Shulter, arriving in time to hear this, took Fleming aside. He said bluntly, "If you're expecting a confession of guilt, sorrow and penitence – then go away again I tried speaking reason to him He's beyond reason His mind is sick through mental aberration – yours is sick through bereavement Don't go in there if you intend hazarding his life even more than it is now "

"I don't know what I intend "

"Then don't go in."

"I have to." He couldn't explain the compulsion He looked from Jenny's strained white face to Shulter's troubled one Now that she had him here she was standing back, unsure. If Durrant died, he'd lose her. It was something he sensed.

He had expected Brannigan to meet him in the corridor outside the gym, but met Hammond instead Innis, warned to be on hand in case Durrant should call out for him, was waiting, sick with apprehension, in one of the changing rooms. He had no wish to see Fleming. His own guilt in the matter was like a carcinoma that had suddenly burst its confines and begun to spread Hammond's sense of guilt was considerably diminished. No-one could have foreseen this. The crust of his bellicosity had smoothed off into normal anxiety. He had even taken charge to some extent. It was his doing that the boys were kept well clear of the area. It was his persuasion that had sent a near-hysterical Alison Brannigan back to the school house with Mollie. He hoped Mollie would have the strength of character necessary to keep her there.

He indicated the closed double doors of the gym and spoke quietly. "The true verdict of the inquest is m there. Manslaughter due to insanity I'm sorry for all that's gone before. I'm sorry for any part of it that's my fault."

Fleming thought, Murder – manslaughter – diminished responsibility – the virus was becoming more and more attenuated, in time it would become benign. He asked sharply where Brannigan was, "In there. Under Durrani's eye. Durrant won't let him move."

Fleming pushed open the door and stood on the threshold.

Brannigan was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. Surrounding him in a neat circle were carefully placed dumb-bells – relics of the early days of the school which were normally suspended along one of the walls. His thin arms were goose-pimpled and his shoulder blades, sharply prominent, were blue with cold. He sat as still as a guru deep in meditation. Durrant, legs crossed and leaning back against the glass of the window, was watching him intently. The old fool had pleaded for a rest. He was letting him rest. He was getting older by the minute. When he had put him through his paces with the dumb-bells his breath had got short and his face had turned mauve. Durrant had wondered who would die first and had fingered the rope speculatively. Not that he intended jumping until Fleming came.

And Fleming was here now.

Fleming who had tried to see some of it in his mind as a preparation wasn't prepared for what he saw.

Brannigan, aware of him, turned his head slightly.

Durrant said in a thin high voice, ''Don't move. I haven't given you permission to move. You asked to rest. You'll rest.''

Fleming went over to Brannigan. Brannigan's eyes beseeched him to have a care. Fleming, aware of nothing except a coldly growing anger, spoke crisply. "Get up."

I can't… he…"

"He won't jump. He has sent for me. We have things to discuss. If 'he jumps – he'll jump afterwards." He swung around to Durrant, "Right?"

The machine in Durrani's brain took a joyful leap into top gear. Here was the enemy. Here was his match.

"Right. But I give the orders around here."

"Not stuck up there with a rope around your neck you don't. Now, Headmaster-out!"

Brannigan got up on to his knees and then painfully to his feet. Every muscle in his body ached. He looked at his pile of clothes and then up at Durrant, hesitating.

Fleming picked them up for him. "Here. Now leave us."

He stepped back as he watched Brannigan walking over to the door and his foot caught one of the dumb-bells and sent it spinning. Brannigan was brought up sharply in his tracks as if he had been shot. He looked around fearfully.

Fleming said, "A dumb-bell – one of the magic circle. You placed them, I suppose?"

"Yes." Brannigan's eyes signalled a lot more.

Fleming ignored the signals. "Get someone to brew you up some coffee. You need a hot drink. And you can send in some for me -when I say so."

Brannigan nodded. The double doors clicked shut behind him.

"And now the old fool's gone," Durrant said, "you can pick up the dumb-bell and put it back with the others."

"I can," Fleming said. "There are many things I can do – just watch me." He picked up a dumb-bell and hurled it across the room so that it crashed against the store-room door. He picked up a second and sent it against the vaulting horse. A third smashed into the opposite wall bars and splintered. He paused, the fourth in his hand, and looked up at Durrant assessing his reaction. Some of the contained violence of the last few hours had been dissipated in noise. He sent the fourth dumb-bell up towards the ceiling where it connected with a light bulb and shattered it.

It was a release of aggression for him, too. A calculated risk. He would have liked to bombard Durrant with them and bring him down, but it was something he could only do in his mind and not in fact.

Fifteen – three years older than David.

He couldn't kill him.

He couldn't let him kill himself.

This was no time for self-analysis, but he was aware that he breathed more easily and that his heart-beat had steadied. Anger was replaced by calm. He took a chair from along the wall and put it roughly where Brannigan had been sitting. He took out a cigarette and lit it.

"Loud enough for you?"

Durrant fingered the rope. He had expected them to be thrown in his direction and was disappointed. Was this enemy weak too?

"You're as shitting yellow as the rest of them."

"How so?"

"You could have knocked me off."

Fleming inhaled and then exhaled slowly. "Easily. But I came here to talk. You can't hold a conversation with a corpse."

Durrant accepted it. Not weak. Biding his time.

He moved the rope until it was more comfortable.

"I killed David."

"I know."

"I knocked him down the hatch into the hold."

"Yes."

"Is that all you have to say – yes?"

"You're"talking. I'm listening."

"That's all. I killed him,"

Fleming felt a momentary loss of control and didn't speak for a moment or two. When he did the question came out levelly. "Why?"

Durrant's machine began running irregularly so that his thoughts began to escape like rabbits running down dark forest paths. He didn't know why. He couldn't remember why. Something to do with Innis and a photographer.

He said quite cheerfully, "I really don't know." He went on, "Really this – really that. He's really rather 'refained.' His old man makes piss-pots." He looked at Fleming and began to laugh. "You don't make piss-pots. Christopher does. From Stoke."

Until then Fleming hadn't been sure what kind of mind he was dealing with. Now he was beginning to know. Everything he had done so far had been instinctive. He sensed that the boy needed a will stronger than his own.

Durrant said, "I'll jump when you tell me to."

"Why do I have to tell you to?"

"Everything is ordered. We live in an ordered society. Didn't you know?"

"Nobody orders me. I do things my way."

"It's right that you should order me. I killed your son. You're my enemy."

"Why obey the order of your enemy?"

Durrant was silent. He said after a while, "I smoke."

"Are you asking for a cigarette?"

"Yes."

"Then take off the rope and come down and get one."

Durrani's eyes clouded with contempt. "Pussy-cat noises again."