FLEMING WAS LYING on his bed, empty-minded, watching the sunlight shimmering on the ceiling. Thirza, aware that he lay in a limbo she couldn't enter, had packed and gone. She had slipped a note under his door – an apology for a non-brilliant performance at the inquest and a request that he should phone her the next day. He saw the note lying there and hadn't bothered to open it. His mind refused to tick over at all. Anger and disappointment and grief had lain on him like scum on still water. Tiredness had distilled it all into a state of almost-peace.
The knock on his bedroom door was something to be ignored. He watched the lifting of the pale curtains in the breeze, the movement fragmented the sunshine into petals of light.
Jenny said, "Open to me, please."
His first reaction was resentment. The steel bars around David and himself were capable of being moved by one person only. If she forced her way through, he would think again and feel again. He wasn't ready for her. Not yet.
"John – I must see you."
"Damn you, Jenny – go away." He didn't know if he said it or thought it.
"Please."
Pain was flowing back. He got off the bed and went and unlocked the door. The sunlight from his bedroom spilled out on to the dark landing and washed over her so that her hair blazed. Her vitality as opposed to David dead was almost an offence.
She walked past him into the room.
She hadn't wanted to come. In normal circumstances she wouldn't have come. For days now he had seen the inquest as a kind of peak in his quest for retribution and it had turned out to be nothing of the kind. This new peak that she was about to show him was so horrifying that she didn't know how to begin.
She noticed the envelope on the floor and handed it to him. "I know you want to be on your own."
He opened it and read the note. "An apology from Thirza. Not necessary. She did what she could."
It was an opening, but she couldn't take it.
He crumpled the note and put it on the dressing-table.
They looked at each other in silence. And then they walked towards each other and he was holding her. He could feel the warmth of her body through the light cotton of her dress and the hardening of her nipples under his hand.
She forced him away from her. "I didn't come to sleep with you."
The vehemence of her withdrawal puzzled him. He hadn't wanted her, but now he did. The periods of isolation would come and go. They were necessary. But at the end of them she had to be there. Grief, he thought, was a selfish indulgence. He began thinking about her.
She looked tense, almost furtive.
"What's the matter?" The concern in his voice held a degree of gentleness.
Still she couldn't say it. She went and sat on the edge of the bed.
"Jenny?"
An ambassadress of the school. Brannigan's words of several days ago came back to her. Brannigan, of an hour ago, still under Durrani's eye. had been rather more terse. "He wants Fleming. Get him. He'll come for you."
She had been too shocked to argue, or to think.
She picked up a handful of quilt and began pleating it. He came and sat beside her on the bed and took the quilt out of her hand. He asked it again, "What's the matter?"
And then it came out, roughly, baldly. At the end of it she said, "Durrani's threatening to kill himself. He's climbed on to a window-sill in the gym. He's tied a rope around his neck. He says he's going to jump. He wants you there."
The words were like so many blows to the head. Fleming felt himself reeling under them. He got up from the bed and went over to the washbasin. He filled a tumbler with water, but couldn't hold it steady. The water splashed over his wrists. He drank a little and then poured the rest away., Jenny's voice as if from a distance went on in clear precise hammer-strokes. "He's out of his mind. Corley's father used the word psychopath. The police are up at the school. Shutter's there, too. He tried talking to Durrant, but he's worse than useless. Dr. Preston's been sent for, but I don't know what good he can do. Durrani's parents can't be located. I doubt if Durrant wants them anyway. He keeps shouting for you."
She looked at his back, wondering if he would ever answer. He had been standing at the basin, head bowed, for several minutes.
She said into the silence. "Durrant could jump on impulse at any time. I think you could stop him."
Fleming spoke at last. His voice burned with intense hatred. "Why should I stop him?"
"Because he's fifteen."
"David was twelve."
"He's sick. Not responsible."
"Sick – maybe. David's dead."
She had seen the mission at the outset as useless, but she couldn't just get up and go. A reluctant compassion for Durrant held her there.
"The death of two children won't bring one child back."
"Don't call him a child. He wasn't a child at the inquest. God damn him – he looked at me and smiled!"
