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

Six

JENNY SAW THE blue Fiat pulling up outside the flat, but paid scant attention to it. The street was used for parking, both by those who lived there and those who attended the local bingo hall on the corner.

She had spent two hours in the flat wondering if Fleming would turn up. His rather startled non-committal answer to her invitation the previous night had left her feeling raw and embarrassed. She had nearly opted to stay in the school, but had argued that it was her evening off and she was entitled to it.

Fleming wondered why she looked so disconcerted when she opened the door to him. She ushered him in with a rather fatuous, "So you've come."

"You asked me to."

"You could have refused."

"Why should I?" He went into the now familiar sitting room. He had seen this place – on and off during the day – as a refuge. Jenny as a person had withdrawn to some shadowy corner of his mind. Now once again she was flesh, human and humanising.

They stood and looked at each other. Her skirt was a dark maroon print with a frill around the ankles. A couple of inches of seam had come undone. He pointed to it. "You'll trip up with that."

"I'll sew it some time. The Fiat – it's yours?"

"Temporarily. It's on hire."

"It's as well you're fixed up. The Morris is in for its M.O.T. I came down by bus."

They sat opposite each other, cloaking a growing physical awareness with words. He told her about his visit to Preston in the morning and then Shulter's visit to him. "He was helpful. He drank with me in the bar of The Lantern while the autopsy was being carried out."

She edged carefully on to fragile ice. "Have you heard the result of the autopsy?"

"I phoned Preston before coming here. He was able to find out for me what I needed to know. There was no evidence of a homosexual assault." Repeating the words to Jenny now he felt the same relief that he had felt when Preston had told him.

Jenny said, "That's one worry the less – perhaps the sketch meant nothing after all."

"Oh yes, it meant something – but I'm grateful it didn't mean that."

He told her about the rest of the day and his encounter with Hammond and the boys. "Is Durrant schizoid?"

The question didn't surprise her. "I don't know."

"I see you're not leaping to his defence."

No, she thought, there are plenty of others to do that, including Hammond and Brannigan himself. They built a protective wall of excuses around him. "Why do you think he's schizoid?"

He told her about the interview on the ship. "Schizoid might be the wrong word – you're in the nursing profession, put me wise to the right one."

"Bloody-minded?"

"Hardly that simple."

She didn't agree. Any community of any size was likely to include the right-minded, the high-minded, the simple-minded and the bloody-minded. Durrant was probably no worse than a dozen others only his personality happened to jar on her more. She didn't like one or two of the high-minded ones either. It was easy to label Durrant schizoid, but perhaps hardly fair. Certainly it wasn't a professional evaluation. She knew nothing about it.

"He's supposed to be the product of pretty awful parents. Marristone Grange is the balancing factor – a good environment."

"Is it?"

"Pretty average, I'd say… like everyone in it."

He smiled at her, but didn't come out with the obvious compliment.

She said, "If you want to eat – there's food."

"Later… Tell me about Hammond."

She wished he wouldn't place the onus of a personality analysis on her. "I don't know people any more than you know people. You saw Hammond today. You tell me about him."

He refused to have the question bounced back at him. "No – your version first. You've known him longer than I have."

She tried to be fair. "I don't know anything about his background, but he strikes me as the type who went to a school like Marristone Grange himself. He slipped into the mould quite easily. His wife didn't. That's why they split. He put the school before her. He's regretting it now, I think. At this moment I see him as lonely. He's made one or two passes at me – unsuccessfully."

"Then he's normal?"

She looked for an undertone of humour and didn't find it. "Oh, I see. Heterosexual as opposed to the other. Well – yes. Well – emphatically yes. In any case, that doesn't arise any more, does it? David wasn't molested."

"No. But the sketch still hasn't been explained. Durrant perturbs me. Hammond's indifference gets so much under my skin I could…" He caught her expression and stopped.

"He's not indifferent. He's shocked and worried. I don't expect you were easy with him – how could you be? He probably met you with all his defences up. Everyone wants to survive, Roy Hammond included."

"He'll survive." It was bitter.

"Yes -why shouldn't he? David died – and even you will survive that. You have to, it's the way of nature." She sensed that her defence of Hammond had angered him, but didn't care. Today he was more normal than he was yesterday. The rage in him had to burn itself out some time. He looked better physically. The cold, white look of grief was less evident. Yesterday she had literally nursed him through a crisis and then crashed him back into it again by producing the sketch.

