"I'd like to give it to you – and let you tear it up. A present of peace to David. But I can't. It may be worthless evidence – or it may not. I can't risk destroying it. Not even for you."

She accepted that his mood was in a downward swing again. The sketch had triggered an emotional reaction that had kicked down barriers – what he did with it now was up to him. She deplored its existence, but she was grateful for it, too.

She said with surprise, "I've never before slept with a man and not known his Christian name."

After being briefly startled, he felt the sudden sanity of humour bubbling up into surprised laughter.

"John."

She said dryly, "Well – thanks for the introduction." He told her he would be going up to London to contact his solicitor the following day. "I'll be back tomorrow night, but probably too late to get in touch with you. I'll see you the day after tomorrow."

"I'll be on duty at the school."

"Whenever you're free." He went and opened the car door for her. "That is if you wish… if tonight…" He fumbled clumsily with the words, not sure how to put it to her.

She said calmly, "Tonight was… unexpected… and…"

"And?"

"Good and natural and I'm glad it happened. You've just dropped me off at Marristone Grange, not at a nunnery." She reached up and kissed him. "Maybe, I even love you a little."

She walked swiftly up the drive before he could answer.

Entering London, after the days in Marristone, was like entering an orchestra pit with an atonal orchestra in full swing. The noise assailed Fleming as he drove and the traffic forced his concentration.

Thirza, in partnership with two others, had an office off Regent Street. It was a semi-basement and uninviting on the outside. Inside, it spelt money. Thirza's own room off the small reception area was furnished with antiques. Her desk, he remembered her telling Ruth with some pride, had cost just under a thousand pounds. She had always tended to talk money – which was surprising as she had never lacked it. Crayshaw, Bradley and Corsham had been a family firm for nearly half a century. Her father, Reginald Crayshaw, had made her a junior partner immediately after she got her law degree. Now, fifteen years later at thirty-eight, she had inherited his share and took a third of the profits, which were considerable.

When Fleming was shown in she was reading a copy of the account of David's death which her secretary had typed for her after phoning the Marristone Herald that morning. She hastily slipped it into a drawer and rose to greet him. "I was most awfully shocked. I didn't know until you phoned. It might have been in the dailies – I didn't see."

Her embarrassment and her concern paradoxically made the meeting easier than he had expected. Here was a case of meeting someone halfway – of making things easier for someone else. She had never been a demonstrative woman. Her two husbands had "come and gone without leaving an emotional ripple and she had reverted to her maiden name. Ruth's assessment of her: introspective, work-orientated, but a kind and true friend, was probably based on the fact that Thirza kept her marital problems to herself and never poached on Ruth's territory. Any other woman at this sort of meeting would have given him if not a quick sympathetic peck on the cheek then a warm sympathetic squeeze of the hand.

He took the chair she indicated and said easily, "It's good to see you again. It's been a long time."

"Twelve months – no, more than that, nearly two years."

She had done something to her hair, he noticed, or else she was going prematurely grey. It looked attractive with her dark eyes and warmly tanned skin. Her olive green silk dress was finely pleated from neck to hem and fastened at the throat with six small buttons. He contrasted her with Jenny. Sartorially and in every way they were poles apart.

Aware of his scrutiny and a little puzzled and a little flattered by it she waited for the boat to be pushed out into the water. He looked ill, but that was to be expected. He appeared to be extremely controlled, but she knew him well enough from the old days not to be taken in by it. He had adored the child.

She said, "Yes, well – whisky, coffee? Or nothing now – an early lunch? I've booked a table.''

"Thirza – the wound has been taped over. I'm not going to embarrass you with a show of blood.''

"No – but I understand what you feel. I'm not good at saying so."

"Take it as said."

"Lunch, then – in half an hour? At twelve?"

"Don't be afraid to speak to me. David is dead. I can say it."

"Yes." She was silent. Her fingers caressed a crystal paperweight and a shaft of sunlight threw a reflection from it on to her jaw where it hovered like liquid silver. She moved her chair back and opened the desk drawer. "I managed to get this." She took out the typed paragraph. "I guessed the local paper would cover it."

He read it. "Would you understand me if I told you that I would like to see the school razed brick by brick?"

So the boat was being pushed out and the waters were stormy.

"You hold the school responsible?"

"Of course. I sent him there in good faith. They killed him." All vestiges of Jenny's defence of the school had cleared from his mind. If his hatred of the school were paranoid then he accepted the fact of his paranoia. He, on David's behalf, stood in the arena.

Thirza had been trained not to let her astonishment show. "You mean – you don't think it was an accident?"

He told her about the blindfold. And then he took the sketch out of his pocket, and put it on the desk. She noticed that as he explained about that, too, he kept his eyes carefully averted from it as if it were an obscene thing that sickened him. "I want you to keep it and use it at the inquest – if it can be used – to show David's state of mind."

She doubted if it could be used. Without professional psychiatric backing it carried little weight. "Death due to failure of contractual care- might bring you damages. I can't do any forecasting on that without the full facts."

Jenny's words about setting a price on David come back to him. "Damn it, I don't want damages. If any money comes my way, then it goes directly to charity." He tried to explain. "If the school, or someone in it, can be proved responsible for killing David, then I have every intention of taking an eye for an eye. One child dying is one child too many. Especially when that child is mine. The school lives on its reputation. If it can be proved to have stepped out of line, in any way whatsoever, then I shall see to it that it won't live long."

"You're capable of a lot of hate, John." She added before he could answer, "Inversely proportional, I suppose, to your love of David. It's a pity this happened in so short a time after Ruth."

"You think my reaction is abnormal?"

"No – under the circumstances, perfectly normal."

"Then you'll represent me at the inquest?"

"Of course – but in my own way. You'll have to leave it to my judgment. I'll use the sketch if it seems relevant. Have you any idea what an inquest is? It's simply an enquiry held in a coroner's court. Afterwards it may go further. The extent of your pain won't bend or influence the course of the law. You can't be clear-minded, but everyone else will be – including me." She put the sketch in a manilla envelope and put it in the top right-hand drawer. "Now tell me about it again. All of it. Every small detail. I'm switching on a tape-recorder, but don't let that inhibit you. Just pretend it isn't there."

After some preliminary awkwardness and hesitancy he began his account. For most of the time she didn't look at him and only occasionally prompted him. When he had ended it she knew that he had invited her to fight a lost cause.

It was politic not to say so. "Well?"