Dead Unlucky by Andrew Derham Read Free Book Online Page A

ago, your forebears may have sailed over to this idyllic isle from Normandy or Germany. Just because they hauled themselves out of a Baltic bog you wouldn’t expect people to say, It’s good to have a Saxon working at the factory , would you?’
    ‘So what’s on the programme of events today then, Guv?’ enquired Redpath with a yawn after having his ignorance of ethnography put right.
    ‘Call me that again and you’ll be walking to school.’
    ‘Sorry, Sir.’
    Hart prodded a button on the dashboard to silence the news on the radio; more journalists and minor politicians prattling on about horrors committed in faraway places.
    ‘First we have a word with the head, someone called Annalee Hargreaves, and then we interview as many teachers and pupils as we can get through today. There’ll be other coppers arriving later and they can take a fair bit of the workload, but I want you or me to see all the staff who taught him, and the boy’s best friends, those who were closest to him.’
    ‘Anything to look out for in particular?’ Another yawn.
    ‘Nope. A plain sheet of paper is what we’re writing on at the moment, but I reckon we’ll have something jotted down on it before the morning’s over, even if it’s only a bit of scrawl. And you’re not picking up a sergeant’s salary to spend your time taking a holiday in the land of Nod, Darren, so you can put that idea out of your head right now.’
    As the sergeant lifted himself up out of his slouch he thought he was entitled to a bit of revenge. ‘Did you enjoy that seafood dinner last night, Sir? What there was of it, I mean.’
    ‘Stop taking the blooming mickey. You know full well that when I’m out with people like that I feel as comfortable as if I’m sitting in a sauna wearing a towel that’s been steeped in itching powder. I somehow can’t stop wriggling and sweating.’
    ‘I don’t know why, Sir. You’re a bright chap, very bright if popular opinion’s to be believed, and as good as any of them.’
    They were travelling south towards London beneath a crisp starry heaven, with the large crescent Moon rising on their left telling them the sky wouldn’t be brightening for another hour or so.
    ‘Perhaps the brain’s still in fairly good nick, but bright isn’t posh. Not the same thing at all. God only knows what the Chief was doing trying to pair me up with Patricia Luft like that, and he’s not telling. It was me that got her husband banged up, for heaven’s sake.’
    ‘Perhaps the Chief thinks there’s a chance she may actually like you, perhaps he’s trying to do you a favour in his clumsy sort of way. Have you ever thought of that?’
    ‘What! No I blinking well haven’t.’ Hart darted a shocked expression to his left. ‘Patricia Luft is rich, divorced from that old money-bags of a lawyer who was put away for sticking his hand into the pocket of a multinational; she speaks English like it should be spoken, is more likely to drop her drawers than an aitch; and she understands the foreign bits on a menu.’
    ‘Never be surprised by women and what gets them hot. Think about all the females who drool over me, for instance.’
    ‘I’d rather not. It’s coming up on the left.’ Hart changed the subject with relief, and an abruptness which caught his passenger off guard.
    ‘What is?’ asked Redpath as he furrowed his brow.
    ‘The sign. We’ve just passed it. We have now crossed over the frontier which segregates us coarse bumpkins from the suave sophisticates of Greater London, and have therefore placed ourselves into the loving and tender arms of a police force which, despite compiling a catalogue of farcical and tragic catastrophes, still looks in the mirror and perceives the world’s most wondrous constabulary. Welcome to Metroland.’
    A few minutes later, at just after a quarter past seven, they drove past another notice, this one declaring that they had arrived at Highdean School: A prestigious school for day and boarding