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."

"Tell me about Corley." He corrected himself. "Tell me about Neville."

The question found an echo in her mind. Tell me about David.

She answered thoughtfully. "He's introverted. A worrier. He says he's fine when he isn't because he's scared he'll be told he's worse than he is." She paused wondering if that made sense and decided it did. She tried to clarify it more. "When I took his temperature once I caught him putting the thermometer in a glass of cold water before handing it to me."

"So what do we deduce from that? That he wouldn't go to anyone for help… not even to you?"

"I don't know if he needed help. If he did, he didn't come to me."

"Have you heard anything from any of the other boys about him?"

"No. He was a loner. He'd carry whatever it was by himself."

"I see." He sat back in his chair and looked at her. "And now tell me about Fleming – Fleming senior."

She looked away from him. "I don't know what you mean."

"Jenny – you're living in a small community within a small town. The wife of one of the housemasters told me she saw you in a blue car with John Fleming the night before last." He hoped she wouldn't guess that the wife of the housemaster was Alison. Alison had gone on about the undesirability of a member of staff associating with Fleming "as he's so damnably hostile". He had irritated her by answering lightly that these days collaborators didn't have their heads shorn.

Jenny, knowing full well that it was Alison, decided not to say so. Brannigan was suffering enough.

"Are you forbidding me to see John Fleming?"

He knew it wouldn't make any difference if he did. "No. You're free to do as you like – and to see your loyalties whichever way you want to see them."

"Loyalties aren't flags you carry, one in each hand. I'd do everything I could to help him. If the school is to blame for anything, you wouldn't hide it. If I thought differently I would have resigned long ago."

He took it for the compliment it was and was grateful.

She said, sensing that the time was right to ask it, "I should like to have time off to be at the inquest tomorrow afternoon."

He could see that she was stiffening into a defensive attitude expecting him to refuse.

"Of course you may go. Alison will be sitting on her own while I give evidence I can't persuade her not to attend. She's extremely nervous and worried. Your being with her will help."

To hold Alison's hand hadn't been her intention, but there was no way out of it.

He told her that Lessing was representing the school. "And I'm told there's to be a jury." Lessing had told him this. "Seven local tradesmen," Lessing had said, "all rooting for the Grange. They feed it, they plumb it, they paint it and they wash its windows They're not likely to pull the plug out." Brannigan had commented acidly on Lessing's code of ethics and Lessing had taken it for the joke it wasn't.

A couple of hours later, during lunchtime, Lessing arrived at the school house. He walked straight through into the dining room, meeting Alison in the doorway as she was on her way to the kitchen to fetch the coffee. She offered him some, but he declined. "I can't stay. I have an appointment with a client in twenty minutes."

After she was out of earshot he said aggnevedly to Brannigan, "You should have informed me, you know."

"I gather Goldthorpe did?"

"Yes – but after I'd heard it in the town first."

"Damn!" Brannigan made a fist of his right hand and then uncurled his fingers slowly Where gossip was concerned the school was like water running through a colander.

Lessing shrugged. "The place is crawling with police. What do you expect?… Any news of the lad yet?"

"No." He had been ringing the police station every hour on the hour and Corley's father had been ringing him at even more frequent intervals. The phone bell was like the rubbing away of insulating tape over an electric wire He wondered if the child would be found before his own personal flashpoint seared his control Lessing said, "Sit down I have something to say to you It isn't pleasant"

Brannigan's face seemed visibly to thin so that the bones were prominent "Go on "

"I think the child who's disappeared had good reason to disappear – if he's the child I saw here the other day "