Brannigan said heavily, "Strictly off the record – I don't know. If it happened then whoever it is isn't likely to go up on the roof-top and shout mea culpa. The sketch worries me as much as it worries Fleming – are we both exaggerating its importance?"
Sam, struggling between kindness and truth, did a bit of adroit side-stepping. "If the autopsy doesn't show anything then the verdict at the inquest should be favourable. There's no point in worrying in advance."
Tom Lessing, later that morning, said much the same thing. He was an old boy of the school and time had mellowed his memories of it. He had gleaned some carnal knowledge there and emerged heterosexual. He had been bullied to a point considerably short of dementia and done some bullying back. Muscles grown defensively – and offensively – large in adolescence had now shrunk back into flab. The school had given him the right qualifications to get into university and if he had had any sons of his own he would have unhesitatingly sent them there. That to him was recommendation enough. On the whole he thought that Brannigan was taking far too serious a view of the affair. It made sense to be legally represented – it made even better sense to keep everything in proportion. Hammond was sick to his gut already without Brannigan piling on the agony.
Lessing tried to keep the conversation light. "What it all boils down to is your contractual duty of care. If you failed in that duty – which I don't believe you did – action can be taken against you for breach of contract and for the tort of negligence. 'For t. I tort I saw a pussy cat. Joke." He grinned and Hammond and Brannigan looked stonily back at him. He raised his thickly fleshed hand. "Okay – okay – I'll be serious – but if you'd waded the murky waters of the law courts as I have you wouldn't let this regrettable little affair worry you so much. 'For t. Let me explain it. A tort is a civil wrong, not a criminal wrong. Let's say you took a bunch of boys on that ship and then left them to get on with whatever they were getting on with while you nipped off to the nearest pub for a drink. The child Fleming falls. Okay – you were negligent. You'd have cause to sit there sweating."
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.