Free Power Games by Judith Cutler

sandwich to prompt Kate to continue.
    Which she did. ‘So we have an anonymous woman who hides her identity and walked to Brayfield Centre. Or paid cash on a bus. And had no money to buy a drink or get home.’
    â€˜Yes, we’re on the same wavelength. And so, by the time I’d asked the same questions of our young colleague in Kings Heath, was he. Not that he liked having to accept advice from a woman he clearly sees as in her dotage,’ Sue said grimly. ‘Anyway, I think we might get our forensic post mortem. Want to be there?’ she asked, ultra-casually.
    Since Christmas, every time there’d been a stiff, someone had wanted to know if Kate wanted to watch Patrick Duncan cut it up. The news had evidently got round very quickly that Kate and he were no longer an item. The joke was wearing distinctly thin but Kate would not bite.
    â€˜Not our stiff,’ she said, equally casually.
    â€˜True. OK, off you go. Just one thing, Kate,’ she added mock-wistfully, ‘you couldn’t change your tennis lesson to another day? Only Kings Heath seems to like its crime on Tuesdays.’
    Kate got to her feet, grinning at the pallid joke.
    Sue shrugged. ‘Which reminds me – any news of the old dears and their budgie?’
    â€˜I’ll have to ask Guljar for an up-date on the lorry business. But I’m sure they’ll get a tidy sum from the driver’s insurance. Well, his or his employer’s. The daughter’s a barrister: I wouldn’t like her on my trail! Anyway, her parents – and Billy the budgie – have settled in OK: I had a postcard yesterday morning. They tell me they’re going to take their daughter’s garden in hand.’ And Kate was pretty sure that she would have a round tuit, whatever that might turn out to be, ready and waiting for them.
    Â 
    â€˜A charity! All that land owned by a charity! The
same
charity!’ Kate must have sounded as incredulous as she felt. She pulled up a chair to Colin’s desk and waited for more.
    Colin nodded. ‘Yes. A charity. An old and respectable one, too. You’ve heard of Anna Seward?’
    â€˜No,’ Kate said blankly. ‘Should I have done?’
    Colin flung his hands in the air, presumably to catch his eyebrows. ‘Goodness me! Never heard of the Swan of Lichfield? Well, I suppose you southerners are a pretty ignorant tribe.’
    â€˜OK.’ Kate was going to have to indulge him, wasn’t she, if she wanted to get at the kernel. ‘Who was she?’
    â€˜She was a poet. Born that place in Derbyshire where they had the plague. You know, “Ring a ring o’roses”.’
    â€˜You’re losing me, Colin.’
    â€˜OK. She lived most of her life in Lichfield. Doctor Johnson was a fan. You’ve heard of him?’
    â€˜Might just have done.’
    â€˜And Sir Walter Scott published all her poems posthumously.’
    â€˜Good for him. Though personally I’d rather have my five minutes of fame while I’m alive.’
    â€˜And she had a sister, who died young. Sarah.’
    â€˜Have you been mugging all this up for
Mastermind
?’
    â€˜Did a project on her at school. Now, Sarah was very bright, and Anna herself a bit of a blue-stocking. So when Sarah dropped off her perch, Anna decided the most appropriate memorial was a school for young women. A good one. So she set up this charitable foundation to fund it. And several other schools. There are Seward Academies – nothing as vulgar as a school, you’ll notice – in several towns round here. Walsall, Wolverhampton, Lichfield itself, of course, Tamworth.’
    â€˜What about Birmingham?’
    â€˜Oddly enough, no. They own a lot of land in the area, but no schools.’
    â€˜Why “oddly”?’
    â€˜Because education in Brum’s always been dominated by boys’ grammar schools. Until they spotted the implications of equal opportunities