Death Drop

  Death Drop

  B M Gill

  Was it an accident? Or suicide? Or murder?

  When 12-year-old David is found blindfolded and dead at the bottom of a ship's hold while on a school outing, the headmaster claims the tragedy was due to an accident. But the boy's father begins his own investigation and very quickly he uncovers a tawdry and messy web of secrecy, jealousy and cover-up.

  B.M. Gill

  Death Drop

  One

  THE MORTUARY WAS in the hospital grounds. Fleming had imagined a cement building lurking down one of Marristone's side streets. This place stood high on the Kent cliffs and had been weathered by salt winds. The smell – out here, at least – was the almond of gorse and the tang of seaweed. Gulls swooped in the breeze and the cold sun lay in splashes on his hands. He was perpetually cold as if he walked in heavy breakers through an icy sea. The coldness had started permeating him during the headmaster's longdistance phone call to the Bombay office. In the heat of an Indian afternoon it had crept through his pores with each word spoken.

  "David has had an accident. A fall down the hold of a ship at the Maritime Museum."

  "Dear sweet Christ! How badly hurt is he?"

  A silence for a couple of minutes and then Brannigan's appalled voice had faltered on, "In all my time at Marnstone Grange I've never before had to tell a parent that his son…" He hadn't been able to get it out. The death of a twelve-year-old was an obscenity.

  Fleming had caught the first flight to England. Brannigan had met him at Heathrow and he had spent last night at the school house. Through a miasma of anger rather than grief – as yet the wound was too anaesthetised by shock for him to feel – he had listened to Brannigan's explanation. The boys had been in the care of Hammond, one of the housemasters. They were working on a project on maritime history and were given separate assignments on board ship. David's assignment had been on the poop deck. For some reason best known to himself he had gone to the lower deck where the open hatch was. At this point Brannigan had looked away from him. "He had blindfolded himself-an imaginative twelve-year-old playing out an adventure film, perhaps. His hands were free. I have questioned everyone concerned very closely – there was no-one near him at the time."

  Fleming, who had until then visualised a rubber-soled shoe slipping on a companionway, felt the new shock like a sword thrust in the gut. If negligence – or worse – could be proved, he had told Brannigan, he would take the school apart brick by brick.

  Brannigan, grey-faced, had deferred argument. His tolerance and understanding coupled with Mrs. Brannigan's nervous and highly emotional hospitality were more than he could take. This morning, after one night at the school, he had arranged accommodation at The Lantern, one of the inns at Marristone Port. Brannigan's offer to accompany him to the mortuary he had crisply declined.

  "Then let Dr. Preston go with you. It's too much of an ordeal to face on your own. I had arranged for the three of us to be there at eleven."

  It was necessary to see the doctor. He had agreed to that.

  It had already gone eleven. He began walking restlessly along the cliff path. The doctor was late. God damn them all in this place. And then he heard a car coming and retraced his steps.

  There were two cars drawing up in the parking area by the mortuary. The first was a sleek, maroon Dolomite. The second a rusty black Morris Minor. Whoever was in it stayed in it. The owner of the Dolomite came to meet him – a big, balding man in a grey tweed suit.

  He thrust out his hand. "Mr. Fleming? I'm sorry you had to wait. I assumed you'd be at the school house."

  "Under the circumstances?"

  "Both Brannigan and his wife are deeply distressed."

  "Naturally… the reputation of the school…" It was vicious.

  "That, too – but not just that. They're caring people. You malign them."

  "Let's get on with it, shall we?"

  Preston walked with him towards the mortuary. "There aren't any adequate phrases of sympathy. I'm sorry. We all are. The only consolation I can offer is that David died instantly and without pain. The fall broke his neck. I know that without a post-mortem, but the post-mortem will confirm it. I don't expect the pathologist to find anything else."

  He pushed open the mortuary door and called out for Gamlin who was in the office off the main corridor. Gamlin, who had been smoking, stubbed his cigarette out on a tin lid that had once held adhesive tape.

  Fleming smelt tobacco and formalin. The corridor was painted green and had a stone floor. Double doors with glass insets led off it into the main room. He had steeled himself to accept a clinical' filing system of bodies in metal drawers, but if they were there they were tactfully out of view. In an alcove at the end of the room and partly hidden by a white screen was a hospital trolley. The small form on it was covered by a sheet. For a moment he stood in the middle of the room and couldn't move forward.

  Preston said quietly, "You'll see him as.you remember him – but take your time."

  He began walking again. This time up to the trolley. The sheet was over David's face. He drew it back slowly. There were dark marks about the temples just below the springing fair hair. A small cut above the left eyebrow was a tiny line of mauve. Dark eyelashes lay thickly against the smooth freckled skin as if he slept. But this was no sleeping face.

  This was nothing. Something loved. Something gone. David. Not here. Nowhere.

  A shaft of sunlight came through the high window and lay across the trolley. It touched the skin with false colour as if nature tried to make amends.

  Preston was at his side. "Did you want a priest? It didn't occur to me you might."

  "No."

  "Do you want to stay awhile? Gamlin will fetch you a chair."

  "A few minutes – no chair -just leave me."

