Death Drop

Shulter's obvious surprise reassured him. "Far from it. He was likeable."

"He had no obvious enemies? No boy in his class that he was afraid of?"

Shulter, aware that the flat lands of pain had assumed the unpredictability of quicksand, began treading with caution. Enemies? What young boy didn't have enemies? An enemy of a day or a week metamorphosed into a friend of a day or a week. Marristone Grange wasn't terrorist country. Fleming was speaking of children.

"I can't imagine your lad being afraid of anyone. Certainly of no-one in my Scripture class. If something specific is worrying you, I think you should tell me more."

He listened, perturbed, as Fleming told him about the sketch. Consolation was called for and he tried to give it. "I think you're probably reading more into it than you should. He had been ill. Medication can have odd side-effects. He might have had a drug-induced nightmare and then drawn the picture."

"He might. It wasn't an explanation that Doctor Preston put forward. Perhaps he was trying to protect his pills as you are trying to protect the school." It was bitter.

It was also, Shulter thought, unjust. If he were trying to protect anyone he was trying to protect Fleming himself. Whatever had happened it was over and finished. Fleming's acceptance of the boy's death was the first necessary step towards healing. The balm of Christian faith could only be applied when the wound was ready for it. The next question he had to ask would rub in salt, but it had to be asked.

"I'm not trying to protect the school. It just seemed to me that it could be physiological rather than psychological." He balked at the question and then eventually rushed it out. "I wanted to see you this morning to ask what you intend doing about the funeral?"

Fleming felt shock waves travel through his pores. His mind hadn't taken him that far. Shulter, aware how close he was to a breakdown, wished they were anywhere other than in a public bar. He moved his chair so that Fleming was partly screened from any curious onlooker.

Fleming, controlled again, felt the unexpressed sympathy. He imagined Shulter on the other side of a partition in a confessional. A quiet presence. Only the Church of England didn't have confessionals, did it? David hadn't been brought up C. of E. or R.C. His christening had been in the U.R.C. Which Godly trade union was to take charge of the burial ceremony?

Shulter pressed on gently with the practicalities. "I'll go with you to the undertaker. I wish I could take over all that side of it for you, but I'm afraid it's something you have to do yourself."

"I realise that."

"The funeral will probably be early next week – a few days after the inquest. Unless you decide to make other arrangements, I'll take the service – if you'll allow me to."

"I'm not a member of.your church."

"That doesn't matter."

"Or even a believer."

"That doesn't matter either."

Shulter suddenly remembered some words of David's… not spoken to him but to another boy in his hearing after David thought he was out of earshot. "It seems to me you've got to flipping well take a heck of a lot on trust -• do you think that's what he means by faith?" He debated whether or not to repeat the words to Fleming. They were so apt in this particular situation Fleming might believe he had made them up. He risked it.

Fleming heard David in the words. Trust. Faith. The words in the present context were hollow. David had trusted him and he in turn had trusted the school to take care of him. The kind of faith that consoled after the debacle was something outside his ken. He wished it were not. He wished he could go now with Shulter to his church and heave off this burden at the altar steps. He wished he could have a simple peasant faith – or the kind of faith that David was looking for.

He was aware that Shulter had something else to ask, and was wary of asking it. He waited and the question came with some hesitancy.

"The school has its own small chapel. At one time it was used for services. It's consecrated. Until the funeral would you like David's body to lie there – or do you want him to be taken to the undertaker's Chapel of Rest?"

Fleming's answer came with no hesitation whatsoever. "Anywhere but the school. The bloody place killed him."

Shulter, about to protest, thought better of it. Fleming's hatred was beyond reason. He hoped it was without just cause.

By three o'clock the day had begun to be beautiful. The morning clouds had shredded in the wind and though the rain was still sporadic it gleamed with sunshine. The inlet of water, cha

A Portuguese frigate painted in strong blues and crimsons splashed the water around it with paler blues and crimsons. Next to it the wind played in the lug sails of a Chinese lorcha. An elderly Thames barge and a Danish jagt moved in unison, their timbers creaking.

The paddle-steamers resisted the wind but responded to the water with slow rhythms evocative of ancient sea-shanties. The extraordinary peace of the place was suddenly shattered by the scream of a gull as it alighted on a tall thin fu

The small group at the entrance gate waited wordlessly and watched the gulls come and go. Hammond, standing a little away from the others, wished that he could have prevailed upon Bra

Hammond guessed that Fleming would see it as a bodyguard and add contempt to all his other emotions. He felt tired – even a little uncaring – as if the anxiety of the last few days had slowly exuded like pus from a boil. His mind refused to conjure up what had happened in detail, instead scraps of information he had dictated to the boys swam up to the surface like so much flotsam in the harbour. The Sirius on her trip across the Atlantic had averaged 6.7 knots. The Comet averaged 6.7 in British coastal waters. Both better than the Clermont's 4.7 knots. Snorter's propeller and Smith's screw of the early nineteenth century were the foreru

Bra

Fleming saw the four boys before he noticed Bra

So this was the one. Tall – slightly stoop-shouldered -• thick, fair hair badly cut – bony features – a long wide mouth – unrevealing eyes.

Bra

"How do you do, sir?" Welling dared to do what Hammond hadn't. He extended his hand.