Fleming interrupted him. He went on addressing Hammond. "I don't know what happened to my son – but I mean to know. Imaginative, you say. A circus act on the edge of the hold. Do you honestly believe that? Can you stand there now and look at me and say you believe that?"
Hammond made a helpless movement with his hands.
Anything I believe won't carry any weight with you at all.
You're determined to think the worst. I'm sorry David died.
I've said that before. If I say it a hundred times again it won't shift your prejudice against me."
"Too right it won't. His safety was your responsibility. Where the hell were you when you should have been right here?"
"I was looking after three small boys and trusting the rest to do as they were told."
"And David was told to do what?"
Hammond indicated the poop deck. "To get up there and make notes on the rudder machinery."
"That's asking a lot of a twelve-year-old."
"A twelve-year-old, an eight-year-old – they produce according to their ability."
"The sketch showed a regression to six. At what age level was the work you set him on the rudder machinery?"
Some of Hammond's aggression left him. "It wasn't done. He made no attempt to do it. I suppose you'll suggest now that he made a suicidal leap because I set him an impossible task."
"So you've dared use the word suicide at last. Be careful – you might become indiscreet."
Brannigan interrupted with some forcefulness. "We're not gaining anything by this. None of us knows what happened to David. We're here to try to reconstruct the scene – as far as we know it – and with the help of the other boys. Shall we get on with it? Or do you want to go down the hold?" • "I want to go down the hold." He added, "On my own."
Brannigan held Hammond's torch while he made the descent. Hammond went over to the rail and looked down at the water. The sun was edging the waves with silver. There was a sour sickness in his mouth and his chest felt tight as if Fleming had kicked him in the ribs; but still he was aware that the sun shone and the shadowed waters at the harbour edge were a deep cobalt.
He tried not to think of Fleming in the hold.
He tried not to think of Fleming's child.
The hold smelt of salt and seasoned timber and rope. The hatch above was a square of light. The light, like spilled water, flowed thinly and trickled off into a deep darkness.
Fleming bent down and touched the timbers almost directly under the hatch. His mind refused to see David lying dead. Complete identification with him wasn't possible. His own id protected him from what he couldn't take. He had reached the limit of his own separate existence and he couldn't over-step that limit. David had died. He himself was inexorably alive. As an act of contrition for his own limitation he wanted to lie on the timbers where David had lain, but he stopped himself. Brannigan was up there somewhere in the light. The private agony had to be contained in the mind.
When he climbed up the ladder again he surprised Brannigan by appearing so calm.
Brannigan helped him over the edge of the hatch. "Are you all right?"
"Yes." "Then let's get back to the boys."
The boys, like abandoned guests at a macabre party, stood uneasily where they had been left. Brannigan felt a twinge of conscience that he had let them in for this. An interview up at the school would have been less traumatic. There, in their own environment, they had appeared adult enough and tough enough to be here – now he was less sure of them.
Hammond looked to him for a lead and when one wasn't forthcoming took command himself. "You all remember where you were on the day that David fell. We'll start with you, Stonley. The engine-room, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Take Mr. Fleming there."
Brannigan said that he would go along, too. "You don't object?" This to Fleming.
"No. The boys are your responsibility." It came out heavy with innnuendo.
Brannigan's lips tightened and he said nothing. Stonley skipped down the steps into the engine-room with some ease, but once there seemed to freeze into stillness.
Fleming with sudden compassion tried to get it over quickly. "How long were you down there?"
"I don't know. I didn't notice the time. I was making sketches."
"Did you see David at all?"
"Not since we arrived. We had our different jobs to do."
"Did you hear him call out?"
"No."
"Did you hear anyone call out?"
"No."
"When did you know that David had fallen?"
"I heard voices up on deck. I guessed something was wrong."
"Did you go anywhere near the hold yourself?"
"No." Stonley's hands were in his pockets. He took out his handkerchief and a half-smoked cigarette fell out. He put his foot over it.
Brannigan saw, but didn't comment. Stonley hadn't set the Maritime Museum ablaze – yet. One crisis at a time was sufficient. He looked enquiringly at Fleming. "Is there anything else you want to ask?"
Fleming thought – yes, but he doubted the wisdom of asking it. Stonley would probably freeze even further into the machinery and find no words to answer him. He tried the question: "If you had to describe David in a word or two – how would you describe him?"
"I don't understand you, sir."
"I know he was a few years younger than you, so you might not have had much contact. Can you be objective enough about him to say how he impressed you – or didn't you particularly notice him at all?"
"Oh, yes, I noticed him, sir." Stonley's foot drew the cigarette stub back towards him and he stood more com fortably. "He struck me as being…" he paused, looking for the word, "I don't know how to say it – one off from the herd, not a pack animal."
"You mean he ran alone – that the other lads disliked him?"
"No. They liked him. He played around with the other twelve-year-old kids – but sometimes he'd be alone and not seem to mind."
Fleming thought, you noticed him pretty intently – and was perturbed.
The other boys' answers to the same question were more superficial. Welling in the navigation house on the bridge said, "Happy and cheerful, sir," and added "absolutely" for good measure.
Masters, in the captain's cabin, blushed crimson with embarrassment and came out with a strangled "All right."
Neither boy had seen David fall.
Durrant, on the fo'c'sle deck had been the furthest away from the hold and he was the last of the boys interviewed.
He leaned back against the windlass as Fleming and Brannigan approached. Their footsteps were quiet on the deck but he magnified them in his imagination so that the thumping of his heart became the stamping of jackboots. A thrill of anticipation, almost orgasmic, prickled through his flesh.
He turned a suitably grave face towards Fleming and completely ignored Brannigan. "You want to ask me some questions, sir?"
Fleming on a sudden impulse tried a different approach. The situation – with this particular boy – was different. He said brusquely, "Tell me about it."
Durrant felt the impact of the challenge like a blow. His muscles tightened and then he slowly breathed out. "I wish I could tell you about it, sir, but I wasn't there so I don't know."
The waves were making soft little slapping sounds against the bow and there were far-off voices in the wind.
"Tell me what you were doing from the time you came here on your assignment until David fell."
Durrant looked past Fleming's head. The blue arch of the sky darkened in his mind and metamorphosed into a flat low ceiling of steel. The salt air became fetid and difficult to breathe. The winch behind him held the cold menace of torture. An exquisite pain flowed through his wrists where they touched the ropes.
"Are you all right?" Brannigan's voice.
He looked at the second inquisitor with ill-concealed disdain. "Oh yes, sir -just a little upset when I think about it, sir."
"You haven't answered me yet." No softness in this voice.