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

Two

"MAY i HAVE permission to go into Marristone Port, sir?"

Brannigan looked in some irritation at Durrant who had knocked at his study door and been told brusquely to enter. He didn't like the boy and tended to over-react in his favour in an effort to appease his conscience. Any other boy he would have told sharply to take his request to the appropriate quarter and not presume to waste his time. He said much the same thing to Durrant but with more restraint.

"You know the procedure, Durrant. If you need to go into Marristone Port for any reason, you ask your housemaster."

Durrant licked his thick lower lip. "I can't find Mr. Hammond, sir. I don't think he's on the premises."

Brannigan glanced at his watch. It had just gone four. Hammond wouldn't be back, if he had any sense, until a lot later. He had forgotten momentarily that Durrant was in Hammond 's House. • "Why do you want to go into Marristone Port?"

"It's my mother's birthday, sir. I want to get her a card and a present."

Brannigan wondered if it were a variation of the grandmother's funeral theme and decided it wasn't. Durrani's mother didn't give a tuppeny damn for Durrant, but Durrant cared quite deeply for her. During his first year at the Grange he had found his way home twice. The first time to an empty house and he had walked the night streets of Leeds until the police had picked him up. The second time to a house which had been far from empty. His mother had returned him personally the following day. Her anger had been greater than her discretion and it hadn't been difficult to imagine what the boy had walked in on. After that he had stayed put. Whatever illusions he had left he clung to. His father, with less tenacity, had long since ditched his and taken himself off. He wrote to the boy once or twice a term and the boy wrote a duty letter back. Their relationship was polite and distant.

"When is your mother's birthday, Durrant?"

"Tomorrow, sir."

Brannigan felt the boy's anxiety coming across the room in almost tangible waves. He was expecting to have his request refused. He had probably spent a lot of time in a fruitless search for Hammond and in desperation had come at last to him. The shops closed at six.

He tried to remember Durrani's Christian name and at last it came to him. "Unless you're a lightning shopper, Steven, you're likely to miss the post."

"I have my bike, sir. It won't take me long to get into Marristone Port and I know what I want to buy."

"Something you can parcel up quickly?"

Durrani's stoop became almost more pronounced. He was five foot eleven when he stood straight, but in moments of embarrassment lost several inches. "A book of Keats' poems, sir." It came out as a mumble.

Brannigan looked down at the blotter on his desk and positioned it more centrally. When he looked up his face was expressionless, amusement quenched.

"Mr. Hammond normally acts as banker for the House. As he's not around what are you using for cash?"

Durrant shuffled his feet. "I was wondering if you could spare the time to come across to the House office, sir, and get me five pounds from my account?"

Brannigan took out his wallet. "No, I haven't time. You can return this later when you've seen Mr. Hammond." He took out a five-pound note. "Is it a small book?"

"Yes, quite light, sir."

Brannigan took out an extra pound. "If you have any change – and any time – go to the chemist and get yourself a razor… or have you already got one?"

Durrant pocketed the money. "Thank you, sir. No, sir."

Brannigan's smile, though forced, came out with a little warmth. "You haven't a full-blown moustache yet, but it's coming along. You know the rules about that, Steven."

"Yes, sir."

"Then see to it."

As Durrant turned to go he called after him. "At fifteen you're old enough to go into Marristone Port without a prefect, and you're old enough to ride that bike of yours with due care and attention. Just a warning."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, go on then, or you'll miss the shops."

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?"

"He had just seen David. He was very shaken and upset.' I had nursed David through mumps. I was – fond – of him. He sensed that. It helped."

"I see," Brannigan relaxed slightly. Jenny had been a wise choice. He tried to sum it up, "He accepted that you were well disposed to David and he therefore accepted you – would that be the situation?"

"Yes."

"So he was able to talk to you without rancour?"

"Yes."

"To what extent does he blame the school?"

Jenny said sharply, "I wasn't on reconnaissance in enemy lines, Mr. Brannigan. I'm sorry. I don't know."

Brannigan understood her distress and quenched his own flare of annoyance. She was young. She had been exposed to an emotional barrage. He would find out soon enough from Fleming how much he blamed the school.

Fleming's taxi drew up at the school house a few minutes before six. Brannigan came out to meet him as he paid off the driver.

"Did you get fixed up at The Lantern – or didn't it come up to your expectations? You're welcome to stay here with us as long as you wish."

"Thank you, but The Lantern is perfectly adequate." He had returned there after leaving Jenny. A reporter had waylaid him in the hall and he had given him short shrift. He might have a story for the paper later, he had told him brusquely, but until he had all the facts he had nothing to say.

The polite preliminaries over, Brannigan asked him if he would like to come into the school house for a drink, or would he prefer to go over to his study in the main building.

"Your study. This is not a social call."

"But I can persuade you to stay for dinner? My wife will be most disappointed if you don't."

"I'm sorry. No."

