Fleming shrugged. "I don't give a damn what you do. I'll throw them up to you if that's what you want."

"Then throw them."

"Take off the rope, put it somewhere handy by you. If you lean over to catch them you might slip."

"Accidental death."

"No – suicide too soon. You don't want that, do you?"

Durrant thought about it. He didn't want that. He would jump when he was ready – after he had had a cigarette.

He took off the rope and put it on the window-sill beside him. If Fleming or anyone else made a move he would have it back on in a couple of seconds.

Fleming considered possibilities and discarded them. The time factor wasn't right. He threw up the packet of cigarettes. It bounced against the window pane and just missed Durrani's outstretched hand.

He said brusquely, "You'd be a bloody awful fielder on a cricket pitch."

"That's what Bruin says."

He threw them again and this time Durrant caught them.

"Who's Bruin?"

"Bruin. Woolly Bear. If David hadn't seen, I wouldn't have killed him."

Fleming asked carefully, "Hadn't seen who?"

"Bruin – in my room – that night." He looked down at the cigarette, his face clenched suddenly against tears.

Fleming said, "Matches coming up. Ready?"

"Yes."

He aimed carefully and they dropped on Durrani's right knee. Durrani's tears were under control. He lit the cigarette calmly.

"David," Fleming said, "used to have nightmares about a caterpillar. He called it Woolly Bear." The conversation was out of his depth now and he thought it unwise to pursue it. Durrani's emotional reaction hadn't been lost on him.

Durrant tried to make the connection and failed. Why the hell were they talking about caterpillars? He was up here in the control of a death machine and the enemy down there was beaming in on him…-Very soon now the death machine would be aimed at the enemy. A kick at Fleming's throat as he fell. They would both go out together. He calculated the angle of the jump. Not easy to assess.

Fleming asked him when he had eaten last.

"I don't know. I can't remember."

"I'm about to have some coffee sent in. Do you want some?"

"No."

Fleming called over his shoulder. "Tell Brannigan to bring the coffee in now. One cup."

After a few minutes Brannigan, fully dressed again, pushed open the door and brought in one of the thick school mugs filled with strongly smelling coffee. Fleming took it without a word.

Brannigan tried palming a note. Fleming, aware that Durrant had seen, tore it up in simulated anger before Durrant could demand it. "Anything you have to say, you say loud and clear. Right?"

Durrant nodded approvingly.

"And whatever it is," Fleming went on, "it can wail… until Durrant and I are ready to hear it." This time to Durrant, "Agreed?"

"Yes."

Brannigan said weakly, "I'm sorry."

The note had said that Preston's car had broken down. He and the psychiatrist from Blenfield would come as soon as they could.

When they were alone again there was a period of silence during which Fleming drank the coffee and Durrant smoked. He didn't particularly want the cigarette. He was both hungry and thirsty.

"In any case," he said aloud, "it would be drugged."

Fleming read his mind. "No-one would drug me. And no-one would drug you sitting there. Personally I don't give a damn what happens to you – I've.already said so – but those people outside there do."

"Those people out there? You're mad."

"Your parents, then?" Very dangerous ground.

"My mother's dead." He thought about the statement he had just made and decided it must be true. He didn't care very much.

Fleming said easily, "You're good at being on your own. So am I. I recognise your strength."

"Don't give me that sort of crap. You hate my guts."

"Of course. But I still recognise your strength… that's why I don't understand you."

"What don't you understand?"

"Why you should sit up there too bloody scared to come down. Are you afraid of the way I'd kill you?''

"You'd kill me?"

"Wouldn't you expect me to? You killed David."

Durrant drew on his cigarette and then stubbed it out. "How would you kill me?"

"I certainly wouldn't hang you – or applaud you if you hanged yourself- and I don't carry a gun." He put down the coffee cup and held out his hands. "That leaves these."

"That way?"

"There isn't any other."

Durrant considered it. A bird alighted on the window ledge outside. He watched it idly. It was small and brown. He moved and it was off in a flutter of wings and a burst of song. One for sorrow. Birds were the spirits of the dead. It was the dead David come to mock him.

He spaced out the words, "I – am – not – afraid – of – you."

"Then come down and prove it."

"It's a trick – the sort of trick those out there would use."

"Those out there haven't, our own very personal relationship."

"Of hatred?"

"Of hatred."

"And," tentatively, "respect?"

"Yes."

He drew the rope nearer. "I don't know."

Fleming said, "It will take me three or four minutes to drink the rest of my coffee. You'll either come down then and face me. Or you won't have the courage and you'll stay where you are. I shan't be around to watch you jump.

You'll jump on your own. And my respect for you will end with you."

A lucid moment came. "And you expect me to buy that?"

"Please yourself. Find you own easy way out. It's up to you."

Durrani's head began to throb with indecision. He examined the noose and tightened it. If he placed the knot expertly it would be quick. If he didn't it would be slow and humiliating.

Fleming was drinking his coffee, not looking at him. He was sprawled indolently in his chair, long and lean and strong. Innis had been strong, too, strong and tender.

If the enemy meant what he said then that way out was the better way out. There had to be a way out. His misery was like maggots gnawing his flesh. He was sick of being alive. He looked at Fleming trying to bore into his mind.

Fleming looked up from his cup and held his gaze, steadily.

"Decided?"

"Yes."

Fleming put his cup on the floor. "Then – come."

Durrant looked over at the door and saw the shadows through the glass. "Bolt the door."

Fleming hesitated. The watchers outside would restrain him if restraint became necessary. The unlocked door had been a safety valve and now he had to operate without it.

Had to.

There was no option.

He went over to the door and dropped the inside bolt.

Brannigan, appalled, looked at the others in silence. Jenny, white-faced, avoided his gaze.

Hammond said flatly, "He'll kill him," and began pushing ineffectually at the door.

Durrant, cramped by his position, moved awkwardly on to the top rung and then looked over his shoulder down at Fleming. "Not until I reach the floor."

"No."

Fleming stood with arms folded watching him. The boy was climbing down the wall bars with slow ungainly movements. He looked like a spider on a web. Ugly. Fragile.

David in the sun. Small. Fair.

David in the hold of the ship. Unimaginable.

Durrant had reached the ground. He turned with his back to the bars and then look a step in Fleming's direction. He licked his lips, his eyes bright with anticipation. "Now."

And now I hand you over, Fleming thought. I don't touch you. I kick any remaining faith you have in anybody to hell. I con you, boy, because I don't bloody trust myself. He saw the expression on Durrani's face as he took a, step back from him. This was betrayal of the worst kind. The final killing of confidence in a world outside himself. Durrani's fifteen years of experience became fifteen years of disillusionment. Whatever the appalling future held, this was the most appalling moment of all.