Death Drop

by B M Gill

  Until then Fleming hadn't been sure what kind of mind he was dealing with. Now he was beginning to know. Everything he had done so far had been instinctive. He sensed that the boy needed a will stronger than his own.

  Durrant said, "I'll jump when you tell me to."

  "Why do I have to tell you to?"

  "Everything is ordered. We live in an ordered society. Didn't you know?"

  "Nobody orders me. I do things my way."

  "It's right that you should order me. I killed your son. You're my enemy."

  "Why obey the order of your enemy?"

  Durrant was silent. He said after a while, "I smoke."

  "Are you asking for a cigarette?"

  "Yes."

  "Then take off the rope and come down and get one."

  Durrani's eyes clouded with contempt. "Pussy-cat noises again."

  Fleming shrugged. "I don't give a damn what you do. I'll throw them up to you if that's what you want."

  "Then throw them."

  "Take off the rope, put it somewhere handy by you. If you lean over to catch them you might slip."

  "Accidental death."

  "No – suicide too soon. You don't want that, do you?"

  Durrant thought about it. He didn't want that. He would jump when he was ready – after he had had a cigarette.

  He took off the rope and put it on the window-sill beside him. If Fleming or anyone else made a move he would have it back on in a couple of seconds.

  Fleming considered possibilities and discarded them. The time factor wasn't right. He threw up the packet of cigarettes. It bounced against the window pane and just missed Durrani's outstretched hand.

  He said brusquely, "You'd be a bloody awful fielder on a cricket pitch."

  "That's what Bruin says."

  He threw them again and this time Durrant caught them.

  "Who's Bruin?"

  "Bruin. Woolly Bear. If David hadn't seen, I wouldn't have killed him."

  Fleming asked carefully, "Hadn't seen who?"

  "Bruin – in my room – that night." He looked down at the cigarette, his face clenched suddenly against tears.

  Fleming said, "Matches coming up. Ready?"

  "Yes."

  He aimed carefully and they dropped on Durrani's right knee. Durrani's tears were under control. He lit the cigarette calmly.

  "David," Fleming said, "used to have nightmares about a caterpillar. He called it Woolly Bear." The conversation was out of his depth now and he thought it unwise to pursue it. Durrani's emotional reaction hadn't been lost on him.

  Durrant tried to make the connection and failed. Why the hell were they talking about caterpillars? He was up here in the control of a death machine and the enemy down there was beaming in on him…-Very soon now the death machine would be aimed at the enemy. A kick at Fleming's throat as he fell. They would both go out together. He calculated the angle of the jump. Not easy to assess.

  Fleming asked him when he had eaten last.

  "I don't know. I can't remember."

  "I'm about to have some coffee sent in. Do you want some?"

  "No."

  Fleming called over his shoulder. "Tell Brannigan to bring the coffee in now. One cup."

  After a few minutes Brannigan, fully dressed again, pushed open the door and brought in one of the thick school mugs filled with strongly smelling coffee. Fleming took it without a word.

  Brannigan tried palming a note. Fleming, aware that Durrant had seen, tore it up in simulated anger before Durrant could demand it. "Anything you have to say, you say loud and clear. Right?"

  Durrant nodded approvingly.

  "And whatever it is," Fleming went on, "it can wail… until Durrant and I are ready to hear it." This time to Durrant, "Agreed?"

  "Yes."

  Brannigan said weakly, "I'm sorry."

  The note had said that Preston's car had broken down. He and the psychiatrist from Blenfield would come as soon as they could.

  When they were alone again there was a period of silence during which Fleming drank the coffee and Durrant smoked. He didn't particularly want the cigarette. He was both hungry and thirsty.

  "In any case," he said aloud, "it would be drugged."

  Fleming read his mind. "No-one would drug me. And no-one would drug you sitting there. Personally I don't give a damn what happens to you – I've.already said so – but those people outside there do."

  "Those people out there? You're mad."

  "Your parents, then?" Very dangerous ground.

  "My mother's dead." He thought about the statement he had just made and decided it must be true. He didn't care very much.

  Fleming said easily, "You're good at being on your own. So am I. I recognise your strength."

  "Don't give me that sort of crap. You hate my guts."

  "Of course. But I still recognise your strength… that's why I don't understand you."

  "What don't you understand?"

  "Why you should sit up there too bloody scared to come down. Are you afraid of the way I'd kill you?''

  "You'd kill me?"

  "Wouldn't you expect me to? You killed David."

  Durrant drew on his cigarette and then stubbed it out. "How would you kill me?"

  "I certainly wouldn't hang you – or applaud you if you hanged yourself- and I don't carry a gun." He put down the coffee cup and held out his hands. "That leaves these."

  "That way?"

  "There isn't any other."

  Durrant considered it. A bird alighted on the window ledge outside. He watched it idly. It was small and brown. He moved and it was off in a flutter of wings and a burst of song. One for sorrow. Birds were the spirits of the dead. It was the dead David come to mock him.

  He spaced out the words, "I – am – not – afraid – of – you."

  "Then come down and prove it."

