At 4pm, the phone went. It was The Sun: 'We hear your daughter's been expelled for cheating at her school exams...' She'd made a remark to a friend at the end of the German exam and had been pulled up for talking. As they left the exam room, she muttered that the teacher was a 'twat'. He heard and flipped—a pretty stupid thing to do, knowing the kids were tired and tense after exams. Instead of dropping it, the teacher complained to the Head and Deb was carpeted.
Your talking of a retreat, Mr. Marlow, puts me in mind of the Duke of Marlborough, when we went to besiege Denain.
act 2
MING. About his name. Oscar. Asians always pick out the most curious and most discarded English names from books and TV. Like Cornelius. Elmo. Wellington.
Then Fitzstephan went to Whidden with an offer of a thousand dollars for Eric’s murder. Whidden refused at first, but he wasn’t nimble-witted, and Fitzstephan could be persuasive enough, so the bargain had been made.