FLEMING SPENT TEN minutes at the undertaker's Chapel of Rest and then tried to walk the experience out of his system. The small coffin was on a trestle covered with purple velvet. There was even canned music. It had nothing at all to do with David. He wished he could have some belief in a spirit life. He often had bursts of conversation with David in his head: "It's a posting to Paris. You'd have liked Paris." And now, as he walked the cliff path: "The propeller came off your aeroplane. The wind from the open window caught it. Fragile stuff balsa."
Purple velvet.
Brahms.
Unspoken apologies heavy in the air.
The divorcing of the spirit from the body made thinking about the body possible. He didn't believe in the spirit but he talked to the spirit. Correction… he talked to David.
Or he talked to himself.
He wished he could see Shulter again, but didn't want to seek him out. A casual meeting might be helpful, but an arranged meeting at the rectory would be too much like a professional appointment with a doctor or a dentist. Your symptoms, Fleming, are to be expected at this stage of the disease. Take a dose of faith twice a day and the prognosis will improve.
On the way to the undertaker's he had looked in at the church, a red-brick, turn-of-the-century building at the corner of Marristone High Street. It had seemed right, mainly for Ruth's sake, to accept Shulter's offer to hold the service there. It was difficult to rationalise his deferring to what he believed would be Ruth's wishes when Ruth was no longer there. Looking inside the church was rather like looking at an execution sword in advance so that familiarity would ease the shock of seeing it on the day. He doubted if he could take the funeral service at all, but so far he had taken everything and survived. There had been a bowl of early summer flowers on the altar and some petunia petals had fallen in an untidy pink pool on the white cloth. The untidiness had made it more acceptable. David had dropped things all over the place, too.
So did Jenny.
Her bedroom would have inspired Herrick to write a poem on it. Sweet disorder. Wild civility. She was as untidy as hell.
When he returned to The Lantern he made a couple of abortive attempts to phone her at the school. Each time the line was engaged. After lunch he drove past her flat in Nelson Street and on impulse stopped and rang the bell. There was no-one in. He remembered she had said she would be on duty. He didn't know what to do with the rest of the afternoon. Time that until now had pushed onwards like an incoming tide seemed sluggishly to reach highwater mark and be still.
He decided to go back to The Lantern and it was there that he ran into the reporter who told him about Corley. It was the same reporter who had written the paragraph in the Marristone Herald about David. Their previous meeting hadn't been easy, but this time it was Kenilworth who had news to impart. He waylaid Fleming outside the bar.
"A child has gone missing from the Grange."
"What?" Fleming, still too deep in his own David-orientated world to be able to think of any child outside it, couldn't at first grasp what Kenilworth was saying.
Kenilworth explained patiently. "A young lad, about the same age as your son, has disappeared from the school. A big police search is on. Brannigan won't talk. And I've just had the usual routine stuff from fuzz headquarters. What's your feelings on it – off the record – at least for now?"
Fleming said shortly, "None. What feelings do you expect me to have?" All the same he was shocked and showed it. It was a like a stone being thrown into a pool and causing a new circle within an existing circle. He hoped wherever the child was he was alive and well.
"You've no comment?"
"What do you expect me to say?" (Bully for the lad for getting over the wall in time?) "You're being very careful, Mr. Fleming." Kenilworth's small blue eyes were regarding him thoughtfully. "I won't land you in a slander action. I know quite well where the line is drawn. But as a father yourself, you'll know what the lad's father is feeling – a comment along those lines wouldn't come amiss."
"What do you want – a statement of sympathy?"
"Something like that."
A lobbying of parents in a massed march of vengeance against the school.
Fleming said, "I'm sorry. You've a job to do and it's not an easy one, but I'm not giving you any quotes."
"And you can't tell me about tomorrow's inquest either?"
"Nothing that you won't pick up for yourself while you're there. You will, of course, attend." It wasn't a question.
"Yes, I'll attend." Kenilworth added, "We may seem a tough bunch professionally but we've youngsters of our own, most of us – not at the Grange, we haven't that sort of salary, and for the first time I'm glad of it. I know how you feel and I know how Corley's father feels. Unfortunately my sympathy carries no weight whatsover." He turned away with a grimace of defeat. No words could be bled out of Fleming now, but there was always tomorrow.
Thirza arrived at The Lantern at a few minutes after five and was told that Fleming had provisionally booked a room for her. She had every intention of staying there no matter what it was like so promptly confirmed the booking.
"Is Mr. Fleming in?"
The reception clerk told her that he was having tea in the residents' lounge on the first floor and directed her there. The lounge, originally a bedroom, had a red flocked paper and was furnished in black imitation leather. Its narrow bay window faced the sea. Fleming, the pot of tea untouched on the small oak table beside him, was standing with his back turned to her looking out.
She said gently, "Hardly my scene – as you said."
Surprised out of his reverie, he turned and smiled at her. "You improve it."
She joined him at the window. "It's a good view – that's its saving grace, I suppose?''