  He stood emptily by the trolley. What words now, David? Your hand is a stiff ball of ice. I'm touching it. It's colder than mine.

  I love you – wherever you are.

  That goes on.

  He turned at last and walked through what seemed a Siberian wilderness or non-reality towards the main door. There was a girl standing there – not looking at him – looking at David. She was carrying wild flowers – a rough posy of harebells and pinks. She was walking over to the trolley – standing there – putting the flowers on the white sheet – still standing there. Now walking away, her face awash with tears.

  Outside he felt the bite of the wind and heard the distant roar of the sea. He went over to the sea-wall and tried to struggle back to some awareness of his own personal identity.

  He turned and looked back at the mortuary. The doctor ' and the girl were standing by the door waiting for him – but giving him time. He went back to them. The girl, precariously calm, had stopped crying. Her lips were tight with tension and she avoided looking at him.

  Preston introduced her. "This is Jenny Renshaw from the school. She's the matron and she knew David. She wants me to apologise for the way she walked in – intruded on your grief. But she cared about him. And she had the flowers." He remembered Gamlin's furious expression. Wild flowers in a mortuary – petals on a corpse. He had steered her out before Gamlin's annoyance could explode into words. He added, smiling at her, "Her function is to be around. To drive you wherever you want to go."

  She found her voice at last and the words came out thickly, "Or to leave you alone. If you can't stand being with anyone – then say so."

  Her perceptiveness touched him so that he could almost feel human. The rejection that had begun to form in his mind became a reluctant acceptance. He didn't know he needed human companionship, but he was beginning to know it. She had wept for David. She was the first who had shown any genuine emotion for David.

  There was a bond.

 
He thanked her briefly.

  Preston told him that there was a form to sign concerning the autopsy which would take place the following day. They walked back to the hospital together while Jenny waited in the can He seemed to her like a man not fully alive – as if he walked and talked because his body was geared to walk and talk. An awareness of his death-wish pricked her into something deeper than pity.

  When he returned she asked him where he wanted to be driven. Brannigan had told her to try to persuade him to return to the school, but she was wise enough not to try. The role of ambassadress had been thrust on her. In no way was she accountable for the accident. As the youngest and only non-teaching member of staff Fleming would scarcely rate her as an opponent. At best, Brannigan said, he might listen to her sort of reasoning – at worst he would dismiss her. There would be no overt animosity.

  Fleming didn't know where he wanted to go. "Anywhere. Could you just drive for a while? Anywhere."

  She understood that he didn't want to go directly to The Lantern. He didn't want to meet anyone and neither did she. The cliff road was fairly empty at this time of day. She drove fast and dangerously. When she was less emotional she slowed down.

  He wasn't as she had expected him to be. He didn't look like David.

  She halted the car on a farm track leading off the main road.

  "He was like his mother, then?"

  "Yes. Small-boned. Fair."

  She wondered what words she could use to take the pain out of the silence and couldn't think of any. David's mother had died over a year ago. It had been less than tactful to mention her.

  "Why did Brannigan send you?"

  She nearly said, "To entice you back to the school," but stopped herself in time. "To provide transport until you make your own arrangements."

  To put an electric fence around the tiger, she thought, and keep him safe from the local Press. There had been a staff meeting before morning school during which Hammond had been persuaded to take a day away from the premises. Brannigan had told him to steer clear of Fleming until Fleming was in a more rational frame of mind. "He's too shocked and grieved to make sound judgments. He's out for blood – mine – but yours, too, as you were in charge of the lads." Hammond had retorted explosively that his conscience was perfectly clear. "Agreed. You know it. I know it. In time Fleming will know it, too. Express your sympathy and make your explanations when he's ready to hear them. Not today."

  They had gone on to talk about legal representation at the inquest. There was to be a governors' meeting during which a plan of action would be drawn up. The school, already shaky in an economic climate that eroded its foundations, needed the strongest support it could get.

  A hanging judge, Alison Brannigan, the head's wife, had described Fleming. Tread softly – softly.

  A child is dead, Jenny had thought as she listened to them, and you're all so frightened of the consequences that you're getting your priorities wrong. And yet Brannigan himself had integrity and was compassionate. He didn't use the word pity, though. Perhaps the word was too mild.

  She said roughly to Fleming, "David – his dying. It's such a waste."

  There was a tremor in her voice again and he saw that she was clenching her jaw. He couldn't talk about it and looked away from her. There were sheep in the adjoining field. Wisps of wool had become entangled in a briar bush. Their bleating was a low accompaniment to the sound of the wind. The sea across the headland was getting rougher. It could be blowing up to a storm. It was mid-June and felt more like December. He was aware of everything in far-off, yet minute, detail as if he were an observer from a distance.

  She said, "You're very cold, aren't you?"

  "I suppose so. I've stopped noticing it."

  "Are you ready to move on?"

  "Where?"

  "Somewhere where there isn't anyone – like this – only indoors with a fire going and some whisky."

  "Your place?"

  "My parents' flat in Nelson Street. They're away for a month in Spain. It's a bolt-hole from the school when I get time off."