She remembered her conversation with Hammond when she, too, had refused to call him a child. "He's sick. Even in the bad old days of hanging he'd be put away for treatment."
He rounded on her, high patches of colour in his cheeks. "Are you asking me to care about him?"
"I'm asking you to come back with me to the school."
"So that I can witness him jump?"
"Retribution. That should please you. David's dead. Now go and be the executioner."
He winced. She noticed and the flame of anger went. "He sets some store by your being there. If you have that sort of influence over his mind, you can stop him."
"Or trigger him."
"There's that risk."
"Risk – or promise."
"You can't mean that."
"Oh, but I can and I do." He wanted to be alone again with his thoughts. She was demanding action in a new crisis and all he could feel was shock and hate.
"Go away, Jenny. Stop talking at me. Go down to the car and wait. If I don't join you in half an hour go back to the school on your own, I won't be coming."
She felt a small surge of hope, but was wise enough not to show it. She left him without another word.
After she had gone he went to his briefcase and took out David's folder, as if contact with it would clarify what he had to do. If he didn't go up to the school Durrant might jump – or he might not. Either way, his non-arrival there would be an opting out. Why was Durrant passing the buck to him? Why couldn't he bloody well get on with it. He had killed David and now he wanted to kill himself. All right. Let justice be done.
Fifteen.
Bloody fifteen.
What's so extenuating about fifteen? The child mind becomes an adolescent mind and then a man's mind. There are no deep lines of demarcation.
He opened the folder at a page of flags. They had been done in coloured inks. David had gone to a lot of trouble with them. He hadn't been bad at sketching. One unfinished flag with a triangle still to be coloured had the look of a gallows about it.
Jenny's words, sharp, contemptuous: Go and be the executioner. (He closed the folder and put it back in the briefcase.
It would be easy to pack his bags and go back to London. He could ditch Jenny and her demands. He could wash his conscience clear as snow and read about Durrani's death jump in the newspaper.
Why should Jenny care about Durrant and expect him to care about Durrant.
He wanted Durrant dead.
He examined the thought in cold and clear detail and couldn't deny it.
If he went up to the school the confrontation had to be positive – one way or the other.
Fifteen.
m
If not a child mind – then a sick mind '
According to Jenny According to sweet, sane, demanding, accusing Jenny who knew damn all about it Or about him. Had she no idea of the danger of the role she was thrusting on him? What did she expect him to do – play God with a godlike compassion? Didn't she understand what it felt like to bring up a child – to love a child – to lose a child?
Didn't she understand him at all?
There should be no confrontation with Durrant He should opt out and keep the skin of his conscience intact But he couldn't
The half-hour was almost up when he joined Jenny in the car. The expression in his eyes quenched her quick relieved smile when she saw him His look promised her nothing other than that he would come They drove in silence through the June evening Over the sea mackerel clouds tinged with pink and gold formed a fretwork against the clear pale blue of the sky The air was sharp with salt and wood-smoke. The school building, yellow in the evening light, looked benign. All outdoor activities had been stopped and the boys were confined to the west wing The deserted grounds, unnaturally quiet, looked like the gardens of a bygone age A police car parked near the shrubbery gave the lie to the air of peace.
Detective Inspector Grant was the first to greet him. "It's good of you to come – especially under the circumstances." He went on to explain that though it was possible to enter the gymnasium window via a ladder on the outside wall and take Durrant by surprise, the risk was too great. "Any positive effort to get at him and he'll jump He's not bluffing. We've managed to contact Dr Preston and he'll be over soon with someone from Blenfield – the psychiatric hospital. In the meantime the lad keeps asking for you. Do what you can."
Shulter, arriving in time to hear this, took Fleming aside. He said bluntly, "If you're expecting a confession of guilt, sorrow and penitence – then go away again I tried speaking reason to him He's beyond reason His mind is sick through mental aberration – yours is sick through bereavement Don't go in there if you intend hazarding his life even more than it is now "
"I don't know what I intend "
"Then don't go in."