"If the sketch were mine," she said, "I'd tear it up. It's a sick thing. It's not David as he was. It isn't even proof of anything. He wasn't sexually assaulted. You can't use it at the inquest. Get rid of it – as you got rid of all the others. That's what he'd want."

He was silent for two or three minutes. How the hell did she know what David wanted? Who the hell was she trying to protect?

She sensed his withdrawal and then slowly was aware that he questioned his own reaction and was trying to reach out to her again.

He said brusquely, "It's the last thing I have belonging to him."

"But not the last thing he'd want you to have. You have his essays – his books."

"It's a cry for help."

"Is that how you want to remember him? Crying for help? He laughed, too, you know. For most of the time things were good for him."

"For most of the time. And the rest of the time-? By Christ, you're not asking me to ignore the rest of the time – the last few days? I've got to find out why."

"Agonising over that sketch won't make the rinding out any easier. You may never find out. What are you going to do – carry that sketch around for the rest of your life saying, My twelve-year-old son drew this -?"

Anger burst in him like a deep subterranean explosion. "Who are you doing this for-Hammond – Brannigan? Which of them set you up?"

Her astonishment was obvious and then her anger rose as bitterly as his. "I'm not asking you on anyone's behalf. Keep the bloody thing. Sleep with it under your pillow. Go quietly mad over it. Set David up in some sort of lunatic shrine. I knew him as he was. I remember him as an ordinary nice kid. If I were his mother I'd say – okay, I've heard you, I'll do what I can. Point made – and now let's get rid of it." Her voice shook. "But then, don't take any notice of me. I'm not his mother. I'm the school matron who entices you here to persuade you to tear up your puny bit of evidence. Evidence of what – for God's sake? Look, Your Honour – Mr. Coroner or whatever you're called – this is proof beyond any doubt that David killed himself."

She paused to draw breath.

His own anger -was spent. He didn't know how to heal her hurt. He could feel her pain in his own throat as she struggled with the words. "I was protecting you."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Keep your sorrow. I'm tired of it." She was lashing out, saying anything, not meaning it.

"That I understand."

"Do you? Can you look outside yourself long enough to understand anything? We're the enemy, don't forget."

"Not you."

"Oh yes – a few minutes ago you'd lumped me with the rest of them. Hammond. Brannigan. The school. David's killers. What do you think we are – a mob of murderers?"

"Someone…"

"Oh yes, someone – perhaps. And then again – perhaps not. Don't you want to believe in an accident? It could have been, you know. He could have been careless, kids are -they fall. What's wrong with that explanation? Not dramatic enough? Someone has to pay – is that it? What sort of cash value do you put on David?"

She got up before he could answer and left the room. The hot tears of rage and hurt were spilling over and running into the corners of her mouth. Shame was no small part of her emotions, it had been an appalling thing to say. She went into the bedroom and sprawled face-down on the bed pressing her face into the pillow.

She didn't hear him following her. The way she was lying reminded him of David in the hold of the ship and he put his hand on her shoulder to break the image. And then the image was gone and he saw and felt only her. Until now he had believed his sexual drive dead or anaesthetised. The explosion of anger had been like the bursting apart of a carapace. The protective conventions had gone. He had come to apologise anew, to try to make up for the hurt he had caused her. But now that was forgotten.

His hands tightened on her shoulders and he drew her to him.

She tried to push him from her. "I'm not a bloody whore!"

And then she stopped struggling – wanting it, too. Neither hatred nor love had any part of this.

There was no gentleness in their lovemaking, but there was gentleness afterwards as they lay together. He touched her breasts and then took his hands down in long caressing movements over her thighs.

She answered him, "Yes," meaning "Again."

She had slept with others before, but it had meant nothing. This time, in an aura of rage and pain, her initiation into a full awakening had been superb.

The second time, he took her slowly and tenderly and then leaned up on his elbow and looked down at her. With Ruth, and all the women before and after Ruth, the sexual preliminaries had been civilised. He had never forced himself on anyone before. He wondered if he would have drawn back if her resistance had lasted more than a moment or two. He should, he knew, be dismayed – not euphoric – and tried to frame some sort of an apology.

She put her fingers across his lips. "Don't."

"When I followed you in here I never intended…"

"I know."

