Death Drop Read online

  She indicated a pile of books on a table near the window. "I'm researching nineteenth-century composers for a book I'm working on and my door is always ajar."'

  She remembered it had been ajar – very fortunately – the night young Fleming had been walking in his sleep. She had just been in time to remove the headphones and rush out and catch him before he took a header down the stairs. He had awoken, white, sweating and speechless and she had marched him back to his bed with fiercely whispered admonitions never to do it again. As far as she knew he hadn't. She hadn't mentioned it to Roy Hammond and it was certainly much too late in the day to mention it to anyone now – least of all to the accusing figure sitting opposite her.

  Fleming had seen David's dormitory on the first visit to the school. He asked to see it again. "Or are the boys about to go to bed?"

  Brannigan said that the older ones were still at prep and that the younger ones would be at the first sitting for supper. He explained that the bed-time was staggered. "The young ones won't be up for a while. There's plenty of time to look around."

  Normally the dormitory held ten beds. Fleming walked into the large austere room and counted only nine. David's bed and locker had been the second from the door. Both had been removed.

  Brannigan noticed that he had noticed, but said nothing. The children in this room were the ten- to twelve-year-olds – old enough to understand and to be shocked and frightened. A tactful rearranging of the furniture had been done for their sakes.

  Fleming's voice was quite controlled, only his eyes betrayed him. "Was there any other person in charge?"

  Mollie Robbins, quite obviously dismissed by the words as less than useless, coloured but said nothing.

  Brannigan answered, "The older boys have their own study bedrooms along the corridor – three are prefects. Mr. Hammond's own rooms are immediately at the bottom of the first flight of stairs. If there was a disturbance Mrs. Robbins would see it. In her absence the duty would fall to the senior prefect. The overall responsibility is Mr. Hammond's." He turned to Mollie and asked her the question that Fleming had decided was a waste of time to ask. "Apart from normal high spirits, was there any bullying – either of David or any other child?"

  She gave him the answer that she believed he wanted. "Apart from the occasional pillow-fight – that sort of thing – no."

  Brannigan said quietly, "Think a moment. And change your answer to yes if you have the slightest doubt."

  As she looked back at him several pictures came into her mind. The Benchley child forced to lie on the bed while three of the other horrors forced toothpaste into his mouth. Young Kitson having his head held underwater in the bath until he almost turned blue. And Fleming – the child Fleming? As high-spirited as the rest at first – fighting like a demon when he had to – and then more recently becoming less noticeable. She couldn't put it to herself any other way. A fading of personality. A withdrawal. No longer a flaming nuisance. She felt a prickle of anxiety wondering what she had missed. In the general noise of battle one's ears weren't attuned to the" whisper of pain.

  Brannigan and the child's father were waiting for an answer. This time she gave it quite honestly. "I saw no-one hurt him."

  Fleming gave a last glance around the dormitory. Shadows of leaves from a maple tree fingered the wall opposite the window like small curious hands. He saw the room as David had seen it and then abruptly he turned from it and went out into the corridor. The Robbins woman's uncertainty had come through to him like the crackle of static. She had seen no-one hurt him. She had seen bloody nothing. What was Brannigan thinking about in giving a woman like that a position of responsibility? The boys were a meal-ticket for her – nothing more.

  The final authority, according to Brannigan, was Hammond. He asked to see him.

  Brannigan explained that he was away for the day. It was possible that he had returned in the meantime, but he had no intention of looking in his flat to find out. He needed to speak to Hammond first and explain the deeper implications of the child's death. The circumstances were tragic before, but there had been no disturbing undertones.

  Apart from the blindfold.

  If the boy's jump had been suicidal he might have used the blindfold.

  Or it could have been a game.

  An accident.

  As he walked down the stairs with Fleming he spoke his thoughts aloud. "I'm convinced David's death was accidental. Hammond is convinced of it, too. I understand that you want to speak to him and I can arrange for you to meet each other tomorrow. Some time in the afternoon. He has his school duties in the morning."