"I have to." He couldn't explain the compulsion He looked from Jenny's strained white face to Shulter's troubled one Now that she had him here she was standing back, unsure. If Durrant died, he'd lose her. It was something he sensed.
He had expected Brannigan to meet him in the corridor outside the gym, but met Hammond instead Innis, warned to be on hand in case Durrant should call out for him, was waiting, sick with apprehension, in one of the changing rooms. He had no wish to see Fleming. His own guilt in the matter was like a carcinoma that had suddenly burst its confines and begun to spread Hammond's sense of guilt was considerably diminished. No-one could have foreseen this. The crust of his bellicosity had smoothed off into normal anxiety. He had even taken charge to some extent. It was his doing that the boys were kept well clear of the area. It was his persuasion that had sent a near-hysterical Alison Brannigan back to the school house with Mollie. He hoped Mollie would have the strength of character necessary to keep her there.
He indicated the closed double doors of the gym and spoke quietly. "The true verdict of the inquest is m there. Manslaughter due to insanity I'm sorry for all that's gone before. I'm sorry for any part of it that's my fault."
Fleming thought, Murder – manslaughter – diminished responsibility – the virus was becoming more and more attenuated, in time it would become benign. He asked sharply where Brannigan was, "In there. Under Durrani's eye. Durrant won't let him move."
Fleming pushed open the door and stood on the threshold.
Brannigan was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. Surrounding him in a neat circle were carefully placed dumb-bells – relics of the early days of the school which were normally suspended along one of the walls. His thin arms were goose-pimpled and his shoulder blades, sharply prominent, were blue with cold. He sat as still as a guru deep in meditation. Durrant, legs crossed and leaning back against the glass of the window, was watching him intently. The old fool had pleaded for a rest. He was letting him rest. He was getting older by the minute. When he had put him through his paces with the dumb-bells his breath had got short and his face had turned mauve. Durrant had wondered who would die first and had fingered the rope speculatively. Not that he intended jumping until Fleming came.
And Fleming was here now.
Fleming who had tried to see some of it in his mind as a preparation wasn't prepared for what he saw.
Brannigan, aware of him, turned his head slightly.
Durrant said in a thin high voice, ''Don't move. I haven't given you permission to move. You asked to rest. You'll rest.''
Fleming went over to Brannigan. Brannigan's eyes beseeched him to have a care. Fleming, aware of nothing except a coldly growing anger, spoke crisply. "Get up."
I can't… he…"
"He won't jump. He has sent for me. We have things to discuss. If 'he jumps – he'll jump afterwards." He swung around to Durrant, "Right?"
The machine in Durrani's brain took a joyful leap into top gear. Here was the enemy. Here was his match.
"Right. But I give the orders around here."
"Not stuck up there with a rope around your neck you don't. Now, Headmaster-out!"
Brannigan got up on to his knees and then painfully to his feet. Every muscle in his body ached. He looked at his pile of clothes and then up at Durrant, hesitating.
Fleming picked them up for him. "Here. Now leave us."
He stepped back as he watched Brannigan walking over to the door and his foot caught one of the dumb-bells and sent it spinning. Brannigan was brought up sharply in his tracks as if he had been shot. He looked around fearfully.
Fleming said, "A dumb-bell – one of the magic circle. You placed them, I suppose?"
"Yes." Brannigan's eyes signalled a lot more.
Fleming ignored the signals. "Get someone to brew you up some coffee. You need a hot drink. And you can send in some for me -when I say so."
Brannigan nodded. The double doors clicked shut behind him.
"And now the old fool's gone," Durrant said, "you can pick up the dumb-bell and put it back with the others."
"I can," Fleming said. "There are many things I can do – just watch me." He picked up a dumb-bell and hurled it across the room so that it crashed against the store-room door. He picked up a second and sent it against the vaulting horse. A third smashed into the opposite wall bars and splintered. He paused, the fourth in his hand, and looked up at Durrant assessing his reaction. Some of the contained violence of the last few hours had been dissipated in noise. He sent the fourth dumb-bell up towards the ceiling where it connected with a light bulb and shattered it.