He lay down beside her again and held her to him. Physically he felt eased- and pleasurably tired, David, truly dead, had passed into temporary oblivion. They lay for a long while in total contentment.

He didn't think about David again until he drove her back to the school later that evening. It had been a wholly satisfying and healing limbo of forgetfulness and he emerged from it reluctantly and with an irrational sense of betrayal. That he could forget David in an act of love with a girl he hardly knew showed a facet of his nature he hadn't been aware of. He backtracked in his mind everything that had led up to it and remembered the sketch.

"I'd like to give it to you – and let you tear it up. A present of peace to David. But I can't. It may be worthless evidence – or it may not. I can't risk destroying it. Not even for you."

She accepted that his mood was in a downward swing again. The sketch had triggered an emotional reaction that had kicked down barriers – what he did with it now was up to him. She deplored its existence, but she was grateful for it, too.

She said with surprise, "I've never before slept with a man and not known his Christian name."

After being briefly startled, he felt the sudden sanity of humour bubbling up into surprised laughter.

"John."

She said dryly, "Well – thanks for the introduction." He told her he would be going up to London to contact his solicitor the following day. "I'll be back tomorrow night, but probably too late to get in touch with you. I'll see you the day after tomorrow."

"I'll be on duty at the school."

"Whenever you're free." He went and opened the car door for her. "That is if you wish… if tonight…" He fumbled clumsily with the words, not sure how to put it to her.

She said calmly, "Tonight was… unexpected… and…"

"And?"

"Good and natural and I'm glad it happened. You've just dropped me off at Marristone Grange, not at a nunnery." She reached up and kissed him. "Maybe, I even love you a little."

She walked swiftly up the drive before he could answer.

Entering London, after the days in Marristone, was like entering an orchestra pit with an atonal orchestra in full swing. The noise assailed Fleming as he drove and the traffic forced his concentration.

Thirza, in partnership with two others, had an office off Regent Street. It was a semi-basement and uninviting on the outside. Inside, it spelt money. Thirza's own room off the small reception area was furnished with antiques. Her desk, he remembered her telling Ruth with some pride, had cost just under a thousand pounds. She had always tended to talk money – which was surprising as she had never lacked it. Crayshaw, Bradley and Corsham had been a family firm for nearly half a century. Her father, Reginald Crayshaw, had made her a junior partner immediately after she got her law degree. Now, fifteen years later at thirty-eight, she had inherited his share and took a third of the profits, which were considerable.

When Fleming was shown in she was reading a copy of the account of David's death which her secretary had typed for her after phoning the Marristone Herald that morning. She hastily slipped it into a drawer and rose to greet him. "I was most awfully shocked. I didn't know until you phoned. It might have been in the dailies – I didn't see."

Her embarrassment and her concern paradoxically made the meeting easier than he had expected. Here was a case of meeting someone halfway – of making things easier for someone else. She had never been a demonstrative woman. Her two husbands had "come and gone without leaving an emotional ripple and she had reverted to her maiden name. Ruth's assessment of her: introspective, work-orientated, but a kind and true friend, was probably based on the fact that Thirza kept her marital problems to herself and never poached on Ruth's territory. Any other woman at this sort of meeting would have given him if not a quick sympathetic peck on the cheek then a warm sympathetic squeeze of the hand.

He took the chair she indicated and said easily, "It's good to see you again. It's been a long time."

"Twelve months – no, more than that, nearly two years."

She had done something to her hair, he noticed, or else she was going prematurely grey. It looked attractive with her dark eyes and warmly tanned skin. Her olive green silk dress was finely pleated from neck to hem and fastened at the throat with six small buttons. He contrasted her with Jenny. Sartorially and in every way they were poles apart.

Aware of his scrutiny and a little puzzled and a little flattered by it she waited for the boat to be pushed out into the water. He looked ill, but that was to be expected. He appeared to be extremely controlled, but she knew him well enough from the old days not to be taken in by it. He had adored the child.

She said, "Yes, well – whisky, coffee? Or nothing now – an early lunch? I've booked a table.''

"Thirza – the wound has been taped over. I'm not going to embarrass you with a show of blood.''

"No – but I understand what you feel. I'm not good at saying so."

"Take it as said."

"Lunch, then – in half an hour? At twelve?"

"Don't be afraid to speak to me. David is dead. I can say it."