Brannigan imagined Alison's sigh of relief. So the gloves were still off. At least he would keep his own on as long as possible. There was nothing to be gained by belligerence.

The walk to the main building was past the playing fields and the tennis courts. Four of the senior boys were having a game on the court near the shrubbery and a couple of the younger boys were acting as ball boys.

Brannigan went over to the wire netting enclosure and called one of the older boys to him. "Have Eldridge and Macey permission to be out of prep?"

Lambton rubbed a sweaty hand across his forehead. "Yes, sir. They finished early, sir."

"And they're doing this voluntarily?"

"Oh yes, sir. Of course, sir."

Brannigan snapped, "It seems a singular waste of their time. It would be far more useful if you gave them some coaching in the game. But I suppose you intend to do that anyway." It was a command.

"Yes, sir. As soon as we've finished this set, sir."

"Which will be soon, I hope?"

"After two games, sir."

Brannigan turned back to Fleming. At any other time he doubted if he would have interfered. He felt very much on the defensive and a slow anger burned in him. He had run this school for a number of years and he believed he had run it well. If the economic recession was killing it, then he was not to blame. Neither was he to blame for the death of this man's son. If Fleming was determined to pin the guilt on him, he was not going to stand quietly to attention and let him get on with it. Last night on the drive back from Heathrow to the school he had been strongly aware of Fleming's pain and had tried to give him what support he could, but Fleming's wall of animosity had separated them and grown higher as the night wore on.

He said, "I phoned The Lantern this morning – about the time I expected you to have returned from the mortuary. I wanted to express my sympathy."

"Thank you." It was cold.

"I was told there was a reporter there."

"I got rid of him."

"I'm sorry he bothered you."

"He didn't. I told him there was no story until I had my facts. That's why I'm here now."

Brannigan took him through the main hall and into his study. The room, despite its red carpet and curtains, looked austere and felt cold. There were photographs of each school year since nineteen-fifty-seven on the walls. The fact that the school numbers had shrunk considerably was apparent by the size of the frames.

Brannigan took the chair behind the desk, hesitated and then got up again and went to sit on one of the leather chairs by the empty fireplace. He indicated the other leather chair facing him.

"Before we start, is there anything I can get you to drink Scotch, perhaps?"

"No, thank you." It was enemy territory again.

Brannigan decided to take the initiative. "I've made, and naturally will, continue to make, every allowance for your distress, but I'm quite sure that the school is blameless. If you think differently now is the time to thrash the matter out. Ask me any questions you like. I'll answer you honestly and help in any way I can to put your mind at rest."

Fleming said crisply, "I have a lot of questions to ask you, but first of all I want to see David's work. You've kept his exercise books, I suppose?"

Brannigan let his astonishment show. In the present circumstances it was the last request he would have expected "Yes, of course I have all his books."-The boy's clothe; and possessions were packed in his school trunk, but the contents of his desk had been put in a large cardboard folder and locked in the safe. He went to fetch the folder and took it over to his desk. "I suggest you sit over here if you want to go through them."

Fleming took the folder and opened it slowly. The school exercise books, were green with the crest stamped on the cover. Under the crest of the first book he removed was neatly written in David's small rather angular writing David John Fleming, Hammond 's House, Class 4A History He opened it, but made no attempt to read what he saw. This was David alive, not David dead in the mortuary. Hi-hand on the written page was touching David's warm grubby, impatient hand. David John Fleming – not just a name, but David's voice naming his name. A lively voice with some of Ruth's north country accent in it. He had a strong memory of David's arms around his neck as they had embraced in the car before he had left him at the station to catch the school train. A private embrace before the public handshake on the platform. Very reserved in company, very British stiff upper lip. A quiet "Good-bye, kiddo, I'll be thinking of you." An equally quiet "Telepathic message at nine o'clock spot on saying good night. Okay?"

"Okay." Then aloud, laconically. "Be seeing you, Dad."

"So long, David. Letters from India this time."

"Super!" Eyes too bright, but the word coming out without a tremor. "Super!"

A traitorous wave of emotion took Fleming unexpectedly and for a moment he couldn't hide it. Brannigan noticed the clenched muscles of his jaw before he turned his head away.

It was several minutes before he was able to return to the folder.

The next three books were on mathematics. They contained average problems set a twelve-year-old and were reasonably handled. The book of essays he wanted to take away with him and read in private. He didn't feel he could trust himself to read them in Brannigan's presence. They were the essence of David. Sentences – echoes of David's voice – whispered up from the page before he could close his eyes and mind to them. "My first jumbo jet flight was with my Dad to New York. There was a film show – a Western – not very good. For lunch we had samon and lettice in boxes with plastic knives and forks. A woman in the next seat was sick in a brown paper bag and I couldn't eat any more lunch after that." Dad had been scored out with a red pen and Father put in instead. Samon had been corrected, but lettice had got through.

