by B M Gill
Durrant began to laugh. "You are a fool – an almighty fool." This time his laughter was normal.
Brannigan felt his anger rise. The boy was having him on. He wasn't off his head. He was sadistically sane. "Now look here…" He moved forward.
Durrant's face contorted. His voice came out as a roar. "Standstill!"
Brannigan stood.
"That's better. You don't want to kill me, do you?" It was plaintive.
"I'm asking you to come down."
"Ask away, sonny, ask away. Do you know my mother's a whore?"
Brannigan didn't know how to answer that one. It seemed polite to deny it – so he did so.
"And my father's an idiot."
He said no to that, too.
"Don't keep contradicting me. I know them. You don't. Give me one good reason for going on living."
Brannigan thought for a couple of minutes. "Your individuality. You are you – not your parents."
"What's so good about being me?"
"There's good in everyone."
"What's my special good?"
It seemed a brainwave. "Your capacity to love."
Durrant began to cry. He cried open-eyed and silently.
Brannigan said gently, "Steven…"
"The one good reason not to live." It came out raggedly. He fingered the rope again.
"Steven…"
"And don't Steven me – the name's Durrant. You're soft. You're all soft here." He said after a silence of several minutes, "I'm- bored with you. I'm bored with all of you. Fetch Fleming."
"Fleming?"
"F-l-e-m-i-n-g. David's father. I want him."
The words were out before Brannigan could stop them.
"But you killed his son."
"That's right," Durrant said laconically. "Let Bruin fetch him – and you stay here. Tell him he's got to come."
Eleven
FLEMING WAS LYING on his bed, empty-minded, watching the sunlight shimmering on the ceiling. Thirza, aware that he lay in a limbo she couldn't enter, had packed and gone. She had slipped a note under his door – an apology for a non-brilliant performance at the inquest and a request that he should phone her the next day. He saw the note lying there and hadn't bothered to open it. His mind refused to tick over at all. Anger and disappointment and grief had lain on him like scum on still water. Tiredness had distilled it all into a state of almost-peace.
The knock on his bedroom door was something to be ignored. He watched the lifting of the pale curtains in the breeze, the movement fragmented the sunshine into petals of light.
Jenny said, "Open to me, please."
His first reaction was resentment. The steel bars around David and himself were capable of being moved by one person only. If she forced her way through, he would think again and feel again. He wasn't ready for her. Not yet.
"John – I must see you."
"Damn you, Jenny – go away." He didn't know if he said it or thought it.
"Please."
Pain was flowing back. He got off the bed and went and unlocked the door. The sunlight from his bedroom spilled out on to the dark landing and washed over her so that her hair blazed. Her vitality as opposed to David dead was almost an offence.
She walked past him into the room.
She hadn't wanted to come. In normal circumstances she wouldn't have come. For days now he had seen the inquest as a kind of peak in his quest for retribution and it had turned out to be nothing of the kind. This new peak that she was about to show him was so horrifying that she didn't know how to begin.
She noticed the envelope on the floor and handed it to him. "I know you want to be on your own."
He opened it and read the note. "An apology from Thirza. Not necessary. She did what she could."
It was an opening, but she couldn't take it.
He crumpled the note and put it on the dressing-table.
They looked at each other in silence. And then they walked towards each other and he was holding her. He could feel the warmth of her body through the light cotton of her dress and the hardening of her nipples under his hand.
She forced him away from her. "I didn't come to sleep with you."
The vehemence of her withdrawal puzzled him. He hadn't wanted her, but now he did. The periods of isolation would come and go. They were necessary. But at the end of them she had to be there. Grief, he thought, was a selfish indulgence. He began thinking about her.
She looked tense, almost furtive.
"What's the matter?" The concern in his voice held a degree of gentleness.
Still she couldn't say it. She went and sat on the edge of the bed.
"Jenny?"
An ambassadress of the school. Brannigan's words of several days ago came back to her. Brannigan, of an hour ago, still under Durrani's eye. had been rather more terse. "He wants Fleming. Get him. He'll come for you."
She had been too shocked to argue, or to think.
She picked up a handful of quilt and began pleating it. He came and sat beside her on the bed and took the quilt out of her hand. He asked it again, "What's the matter?"
And then it came out, roughly, baldly. At the end of it she said, "Durrani's threatening to kill himself. He's climbed on to a window-sill in the gym. He's tied a rope around his neck. He says he's going to jump. He wants you there."
The words were like so many blows to the head. Fleming felt himself reeling under them. He got up from the bed and went over to the washbasin. He filled a tumbler with water, but couldn't hold it steady. The water splashed over his wrists. He drank a little and then poured the rest away., Jenny's voice as if from a distance went on in clear precise hammer-strokes. "He's out of his mind. Corley's father used the word psychopath. The police are up at the school. Shutter's there, too. He tried talking to Durrant, but he's worse than useless. Dr. Preston's been sent for, but I don't know what good he can do. Durrani's parents can't be located. I doubt if Durrant wants them anyway. He keeps shouting for you."
She looked at his back, wondering if he would ever answer. He had been standing at the basin, head bowed, for several minutes.