  "It's a trick – the sort of trick those out there would use."

  "Those out there haven't, our own very personal relationship."

  "Of hatred?"

  "Of hatred."

  "And," tentatively, "respect?"

  "Yes."

  He drew the rope nearer. "I don't know."

  Fleming said, "It will take me three or four minutes to drink the rest of my coffee. You'll either come down then and face me. Or you won't have the courage and you'll stay where you are. I shan't be around to watch you jump.

  You'll jump on your own. And my respect for you will end with you."

  A lucid moment came. "And you expect me to buy that?"

  "Please yourself. Find you own easy way out. It's up to you."

  Durrani's head began to throb with indecision. He examined the noose and tightened it. If he placed the knot expertly it would be quick. If he didn't it would be slow and humiliating.

  Fleming was drinking his coffee, not looking at him. He was sprawled indolently in his chair, long and lean and strong. Innis had been strong, too, strong and tender.

  If the enemy meant what he said then that way out was the better way out. There had to be a way out. His misery was like maggots gnawing his flesh. He was sick of being alive. He looked at Fleming trying to bore into his mind.

  Fleming looked up from his cup and held his gaze, steadily.

  "Decided?"

  "Yes."

  Fleming put his cup on the floor. "Then – come."

  Durrant looked over at the door and saw the shadows through the glass. "Bolt the door."

  Fleming hesitated. The watchers outside would restrain him if restraint became necessary. The unlocked door had been a safety valve and now he had to operate without it.

  Had to.

  There was no option.

  He went over to the door and dropped the inside bolt.

  Brannigan, appalled, looked at the others in silence. Jenny, white-faced, avoided his gaze.

  Hammond said flatly, "He'll kill him," and began pushing ineffectually at the door.

  Durrant, cramped by his position, moved awkwardly on to th
e top rung and then looked over his shoulder down at Fleming. "Not until I reach the floor."

  "No."

  Fleming stood with arms folded watching him. The boy was climbing down the wall bars with slow ungainly movements. He looked like a spider on a web. Ugly. Fragile.

  David in the sun. Small. Fair.

  David in the hold of the ship. Unimaginable.

  Durrant had reached the ground. He turned with his back to the bars and then look a step in Fleming's direction. He licked his lips, his eyes bright with anticipation. "Now."

  And now I hand you over, Fleming thought. I don't touch you. I kick any remaining faith you have in anybody to hell. I con you, boy, because I don't bloody trust myself. He saw the expression on Durrani's face as he took a, step back from him. This was betrayal of the worst kind. The final killing of confidence in a world outside himself. Durrani's fifteen years of experience became fifteen years of disillusionment. Whatever the appalling future held, this was the most appalling moment of all.

  Durrani's lips were moving, but he wasn't gelling any words out. His eyes were bright points of tears and hate as he stood there wailing. The ignominy of the moment would be a memory he would carry to the end of his days.

  Fleming, his momentary weakness quenched, spoke brusquely. "I promised you. I keep my promises. And bloody well defend yourself."

  Durrant, in a moment old, once more became young. Elation, tinged with fear, flooded him. He moved in, fists flying. Fleming, who could have finished him in a matter of seconds, gave him three minutes. He hit him hard, but with half his strength. He hit him for David, and he hit him for himself, but mainly he hit him for Durrant. This was Durrani's truth. Durrani's faith in mankind – if his mind were ever cured enough to understand it.

  Durrant, his nose bleeding and his cheek-bones bruised, felt the hard thud of Fleming's fist against his jaw. The gym began to revolve like a space capsule out of control as his knees gave way. He saw Hammond's face distantly through glass, and Brannigan's face. They were splintering the door in an effort to break it down.

  And then, coming nearer and bending over him, Fleming's face.

  This was it – the moment of death.

  He waited for it.

  Fleming said coolly. "You're good. In another few years when you're heavier and stronger you'll be better." He took out his handkerchief and wiped away some of the blood. He understood Durrani's unspoken question and answered it. "No… I might want to kill you, but I can't. You'll understand why when you're well."

  He helped Durrant to sit against the wall. He looked repulsive and pity suddenly flooded Fleming.

  Durrant was muttering through blood-caked lips. "The power in my head is low. It will gain momentum."

  "Undoubtedly."

  "Bend closer. I want to touch you."

  "With death rays in your fingers?"

  Durrant looked mildly surprised. He was completely rational now. "No -just touch you.".

  He reached out his -fingers and rested them on Fleming's forehead. Fleming forced himself not to withdraw. Durrant remembered Innis and began to cry. He wished this man were his father – his lover – his enemy – his friend. He wished Fleming had killed him. He was glad he was alive.

  Fleming removed his fingers. "You'll be cared for by people who care."

  "Slay with me."

  "I can't. You have your own strength. You don't need mine."

  He went over and unbolted the door. One of the panels had been kicked out. They had believed him capable of retributive murder – even Jenny, perhaps, had believed it. He didn't blame any of them.

  He spoke first to Brannigan. "Get him the coffee now." And then to Jenny, "And some water and a sponge. He needs cleaning up."

