She walked past him into the room.

She hadn't wanted to come. In normal circumstances she wouldn't have come. For days now he had seen the inquest as a kind of peak in his quest for retribution and it had turned out to be nothing of the kind. This new peak that she was about to show him was so horrifying that she didn't know how to begin.

She noticed the envelope on the floor and handed it to him. "I know you want to be on your own."

He opened it and read the note. "An apology from Thirza. Not necessary. She did what she could."

It was an opening, but she couldn't take it.

He crumpled the note and put it on the dressing-table.

They looked at each other in silence. And then they walked towards each other and he was holding her. He could feel the warmth of her body through the light cotton of her dress and the hardening of her nipples under his hand.

She forced him away from her. "I didn't come to sleep with you."

The vehemence of her withdrawal puzzled him. He hadn't wanted her, but now he did. The periods of isolation would come and go. They were necessary. But at the end of them she had to be there. Grief, he thought, was a selfish indulgence. He began thinking about her.

She looked tense, almost furtive.

"What's the matter?" The concern in his voice held a degree of gentleness.

Still she couldn't say it. She went and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Jenny?"

An ambassadress of the school. Brannigan's words of several days ago came back to her. Brannigan, of an hour ago, still under Durrani's eye. had been rather more terse. "He wants Fleming. Get him. He'll come for you."

She had been too shocked to argue, or to think.

She picked up a handful of quilt and began pleating it. He came and sat beside her on the bed and took the quilt out of her hand. He asked it again, "What's the matter?"

And then it came out, roughly, baldly. At the end of it she said, "Durrani's threatening to kill himself. He's climbed on to a window-sill in the gym. He's tied a rope around his neck. He says he's going to jump. He wants you there."

The words were like so many blows to the head. Fleming felt himself reeling under them. He got up from the bed and went over to the washbasin. He filled a tumbler with water, but couldn't hold it steady. The water splashed over his wrists. He drank a little and then poured the rest away., Jenny's voice as if from a distance went on in clear precise hammer-strokes. "He's out of his mind. Corley's father used the word psychopath. The police are up at the school. Shutter's there, too. He tried talking to Durrant, but he's worse than useless. Dr. Preston's been sent for, but I don't know what good he can do. Durrani's parents can't be located. I doubt if Durrant wants them anyway. He keeps shouting for you."

She looked at his back, wondering if he would ever answer. He had been standing at the basin, head bowed, for several minutes.

She said into the silence. "Durrant could jump on impulse at any time. I think you could stop him."

Fleming spoke at last. His voice burned with intense hatred. "Why should I stop him?"

"Because he's fifteen."

"David was twelve."

"He's sick. Not responsible."

"Sick – maybe. David's dead."

She had seen the mission at the outset as useless, but she couldn't just get up and go. A reluctant compassion for Durrant held her there.

"The death of two children won't bring one child back."

"Don't call him a child. He wasn't a child at the inquest. God damn him – he looked at me and smiled!"

She remembered her conversation with Hammond when she, too, had refused to call him a child. "He's sick. Even in the bad old days of hanging he'd be put away for treatment."

He rounded on her, high patches of colour in his cheeks. "Are you asking me to care about him?"

"I'm asking you to come back with me to the school."

"So that I can witness him jump?"

"Retribution. That should please you. David's dead. Now go and be the executioner."

He winced. She noticed and the flame of anger went. "He sets some store by your being there. If you have that sort of influence over his mind, you can stop him."

"Or trigger him."

"There's that risk."

"Risk – or promise."

"You can't mean that."

"Oh, but I can and I do." He wanted to be alone again with his thoughts. She was demanding action in a new crisis and all he could feel was shock and hate.

"Go away, Jenny. Stop talking at me. Go down to the car and wait. If I don't join you in half an hour go back to the school on your own, I won't be coming."

She felt a small surge of hope, but was wise enough not to show it. She left him without another word.

After she had gone he went to his briefcase and took out David's folder, as if contact with it would clarify what he had to do. If he didn't go up to the school Durrant might jump – or he might not. Either way, his non-arrival there would be an opting out. Why was Durrant passing the buck to him? Why couldn't he bloody well get on with it. He had killed David and now he wanted to kill himself. All right. Let justice be done.

Fifteen.

Bloody fifteen.

What's so extenuating about fifteen? The child mind becomes an adolescent mind and then a man's mind. There are no deep lines of demarcation.

He opened the folder at a page of flags. They had been done in coloured inks. David had gone to a lot of trouble with them. He hadn't been bad at sketching. One unfinished flag with a triangle still to be coloured had the look of a gallows about it.

Jenny's words, sharp, contemptuous: Go and be the executioner. (He closed the folder and put it back in the briefcase.

It would be easy to pack his bags and go back to London. He could ditch Jenny and her demands. He could wash his conscience clear as snow and read about Durrani's death jump in the newspaper.

Why should Jenny care about Durrant and expect him to care about Durrant.

He wanted Durrant dead.

He examined the thought in cold and clear detail and couldn't deny it.

If he went up to the school the confrontation had to be positive – one way or the other.

Fifteen.

m

If not a child mind – then a sick mind '

According to Jenny According to sweet, sane, demanding, accusing Jenny who knew damn all about it Or about him. Had she no idea of the danger of the role she was thrusting on him? What did she expect him to do – play God with a godlike compassion? Didn't she understand what it felt like to bring up a child – to love a child – to lose a child?

Didn't she understand him at all?

There should be no confrontation with Durrant He should opt out and keep the skin of his conscience intact But he couldn't

The half-hour was almost up when he joined Jenny in the car. The expression in his eyes quenched her quick relieved smile when she saw him His look promised her nothing other than that he would come They drove in silence through the June evening Over the sea mackerel clouds tinged with pink and gold formed a fretwork against the clear pale blue of the sky The air was sharp with salt and wood-smoke. The school building, yellow in the evening light, looked benign. All outdoor activities had been stopped and the boys were confined to the west wing The deserted grounds, unnaturally quiet, looked like the gardens of a bygone age A police car parked near the shrubbery gave the lie to the air of peace.

Detective Inspector Grant was the first to greet him. "It's good of you to come – especially under the circumstances." He went on to explain that though it was possible to enter the gymnasium window via a ladder on the outside wall and take Durrant by surprise, the risk was too great. "Any positive effort to get at him and he'll jump He's not bluffing. We've managed to contact Dr Preston and he'll be over soon with someone from Blenfield – the psychiatric hospital. In the meantime the lad keeps asking for you. Do what you can."