  School duties that would include an interview with the solicitor, Tom Lessing, for a general briefing on what line to take.

  Fleming said, "Three o'clock tomorrow afternoon at the entrance to the Maritime Museum. He will take me to the ship where David died and he will explain to me exactly what happened."

  It wasn't a request mildly put, but a statement that brooked no argument. Brannigan, trying hard to mask his disquiet and failing, agreed.

  "And now if you wish to interview any of the other members of staff-or older boys – I'll take you over to the common room."

  Fleming said, "No – the others can wait." Hammond, as he saw it, was the protagonist, the others would merely line up in a combined defence of the school. It would take more energy than he had at this stage – and more factual knowledge – to blast them apart. If any of them had contributed to David's death he would discover it in due time.

  He had hoped to see Jenny again before leaving the premises, but knew it would do her no good to say so. Brannigan offered to drive him back to The Lantern and he accepted the offer. They drove in unbroken silence, the folder of David's work on Fleming's knee.

  Roy Hammond returned to the school just before eleven o'clock and was making his way up to his flat when Sherborne, the science master, met him on the stairs. Sherborne told him that Brannigan Wanted to see him, "But if you don't want to see Brannigan – consider the message not given. It seems the delectable Jenny gave Fleming a drawing by young David which indicates he was suffering the tortures of the damned." He tried to make it sound like a joke, his uneasy eyes embarrassed.

  Hammond, who had spent part of the afternoon with his wife in an embittered argument during which she had flatly refused to return to him, stood still for a moment or two as if mentally bracing himself for this fresh blow. He didn't know what Sherborne was talking about. He would dearly like never to know. He should have walked out when Laura had walked out. He had been a fool to let her go with such a bland show of indifference.

  Sherborne, expecting a response and not getting one, shuffled off down the stairs with a "Well, I've told you – if you want to know more before you see Brannigan, ask Jenny. One of your lads is with her in the infirmary now."

  The infirmary, situated between Hammond 's House and Sherborne's House, was reached by a corridor on the first floor. According to fire regulations there was a right of way when necessary, but the corridor was not normally used as a short cut between the Houses as Sherborne had used it now. Hammond wondered vaguely what he had been doing away from his own quarters.

  As he approached the infirmary he could hear a child bawling and identified the sound as coming from Tim Sanders who could bawl louder than most. He was eight and seized upon any legitimate outlet for his grievance at being abandoned and incarcerated.

  Jenny had her arms around him at the basin and was shushing him gently. "You've cracked a tooth, that's all. There's hardly any blood. Think what would have happened if it hadn't got jammed at the back of your jaw."

  She looked over her shoulder as Hammond came in. "Did Mollie tell you?"

  "Tell me what?"

  "About young clever-boots here – the record-breaking, tooth-breaking, marble-sucker extraordinaire."

  Sanders' sob squeaked upwards into a ragged gasping laugh. "What would have happened?"

  "If it hadn't lodged where it had? You'd have swallowed the
flipping thing – that's what would have happened."

  "And been cut open to get it out?"

  "Yes."

  "And been sent home to get better?"

  "Oh no, my lad, been sent right back here to the infirmary to me."

  Sanders, breathing almost normally now, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then allowed Jenny to wipe both mouth and hand with a clean towel. She finished up gently mopping his eyes and was rewarded with the glimmer of a smile.

  "Am I sick enough to stay in the infirmary now?"

  "All right-just for tonight. Could you drink some warm milk.'?"

  "Yuk!"

  "Chocolate flavoured?"

  He beamed, "Super."

  Hammond said irritably, "You spoil them." He waited impatiently in the treatment room while Jenny took the child through to the small kitchen and let him help her make the drink. The infirmary dormitory held six beds and was adjacent to her own room. She settled him into bed and then returned to the treatment room and picked up the house-phone. Hammond listened to her side of the conversation as she spoke to Mollie Robbins.

