“Police officer...Want your help...” he called over his shoulder to the bunch of marvelling but game harriers.
They burst in a body into the gymnasium.
Purbright pointed up at one of the suspended beams.
“Any of you know how to get that thing down?”
“I do, sir!”
“Let me, sir!”
The volunteers rushed to unwind ropes from cleats and to pay them out. The beam began to descend. As soon as it was low enough, the inspector shouldered one end from its channel and swung the beam free.
“Down a bit.”
When the beam was level with the handle of the grey door, Purbright put up his hand.
“Right—three of you one side, two with me on the other.”
Gleefully, the boys took up their positions. Divination of what was about to happen swirled in their heads like the fumes of wine. A battering ram! And to smash down a door—a school door!
They drew back the beam until it touched the wall bars behind, then braced themselves, half crouching, for the assault.
“Right!” the inspector shouted.
The beam met the door just to the right of its handle with the most satisfying crash the boys had ever heard in their lives. The door went back on its hinges like a flail. A spinning fragment of timber soared over their heads and clattered musically down the wall bars.
Purbright let momentum help him rush forward through the breached doorway. He saw the blue shimmer of submerged tiles and sniffed chlorine.
Ten yards away, close to the right-hand wall of the swimming pool, was what looked like a floating bundle of clothes.
Nearby stood Booker, in shorts and white sweater, leaning forward from his feet and indifferently contemplating Purbright’s arrival.
The inspector ran round the pool’s edge and lay full length to face the water. He grabbed the sodden bundle and heaved part of it up and forward. Boys were kneeling, each side of him, reaching out. Together they pulled and rolled the inert Mr Hive from the pool.
Purbright spoke to the nearest boy. “Do you think you could make a nine-nine-nine call?”
The boy nodded emphatically and got to his feet.
“Ambulance and police. Quick as you can.”
The boy sped off.
One of his companions pulled the inspector’s sleeve.
“Sir, Mr Booker knows how to give the kiss of life, sir.”
Mr Hive stirred and gave a weak, strangled cough.
“Hush,” Purbright said to the boy. “I think he heard that.”