Death Drop

Fleming took it. The boy lacked the usual awkwardness of adolescence. He had a glossy gracefulness. Masters was different in both physique and character. He was short and swarthy and mumbled inaudibly. His intense embarrassment struck a sympathetic chord in Fleming. This time he proffered his hand and the boy took it. Stonley, nondescript and silent, inclined his head stiffly and then moved quickly so that Durrant could come forward. Fleming remembered the name.

"Durrant."

"Yes, sir. How do you do, sir?"

There was a certain bravado in the tone, something in the expression in the eyes, that seemed to belong to another situation. He looked at a tall, rather ugly, gangling boy who had bashed David for voicing a preference for baseball. But not just that, he sensed something more. Durrant looked back at him and saw quite simply an enemy. The method of his extermination would become clear in time. His imagination was already feeding on it.

"You're the boy who objects to baseball, Durrant?"

The quick tongue touched the thick lower lip. "Only in this country, sir. He went on about it a bit."

"And you hit him – a bit?"

"Not hard, sir."

Fleming turned from him and looked at Hammond again. He indicated the boys. "Your idea?"

Bra

"I fail to see the reason for it."

"You wanted an enquiry. The boys were there. They will be able to tell you what they saw or didn't see."

He had to agree to it. He wondered what kind of loyalty Hammond could drum up. The feeling of being behind enemy lines was strongly with him again. Hammond was being safely hedged around. The degree of his vulnerability depended on the boys and Bra

Hammond said gruffly, "We can meet alone, if that's what you want, later on… I haven't tried to sympathise with you. Anything I say you'll probably misconstrue. If I say I'm sorry that David died – and I am, desperately and deeply sorry – you'll see it as an admission of guilt. I admit nothing. There was no negligence."

Fleming was silent.

Bra

Their leader, who had some English, approached Bra

Bra

"The little boats of the primitive times, but not the models. The catamaran and the trees with the dug-out centre and the bamboo raft."

"They're in the adjoining shed – the shed next to that one. They are numbered in your catalogue."

"You are coming that way, too, please?"

"No. We are interested in the vessels on the water."

"And we also. Someone who would help with the interpretation we should be most happy to have." '

Bra

The Swede rejoined his group. He spoke to them quickly and bitterly.

Welling said in an aside to Masters, "How to make friends and influence people."

Bra

"I'm sorry, sir. I understand the situation. I wasn't being critical."

"No? Amusing, perhaps?"

"No, sir. It was a stupid remark, sir. I'm sorry, sir."

There were times, Bra

The wind blew an empty sweet bag against Durrant's ankle. He picked it up, made a ball of it, and dropped it into the water. The waves took it and flipped it against the black painted hull of a yellow-sailed ketch.

Hammond spoke irritably, "There's a rubbish bin over there."

Durrant, not aware he was being addressed, didn't answer. His ability to switch off from reality into a more congenial and interesting environment had been acquired over the years. His growing physical strength and bizarre imagination combined forcefully into what he saw as a power-house in an alien city. He could people that city as and how he wished and dominate them – some in fact, others in fantasy. His mind was now on Fleming senior. Bra

Bra

Fleming saw it as procrastination. "Let's get on with it – now."

Hammond, surprisingly, brushed past Bra

"That's it. The Mariana." He indicated a cargo vessel with a green and yellow fu

Fleming saw the name enclosed in a thin red-painted rectangle on the bow. Mariana. It was incongruously gentle. Like an execution chamber hung around with silk.

Now that he was here he wished he were anywhere but here. The thrusting reality of David's death had degrees of penetration. To bear the pain and yet retain his calm demanded of his strength more than he was capable of. His instinct now was to turn and go. He had seen and heard all he could take. He wanted no more of it.

Aware that his hands were shaking he put them behind his back and gripped his wrists hard.

Bra

"We'll board her."

Hammond led the way down the gangplank. His voice assumed the slightly higher pitch he used in class. "Every time I take a group of boys on a ship we move around the ship as a group to discover the general lay-out of it. After that each boy, apart from the younger ones who stay with me, goes to work on the particular part of the project assigned to him. I suggest we move around the ship now as a group – afterwards the boys can take up their individual positions and you can question them individually, if that's what you want to do."

"That's what I want to do. But your guided tour can wait. I want to see the hold where it happened. Now."

What the hell was Hammond thinking, of, Fleming wondered. A slow build-up to a grand finale? Bridge deck. Boat deck. Lower deck. And now wait for it, Fleming, while the drums roll.

That he could quite easily kill Hammond occurred to him. He was emotionally capable of it.