"And you, Bruin Boy – you." Gobbets of blood, Durrant thought We spit them at each other There's nothing more.

He found he could walk now, his thighs were cold and heavy, but they could move.

Appalled, Innis watched him as he went over to the wall bars under the east window and began climbing. Near the top rung he held on with one hand and leaned over to grab the climbing rope which was suspended from the ceiling. Carefully holding it, he climbed up on to the window-sill. Squatting there he made a noose with the rope and slipped it around his neck. His eyes were diamond bright and his face was flushed Innis thought, God – no! – but the words stayed in his mind Brannigan pushing open the swing doors behind him caught him a glancing blow on his shoulder, but was unaware of it He shouted out the protest that Innis couldn't voice.

That Durrant would come for refuge to the gym hadn't taken much working out He and Corley had come through the main building and they had come as fast as they could – but not fast enough Corley, at his side, spoke quietly. "Easy, and gently, don't raise your voice "

Brannigan, about to rush across to the bars, stopped just inside the room "Durrant – Neville-" He realised that m his panic he had the wrong Christian name. "Steven…"

Durrant laughed "You're not very good at it, are you?"

The laughter, high and sweet and insane, sent an icy sweat down Brannigan's spine. "At what?"

"At being human."

"What do you mean, Steven?" Calm him, he thought. Make him talk If there's to be an impulse jump, it will happen now "That's right – you've got it right, this time. What's Lambert's name?"

"Which Lambert?" All the boys' names had gone out of his mind. He wasn't even aware he had a Lambert.

"There's only one. In Sherborne's House. Mr. Innis remembers it – don't you Mr. Innis?"

Innis found it difficult to speak at all. He got it out eventually. "Michael."

"That's right. Mr. Innis is human. Sometimes. He used to use my Christian name, too, sometimes. He doesn't use it any more."

Brannigan said, "He will if you want him to." He took a couple of steps across the room and Durrant immediately hunched up on the window sill, his neck thrust forward. "I'll jump if you come any nearer."

Brannigan stood still. "I'll do anything you want me to. And nothing you don't want me to. Just take that rope off your neck and come down."

Durrant said conversationally, "It's Rampton, isn't it?"

"What is?"

"The place where they send criminal lunatics." He looked at Innis. "Those who are off their bloody heads."

Brannigan soothed, "You're a sick child. If you'll come down nothing awful will happen to you. You'll be taken to a hospital and made well." x "Pussy-cat noises."

"What?"

"Try meat?"

"What?"

"You're either deaf or incredibly stupid."

Brannigan said humbly, "Just tell me what to do."

Durrant thought, I've got you. While I sit here with this rope around my neck, I've got you. The old power-machine in his mind, after one or two initial lurches in the wrong direction, was humming away beautifully. Power, like strong drink, was a river in his veins.

"Take your jacket off."

"My jacket?"

"You heard me."

Brannigan unbuttoned his grey jacket, got out of it, and held it in his left hand.

"Put it on the floor."

Brannigan let it drop.

"Now stand on it."

Brannigan stood on it."

"You wear braces."

"Yes."

"That's very old-fashioned of you. Bruin wears a belt."

"Bruin is – with it."

"Don't try bridging the generation gap, old man. Use your own vocabulary."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Be your age. You're past it, you know. You should have retired long ago."

Brannigan whispered a heart-felt amen to that. He half-turned his head and saw that Corley had gone – presumably to raise the alarm. He hoped he would raise it with caution. Innis was still there.

"Now take your trousers off." '

Brannigan hesitated. Durrant fingered the rope around his neck and moved nearer the edge of the sill.

Brannigan removed his trousers. The June day was still very hot, but he stood and shivered in his underpants and vest. He hoped Durrant wouldn't make him strip to the nude.

Durrant looked at him critically. "As I said – old. Drop your trousers on top of your jacket and stand on them."

Brannigan did so.

"Now sing to me."

"Sing what to you?"

"No, don't sing what to me -just sing. Sing the school song."

Brannigan racked his brains. The school song? They hadn't a school song. In Assembly they sang whichever hymns Laxby chose from the hymn book. He tried humming a few bars from the Doxology.

Durrant began to laugh. "You are a fool – an almighty fool." This time his laughter was normal.

Brannigan felt his anger rise. The boy was having him on. He wasn't off his head. He was sadistically sane. "Now look here…" He moved forward.

Durrant's face contorted. His voice came out as a roar. "Standstill!"

Brannigan stood.

"That's better. You don't want to kill me, do you?" It was plaintive.

"I'm asking you to come down."

"Ask away, sonny, ask away. Do you know my mother's a whore?"

Brannigan didn't know how to answer that one. It seemed polite to deny it – so he did so.

"And my father's an idiot."

He said no to that, too.

"Don't keep contradicting me. I know them. You don't. Give me one good reason for going on living."

Brannigan thought for a couple of minutes. "Your individuality. You are you – not your parents."

"What's so good about being me?"

"There's good in everyone."

"What's my special good?"

It seemed a brainwave. "Your capacity to love."

Durrant began to cry. He cried open-eyed and silently.

Brannigan said gently, "Steven…"

"The one good reason not to live." It came out raggedly. He fingered the rope again.

"Steven…"

"And don't Steven me – the name's Durrant. You're soft. You're all soft here." He said after a silence of several minutes, "I'm- bored with you. I'm bored with all of you. Fetch Fleming."

"Fleming?"

"F-l-e-m-i-n-g. David's father. I want him."

The words were out before Brannigan could stop them.

"But you killed his son."

"That's right," Durrant said laconically. "Let Bruin fetch him – and you stay here. Tell him he's got to come."

Eleven

FLEMING WAS LYING on his bed, empty-minded, watching the sunlight shimmering on the ceiling. Thirza, aware that he lay in a limbo she couldn't enter, had packed and gone. She had slipped a note under his door – an apology for a non-brilliant performance at the inquest and a request that he should phone her the next day. He saw the note lying there and hadn't bothered to open it. His mind refused to tick over at all. Anger and disappointment and grief had lain on him like scum on still water. Tiredness had distilled it all into a state of almost-peace.

The knock on his bedroom door was something to be ignored. He watched the lifting of the pale curtains in the breeze, the movement fragmented the sunshine into petals of light.

Jenny said, "Open to me, please."

His first reaction was resentment. The steel bars around David and himself were capable of being moved by one person only. If she forced her way through, he would think again and feel again. He wasn't ready for her. Not yet.

"John – I must see you."

"Damn you, Jenny – go away." He didn't know if he said it or thought it.

"Please."

Pain was flowing back. He got off the bed and went and unlocked the door. The sunlight from his bedroom spilled out on to the dark landing and washed over her so that her hair blazed. Her vitality as opposed to David dead was almost an offence.