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Death Drop

Page 8

by B M Gill

Fleming didn't know what he wanted of Hammond… a weak, grovelling confession of negligence – or a flare-up into belligerence so that all the anger could spill over into an elemental tearing of flesh.

  "Why should my son commit suicide?"

  "No reason. I don't believe he did."

  The silence was long and heavy. The ship creaked a little as it moved. Voices speaking in Swedish came softly from a distance and then, like the gradual turning up of a radio, were loud outside the door. It was flung open, letting in the fresh salt air and a dazzle of sunlight. The young bearded Swede felt the mood of the cabin much as a seaman becomes aware of the brooding atmosphere of an approaching storm. He mumbled an apology. "I disturb you. I'm sorry. I go."

  Hammond got up from the bunk. "You've as much right to be here as we have." He addressed Fleming. "Have you anything else to say?"

  "At this moment – no."

  He, too, got up. The air out there where the Swede stood had a sweet fresh sanity. In here it was rank and bitter with proximity. He waited until Hammond had gone out through the door and walked a little way along the deck and then he followed him at a deliberate distance.

  Brannigan, anxiously observing, saw them as the stalker and the prey. Both men were pale-faced, but showed no other outward sign of stress. Brannigan went to meet them. He spoke to Hammond first. "You've helped clear matters up a little?" Hammond looked through him and didn't answer. He approached Fleming. "I'm sorry the party of Swedes disturbed you." The lie came out so palpably that he was sorry he had spoken.

  Fleming's eyes rested on him contemplatively. "I am arranging to have legal representation at the inquest. A London solicitor – a friend of the family. She knew my wife and son."

  "If you think it necessary…"

  "I do. Who is representing the school?"

  Brannigan gave the information reluctantly. "A local solicitor, with good background knowledge of the school and the circumstances."

  "An old boy, perhaps?" It was a bullet fired at random and Fleming saw with surprise that it had struck its target. Brannigan, about to speak, was silenced.

  "And the coroner… an old boy, too?" It was suave.

  "No."

  Fleming said, with deep sarcasm, "Pity – but you can't win them all."

  Brannigan's resentment boiled over into anger. "Your implications are slanderous and totally unfair. For Christ's sake, we're not inhuman. What kind of reparation is there? What do you want us to do?"

  The impossible, Fleming thought, give me David alive.

  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 inq
uest. 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 did
n'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."

 

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