she said. “My mother chose Felicity and my father immediately added the appropriate English nickname, Flick.”
    “Well done!”
    “I agree. I’ve always thought that Flick Adams has an interesting ring to it.”
    Somewhere in the distance a siren warbled. Flick immediately thought about Elspeth Hawker. If I were a real detective investigating her murder, what questions would I ask my suspects?
    Flick caught her breath. “Good heavens!” she muttered softly. “I have to treat them all like secret suspects. I hope I can manage that.”
    “Did you say something?” Matthew asked.
    “No! I didn’t!” she answered, much louder than she meant to.
    It’s time to start lying to my friends and superiors.
    Flick looked up at Matthew’s bewildered face and smiled.

Three
    “W hat makes my job especially difficult, you see, is that Dame Elspeth Hawker offers no obvious media handles.”
    The earnest public relations practitioner paused to let his gloomy pronouncement sink in. Nigel Owen duly jotted the words “no media handles” on his yellow pad. He even added an underline to emphasize the severity of the problem, although he had no idea what kind of handles Elspeth might have possessed or why her lack of the media variety would cause such despair.
    Nigel set down his pen and nodded in agreement. It simply wouldn’t do to display his ignorance of communications jargon in front of Archibald Meicklejohn. It had been Nigel, after all, who suggested that they get assistance crafting the statement about Elspeth’s death. “This sort of writing needs a deft professional touch,” he had said to Archibald. In fact, Nigel saw no reason to invest hours of his own time learning enough about the Hawker clan to write Elspeth’s obituary. Six months from now, the Hawkers would be a fading memory.
    The corpulent, fiftyish PR man heaved a melancholy sigh and went on. “Elspeth seems to have spent her long life growing tea roses and taking the odd trip to Bath. No occupation. No husband or children. No hobbies. No observable idiosyncrasies. Nothing! Not a single media handle I can see.”
    Nigel thought about asking for clarification, but as he weighed the pros and cons, Archibald beat him to the punch. “Stuart, what pray tell is a media handle? And how might Elspeth Hawker be so equipped?”
    Nigel relaxed. Good! The