"Yes." She was silent. Her fingers caressed a crystal paperweight and a shaft of sunlight threw a reflection from it on to her jaw where it hovered like liquid silver. She moved her chair back and opened the desk drawer. "I managed to get this." She took out the typed paragraph. "I guessed the local paper would cover it."

He read it. "Would you understand me if I told you that I would like to see the school razed brick by brick?"

So the boat was being pushed out and the waters were stormy.

"You hold the school responsible?"

"Of course. I sent him there in good faith. They killed him." All vestiges of Jenny's defence of the school had cleared from his mind. If his hatred of the school were paranoid then he accepted the fact of his paranoia. He, on David's behalf, stood in the arena.

Thirza had been trained not to let her astonishment show. "You mean – you don't think it was an accident?"

He told her about the blindfold. And then he took the sketch out of his pocket, and put it on the desk. She noticed that as he explained about that, too, he kept his eyes carefully averted from it as if it were an obscene thing that sickened him. "I want you to keep it and use it at the inquest – if it can be used – to show David's state of mind."

She doubted if it could be used. Without professional psychiatric backing it carried little weight. "Death due to failure of contractual care- might bring you damages. I can't do any forecasting on that without the full facts."

Jenny's words about setting a price on David come back to him. "Damn it, I don't want damages. If any money comes my way, then it goes directly to charity." He tried to explain. "If the school, or someone in it, can be proved responsible for killing David, then I have every intention of taking an eye for an eye. One child dying is one child too many. Especially when that child is mine. The school lives on its reputation. If it can be proved to have stepped out of line, in any way whatsoever, then I shall see to it that it won't live long."

"You're capable of a lot of hate, John." She added before he could answer, "Inversely proportional, I suppose, to your love of David. It's a pity this happened in so short a time after Ruth."

"You think my reaction is abnormal?"

"No – under the circumstances, perfectly normal."

"Then you'll represent me at the inquest?"

"Of course – but in my own way. You'll have to leave it to my judgment. I'll use the sketch if it seems relevant. Have you any idea what an inquest is? It's simply an enquiry held in a coroner's court. Afterwards it may go further. The extent of your pain won't bend or influence the course of the law. You can't be clear-minded, but everyone else will be – including me." She put the sketch in a manilla envelope and put it in the top right-hand drawer. "Now tell me about it again. All of it. Every small detail. I'm switching on a tape-recorder, but don't let that inhibit you. Just pretend it isn't there."

After some preliminary awkwardness and hesitancy he began his account. For most of the time she didn't look at him and only occasionally prompted him. When he had ended it she knew that he had invited her to fight a lost cause.

It was politic not to say so. "Well?"

"Hammond could have treated you with more courtesy."

"Is that all you have to say?"

"I could sing a duet of hate with you – and I will if it will make you feel better. But legally – well, I don't know. I'll give you all the back-up I can."

If she couldn't show more enthusiasm for the case, he thought, then she might as well unfurl her banner on the other side. That she would do her best he had no doubt. She was basically honest and highly qualified. No-one else, he supposed, would show any enthusiasm either. The emotional involvement was his. He couldn't expect anyone else to share it.

She took him to a small Austrian restaurant. The whole set-up was very elegant and extremely expensive. Jenny's tablecloth, like her skirt, had a loose hem. Her kitchen was shabby and comfortable and the sun shone in it.

Thirza, disconcertingly, cut across his thoughts. "These days – have you anyone?"

He hedged. "I'm not living with anyone."

"Neither am I. Where permanent relationships are concerned, I'm disaster-prone. I find the single state extremely peaceful." She held her wineglass up to the light. "Have you noticed the sediment in this? Should we send it back, do you think?"

"Are you changing the subject – or do you seriously want me to send it back?"

She put the glass down and smiled. "It's hardly worth the bother. I'm changing the subject. You seemed embarrassed when I asked you that question just now. Will you be staying in London tonight?"

"No, I hadn't planned to. I shall be using this afternoon to call in at the main office. I walked out of the Bombay office with no notice whatsoever. They'll cope, of course, but they'll need to be informed of what's going on and when I'm likely to be going back."

"And when will that be?"

"The funeral will be some time next week."

"If my being with you at the funeral will help…?"

"It's kind of you." It was neither an acceptance nor a rejection.

"How did you cope on David's holidays?"

