Free Deadly Reunion by Geraldine Evans

doesn’t much matter if they do. Money’s a great comforter.’
    â€˜I can imagine,’ said Rafferty, as he thought of the super. Bradley specialized in several of the above. ‘So what are you doing in here? Fed up of school meals?’
    â€˜Something like that,’ Kennedy told them. ‘Plus the fact they don’t serve up my preferred booze at lunch or dinner.’ Kennedy had a pint in front of him. ‘It’s all fine wines from the school’s excellent cellar and they’re meant to be savoured, not thrown back with gay abandon.’
    Rafferty laughed, being something of a gay abandon man himself, and sipped his Adnam’s bitter. He gradually brought the conversation round to what Simon Fairweather did at the Home Office – if only to have something with which to appease Superintendent Bradley if the investigation dragged on.
    â€˜I’m not a politician,’ Fairweather replied to his question. ‘I’m a civil servant. An Under-Secretary. I joined the Home Office straight after university.’
    â€˜Double First, our Simon,’ Kennedy told them. ‘They were lucky to get him. But, God, Si, how do you stand all that bureaucracy and paper shuffling?’
    Simon Fairweather smiled. He had a particularly engaging smile – it altered his rather solemn face amazingly and gave him a mischievous pixie quality – most unsuitable in a civil servant, was Rafferty’s thought, where inscrutability was the norm.
    â€˜It’s rather more than that, Seb. We deal with day-to-day policing, security for the royal family, combating terrorism. We have rather a wide field of responsibility. I’ve never regretted joining the civil service as a career. And there’s plenty of scope for the ultra-ambitious.’
    â€˜My boss has been getting his knickers in a twist about your involvement in the case,’ Rafferty revealed, without a blush for any possible disloyalty.
    â€˜Why?’ Fairweather flashed that impish smile again. ‘Has he been fiddling the overtime figures?’
    â€˜Not as far as I know.’
    â€˜Then he’s nothing to worry about. And I’ve nothing to complain about. So far.’
    Rafferty nodded. ‘That’s good.’ He paused, took another sip of his bitter, and then went on. ‘Bit awkward for you, this case, isn’t it? In your line.’
    Fairweather gave another impish smile. ‘Certainly, we’re not encouraged to get caught up, as a suspect – which I suppose I am – in murder investigations. But I think Griffin School can be regarded by the senior mandarins as being a suitable place for me to socialize. After all, several of my colleagues attended the school and some come back to the reunions. I won’t get a black mark on my record.’
    â€˜Unless you killed Ainsley,’ Kennedy quipped. ‘You might get a bit more than a black mark then, even from the mandarins.’
    â€˜As far as I’m aware, Sebastian, the killer, whoever he is, aside, you’re the nearest the school comes to harbouring a criminal. Though, I have to say that, as an anarchist, you’re too lazy to be a very enthusiastic one.’
    â€˜That’s me put in my place,’ Kennedy said. ‘Trust a civil servant to get the last word.’
    â€˜I rather think you just did that, Seb.’
    Their meals arrived then and Rafferty tucked in heartily to his roast beef and Yorkshires. The beef was melt-in-the-mouth tender and the potatoes were delicious; crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, just as he liked them. He hadn’t expected much from a small village pub, but he made a mental note to put this one in his address book as a possible place to take Abra.
    Sebastian Kennedy had started on his fourth pint by the time Rafferty had finished his meal. He gave Llewellyn the nod and a twenty pound note and his sergeant got up to get more drinks. ‘Will you boys