  "Six marbles in the child's mouth… A dare, I suppose. You know what they're like – they won't say… No, no damage – at least not much. He'll have to see a dentist… Yes, I know you have… Yes, I know you do. Anyway, I'll keep him tonight… A report? Well, yes – I have to… No – no harm done… No blame at all… Of course you can't." She glanced at Hammond. "He's back now. I thought you'd told him about Tim Sanders… Well, someone did. He's not psychic." She handed the phone to Hammond. "She wants to speak to you."

  He made a negative gesture with his hand and then shrugged and took the phone. "It's all right, Mollie. Not a major disaster. Have the rest "of the lads settled down again?"

  He could hear her heavy agitated breathing. "Yes. There wasn't any sort of rumpus. I just happened to go in. He was gagging – his mouth wide open – I thought he had lock-jaw."

  "Well, he hasn't. He's had some hot chocolate from Jenny and been put to bed. You can have him back in the morning."

  He put the phone down before she could say any more. Her panic was out of proportion to what had happened. Normally she would have said something scathing about the awful child or the silly little brat. His own nerves, already taut, were on the point of snapping.

  He explained that Sherborne had told him. "And he gave me a garbled story about David Fleming and a drawing. Brannigan wants to see me. Put me wise, Jenny. What's it all about?"

  She found it difficult to explain. She was very much in the middle of a no-man's-land with a bias towards Fleming and sympathy for Hammond. The last few days had aged him. His thick fair hair fell untidily over his heavily lined forehead and he kept pushing it back with impatient nervous gestures as she told him about the drawing.

  "Are you trying to tell me that the boy had a history of mental illness?"

  "No, I'm not." She felt herself swing over wholly to Fleming's side. "The word is regression. I've never done any psychiatric nursing – but you know and I know that David was absolutely normal."

  "So he just drew it for fun?"

  "That's what I thought, but his father didn't. And when Brannigan saw it he didn't think so either. They saw it as a cry for help."

  "To be rescued from the tortures of the damned."

  She was startled. "What?"

  "Sherborne's words – not mine."

  She said quietly, "He could have had a shock. Brannigan asked me if he had. I said no. I think it's more likely he was bullied. And if I had to pick out anyone from your House who was likely to put the thumb-screws on him then I know who I'd pick."

  "So you'd set up young Durrant as scapegoat, would you?" His anger was rising.

  She answered with equal heat. "I'd set no-one up – and I'd say nothing unless I knew – but if I did know then I wouldn't protect him from his come-uppance. There are other kids still around – kids who need protection – those are the kids I'd think about."

  "It's not like you to take an unfair dislike of any child."

  "Child? At fifteen? When he looks at me his eyes undress me."

  "Your job takes you amongst adolescent boys – he's not alone in that."

  "Maybe. But none of the others makes my flesh creep." Her cheeks were hot with annoyance and she was breathing quickly.

  He made a conscious effort to cool the argument. "I'm only asking you to be fair. Durrant, as far as you know – as far as I know – had that one fight with David. If you're going to start putting ideas about Durrant into Brannigan's head – or worse, into Fleming's head – they'll fasten their teeth into him like a fox's into a rabbit. If there's got to be a scapegoat – then at least I'm man-sized."

  "I've no intention of putting ideas into anyone's head. I'm just telling you what I think. What I feel."

  He went on quietly. "The boy is unprepossessing. His mother's a tart. His father dutifully acknowledges his existence – nothing more. Whatever stability he has we provide. Don't go kicking the floor from under him."

  "But I've told you…" She gave up trying to justify herself. He was right to defend Durrant. She would have thought less of him if he hadn't.

  After he had gone she looked in on Tim Sanders. He was sleeping peacefully. She remembered that it was the bed that had once held David. At twelve she hadn't tucked him in as she tucked this child in now, but she had felt the same affection for him as she had seen him sleeping. There was a little blood and saliva at the corner of Tim's mouth. She took a tissue from the bedside table and wiped it. What had he been trying to prove, she wondered? That his capacity for holding marbles in his mouth was greater than anyone else's? Or had someone forced them in against his will? Why didn't boys talk? Why did they perpetuate the myth of the honour of silence? Why didn't they split on each other? Why didn't they holler for adult help good and loud when they needed it? Why had David drawn a picture and thrust it at her? Why hadn't he screamed and cried and stormed and let the whole world know?

