He reorientated himself. "My assignment was to make a sketch of the fo'c'sle deck and the windlass. I'm not good at drawing so I couldn't do it very fast. I hadn't done very much when I heard David shout."
This time it was Fleming who felt the physical impact of shock. None of the other boys had heard anything.
"The hold is at the stern – the other end of the freighter – how is it you could hear from here?"
"The wind carries sound, sir. If you listen now you can hear that party of Swedes talking on that freighter over there."
It was true. The other boys had been in enclosed areas.
"Go on. You heard him shout. What did he shout?"
"You don't shout anything when you're falling, sir. It was a muffled sort of scream." He looked to see if he had drawn blood and saw with satisfaction that he had.
Fleming, white-faced now, thrust on. "What did you do then?"
"Well, naturally, sir, I went to see. There was enough light to see David lying down in the hold. His head looked wrong on his shoulders. He wasn't moving."
"And then?"
"Mr. Hammond arrived. He told me to stay where I was. He went down to look. When he came up again he went over to the rail. I thought he was going to be sick."
"Did he speak to you?"
"After going to the rail? He must have, sir, but I can't remember. When you've had a shock nothing you say makes much sense. I think he said something about fetching a doctor – or that might have been Mr. Sherborne."
"Mr. Sherborne?"
"One of the other housemasters. His boys were on the next ship – that one over there where the Swedes are now."
Fleming looked over at the other vessel. "So there were three of you standing near the hatch almost immediately afterwards?"
"No. Mr. Sherborne was amongst the people who began to come. It's like that with an accident, sir. There's nobody, and then there's a crowd. You don't notice them coming, but somehow they find out and they come."
"And then what happened?"
"Mr. Hammond didn't seem to know what to do so Mr. Sherborne took charge. He made Welling responsible for us as he's the most senior boy. He told Welling to take us into the cafeteria until one of the other masters could take us back to the school. We sat around a couple of tables and waited. We heard the siren of the ambulance – or it could have been the police. We couldn't see from where we were. One of the younger boys went over to the door to see if he could see anything and Welling belted him around the ear."
"When you looked down the hatch into the hold – before Hammond climbed down – could you see David's hands?"
"Yes, sir."
"Were they tied?"
"No."
"How was he lying?"
"On his stomach – his arms flung out on each side of him. Like this." Durrant went down on his stomach and demonstrated. He lay for less than a minute, but long enough to smell the tar of the deck and feel a rough splinter rub his jaw. He pressed his face into it and closed his eyes. The terror-dark engulfed him. He swam through it valiantly. The aperture of the escape hatch was closing razor sharp on his neck. He rolled over and his head touched Brannigan's fawn suede shoe.
He got up clumsily. "That's how he lay, sir."
"You're sure about his hands?"
"Absolutely sure."
"There's not much light in the hold. How clearly could you see?"
"Clearly enough to see that. He was a shape. Black against grey. His handkerchief was around his eyes. If someone is being executed then his hands are tied."
The knowing eyes looked at Fleming and measured with satisfaction the degree of pain that the image inflicted.
Brannigan expostulated, "For God's sake!"
Durrant turned to him. "Well, that's what his father thinks, sir."
Fleming asked quietly, "What do you think happened to him, Durrant?"
"I think he got bored, -sir – so he began to play around. If you put a blindfold on you get muddled about heights and distances. He could have leaned over the hatch side and overbalanced." He smiled suddenly and his face became suffused with purity and simple gentleness. "I really do think that's how it happened, sir."
Fleming turned from him and began walking away.
Brannigan caught up with him. "Satisfied? His explanation was plausible."
Fleming glanced over his shoulder to make sure Durrant was out of earshot. "What's the matter with him?"
"What do you mean?"
Fleming wasn't sure what he meant, but he knew what he sensed. During some parts of the interview Durrant was a fairly typical fifteen-year-old boy – during other parts he wasn't there at all.
He wondered if Brannigan had a drugs problem at the school, but kept the thought to himself. Durrant certainly wasn't high – and the withdrawal was intermittent and for very short periods.
He tried to answer Brannigan. "He's not like the other lads."
Brannigan, knowing it to be true, refused to admit it. "No two lads are alike. Durrant hasn't a very stable background. It may reflect in his attitude."
"How does he behave towards the other boys?" Brannigan answered with truth. "As far as I know, quite properly. No-one has ever complained."
Hammond was awaiting their return on the boat deck. He didn't ask anything about the boys' responses and it was Brannigan who volunteered the information. "The only one who heard anything was Durrant."
"Yes. As I told you at the time." Hammond took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one.
Brannigan mentioned Stonley's cigarette stub. "I didn't say anything. I leave it to you. He's probably having a quiet smoke down in the engine-room now."
"The least of our troubles."
"That's what I thought." Brannigan offered to round up the boys himself. "While you and Mr. Fleming have a talk – if that's what you both want to do?" Hammond shrugged. "It's the object of the exercise. We can winkle Masters out of the captain's cabin and have a talk there."
The cabin was full of polished mahogany and red plush. Everything was battened to the floor. Masters who had been fantasising about a voyage in the China seas took himself off with some reluctance and joined Brannigan and the other boys.
Hammond went and sat on the bunk and Fleming took the ornately carved Spanish mahogany chair near the flap-down table. Hammond's cigarette was Turkish and heavy. He shook his head as Hammond offered him one. "So you and Durrant were the first on the scene?"
"Yes. We arrived within a few minutes of each other. It was a traumatic experience for the boy."
"I imagine he could take it better than most."
"If you were a schoolmaster, Mr. Fleming, you would be careful not to make snap judgments. You can't sum up a lad's character quite that fast."
"I take your point – but we're not here to discuss Durrant. How well did you know my son?"
"Obviously not well enough to read his mind." Fleming thought, 'You smooth, uncaring bastard… He forced down his anger. "You spoke to him sometimes?"
"Naturally. I'm – I was – his housemaster."
"Earlier, you said he was imaginative. In what way?"
"Each House puts on its own Christmas entertainment. His contribution to ours was commendable. We didn't use all his ideas, but we used some."
Fleming had a vague recollection of David's mentioning a Christmas play. Jealousy that this man knew more about it than he did stung him, wasp-like, and he had consciously to brush it aside. "I've read his essays. There was one about being a research scientist. What field of research?"
Hammond was surprised. "Good God, I don't know! Is it relevant?"
"To killing himself? No. To knowing him – yes. You spoke to him. He was in your care."
"As you keep saying."
"And will keep on saying."
Hammond thought, What do you want of me, Fleming – my own blood, too?… He felt very tired.
Fleming didn't know what he wanted of Hammond… a weak, grovelling confession of negligence – or a flare-up into belligerence so that all the anger could spill over into an elemental tearing of flesh.