"Gill, B.M. - Death Drop" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gill B M)

And for God's sake heed the warning, Brannigan thought. It would have been easy to have refused permission, but he couldn't wrap the boys up in cotton wool and shield them from all possible hazards. It was high summer now and light until well on into the evening. The roads were reasonably quiet. There was a slight thickening of the traffic between five and six, but no real rush hour. If Durrant finished up under a bus it would be one chance in an imponderable number of chances. The odds had been the same with young Fleming. The pall of anxiety that had oppressed him since the accident settled more heavily on him.

Once off the school premises Durrant rode his bike with panache. He had no illusions at all about Brannigan's apparent friendliness towards him. He didn't like him either. He saw him as commandant of Colditz and had several enjoyable fantasies in which he, Durrant, in the role of a British officer, led an uprising against him and had him hanged, shot, or less often poisoned. Poisoning lacked drama, but it was a variation of a theme. His fantasies about his mother's lovers were more up-to-date. They were vague shadow figures not fully known and not understood. He saw them as space creatures emerging from some far nebulae -- creatures of doom -- to be contained and liquidated in vast chemical vats or electrocuted into oblivion.

Now, as he rode his bike towards Marristone Port, he was at the controls of an interplanetary space machine. The glimpses of the coast as the road wound downhill towards the town were Martian scenes hazed over with red. The occasional glitter of the sea was the, shine of enemy space craft approaching faster than light. The overtaking cars were capsules under his control and sent on as an advance combat force. Oncoming traffic was so much debris in space to be carefully avoided.

He looked briefly at Jenny's car as she drove it up the hill towards the school, but it didn't register in his mind as a car driven by Jenny. She raised her hand in greeting, but he stared blankly and pedalled on.

Unfriendly little beast, Jenny thought. She was glad Fleming wasn't in the car with her. After seeing the sketch all his prejudices against the school had become stronger than ever. He had phoned Brannigan requesting an interview just as soon as Brannigan could make it. Brannigan had suggested six o'clock. It was policy that Jenny should return on her own and that he should follow in a couple of hours in a taxi. On parting he had made it plain that he wanted to see her again. "You're the only person in the whole goddamned set-up who meant anything to David."

"I wouldn't say that. You can't write off all the staff like that. They're ordinary caring people."

"Then why the hell didn't they see what was happening to him?"

"But you can't be sure what was happening to him . . . this sketch . . ."

He interrupted her. "Shows six years' regression -- what sort of mental agony brought that about?"

She was silent. If he were right then she would fight his battle with him, and resign from the school if that was the only way to do it. In the meantime she had to keep everything balanced and await events. Brannigan couldn't very well sack her for giving him the sketch in the first place, but he wouldn't exactly commend her for discretion. Had she known the sketch would have upset him so much she might well have withheld it. David was dead, what good did it do? But if she had withheld it, it would have been to spare him pain, not to have glossed things over for the school. One David had died. There were other Davids.

She parked the car in the parking space next to Hammond's which was still empty. She wondered where he had gone to and couldn't help feeling sympathy for him. He was a competent teacher -- or so the others said, she didn't know much about the academic side of the school -- and though he was a strict disciplinarian he was more tolerant in his attitude to the boys than some of the others. The word 'kind' summed him up as well as any other.

She tapped at Brannigan's door and he rose as she came in and drew out a chair for her.

"I'm sorry I was away so long." It was expected of her and had to be said.

"Not at all." He decided not to mention the phone call. "There's no limit on that sort of thing. Did you go into the mortuary with him?"

She found it very hard to speak about. There was a thickening in her throat again. "Yes."

He was aware of her distress and wondered just how bloody-mindedly Fleming had behaved towards her.

"Was it very difficult?"

"You mean distressing -- yes."

He accepted the rebuke. There had been some sort of rapport between them. "He didn't mind your being there?"

"At the mortuary? He was scarcely aware of me. Sam Preston introduced me afterwards. I told him I'd drive him anywhere he wanted to go."

"And he agreed to that?"

"He hadn't a car of his own."

He wished she would be more forthcoming. He didn't want the interview to sound like an inquisition. "And where did he want to go?"

"Just driving around. We went up on the coast road. He wanted time to be quiet."

"Did he talk to you about David -- about the school?"