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."
Brannigan asked, "What about the blindfold?"
"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."
Brannigan, who had explained about the sketch, mentioned it.again, but Lessing refused to speculate.
"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, Brannigan, is a holiday. This accident has shattered your judgment. You need to get away for a bit and rest. The Grange isn't perfect – what school is? But it's a great deal better than most and when the British government starts putting back a little of the money where it rightfully belongs your numbers here will start to rise again. Marristone Grange had a damned good past and it will have an even better future once this little ripple in the pool is over and done with."
Brannigan glanced over at Hammond. If Lessing had relaxed his tension then it was all to the good. He told Lessing about the meeting at the Maritime Museum with Fleming. "He requested it. I agreed on Roy 's behalf. If you think Roy shouldn't go…?"
" 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 Brannigan. "Are you going along, too?"
"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 Brannigan one of the housemasters. Peterson had run the place like a general who balanced strategy with force of arms. He had none of Brannigan's sensitivity. If this particular situation had been thrust upon him he would have refused point blank to contemplate placing the blame anywhere other than on the child himself. All that psychological mumbo-jumbo about a caterpillar on a bed he would have dismissed as balderdash. He would have been politely sympathetic with the boy's father, but he would have made it absolutely clear that the school had discharged its duty to his son. He would have been emphatic – unwavering – and as tough as the occasion demanded. Brannigan had a soft core. The ability to see the other person's point of view was useful in some situations, but not in this one. Brannigan needed to cultivate an inward eye. Alison knew all about self-interest. She took after her father.
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. Innis, aware he was being observed, nodded over at Lessing and Lessing raised his hand in greeting and moved on.
Sports days in his time – in the fifties – had been well attended affairs at which boy met girl – other boys' sisters. Very decorous. Apart from one little broad he'd laid in a hollow in the long meadow. Even the long meadow in those days had been neatly mowed – apart from the rough grass beyond the wind-break of poplars. Now the grass was several inches high and even grew nettles. He ventured a little way into the wilderness in the general direction of the hollow.
He couldn't remember her face, or her name. He couldn't even remember the act, except that it had been his first with a girl – but not, he suspected, her first with a boy. She had smelt like wet grass with sun on it.
This was a good place, even now. Marristone Grange, like its meadow, had gone to seed a bit, but it was still a good place. If the grass weren't soaking his socks he would go to the hollow and linger there a little. It was a pity the day was so damp.
He stood for some while looking towards the wind-break and building up again a picture of what had happened beyond it before turning and retracing his steps up to the path. Durrant, his hand over Corley's mouth, raised his head cautiously and watched him go. The child's teeth under his hand snapped suddenly at his fingers and drew blood. "You sodding little bastard!" Durrant's left hand took over from his right and pressed harder. The child, choking, tried to twist away. His stomach began heaving and green bile shot through Durrant's fingers. Sickened himself, Durrant drew back, and Corley, still vomiting, threw himself sideways and began running.
Lessing, startled, saw a child of about ten blundering out of the long grass and running blindly in his direction. The child's eyes were half closed and his skin was pallid. The sickness was around his mouth and on the front of his grey shirt. The school tie flapped around his right wrist and then fell off. Lessing called, "Hey there – what's the matter?"