  He hesitated, but couldn't think of anywhere else to go. A bolt-hole from the school implied that she wasn't likely to put up an impassioned defence of the school. She might speak with some truth of it. Truth, as yet, was virgin ground.

  The flat, high-ceilinged and shabbily elegant, was furnished with well-chosen Victoriana. The fire was already laid in the grey marble fireplace and she put her lighter to the slivers of wood. "Sit down over there near the heater. I'll switch it on until the fire burns up. Could you eat anything if I make you a meal?"

  "No, not now – but you go ahead."

  "I couldn't either – a drink, though, that's different."

  She returned in about five minutes with a bottle of whisky and a jug of hot water.

  "As you're so cold you'd be wise to take it hot – but I've ice if you'd prefer it that way." She took two tumblers out of the sideboard. "How do you want it?"

  "Up to now I've been keeping myself sober."

  "For God's sake, why?"

  Because, he thought, I've been walking in enemy territory. Instinct told him that no longer applied – at least not here.

  He took one of the tumblers and held it out to her. "I'll have it neat."

  They drank in silence. Hers was well diluted. Each time she replenished his glass he made a token protest which she ignored. He didn't remember the point at which she got up and left the room. He didn't hear the front door closing behind her. When she returned towards the middle of the afternoon he was asleep on the sofa, his shoes kicked off, ''his tie loosened. There was a grimy swollen look about his face as if he had wept.

  When Jenny hadn't returned to the school by three, Brannigan phoned the flat in Nelson Street. It seemed to him quite likely that Fleming had declined her company and gone for a long walk on his own. In similar circumstances he thought he would have done that himself. It was a long shot that they were in the flat together. He hoped she hadn't brought him home. It was thoughtless of her not to keep him informed.

  Jenny heard the phone ringing and went into the hall and looked at it. It kept on ringing and she leaned against the wall with folded arms and made no move to answer it.

  Fleming, forced into wakefulness by the bell, stumbled off the sofa and went into the hall. Answering phones was a conditioned reflex even when in a semi-stupefied state. For a moment or two he couldn't remember who Jenny was. A shaft of sunlight through the transom window above the door blazed like fire in her short red hair. She moved out of its beam.

  The phone stopped.

  "You didn't answer it.''

  She shrugged. "It was probably a recall to duty."

  "Duty?" He was still very unclear about everything.

  "School."

  He remembered. The pain had a different quality now. The numbness had become a dull ache. He was no longer cold. The room had become uncomfortably hot and his body felt sticky with sweat. He had drunk too much – or perhaps not enough.

  She smiled at him. "The bathroom is the second door on the right. Have a shower while I brew up some black coffee. Later, there's some braising steak doing quietly in the cooker." • "You're being very kind." The words came out automatically, but he meant them. Each moment lived in this, the most terrible period in his life, had been made almost bearable by her care.

  When he returned to the sitting room he felt fresher and able to form the words with some clarity.

  "Did David ever talk about me – to you?"

  She couldn't with honesty remember. "David talked about times and places. You lived in Oxford. I think?"

  "Yes, briefly. And then we moved to Stroud in Gloucestershire."

  "A cottage on the edge of the Cotswolds?"

  "Yes, that's it." He took the coffee from her and declined sugar. "He described that to you?"

  "Not exactly." She tried to find the right words. "A kids' party. Balloons. Only not a kids' party – balloons-just that sort of feeling about a place.
The way he looked when he spoke, it was the way he looked, not the words."

  "Super."

  "What? Yes. But then they all say that."

  "Did David say anything to you that you particularly remember?"

  She gave the question some thought before replying. "He'd come into the infirmary sometimes – with one excuse or another – and if there wasn't anyone else there he'd chat about this and that. Nothing I particularly remember."

  "Did he ever talk about his mother?"

  "Only in the same way that you and she were part of the same time – the old days, he used to say, as if he were Methusalah."

  The old days. Ruth. During the time in Gloucestershire she had been well. The marriage had been strong then, too, slipping a little perhaps, but not perceptibly.

  "Did he ever mention London?"

  "He said you had a flat in London – that he went there with you for holidays – when he wasn't travelling around with you. You took him to some exotic places."

  "Only in the line of business – selling electronic equipment to a worldwide market. He did a lot of waiting around. Measles once in a hotel in Florence… Did he mention that?"

  "No. I think he was selective. He remembered the good things. Who chose Marristone Grange for him?"

  "His mother – during the last few months of her illness. Her brothers went to Marristone. In those days, I gather, it flourished. At any rate they survived." It was bitter.

  She contemplated him silently. Waiting for it.

  It came. "Tell me about Marristone – Marristone today."

  A vision of Brannigan rose up to haunt her. "What do you want to know?"

  "Everything I don't already know. When I went to see it, it seemed to be adequate. The age range was wide. It catered for single parent families insofar that it didn't close down at holiday time. David was too old for prep school and he didn't have his name down for any of the better public schools. Ruth's brothers had done well there academically. The fact that the school is smaller now seemed a point in its favour. It was a convenient solution to a difficult problem. Obviously I didn't look deeply enough. David seemed happy. He didn't complain. Was there reason for complaint?"