  Obeying an impulse she couldn't resist she went back to the treatment room and found the telephone directory. It was almost half past eleven – there might not be anyone at the desk of The Lantern to receive the call – there might not be a telephone extension in Fleming's bedroom – there were a dozen good reasons not to make the call, but she set them all aside and made it.

  He was sitting up in bed with David's book of essays when the phone rang.

  The sound, like a bridge between two worlds, forced him back into the present time after wandering in another planet that had held his son. The essays, at times revealing, at times guarded, showed him a David he scarcely knew. A conformist David in a herd seeking the anonymity of what he believed to be the norm. Favourite author: Scott. Untrue. Any literary work older than the mid-century bored him to tears. Favourite holiday pastime: Climbing the Cairngorms. Untrue. On the one occasion he had taken him he had been so white-lipped with vertigo and fear that he had never taken him again. Why hadn't he mentioned pony-riding on the farm? He had loved the pony as much as he had loved his gerbil and he hadn't considered the latter too childish to mention. Did he really want to go in for scientific research – spelt resurch – when he grew up, or was that just a respectable idea grabbed out of the air?

  When did the' Navy start losing its appeal? Equally respectable. The airline pilot and the Naval officer – and now recently the scientist. The first two enthusiasms he had been in on and had bought him books with the appropriate backgrounds. In the normal way – if he had really meant it – the next holiday would have been spent with an embryo scientist. In what field? His own, perhaps. Electronics. A need to know – and the realisation that he would never know – frustrated him to the point of physical pain. He felt not only bereaved, but deprived. Others had walked with his son right up to the edge of oblivion. They had known his more recent thoughts. They had watched him, heard him, touched him. Several weeks of his life were to him, his father, clouded over, unguessable, never to be known.

/>   Why in God's name had he blindfolded himself on that ship?

  When they had gone climbing he had not dared look down at anything more than twenty feet. Had he worn the blindfold because otherwise he would never have summoned up the courage to jump? But wouldn't his way out have been a different way out. Wouldn't he have chosen some other way that would have frightened him less? And what was so terrible that it couldn't be faced? The term was halfway through – a few more weeks and they would have been together., Impulsive suicide.

  It happened to other children. But David? Sane. Normal. Happy.

  Happy?

  When it happened he was alone – so Brannigan said. Brannigan could be wrong.

  If not suicide – then murder?

  The phone had been ringing for several minutes before he picked it up.

  Jenny's voice. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

  If it had to be anybody, then he was glad it was her. "No, I was awake." She said awkwardly, "I just felt I had to say good night to you – and…"

  He waited… "Yes?"

  "I have time off tomorrow evening – from five onwards.

  I shall be at Nelson Street."

  "Yes – well, I see… thanks." His mind was confused.

  He didn't know what he was saying. By the time he felt ready to speak to her she had put the phone down.

  Four

  THE NEXT MORNING a cold wind blew in from the sea carrying small flume's of rain. Fleming, who had slept little, killed the two hours between six and eight by walking along the coast road. The morning, sunless, lacked colour. The headland and the sea merged together in a blend of soft greys as if sketched in pencil. Only the wind, sharp with salt, was alive. The wind was believable, cold on his pores, uncomfortable, noisy and boisterous. It teased the sea so that it humped up into waves that broke hissing like snakes on the boulders below.

  The Lantern served breakfast from eight onwards in a small dining room opposite the bar. True to its name, wrought iron lanterns flanked the fireplace and one of mullioned glass hung in the centre of the room. Fleming chose a table behind the door where he wouldn't be forced into conversation with any of the other residents. He had bought a local paper on his way in and read it with scant attention while his breakfast was being served. The world with all its problems mattered as little to him as a fly buzzing against a window pane. He didn't give a damn for any of it.