"He travelled with me most of the time And I've kept a small flat here in London Most of his clothes and belongings are there They'll need to be packed "

She suggested that they might meet early that evening m his flat and pack them away together After the funeral, she knew, would be soon enough, but if she were to help him at the inquest then a deeper knowledge of him and events was necessary and this was one way of gaming that knowledge They would have an hour or so together Seeing David's possessions would loosen him up emotionally If she were to get anywhere she needed a gut response It wasn't just a case of representing him at the inquest, it was a case of finding out how best to ease him through it He arrived at the flat in Marylebone half an hour before her It was on the second floor of a Victorian house and David's first reaction to it hadn't been enthusiastic He had been used to a garden and a green outlook Once he had a permanent base, he had told David, he would get a house for the two of them again In the meantime this had to do David had asked how long was temporary and he had answered a year or two A year or two, David had said, was survivable He could put up with most things – even this – for a year or two The memory of the conversation was surprisingly clear Since Ruth's death David had done a great deal of putting-up The flat The school And always the promise of a future that never happened It was bitterly ironical that a permanent appointment to the Pans office had been offered him that afternoon He had surprised Thomson by asking for time to think about it Yes, he told Thomson, he knew he had put in several applications for a non-travelling job – and yes, he liked Pans But he wanted time to think Thomson had"given him a week He hadn't added "Until after the funeral," but it had been implicit in his tone of voice "By then." the look in his eyes had said, "you'll be rational enough to pluck the plum that's offered you " The job earned a substantial rise m salary Had it been offered him as short a time as a few months ago he and David would have been settled into a comfortable environment by now and David would have been attending a local lycee He would have been alive The flat had a stale empty smell and was veneered over with dust He went into all the rooms and opened the windows David's bedroom was festooned with model aeroplanes Three balsa-wood Spitfires suspended from the ceiling with white thread caught the breeze from the open window and became entangled A fragile, red-painted propeller tore off the framework and spiralled to the floor. He bent and picked it up They had spent a wet Sunday making this one David had had glue on his hands and had struck a match to melt some sealing wax The glue had ignited and the palm of his hand had been burnt It had taken a couple of weeks to heal During the couple of weeks the finer, more precise areas of model-making had been taken over by him under David's direction The Messerschmitt on the chest-of-drawers had been almost entirely his own work David had got bored in the middle of it and had gone off to read a book "Not bad for a beginner," had been his comment when he saw it finished His suppressed grin had sparked up in his eyes as if laughter were light suddenly blazing He wished that Thirza wasn't coming This was a private place His and David's But when she came he accepted her intrusion and buttressed himself behind a polite seemingly casual facade He took the large pigskin suitcase from her and put it on David's bed "It's his winter clothes, in the chest-of-drawers and wardrobe The rest of his stuff is at the school " He couldn't bear to watch her and told her he was going to buy an evening paper "I'll be back soon "

He gave her an hour.

When he returned, the suitcase was standing in the hallway, locked and strapped. He repressed an urge to touch it. She called out to him from the sitting room. "I've a couple of drinks poured. Bourbon. You don't seem to have anything else."

He thought of Jenny's whisky.

He wished Jenny had packed the suitcase. Hers wouldn't look like this. It would be battered and bulging and everything in it would have been put away with love.

"Thanks. I'll be with you in a minute." He went into the bedroom and saw with irrational relief that the aeroplanes were still there. She followed him. "You'll need a large cardboard box for those. I didn't think of bringing one."

"I'll see to it."

She moved past him, slim and elegant in the white trouser suit she had changed into, and opened a bedside cupboard. "There's a microscope here. It looks a good one. Would you like me to sell it for you?"

"For Christ's sake!"

She couldn't understand why that should penetrate his armour when nothing else seemed to. It was a pity he had gone out while she had done the packing. She had imagined him sitting on the bed talking to her while she had done it.

She said equably, "The clothes will go to a children's charity. They could use the money from the microscope, too, if you agree."

He agreed. He wished she would stop talking about it.

"And there's a stamp collection. I don't know if that's valuable or not?"

"Not."

"The microscope – what was he going in for? Your line?"

"Scientific research – spelt with a u." And nobody knew what line.

He suggested they should have the drink. Dinner hadn't been planned, but under the circumstances it would be churlish not to invite her. She had been kind. She was representing him at the inquest. She was a friend of longstanding.