"That and the beer. Now you've seen it, will you stay?"
"I'll stay." She slipped her hand through his arm. "Why order tea if you don't intend drinking it?"
"I forgot about it. It's the only room here with a television set. I'm hoping to catch the local news." He told her about Corley.
She had spent part of the day finding out all the relevant information about the inquest. That Lessing was an old boy of the school hadn't surprised her. Robert Breddon,.the coroner, hadn't let it out, but she had other sources. She was pretty sure that all the inquest would produce would be a statement of identification – a few general questions – and a verdict of accidental death. If John wanted to fight for damages and kill the school in so doing then she would take the battle on, but only if there was the slightest chance of winning it. She didn't think there was. Her own fees she would gladly waive, but litigation was an expensive business. She had never believed in pouring money away in a lost cause. She asked him about the child who had gone missing. ' "He's about David's age,"
"Do you know anything else about him?"
"No."
She looked at him astutely, "You see it as more ammunition?"
"It could be. Let's hope he doesn't end up as David ended up."
She was relieved that he was able to get down to basics. At times they both found it extraordinarily difficult to talk to each other.
They sat and watched the local news. Corley wasn't mentioned at all. She got up and switched off the television. "It's probably rather soon. Lots of children go missing. They don't hit the headlines for a day or two."
It was his suggestion that they should go for a walk before dinner and while she was up in her bedroom changing her shoes he phoned the school again. This time he got through to someone who sounded like Alison Brannigan, but could have been a school secretary if Brannigan ran to one. He gave his name and asked for Jenny. The voice told him to hold the line and at the end of five minutes said that she couldn't be located. He asked if the missing boy had been found. The silence was almost palpable for a minute or two and then the receiver was replaced. An outright no would have been more sensible. Brannigan, he thought, was cursed with a stupid wife.
Jenny, who could quite easily have been found if Alison had bothered to look, phoned The Lantern herself an hour later and was told by the reception clerk that Fleming was out, but had booked in for dinner. "Have you a message?"
Jenny said she hadn't.
She wanted to meet him. He was in her mind all the time. She wasn't entitled to any time off, but Mollie would cover for her for an hour. In the last few days Mollie had become pathetically keen to seem as efficient as possible. She told her she was going out – but not for long. "The infirmary is empty. If Neville shows up and I'm needed you can get me at The Lantern."
Mollie asked dryly, "Booze or Fleming?"
"So the grape-vine flourishes."
"In this hot-house atmosphere, dear, what do you expect? And the lesser of two evils is booze."
Jenny forgave her. John had given her a rough ride and her seat on the saddle was still precarious.
Dinner at The Lantern was served from seven onwards. Jenny, still in her matron's uniform, arrived at seven-thirty. They were in the middle of the fish course. His woman, whoever she was, was dressed in deep blue and the highlights in her hair were silver. Waves of jealousy bordering on pure and simple hate tingled through her like electric shocks.
Thirza said quietly, "There's a girl with red hair and murder in her eyes willing me dead. She's standing in the doorway."
Fleming glanced over his shoulder and then, forgetting to apologise to Thirza, got up quickly and went over to her.
His delight in seeing her halted her exit. "Jenny! I've been trying to get you all day."
She didn't believe him.
"Your school phone was in continuous use. When I did get through you weren't to be found."
"I was there." Her underlip was thrust out sulkily like a child's.
"And you're here now. We've only just started dinner. You must join us."
"Dressed like this – and join who?"
"Thirza Crayshaw- an old family friend, the solicitor who's representing me at the inquest.", Thirza, watching, thought, so that's the one, and was surprised. The hurt and the pain had rolled off him like a cloud melting in the sun as he saw her and spoke to her. The only thing she obviously had in her favour was youth – and that wasn't always an asset. Her uniform dress was ridiculous, it" even had cuffs. There were belt slots, but no belt. She had the freckles that went with red hair and hadn't bothered to disguise them. She didn't bother to disguise her feelings either. She had the look of a betrayed lover who was being gradually coaxed to a state of faith.
She wasn't sure of him.
Nor he of her.
So they hadn't known each other long.
The affair was at the delicate perimeter of what could be a deep and healing permanency – or just transient. Whichever way it went his response at this moment was good to see.
I lay no claim, she told Jenny silently. Lay him and claim him and make him normal again – if you can. And good luck to you.
Jenny had arrived at The Lantern believing she could eat a substantial meal if offered one, but she discovered when she sat down at the table that she could scarcely eat at all. Thirza, adroit at the social graces, kept up the necessary patter of conversation. Threesomes – even this particularly awkward threesome – she had always been able to handle. Closer relationships eluded her.
It was over coffee that the first reference to Corley was made.
Fleming asked abruptly, "Why did he go?"
Jenny, carefully spooning brown sugar into a cup that was too-small, said "Neville?… I don't know."
"No – Corley. The lad from the school."
"Neville Corley, If he had a brother he would be Corley Minor. If he were one of three then I don't know what he'd be – perhaps Corley subminor." She was talking nonsense and knew it. Thirza had badly upset her, just by being there and looking as she did.
