When he returned she asked him where he wanted to be driven. Brannigan had told her to try to persuade him to return to the school, but she was wise enough not to try. The role of ambassadress had been thrust on her. In no way was she accountable for the accident. As the youngest and only non-teaching member of staff Fleming would scarcely rate her as an opponent. At best, Brannigan said, he might listen to her sort of reasoning – at worst he would dismiss her. There would be no overt animosity.

Fleming didn't know where he wanted to go. "Anywhere. Could you just drive for a while? Anywhere."

She understood that he didn't want to go directly to The Lantern. He didn't want to meet anyone and neither did she. The cliff road was fairly empty at this time of day. She drove fast and dangerously. When she was less emotional she slowed down.

He wasn't as she had expected him to be. He didn't look like David.

She halted the car on a farm track leading off the main road.

"He was like his mother, then?"

"Yes. Small-boned. Fair."

She wondered what words she could use to take the pain out of the silence and couldn't think of any. David's mother had died over a year ago. It had been less than tactful to mention her.

"Why did Brannigan send you?"

She nearly said, "To entice you back to the school," but stopped herself in time. "To provide transport until you make your own arrangements."

To put an electric fence around the tiger, she thought, and keep him safe from the local Press. There had been a staff meeting before morning school during which Hammond had been persuaded to take a day away from the premises. Brannigan had told him to steer clear of Fleming until Fleming was in a more rational frame of mind. "He's too shocked and grieved to make sound judgments. He's out for blood – mine – but yours, too, as you were in charge of the lads." Hammond had retorted explosively that his conscience was perfectly clear. "Agreed. You know it. I know it. In time Fleming will know it, too. Express your sympathy and make your explanations when he's ready to hear them. Not today."

They had gone on to talk about legal representation at the inquest. There was to be a governors' meeting during which a plan of action would be drawn up. The school, already shaky in an economic climate that eroded its foundations, needed the strongest support it could get.

A hanging judge, Alison Brannigan, the head's wife, had described Fleming. Tread softly – softly.

A child is dead, Jenny had thought as she listened to them, and you're all so frightened of the consequences that you're getting your priorities wrong. And yet Brannigan himself had integrity and was compassionate. He didn't use the word pity, though. Perhaps the word was too mild.

She said roughly to Fleming, "David – his dying. It's such a waste."

There was a tremor in her voice again and he saw that she was clenching her jaw. He couldn't talk about it and looked away from her. There were sheep in the adjoining field. Wisps of wool had become entangled in a briar bush. Their bleating was a low accompaniment to the sound of the wind. The sea across the headland was getting rougher. It could be blowing up to a storm. It was mid-June and felt more like December. He was aware of everything in far-off, yet minute, detail as if he were an observer from a distance.

She said, "You're very cold, aren't you?"

"I suppose so. I've stopped noticing it."

"Are you ready to move on?"

"Where?"

"Somewhere where there isn't anyone – like this – only indoors with a fire going and some whisky."

"Your place?"

"My parents' flat in Nelson Street. They're away for a month in Spain. It's a bolt-hole from the school when I get time off."

He hesitated, but couldn't think of anywhere else to go. A bolt-hole from the school implied that she wasn't likely to put up an impassioned defence of the school. She might speak with some truth of it. Truth, as yet, was virgin ground.

The flat, high-ceilinged and shabbily elegant, was furnished with well-chosen Victoriana. The fire was already laid in the grey marble fireplace and she put her lighter to the slivers of wood. "Sit down over there near the heater. I'll switch it on until the fire burns up. Could you eat anything if I make you a meal?"

"No, not now – but you go ahead."

"I couldn't either – a drink, though, that's different."

She returned in about five minutes with a bottle of whisky and a jug of hot water.

"As you're so cold you'd be wise to take it hot – but I've ice if you'd prefer it that way." She took two tumblers out of the sideboard. "How do you want it?"

"Up to now I've been keeping myself sober."

"For God's sake, why?"

Because, he thought, I've been walking in enemy territory. Instinct told him that no longer applied – at least not here.

He took one of the tumblers and held it out to her. "I'll have it neat."

They drank in silence. Hers was well diluted. Each time she replenished his glass he made a token protest which she ignored. He didn't remember the point at which she got up and left the room. He didn't hear the front door closing behind her. When she returned towards the middle of the afternoon he was asleep on the sofa, his shoes kicked off, ''his tie loosened. There was a grimy swollen look about his face as if he had wept.

When Jenny hadn't returned to the school by three, Brannigan phoned the flat in Nelson Street. It seemed to him quite likely that Fleming had declined her company and gone for a long walk on his own. In similar circumstances he thought he would have done that himself. It was a long shot that they were in the flat together. He hoped she hadn't brought him home. It was thoughtless of her not to keep him informed.

Jenny heard the phone ringing and went into the hall and looked at it. It kept on ringing and she leaned against the wall with folded arms and made no move to answer it.

Fleming, forced into wakefulness by the bell, stumbled off the sofa and went into the hall. Answering phones was a conditioned reflex even when in a semi-stupefied state. For a moment or two he couldn't remember who Jenny was. A shaft of sunlight through the transom window above the door blazed like fire in her short red hair. She moved out of its beam.

The phone stopped.

"You didn't answer it.''

She shrugged. "It was probably a recall to duty."

"Duty?" He was still very unclear about everything.

"School."

He remembered. The pain had a different quality now. The numbness had become a dull ache. He was no longer cold. The room had become uncomfortably hot and his body felt sticky with sweat. He had drunk too much – or perhaps not enough.

She smiled at him. "The bathroom is the second door on the right. Have a shower while I brew up some black coffee. Later, there's some braising steak doing quietly in the cooker." • "You're being very kind." The words came out automatically, but he meant them. Each moment lived in this, the most terrible period in his life, had been made almost bearable by her care.

When he returned to the sitting room he felt fresher and able to form the words with some clarity.

"Did David ever talk about me – to you?"

She couldn't with honesty remember. "David talked about times and places. You lived in Oxford. I think?"

"Yes, briefly. And then we moved to Stroud in Gloucestershire."

"A cottage on the edge of the Cotswolds?"

"Yes, that's it." He took the coffee from her and declined sugar. "He described that to you?"

"Not exactly." She tried to find the right words. "A kids' party. Balloons. Only not a kids' party – balloons-just that sort of feeling about a place. The way he looked when he spoke, it was the way he looked, not the words."

"Super."

"What? Yes. But then they all say that."