It was a release of aggression for him, too. A calculated risk. He would have liked to bombard Durrant with them and bring him down, but it was something he could only do in his mind and not in fact.
Fifteen – three years older than David.
He couldn't kill him.
He couldn't let him kill himself.
This was no time for self-analysis, but he was aware that he breathed more easily and that his heart-beat had steadied. Anger was replaced by calm. He took a chair from along the wall and put it roughly where Brannigan had been sitting. He took out a cigarette and lit it.
"Loud enough for you?"
Durrant fingered the rope. He had expected them to be thrown in his direction and was disappointed. Was this enemy weak too?
"You're as shitting yellow as the rest of them."
"How so?"
"You could have knocked me off."
Fleming inhaled and then exhaled slowly. "Easily. But I came here to talk. You can't hold a conversation with a corpse."
Durrant accepted it. Not weak. Biding his time.
He moved the rope until it was more comfortable.
"I killed David."
"I know."
"I knocked him down the hatch into the hold."
"Yes."
"Is that all you have to say – yes?"
"You're"talking. I'm listening."
"That's all. I killed him,"
Fleming felt a momentary loss of control and didn't speak for a moment or two. When he did the question came out levelly. "Why?"
Durrant's machine began running irregularly so that his thoughts began to escape like rabbits running down dark forest paths. He didn't know why. He couldn't remember why. Something to do with Innis and a photographer.
He said quite cheerfully, "I really don't know." He went on, "Really this – really that. He's really rather 'refained.' His old man makes piss-pots." He looked at Fleming and began to laugh. "You don't make piss-pots. Christopher does. From Stoke."
Until then Fleming hadn't been sure what kind of mind he was dealing with. Now he was beginning to know. Everything he had done so far had been instinctive. He sensed that the boy needed a will stronger than his own.
Durrant said, "I'll jump when you tell me to."
"Why do I have to tell you to?"
"Everything is ordered. We live in an ordered society. Didn't you know?"
"Nobody orders me. I do things my way."
"It's right that you should order me. I killed your son. You're my enemy."
"Why obey the order of your enemy?"
Durrant was silent. He said after a while, "I smoke."
"Are you asking for a cigarette?"
"Yes."
"Then take off the rope and come down and get one."
Durrani's eyes clouded with contempt. "Pussy-cat noises again."
Fleming shrugged. "I don't give a damn what you do. I'll throw them up to you if that's what you want."
"Then throw them."
"Take off the rope, put it somewhere handy by you. If you lean over to catch them you might slip."
"Accidental death."
"No – suicide too soon. You don't want that, do you?"
Durrant thought about it. He didn't want that. He would jump when he was ready – after he had had a cigarette.
He took off the rope and put it on the window-sill beside him. If Fleming or anyone else made a move he would have it back on in a couple of seconds.
Fleming considered possibilities and discarded them. The time factor wasn't right. He threw up the packet of cigarettes. It bounced against the window pane and just missed Durrani's outstretched hand.
He said brusquely, "You'd be a bloody awful fielder on a cricket pitch."
"That's what Bruin says."
He threw them again and this time Durrant caught them.
"Who's Bruin?"
"Bruin. Woolly Bear. If David hadn't seen, I wouldn't have killed him."
Fleming asked carefully, "Hadn't seen who?"
"Bruin – in my room – that night." He looked down at the cigarette, his face clenched suddenly against tears.
Fleming said, "Matches coming up. Ready?"
"Yes."
He aimed carefully and they dropped on Durrani's right knee. Durrani's tears were under control. He lit the cigarette calmly.
"David," Fleming said, "used to have nightmares about a caterpillar. He called it Woolly Bear." The conversation was out of his depth now and he thought it unwise to pursue it. Durrani's emotional reaction hadn't been lost on him.
Durrant tried to make the connection and failed. Why the hell were they talking about caterpillars? He was up here in the control of a death machine and the enemy down there was beaming in on him…-Very soon now the death machine would be aimed at the enemy. A kick at Fleming's throat as he fell. They would both go out together. He calculated the angle of the jump. Not easy to assess.
Fleming asked him when he had eaten last.
"I don't know. I can't remember."
