Death Drop

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 Bra

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 I

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 Je

He spoke first to Bra

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.

Je

"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. Je

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 u

Je

Je

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 Je

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 I

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.