Death Drop

Sam, struggling between kindness and truth, did a bit of adroit side-stepping. "If the autopsy doesn't show anything then the verdict at the inquest should be favourable. There's no point in worrying in advance."

Tom Lessing, later that morning, said much the same thing. He was an old boy of the school and time had mellowed his memories of it. He had gleaned some carnal knowledge there and emerged heterosexual. He had been bullied to a point considerably short of dementia and done some bullying back. Muscles grown defensively – and offensively – large in adolescence had now shrunk back into flab. The school had given him the right qualifications to get into university and if he had had any sons of his own he would have unhesitatingly sent them there. That to him was recommendation enough. On the whole he thought that Bra

Lessing tried to keep the conversation light. "What it all boils down to is your contractual duty of care. If you failed in that duty – which I don't believe you did – action can be taken against you for breach of contract and for the tort of negligence. 'For t. I tort I saw a pussy cat. Joke." He gri

Hammond, unaware until then that he was sweating, surreptitiously wiped his hands on the plush arms of his chair.

"Did you nip off anywhere?"

"No."

"Right. Fine. I didn't for a moment think you did. How many boys did you take on the ship – eight – eighteen – twenty-eight -• fifty?"

"Eight. I told you."

"So you did. A reasonable number. You kept the three youngest near you and told the rest to get the hell out of your hair – right?"

"I told them not to go to any other deck level without my permission."

"Young Fleming came and asked you for permission?"

"No. He went without telling me he was going."

Lessing leaned back in his chair and beamed. "But you, having second sight and the ability to look around corners, knew quite well he was going, so you told your three youngest to fall off the gangplank while you went and hauled him back?"

Hammond was silent.

"It doesn't stand up," Lessing said. "It just doesn't stand up. Would you call yourself a reasonable man, Hammond?"

"Yes – I suppose so."

"Do you think you'd pass the test of reasonable foresight?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean the law might be an ass, but it isn't an unmitigated ass. It protects you when all the circumstances are in your favour, and it slams you to the devil when they're not. In this case, I believe you did everything humanly possible to look after the boys in your care."

Bra

"Well – hell – if one small boy wants to play Captain Hook and breaks his neck in the process – what's Hammond to do? Go and shoot himself? The boy crept off and played a game. He died. Tragic. I'm sorry. But you're asking me about Hammond and I'm telling you I think Hammond is all right. He discharged his duties to the best of his ability. If the boy had obeyed his orders he would be alive now."

Bra

"That's outside my sphere. It looks to me like an ordinary, simple accident. If the coroner doesn't return a verdict of accidental death I shall be greatly surprised. Even if it were suicide, I don't see that anyone can get at Hammond with that. As I said before, he's not a mind-reader. If the child's jump were premeditated, how was Hammond to know? What you need, Bra

Bra

" Roy? Oh, Hammond." Lessing smiled weakly, but his eyes narrowed in thought. "Do you want to go… Roy?"

Hammond, intensely disliking the use of his Christian name, said no, but he believed it would look bad if he didn't. "I have nothing to hide." It was like a cracked gramophone record, he thought, he kept on saying it.

"No, of course you haven't. But if you meet Fleming do you think you can make that clear? If you can't – then stay away."

"I think I can make that clear."

Lessing shrugged. "Go then. You don't have to. If I were you, I wouldn't. But I don't think you can damage your position by going. It all depends on how you handle it." He raised an interrogative eyebrow at Bra

"I thought it might be advisable."

"Well, if you do, don't look so worried. No general ever won a battle by expecting to lose it."

" Battle?"

"Well – no – false analogy. No battle. No case. That's what I think. Animosity can breed its own sort of trouble, though. The ship is a particularly evocative rendezvous – a bit knife-twisting, I'd say, for all of you. Have a care."

Before leaving the school Lessing took a nostalgic walk on his own around the school grounds. Alex Peterson, Alison's father, had been headmaster in his time and Bra

The morning was becoming less chill and the clouds were lifting. He could hear the smack of a cricket ball at the nets and took the gravelled path through the yew trees down to the pitch. He hadn't been too bad a hand at cricket, though he couldn't remember liking it very much. Even the smell of the earth around here was evocative of his youth. The games master in his day had been a whippet-thin, small, fast-moving, ex-football pro called Patell – nicknamed Knees. The present sports master couldn't be more different. He was as hirsute as all the younger generation these days, thick, heavy, slightly pot-bellied, and with a lazy swing to his arm when he bowled. The ball got there though. The kid with the. bat lunged out at it, missed, and the middle stump thwacked back into the grass. I