She said into the silence. "Durrant could jump on impulse at any time. I think you could stop him."
Fleming spoke at last. His voice burned with intense hatred. "Why should I stop him?"
"Because he's fifteen."
"David was twelve."
"He's sick. Not responsible."
"Sick – maybe. David's dead."
She had seen the mission at the outset as useless, but she couldn't just get up and go. A reluctant compassion for Durrant held her there.
"The death of two children won't bring one child back."
"Don't call him a child. He wasn't a child at the inquest. God damn him – he looked at me and smiled!"
She remembered her conversation with Hammond when she, too, had refused to call him a child. "He's sick. Even in the bad old days of hanging he'd be put away for treatment."
He rounded on her, high patches of colour in his cheeks. "Are you asking me to care about him?"
"I'm asking you to come back with me to the school."
"So that I can witness him jump?"
"Retribution. That should please you. David's dead. Now go and be the executioner."
He winced. She noticed and the flame of anger went. "He sets some store by your being there. If you have that sort of influence over his mind, you can stop him."
"Or trigger him."
"There's that risk."
"Risk – or promise."
"You can't mean that."
"Oh, but I can and I do." He wanted to be alone again with his thoughts. She was demanding action in a new crisis and all he could feel was shock and hate.
"Go away, Jenny. Stop talking at me. Go down to the car and wait. If I don't join you in half an hour go back to the school on your own, I won't be coming."
She felt a small surge of hope, but was wise enough not to show it. She left him without another word.
After she had gone he went to his briefcase and took out David's folder, as if contact with it would clarify what he had to do. If he didn't go up to the school Durrant might jump – or he might not. Either way, his non-arrival there would be an opting out. Why was Durrant passing the buck to him? Why couldn't he bloody well get on with it. He had killed David and now he wanted to kill himself. All right. Let justice be done.
Fifteen.
Bloody fifteen.
What's so extenuating about fifteen? The child mind becomes an adolescent mind and then a man's mind. There are no deep lines of demarcation.
He opened the folder at a page of flags. They had been done in coloured inks. David had gone to a lot of trouble with them. He hadn't been bad at sketching. One unfinished flag with a triangle still to be coloured had the look of a gallows about it.
Jenny's words, sharp, contemptuous: Go and be the executioner. (He closed the folder and put it back in the briefcase.
It would be easy to pack his bags and go back to London. He could ditch Jenny and her demands. He could wash his conscience clear as snow and read about Durrani's death jump in the newspaper.
Why should Jenny care about Durrant and expect him to care about Durrant.
He wanted Durrant dead.
He examined the thought in cold and clear detail and couldn't deny it.
If he went up to the school the confrontation had to be positive – one way or the other.
Fifteen.
m
If not a child mind – then a sick mind '
According to Jenny According to sweet, sane, demanding, accusing Jenny who knew damn all about it Or about him. Had she no idea of the danger of the role she was thrusting on him? What did she expect him to do – play God with a godlike compassion? Didn't she understand what it felt like to bring up a child – to love a child – to lose a child?
Didn't she understand him at all?
There should be no confrontation with Durrant He should opt out and keep the skin of his conscience intact But he couldn't
The half-hour was almost up when he joined Jenny in the car. The expression in his eyes quenched her quick relieved smile when she saw him His look promised her nothing other than that he would come They drove in silence through the June evening Over the sea mackerel clouds tinged with pink and gold formed a fretwork against the clear pale blue of the sky The air was sharp with salt and wood-smoke. The school building, yellow in the evening light, looked benign. All outdoor activities had been stopped and the boys were confined to the west wing The deserted grounds, unnaturally quiet, looked like the gardens of a bygone age A police car parked near the shrubbery gave the lie to the air of peace.
Detective Inspector Grant was the first to greet him. "It's good of you to come – especially under the circumstances." He went on to explain that though it was possible to enter the gymnasium window via a ladder on the outside wall and take Durrant by surprise, the risk was too great. "Any positive effort to get at him and he'll jump He's not bluffing. We've managed to contact Dr Preston and he'll be over soon with someone from Blenfield – the psychiatric hospital. In the meantime the lad keeps asking for you. Do what you can."
Shulter, arriving in time to hear this, took Fleming aside. He said bluntly, "If you're expecting a confession of guilt, sorrow and penitence – then go away again I tried speaking reason to him He's beyond reason His mind is sick through mental aberration – yours is sick through bereavement Don't go in there if you intend hazarding his life even more than it is now "
"I don't know what I intend "
"Then don't go in."
"I have to." He couldn't explain the compulsion He looked from Jenny's strained white face to Shulter's troubled one Now that she had him here she was standing back, unsure. If Durrant died, he'd lose her. It was something he sensed.
He had expected Brannigan to meet him in the corridor outside the gym, but met Hammond instead Innis, warned to be on hand in case Durrant should call out for him, was waiting, sick with apprehension, in one of the changing rooms. He had no wish to see Fleming. His own guilt in the matter was like a carcinoma that had suddenly burst its confines and begun to spread Hammond's sense of guilt was considerably diminished. No-one could have foreseen this. The crust of his bellicosity had smoothed off into normal anxiety. He had even taken charge to some extent. It was his doing that the boys were kept well clear of the area. It was his persuasion that had sent a near-hysterical Alison Brannigan back to the school house with Mollie. He hoped Mollie would have the strength of character necessary to keep her there.