  He began walking away. He couldn't look at Durrant again. He was like a dog cast out on a motorway – a rabid dog in search of a hearth. God knew what would happen to him.

  Jenny caught up with him at the outside door. "You did what you had to."

  "Assault and battery?"

  "A promise kept."

  "You heard what went on?"

  "Yes. Before you bolted the door."

  That an act of kindness could be brutal was a concept she had only just begun to understand.

  She said, "You were strong enough to begin – and strong enough to stop."

  He didn't want to talk about it any more. He said sharply, "He's bleeding. Go and see to it."

  He stood in the doorway and felt the night air on his face. It was clean and sweet with the smell of summer. Jenny touched his grazed knuckles and then left him standing there. What he had done was possibly outside the law. He didn't know. He didn't care. The wounds he had inflicted on Durrant had been minimal. There was nothing to regret. He felt as if he, too, had lost blood and that the wound had been washed clean.

  Twelve

  DAVID WAS BURIED in a hurricane of publicity. Fleming, in the eye of the storm, saw nothing of the crowds of sightseers, the cameras, the trappings of the media. He saw David. Not David dead, he and David together in a strange unnatural silence. There were prayers, hymns, words with a mystical meaning which whispered through his mind without impact. At the grave-side he saw the coffin going down and couldn't connect David with any of it. He hadn't thought of getting a wreath. A wreath for David didn't make sense. The hearse was full of them. Great mounds of colour, expensive, pretentious. He wondered if Jenny had added a posy to the pile. If she had it was hidden by massed roses and lilies. David had owned an album of pressed flowers once, until he had decided it was cissy and had thrown it out. An interest in entomology had come next – what Ruth had called horrors in jars. A research scientist? He still hadn't cracked that one. And now never would.

  Jenny, at his side, said quietly, "If we start going now while the police hold the crowds in check we can get to my car." Her eyes were tearless, but full of an almost maternal compassion for him. He, at the grave-side, was her child, her care, the one to be protected, her love. On the way down the path to the cemetery gate the cameras whirred and a reporter stepped out of line with "Just a word on your murdered son, Mr. Fleming – what are your feelings on the child's killer?"

  Jenny furiously pushed him aside. She guided Fleming to the car and got him in. The car started up jerkily as if it shared her rage and shot off into the crowds, scattering them.

  She didn't take him home. Nelson Street had to be kept inviolate from the Press hounds. They had bayed around The Lantern for days and he had suffered them grimly, saying little. She drove out through the town and five miles along the coast road to the old coastguard look-out. They could spend an hour or more here until the crowds dispersed. It was a place of high wide views and solitude. In the past, in moments of stress, it had brought her peace. She offered it to him now wordlessly.

  He got out of the car and stood looking around him. Today the North Sea was textured like grey crepe, but with threads of silver. Marristone Port, incredibly neat at a distance, formed a geometric pattern above the harbour. The Maritime Museum with its bright and ancient craft was a point of pain which did nothing more than stab briefly at him as his eyes lingered on it. He could look with some coolness at the school half-hidden in the belt of trees. When one walked through hell one had to emerge at some stage or never emerge at all. David, in his mind not yet dead, would in time be accepted as dead. Until that happened he would talk to him in his mind. He would dismiss that cemetery down there as a nonsense. He would see this moment up here with Jenny as the only acceptable reality.

  He took David's sketch of the caterpillar out of his wallet and gave it to her. "Tear it up."

  She took it from him, remembering their fury with each other when she had first wanted it destroyed – fury that had turned into an act of love, violent and then tender.

  Shutter's words came back to her: A mind sick with the grief of bereavement. Some day, healed, would she mean anything to him at all?

  She looked down at the drawing. Wolly Bear. The words creased along" the
fold were distorted and smudged. She thought briefly of Innis. He had packed up and gone. Brannigan gave the impression he would like to go himself but was held to the school like a prisoner locked in the stocks. His near-nudity in the gym had had more dignity than pathos – something he was never likely to know, and something no-one could find the words to tell him. If the school survived, then he deserved to survive with it. He had had the courage to attend the funeral and had stood alone at the grave-side, a few paces away from the other male members of staff.

  The caterpillar, mad-eyed like Durrant, leered up at her. With sharp vicious movements she tore it into small pieces and flung them into the air. The breeze caught them and scattered them.

  Together they watched them go.

  He thought, Peace to you, David. No more nightmares. Sleep quietly now.

  Ruth had always breathed a sigh of relief at the ritual tearing up, but Jenny was still and tense.

  He smiled at her. "That was always the turning point -• tearing it up. Afterwards it got better."

  She spoke with conviction, "And will again."

  He wished the lines of strain, would ease from her face. He regretted the burden of pain that he had placed on her. He loved her but couldn't find the words to say so.

  He asked her abruptly if she liked Paris.

  "What are you talking about?"

  Life, he thought, and going onwards. But mainly I'm talking about you.

  He tried telling her, clumsily and awkwardly, and her smile came slowly as she listened.

  ***

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