"I'm about to have some coffee sent in. Do you want some?"
"No."
Fleming called over his shoulder. "Tell Brannigan to bring the coffee in now. One cup."
After a few minutes Brannigan, fully dressed again, pushed open the door and brought in one of the thick school mugs filled with strongly smelling coffee. Fleming took it without a word.
Brannigan tried palming a note. Fleming, aware that Durrant had seen, tore it up in simulated anger before Durrant could demand it. "Anything you have to say, you say loud and clear. Right?"
Durrant nodded approvingly.
"And whatever it is," Fleming went on, "it can wail… until Durrant and I are ready to hear it." This time to Durrant, "Agreed?"
"Yes."
Brannigan said weakly, "I'm sorry."
The note had said that Preston's car had broken down. He and the psychiatrist from Blenfield would come as soon as they could.
When they were alone again there was a period of silence during which Fleming drank the coffee and Durrant smoked. He didn't particularly want the cigarette. He was both hungry and thirsty.
"In any case," he said aloud, "it would be drugged."
Fleming read his mind. "No-one would drug me. And no-one would drug you sitting there. Personally I don't give a damn what happens to you – I've.already said so – but those people outside there do."
"Those people out there? You're mad."
"Your parents, then?" Very dangerous ground.
"My mother's dead." He thought about the statement he had just made and decided it must be true. He didn't care very much.
Fleming said easily, "You're good at being on your own. So am I. I recognise your strength."
"Don't give me that sort of crap. You hate my guts."
"Of course. But I still recognise your strength… that's why I don't understand you."
"What don't you understand?"
"Why you should sit up there too bloody scared to come down. Are you afraid of the way I'd kill you?''
"You'd kill me?"
"Wouldn't you expect me to? You killed David."
Durrant drew on his cigarette and then stubbed it out. "How would you kill me?"
"I certainly wouldn't hang you – or applaud you if you hanged yourself- and I don't carry a gun." He put down the coffee cup and held out his hands. "That leaves these."
"That way?"
"There isn't any other."
Durrant considered it. A bird alighted on the window ledge outside. He watched it idly. It was small and brown. He moved and it was off in a flutter of wings and a burst of song. One for sorrow. Birds were the spirits of the dead. It was the dead David come to mock him.
He spaced out the words, "I – am – not – afraid – of – you."
"Then come down and prove it."
"It's a trick – the sort of trick those out there would use."
"Those out there haven't, our own very personal relationship."
"Of hatred?"
"Of hatred."
"And," tentatively, "respect?"
"Yes."
He drew the rope nearer. "I don't know."
Fleming said, "It will take me three or four minutes to drink the rest of my coffee. You'll either come down then and face me. Or you won't have the courage and you'll stay where you are. I shan't be around to watch you jump.
You'll jump on your own. And my respect for you will end with you."
A lucid moment came. "And you expect me to buy that?"
"Please yourself. Find you own easy way out. It's up to you."
Durrani's head began to throb with indecision. He examined the noose and tightened it. If he placed the knot expertly it would be quick. If he didn't it would be slow and humiliating.
Fleming was drinking his coffee, not looking at him. He was sprawled indolently in his chair, long and lean and strong. Innis had been strong, too, strong and tender.
If the enemy meant what he said then that way out was the better way out. There had to be a way out. His misery was like maggots gnawing his flesh. He was sick of being alive. He looked at Fleming trying to bore into his mind.
Fleming looked up from his cup and held his gaze, steadily.
"Decided?"
"Yes."
Fleming put his cup on the floor. "Then – come."
Durrant looked over at the door and saw the shadows through the glass. "Bolt the door."
Fleming hesitated. The watchers outside would restrain him if restraint became necessary. The unlocked door had been a safety valve and now he had to operate without it.
Had to.
There was no option.
He went over to the door and dropped the inside bolt.
Brannigan, appalled, looked at the others in silence. Jenny, white-faced, avoided his gaze.
Hammond said flatly, "He'll kill him," and began pushing ineffectually at the door.
Durrant, cramped by his position, moved awkwardly on to the top rung and then looked over his shoulder down at Fleming. "Not until I reach the floor."