The thought flashed into his mind that he had known Jenny for two days.

Time was a clown that stood on its head and made rude gestures. He was offered the Paris posting – now. David had lived twelve years. Jenny's warm familiar flesh had been warm and familiar for a few hours only.

He needed her.

In the middle of his shock and grief he needed her.

He should have no thought for anyone but David, but he walked a behavioural maze and struggled through to her at the centre of it. If anyone could lead him out into sanity again, then she would lead him out.

Thirza said, "I found this in David's anorak pocket." She handed him a snap, dog-eared at the edges. It was of Ruth standing in a winter garden with snow on her boots. Boris, the red-setter puppy they were looking after for a neighbour, was pawing at her fawn mackintosh and leaving wet marks on it. On the back David had written in blue crayon, Mum cross with Boris. It wasn't a particularly attractive snap of Ruth, but it had caught the moment. Remembered laughter. David had been using up the last two snaps on the reel. The other one had been of him and Ruth together after Boris had been banished to the house. David had focussed it badly and it had come out blurred.

Thirza commented, "Not a good one of Ruth."

"A happy one."

"She's scowling at the dog."

"Afterwards she laughed."

"Talk about her to me, John. And about David, too. I need to know to understand You've given me facts – as you see them If you believe that David was unhappy, I've got to know more about him – about you – about his reaction to losing Ruth I think you may be making the school a scapegoat I've got to know more "

He looked at her helplessly "He was recovering Up to this last term – he was recovering Then something happened He drew that bloody sketch to show that it was happening "

"And gave it to the school matron ' It was dry "Who cared about him '

"As a mother substitute?"

Surely she was too young – even in David's eyes? "I don't know "

"But you might know by talking about it "

"I can't" It came out flatly Ruth David Jenny They were like three portraits in his mind A private room housed them and Thirza had no entry to that room She would have to represent him at the inquest as best she could He put the snap in his pocket "If the time is too short for you – or if you don't honestly feel you want to go on with it She interrupted him "I want to help you If the school is to blame we'll know soon enough and I'll take it further But if the school isn't to blame – then you must accept that, too Whichever way it goes, stop blaming yourself No father could have done more "

She refused the invitation to dine, saying she preferred something casual and easy at the pub on the corner The conversation had been casual and easy, too, and she had failed to break through to anything deeper Understanding her motives he had drunk lightly, making the drive back an excuse tor not over-indulging She was not enemy-territory, far from it, but he didn't want her kindly probing either She had the facts, but if she were hoping for an emotional outburst then she could sit here until closing time and not get it Jenny had seen his agony and his rage – and felt the brunt of both He couldn't let go with anyone else It was Thirza's suggestion that she should spend the following night at Marristone Port "Even though the inquest isn't until the afternoon, I don't feel like risking heavy traffic on Friday morning and being delayed "

He agreed "But The Lantern is hardly your style The Strand on the west side of the Port looks more comfortable "

In a shy, awkward gesture she touched the back of his hand with her index finger "If it's not too squalid for you, I'm sure I'll find it perfectly acceptable Book me at The Strand if The Lantern's full, but try The Lantern first"

He promised he would and that they would have dinner together at The Lantern either way He hoped he had put some enthusiasm into the invitation She was an extremely attractive, kindly woman If Ruth had been master-minding his present campaign she would have spirit-smiled her approval He wondered, fleetingly, what she would have thought of Jenny It was ten o'clock when he took his leave of her at her flat in Knightsbridge The June night was prematurely dark and a light rain fell By the time he reached the outskirts of Marristone Port the rain had become intermittent and the moon shone on the dark country roads He didn't notice the child, Corley, pressed up against the wall as the car passed Corley had pulled his school cap across his face and buried his hands in his mack pocket so that no white skin showed It wasn't until Corley was well clear of Marristone that he ditched his cap and began looking out for a lorry going in the opposite direction To hitch a lift in a private car would probably result in his being returned to the school or murdered He regarded both with equal horror But to climb on to the back of a lorry travelling more or less m the general direction of Somerset – without the lorry driver knowing he had climbed on to it – shouldn't be particularly hazardous. Provided he could find a parked lorry – or a lorry toiling slowly up a hill. He trudged on in the darkness discovering as the night wore on that parked lorries and slow lorries weren't exactly thick on the ground. And the only one he could have boarded was going the wrong way.