He wished Alison would stop looking at him like that. She made him feel like Uriah Heep. What did she expect him to do – beat his jackboots with a horsewhip while breaking the news?
"And now – what?" she asked tiredly. "The police?"
"The police – and afterwards Colonel Goldthorpe."
"And the rest of the governors, too, I suppose? It's like living in the days of the inquisition. Why drag them into it?"
"It's better they should hear about it directly from me."
"It's better no-one should hear about it at ali. You could have waited another hour before telling the boy's father – before calling in the police."
He held on to his patience. "A child is missing – a child is at risk."
"And the school is at risk. It has been ever since the Fleming child died."
He ignored her and began dialling the number of Marristone police station. Detective Inspector Grant came on the line and from him he at last got the support he needed. The school would be searched – this time professionally – and the surrounding countryside would be searched. All patrols would be alerted as soon as he had personal details of the lad. He would be up at the school in fifteen minutes. In cases like these the child was usually found quite quickly. He made it sound very easy and ordinary. Brannigan imagined a Pied Piper line of young Corleys making their way through the countryside and coming up against Grant's substantial midriff one by one. He had been very cool and phlegmatic about David Fleming, too. That time he had been presented with a fait accompli – this time there was a chance of doing something about it.
As soon as he put the phone down it rang again almost immediately..
"Is that the headmaster, Mr. Brannigan?"
"Yes." He thought it was Mrs. Corley and felt a lurch of dismay. Speaking to the lad's father had been bad enough.
"This is Lorena Durrant – Steven's mother." The raucous voice should have been familiar and now that he heard it again it jogged his memory of several irritating conversations he had had with her in the past.
"Good morning, Mrs. Durrant."
His eyes met Alison's and for the first time that day sympathy was mutual.
"Good morning." She pushed out the greeting as if she were dropping a wasp through a window, and then got on quickly with what she had to say. "It was my birthday on Tuesday. I had a most extraordinary present from Steven. I really can't get over it."
Jesus God, Brannigan thought, she's on about the Keats. He remembered Durrani's embarrassment as he had stood at the study door and asked for permission to go down to the town to buy it. Why in the name of sanity was she ringing him up to complain about it? Especially now.
He tried not to speak irritably, but failed. "Some people like that sort of thing. The boy was trying to please you."
"Oh, so you knew about it, then? I thought perhaps you did."
"Yes – he asked my permission to go down to the town to buy it."
The words, like bullets leaving a gun-barrel, cracked out sharply, "And where did he get the money from, Mr. Brannigan? Answer me that?"
She was using up valuable telephone time and he was tempted to put the phone down, but if he did she would ring him back and keep ringing him back.
"I'm busy, Mrs. Durrant. Do you think you could come to the point?"
"The point – oh yes, Mr. Brannigan, I can come to the point. The point is the amount of money my husband sends to Steven – and doesn't send to me. What is he trying to do – buy the boy's affection? Inveigle him away from me?"
Brannigan, at a loss, waited. There was no affection from either parent, and there wasn't much in the way of money either. Durrant senior gave the boy mighty little in either hard cash or fatherly interest.
Not getting a response, she went on. "At first I didn't think anything of it. I'm not well up in these things. And then one of my friends saw it and read the name on it. Would it surprise you to know that it didn't cost Steven a penny less than eighty pounds?"
It surprised Brannigan very much. The woman must be mad. The local bookshop didn't go in for first editions.
He spoke mildly, "Your friend must have misled you. Steven spent less than five pounds."
"Not on that camera, he didn't. My friend's an expert.
He's done model photography for the high quality artistic market. If Steven's father is giving him that sort of pocket money then he's earning a sight more than he tells me he's earning."
Brannigan, about to say it wasn't a camera, stopped himself. If she said it was, then it was. Even Durrant would know better than to send his mother a book of love poems – but why tell him he was going out to buy a book of Keats when he wasn't? And where did he get the money from? Obviously if not from his mother then from his father. His father might have had a win on the horses or something. But if he had he wouldn't send it to the boy. Or would he? Hammond might know. As housemaster he was responsible for the boys' money.
He told Mrs. Durrant he would put her through to Hammond and then remembered that Hammond was taking a class. "Or rather – I'll ask him to call you back as soon as he's free."
"And I want to talk to Steven, too."
"Naturally. I'll arrange that as well."
It was after he put the phone down that he remembered that Durrant had come to ask him for the money – and that he had given him six pounds. Eighty? The silly woman was sleeping with a porn photographer who was either cretinous or as high as a kite.
Alison asked, "What was that all about?"
"Rubbish. Lorena Durrani's bed companion is a crass idiot."
"It's a pity," Alison said, "that you can't use that tone of voice all the time."
After the police had come and gone and left him with the feeling that he could lean back against a solid, professional and very comforting wall, Goldthorpe came and effectively kicked it away again. He spoke much as Alison had spoken and told him he should get in touch with Lessing forthwith. He had even used the word 'forthwith'. 'Substantial financial loss" occurred frequently, too. David Fleming's death was a wounding – Corley's disappearance a possible deathblow. Brannigan, tiring of him, told him crisply that his military metaphors were completely out of place. A child had disappeared; he was concerned for the safety of that child. At this moment his concern was focussed there and nowhere else.
Goldthorpe, surprised, climbed down a little. "All the same, it would do no harm to have Lessing up here, Headmaster. As an old boy, he has the welfare of the school very much at heart."
"And I haven't – is that what you're implying?"
Goldthorpe took his leave huffily. "I'm not implying anything of the sort. What a ridiculous thing to say! I'll be in touch with you again when you're calmer."
Brannigan saw Goldthorpe to the door and noticed before closing it that Jenny was on her way to the stairs. He called after her. "Nurse Renshaw – could you give me a moment or two please?"
"Yes, of course." She had been informed about Corley's disappearance and was as worried as he was. She said impulsively, "I'm terribly sorry. I know what you're feeling."
He told her to sit down. "Jenny – do you know Corley's Christian name?"
The question surprised her. "Yes – don't you? It's Neville."
"You didn't even have to think about it, did you?"
She didn't understand where the question was leading and he didn't explain.
He said, "He's a small red-headed child of eleven with buck teeth and a Somerset accent – I'm right, am I not?"
"You're right."
He had put the child's face together slowly in his mind after going through a mental putting-together of all the other children in his House – like a slowly-formed identikit picture Corley had finally emerged. A school photograph that Sherborne had unearthed had confirmed it. The police were working from the photograph.
"You know the lads pretty well, Jenny."
"I've had most of them in the infirmary at one time or another."