"No."
Fleming stood with arms folded watching him. The boy was climbing down the wall bars with slow ungainly movements. He looked like a spider on a web. Ugly. Fragile.
David in the sun. Small. Fair.
David in the hold of the ship. Unimaginable.
Durrant had reached the ground. He turned with his back to the bars and then look a step in Fleming's direction. He licked his lips, his eyes bright with anticipation. "Now."
And now I hand you over, Fleming thought. I don't touch you. I kick any remaining faith you have in anybody to hell. I con you, boy, because I don't bloody trust myself. He saw the expression on Durrani's face as he took a, step back from him. This was betrayal of the worst kind. The final killing of confidence in a world outside himself. Durrani's fifteen years of experience became fifteen years of disillusionment. Whatever the appalling future held, this was the most appalling moment of all.
Durrani's lips were moving, but he wasn't gelling any words out. His eyes were bright points of tears and hate as he stood there wailing. The ignominy of the moment would be a memory he would carry to the end of his days.
Fleming, his momentary weakness quenched, spoke brusquely. "I promised you. I keep my promises. And bloody well defend yourself."
Durrant, in a moment old, once more became young. Elation, tinged with fear, flooded him. He moved in, fists flying. Fleming, who could have finished him in a matter of seconds, gave him three minutes. He hit him hard, but with half his strength. He hit him for David, and he hit him for himself, but mainly he hit him for Durrant. This was Durrani's truth. Durrani's faith in mankind – if his mind were ever cured enough to understand it.
Durrant, his nose bleeding and his cheek-bones bruised, felt the hard thud of Fleming's fist against his jaw. The gym began to revolve like a space capsule out of control as his knees gave way. He saw Hammond's face distantly through glass, and Brannigan's face. They were splintering the door in an effort to break it down.
And then, coming nearer and bending over him, Fleming's face.
This was it – the moment of death.
He waited for it.
Fleming said coolly. "You're good. In another few years when you're heavier and stronger you'll be better." He took out his handkerchief and wiped away some of the blood. He understood Durrani's unspoken question and answered it. "No… I might want to kill you, but I can't. You'll understand why when you're well."
He helped Durrant to sit against the wall. He looked repulsive and pity suddenly flooded Fleming.
Durrant was muttering through blood-caked lips. "The power in my head is low. It will gain momentum."
"Undoubtedly."
"Bend closer. I want to touch you."
"With death rays in your fingers?"
Durrant looked mildly surprised. He was completely rational now. "No -just touch you.".
He reached out his -fingers and rested them on Fleming's forehead. Fleming forced himself not to withdraw. Durrant remembered Innis and began to cry. He wished this man were his father – his lover – his enemy – his friend. He wished Fleming had killed him. He was glad he was alive.
Fleming removed his fingers. "You'll be cared for by people who care."
"Slay with me."
"I can't. You have your own strength. You don't need mine."
He went over and unbolted the door. One of the panels had been kicked out. They had believed him capable of retributive murder – even Jenny, perhaps, had believed it. He didn't blame any of them.
He spoke first to Brannigan. "Get him the coffee now." And then to Jenny, "And some water and a sponge. He needs cleaning up."
He began walking away. He couldn't look at Durrant again. He was like a dog cast out on a motorway – a rabid dog in search of a hearth. God knew what would happen to him.
Jenny caught up with him at the outside door. "You did what you had to."
"Assault and battery?"
"A promise kept."
"You heard what went on?"
"Yes. Before you bolted the door."
That an act of kindness could be brutal was a concept she had only just begun to understand.
She said, "You were strong enough to begin – and strong enough to stop."
He didn't want to talk about it any more. He said sharply, "He's bleeding. Go and see to it."
He stood in the doorway and felt the night air on his face. It was clean and sweet with the smell of summer. Jenny touched his grazed knuckles and then left him standing there. What he had done was possibly outside the law. He didn't know. He didn't care. The wounds he had inflicted on Durrant had been minimal. There was nothing to regret. He felt as if he, too, had lost blood and that the wound had been washed clean.