He indicated the closed double doors of the gym and spoke quietly. "The true verdict of the inquest is m there. Manslaughter due to insanity I'm sorry for all that's gone before. I'm sorry for any part of it that's my fault."
Fleming thought, Murder – manslaughter – diminished responsibility – the virus was becoming more and more attenuated, in time it would become benign. He asked sharply where Brannigan was, "In there. Under Durrani's eye. Durrant won't let him move."
Fleming pushed open the door and stood on the threshold.
Brannigan was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. Surrounding him in a neat circle were carefully placed dumb-bells – relics of the early days of the school which were normally suspended along one of the walls. His thin arms were goose-pimpled and his shoulder blades, sharply prominent, were blue with cold. He sat as still as a guru deep in meditation. Durrant, legs crossed and leaning back against the glass of the window, was watching him intently. The old fool had pleaded for a rest. He was letting him rest. He was getting older by the minute. When he had put him through his paces with the dumb-bells his breath had got short and his face had turned mauve. Durrant had wondered who would die first and had fingered the rope speculatively. Not that he intended jumping until Fleming came.
And Fleming was here now.
Fleming who had tried to see some of it in his mind as a preparation wasn't prepared for what he saw.
Brannigan, aware of him, turned his head slightly.
Durrant said in a thin high voice, ''Don't move. I haven't given you permission to move. You asked to rest. You'll rest.''
Fleming went over to Brannigan. Brannigan's eyes beseeched him to have a care. Fleming, aware of nothing except a coldly growing anger, spoke crisply. "Get up."
I can't… he…"
"He won't jump. He has sent for me. We have things to discuss. If 'he jumps – he'll jump afterwards." He swung around to Durrant, "Right?"
The machine in Durrani's brain took a joyful leap into top gear. Here was the enemy. Here was his match.
"Right. But I give the orders around here."
"Not stuck up there with a rope around your neck you don't. Now, Headmaster-out!"
Brannigan got up on to his knees and then painfully to his feet. Every muscle in his body ached. He looked at his pile of clothes and then up at Durrant, hesitating.
Fleming picked them up for him. "Here. Now leave us."
He stepped back as he watched Brannigan walking over to the door and his foot caught one of the dumb-bells and sent it spinning. Brannigan was brought up sharply in his tracks as if he had been shot. He looked around fearfully.
Fleming said, "A dumb-bell – one of the magic circle. You placed them, I suppose?"
"Yes." Brannigan's eyes signalled a lot more.
Fleming ignored the signals. "Get someone to brew you up some coffee. You need a hot drink. And you can send in some for me -when I say so."
Brannigan nodded. The double doors clicked shut behind him.
"And now the old fool's gone," Durrant said, "you can pick up the dumb-bell and put it back with the others."
"I can," Fleming said. "There are many things I can do – just watch me." He picked up a dumb-bell and hurled it across the room so that it crashed against the store-room door. He picked up a second and sent it against the vaulting horse. A third smashed into the opposite wall bars and splintered. He paused, the fourth in h
is hand, and looked up at Durrant assessing his reaction. Some of the contained violence of the last few hours had been dissipated in noise. He sent the fourth dumb-bell up towards the ceiling where it connected with a light bulb and shattered it.
It was a release of aggression for him, too. A calculated risk. He would have liked to bombard Durrant with them and bring him down, but it was something he could only do in his mind and not in fact.
Fifteen – three years older than David.
He couldn't kill him.
He couldn't let him kill himself.
This was no time for self-analysis, but he was aware that he breathed more easily and that his heart-beat had steadied. Anger was replaced by calm. He took a chair from along the wall and put it roughly where Brannigan had been sitting. He took out a cigarette and lit it.
"Loud enough for you?"
Durrant fingered the rope. He had expected them to be thrown in his direction and was disappointed. Was this enemy weak too?
"You're as shitting yellow as the rest of them."
"How so?"
"You could have knocked me off."
Fleming inhaled and then exhaled slowly. "Easily. But I came here to talk. You can't hold a conversation with a corpse."
Durrant accepted it. Not weak. Biding his time.
He moved the rope until it was more comfortable.
"I killed David."
"I know."
"I knocked him down the hatch into the hold."
"Yes."
"Is that all you have to say – yes?"
"You're"talking. I'm listening."
"That's all. I killed him,"
Fleming felt a momentary loss of control and didn't speak for a moment or two. When he did the question came out levelly. "Why?"
Durrant's machine began running irregularly so that his thoughts began to escape like rabbits running down dark forest paths. He didn't know why. He couldn't remember why. Something to do with Innis and a photographer.
He said quite cheerfully, "I really don't know." He went on, "Really this – really that. He's really rather 'refained.' His old man makes piss-pots." He looked at Fleming and began to laugh. "You don't make piss-pots. Christopher does. From Stoke."