In a shy, awkward gesture she touched the back of his hand with her index finger "If it's not too squalid for you, I'm sure I'll find it perfectly acceptable Book me at The Strand if The Lantern's full, but try The Lantern first"
He promised he would and that they would have dinner together at The Lantern either way He hoped he had put some enthusiasm into the invitation She was an extremely attractive, kindly woman If Ruth had been master-minding his present campaign she would have spirit-smiled her approval He wondered, fleetingly, what she would have thought of Jenny It was ten o'clock when he took his leave of her at her flat in Knightsbridge The June night was prematurely dark and a light rain fell By the time he reached the outskirts of Marristone Port the rain had become intermittent and the moon shone on the dark country roads He didn't notice the child, Corley, pressed up against the wall as the car passed Corley had pulled his school cap across his face and buried his hands in his mack pocket so that no white skin showed It wasn't until Corley was well clear of Marristone that he ditched his cap and began looking out for a lorry going in the opposite direction To hitch a lift in a private car would probably result in his being returned to the school or murdered He regarded both with equal horror But to climb on to the back of a lorry travelling more or less m the general direction of Somerset – without the lorry driver knowing he had climbed on to it – shouldn't be particularly hazardous. Provided he could find a parked lorry – or a lorry toiling slowly up a hill. He trudged on in the darkness discovering as the night wore on that parked lorries and slow lorries weren't exactly thick on the ground. And the only one he could have boarded was going the wrong way.
Seven
CORLEY'S ABSENCE, AS Corley himself had anticipated, wasn't discovered until breakfast-time. Travers, one of Sherborne's senior prefects, brought the news to Sherborne. Sherborne, after a quick search of the premises went over to the school house and informed Brannigan.
Brannigan, still breakfasting with Alison, exploded, "Christ, that's all I need!" He had spent a restless night trying to reassure an insomniac Alison that all would go well at the inquest on Friday.
At Sherborne's news her face took on a yellow pallor and she sat silently looking at him, her breakfast plate pushed to one side. Brannigan tried to control his own reaction. "He said to her abruptly, "He can't be far." And to Sherborne, "I'll walk back, to school with you." In passing Alison he dropped his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently, "Just a prank, probably. Stop worrying."
On the way over to the main building Sherborne gave him all the details as he knew them. "My wife and I went to bed shortly after eleven. She had made the dormitory check at ten – it didn't seem necessary to do it again. All the lads were in bed then."
Brannigan said sharply. "Or perhaps seemed to be – you know the old trick with the pillow."
"Well – damn – she didn't go round prodding the lads.
This isn't a Borstal, Headmaster. What is there to escape from?"
"That's what we have to find out." Sherborne's tetchiness began bordering on belligerence.
"I may be in loco parentis, but I'm not God the Father. My wife and I have never spared ourselves in caring for the boys.
There isn't a better run House in the school. I have been here longer than anyone else. Experience counts for something.
Corley couldn't have had better care."
They walked up into the main hallway. Brannigan said, "I'm not criticising you. If he's gone, he had a reason for going. It's a pity he didn't confide in you, or Mrs. Sherborne." He remembered Mrs. Sherborne's deafness. Sherborne wasn't a 'particularly approachable housemaster, from the boys' point of view, and his wife, well-meaning as she undoubtedly was, was hard work getting through to. On the whole she was better than Mollie Robbins in Hammond's. Alison's father would, no doubt, have had no qualms about re-staffing more suitably. The incompetent and the deaf would have been told to quit. Sherborne, at nearly sixty, would have gone too, of course. In the few minutes it took to cross the main hall and go into his study he had re-staffed the school in his mind with the young, the brilliant, and the caring. In his pipe-dream there was always money to pay them, and the school building itself rose strong and uncracked on solid un-subsiding foundations.
He sat behind his desk and made Sherborne go through it again. "Did he leave a note?"
"No."
"Did he get into the locker room to get his suitcase?"
"I hadn't thought of looking."
Well, bloody look, Brannigan thought, but phrased it more politely.
He called in all the housemasters and the senior prefects and sent them to search the school and the grounds. In the meantime Sherborne returned to say that he had left without his suitcase. "All his clothes are here – except his daytime clothes and his mack. He left his bed unmade. It's quite likely he's hiding somewhere in the grounds." His voice, rough with anxiety, spoke without conviction.
"Why, should he do that?"
"Why do small boys do anything?"
"He's eleven. Not an infant. Old enough to reason out his actions."
Sherborne felt a vascular pain in the back of his left leg and was forced to take the nearest chair and sit for a few minutes. When the pain eased he reminded Brannigan that Durrant had gone home twice without reason. "Nobody bullied him."
Brannigan thought, nobody would dare, but didn't voice it. Durrant was a step outside the circle and always would be. Corley was an ordinary, normal, small boy.
David Fleming had been an ordinary, normal, small boy.
Had been.
The anxiety that had been building up like water against a dam began treacherously to break through. He forced ''himself to contain it.
The search parties returned in half an hour without success.
At nine-fifteen he put a call through to Corley's father at Bridgwater. Alison came into his study and sat in the chair in the window recess as he made it. Blame the boy, she willed him silently. Don't break the news so gently, so defensively.
Let your anger come up. The boy betrays you, not you the boy. He's lucky to have the chance to be here. If he throws that chance back at you then he's a stupid, idiotic, little brat. My father would have taken the hide off him, but you won't, will you – if he's caught. You'll speak sweet reason at him, as you do with all of them. You're soft – that's your trouble. You can't run a school like a young ladies' dancing academy, or a nursing home. Pity is your undoing. Why pity anyone? No-one pities you… The words hurtled through her mind so that she couldn't hear what Brannigan was saying and then she forced herself to listen.
He was still apologising, still soothing. "Try not to worry. Boys sometimes act on impulse – perhaps a row with another lad – I don't know… Yes, of course I intend calling in the police… No, I don't think it would be wise of you to come over. He probably hasn't got very far, but there's always the chance he's making for home. You'd be wiser to stay there and let me know when he arrives… Yes. naturally, I'll keep you informed. I'm sorry I had to give you such disturbing news. It will be good news soon, I hope… Yes, I agree, he's a very level-headed, pleasant child… No, I'm, sure he wouldn't have left without a reason… I assure… Naturally, you're upset… Try to keep calm about it for the lad's sake… When he does turn up keep it in a low key… Give my regards and sympathy to Mrs. Corley and assure her that everything is being done to find the boy… to find Neville."
He put the phone down, sweating slightly. He had juggled the conversation, carefully avoiding using the lad's name until Corley senior had mentioned it. Neville. The name had escaped his mind. It didn't speak so highly of the quality of care when a lad's Christian name was as elusive as a dandelion seed on the breeze.