Thirza observed unnecessarily, "You don't approve of the British public school."
"I don't approve of depersonalising children."
Thirza tried to draw her out. "Speaking generally, it can't be a bad system. Of course there are pockets of disaster -
the Grange is probably one of them. The fault is usually at the top – what's the head like?"
Jenny put her cup down untouched. "Caring."
Once spoken she considered it and believed it to be true. Within his personal limitations, Brannigan was caring.
Thirza pursued it. "Then -weak?"
Jenny thought, If you weren't batting on John's side our conversation would end now. As it was she considered the question for some while before answering. "It's a great deal easier to be tough and single-minded than it is to be open-minded and fair. The head before him, so I'm told, was brilliant. I think that means he was as thick as a board and doled out punishment like an army sergeant major."
She looked at Fleming to see how he had taken her defence of Brannigan.
"Strength and brutality," he pointed out, "are two different things. If you captain a ship, you give the orders and the crew obeys them. If there's unrest you look into it and act. You say Brannigan is caring. It takes a stronger quality than care alone to keep a ship on an even keel. He should have known the rot was setting in – he should have located it and stopped it. If he had, David might have been alive." He was aware himself that he had said 'might have been' rather than 'would have been'.
Jenny drank her coffee quickly. She had already overstayed the hour. Fleming went out to the car with her. "I'm glad you came. I wish you could have stayed."
"Mollie Robbins is standing in for me."
"You mean she's sitting in her room with her headphones on like a female Nero while the school burns." He opened the car door for her.
She got in and rolled down the window. "Have you ever thought what would happen to her if Brannigan ditched her?"
"No. But I'll think about it now. Frankly, I don't give a damn and neither should Brannigan – the lads should come first."
She said curtly, "You'd make a splendid headmaster."
He was surprised into laughter. She was being moody and cantankerous and he knew the reason why. He lifted her hand off the wheel and held it in both of his. "I'm sorry Thirza spoilt our meal. I'm sorry you ate hardly any of it. She's decorative, and pleasant, and kind. Ruth was fond of her and so am I. Tomorrow at the inquest she'll do all she can. Tonight we'll sleep in our separate beds." He kissed her fingers gently and replaced her hand on the wheel. It occurred to him that this would be their last meeting before the inquest, but didn't mention it. Her attitude to the school was ambivalent and that was to be expected.
Jenny drove back to the Grange in a state of growing depression. Her jealousy of Thirza was as difficult to throw off as would be an invasion of persistent leeches. He might not sleep with her tonight, but there would be other nights. Any sexual dance with Thirza would be a slow and graceful pavane followed by a cool and lengthy disrobing – not a mad sprawl of tears and anger followed by an exquisite orgasmic burst of pleasure that her body having once known couldn't forget. She kept wanting him. She wanted him now.
She went up to the treatment room where she had left Mollie and found her putting wads of blood-soaked cotton wool into the waste-bin.
"For God's sake – what happened?"
Mollie, sweating slightly, managed a smile. "Young Carson tripped and banged his nose on the edge of his bed. I coped. He's all right." She added unnecessarily, "There was a gory mess."
"So I see. Did you let him stay in the infirmary."
"No – he's back in the dormitory."
"It's as well to keep an eye on him – at least for a while. By the look of that it's recent."
"Not that recent – I just didn't get around to clearing up." Her fat cheeks broke into a sudden smile giving her face an unexpected look of genuine pleasure "Corley's home and dry."
Jenny's mood swung upwards. "When?"
"Some time this evening. Bridgewater via Birmingham He needs to swot up his geography – or perhaps he was just unlucky with his hitches. According to Hammond, Brannigan got the news through the police."
"Not through his father?"
"No… I'm just telling you what Hammond told me. According to Hammond, Corley senior is nursing a pretty big grievance. He won't communicate with the school until he gets a coherent story out of his son. There won't be any marching back of the penitent… at least not yet."
Jenny absently picked up a bottle of surgical spirit and dampened a piece of wool with it. There were blood stains on the table. "Is he all right?"
"Yes, as far as we know. The police didn't say he wasn't."
After Mollie had left the room, Jenny put a call through to Fleming. He was surprised and pleased to hear her voice again so soon.
"You're phoning to tell me you have the night off after all?"
"No. I'm phoning to tell you that Neville Corley is safely home."
"I see. I'm glad." She knew that he spoke out of a depth of feeling "I knew you would be. I couldn't let the night pass without letting you know."
"Why did he leave – do you know that now?"
"No. All I know is he's home."
And David, she thought, will never be home.
For the first time that evening her gentleness broke through the protective crust of aggression.
"John… I mind about you… very deeply."
Afraid of a silence that might grow – or an answer that might be forced and artificial – she put the phone down. He had already experienced the difficulty of contacting her, so didn't try to ring her back. He had a lot to say. Or perhaps not so much – just a word or two that mattered.
Mind. A deceptively mild word. He could think of others.