And further on: "The best pet I ever had was a gerbil. I» had it when we had a house with a long garden in the Cotswolds. It lived in a shed in the orchard. It was a long time ago when I was young. My mother didn't like it, but she didn't say she didn't like it because she knew I did. It got lost under the floorboards once but my Father found it with a torch. My mother said she was glad it had been found. That was not honest, but it was kind." Fleming turned back a page and saw that the essay was headed Honesty. He closed the book and put it on one side.

Honesty. "How are things with you at school, David?"

"All right, Dad."

"Any problems?"

"No – not really."

"You'd tell me if there were?"

"Yes, of course."

Had the inflection been right? Had he listened hard enough to find a note of doubt, of false brightness? Had he just hoped everything was all right and been too quick to accept David's word for it?

Surely he had known his own son well enough to be aware that he was putting on one hell of a cover-up.

As he must have been.

But these books were normal.

Inside the main folder was another smaller one with the words Project on Maritime History written carefully across it. There were drawings of Aegean Bronze Age vessels and Phoenician biremes. Then came a drawing on graph paper showing the measurements of a Viking ship. He had been given high marks for these and the written comment in red ballpoint: Good. You have done your research well. He turned to Brannigan. "How many times did David go to the Maritime Museum?"

Brannigan noted that he had himself well in hand again. His voice was toneless and his eyes showed nothing.

"The boys were taken on a preliminary visit before each section was written about. The section on cargo vessels was the fourth."

"So it was on his fourth visit that he was killed?"

"Yes."

Fleming closed the folder and then ran his fingers up and down the edges of it as if he were loath to part with anything that David had touched. At last he pushed it aside.

"How would you rate his work?"

Brannigan answered honestly. "Average. He could do very well indeed if he set his mind on it."

"And you would expect this sort of work from a twelve-year-old?"

"Yes. As I told you, he was average. Not brilliant -just a good, steady, middle-of-the-road ability. The sort that sometimes surges ahead in early adolescence."

"Not the sort that drops back six years and regresses to the intellect of a child of six?"

Brannigan was startled. "I don't understand you."

Fleming took the sketch out of his wallet and handed it to him without a word.

Brannigan looked at the drawing of the caterpillar and the unformed writing under it. WOLLY BEAR ON D'S BED.

"What is this supposed to be? Some of David's early work from his kindergarten?"

"Some of David's most recent work – during his period in the infirmary when he had mumps."

"I don't believe it!" It came out explosively. What Brannigan saw as an attack from a totally unexpected quarter not only unnerved but astonished him. What the hell was Fleming playing at? This sketch he was holding was the work of an infant. It bore absolutely no resemblance to the books on the desk. And what was that about regression? To this? Fleming must be out of his mind if he thought he could con him that easily.

He handed it back. "You've kept this a long time."

"I've kept it a matter of hours. I saw it for the first time this afternoon. David drew it for Jenny a week or so ago on his last day in the infirmary. Jenny gave it to me."

Brannigan felt the blood thrumming in his head. He saw a whole kaleidoscope of possibilities including one in which Jenny was in collusion with Fleming to the tune of whatever damages they managed to milk from the school. And then in he became calm again and dismissed them. He didn't understand and until he did understand he would try and keep an open mind.

He asked Fleming to explain the significance of the drawing and listened without interrupting while he did so.

"And he hadn't drawn the caterpillar since he was – how old?"

"I think the last nightmare-linked drawing was when he was seven and a half going on eight."

"You took him to a psychiatrist?"

"No. We – his mother and I – tore up the drawings. We sensed that was what he wanted and it worked."

"You think he suffered some shock that pushed him back into this?"

"Shock. Or a long period of unhappiness. I don't know. That's what I mean to find out."

"And you believe that the state of his mind was disturbed – perhaps to the extent that the fall into the hold was suicidal – is that what you're saying?"

"I think it's possible. And if it's proved true then God help you, the school, and everyone in it."

Brannigan was suddenly aware of the coldness of the room. He repressed a shiver. The isolation of command was like a cloak of ice on his shoulders. His own conscience in the matter was clear, but ultimately he was answerable for his staff and the boys.

"A little teasing – a caterpillar in David's bed – that's the easy and most likely explanation." He managed to say it quite smoothly, almost persuasively.

"The caterpillar was linked with the terror of waking alone in a dark unfamiliar house – it's a symptom, not the disease."

"And what do you believe the disease is in this particular instance?"

Fleming answered flatly, "A prolonged period of bullying – perhaps sexual assault."

He had expected Brannigan to flare up into a quick denial, but his answer when it came was measured and thoughtful. "The two old bogies of the system. It would be naive of me to discount either possibility. I'm prepared to investigate both. But unless either is proved you'd be wise to say nothing to anyone."

"I shall say nothing provided the investigation is carried out without bias. I want to be around to see that it is."

Brannigan stood up. "Very well, Mr. Fleming. You shall be around. It's my school and your child. There is common ground for concern."