Annie Villars came first of my lot. Alone, composed, polite; giving nothing away. She handed me her coat and binoculars and I stored them for her. She thanked me. The deceptive mild brown eyes held a certain blankness and every few seconds a spasmodic tightening belied the gentle set of her mouth. A formidable lady, I thought. What was more, she herself knew it. She was so conscious of the strength and range of her power that she deliberately manufactured the disarming exterior in order not exactly to hide it, but to make it palatable. Made a nice change, I thought ironically, from all those who put up a big tough front to disguise their inner lack.
"Kenny Bayst asked me to tell you that he has got a lift home to Newmarket and won"t be coming back by air," I said.
A tiny flash of fire in the brown eyes. The gentle voice, completely controlled, said "I"m not surprised." She climbed into the aeroplane and strapped herself into her seat and sat there in silence, looking out over the emptying racecourse with eyes that weren"t concentrating on the gra.s.s and the trees.
Tyderman and Goldenberg returned together, still deep in discussion. The Major"s side mostly consisted of decisive nods, but it was pouring out of Goldenberg. Also he was past worrying about what I overheard.
"I would be surprised if the little s.h.i.t hasn"t been double crossing us all the time and collecting from some bookmaker or other even more than he got from us. Making fools of us, that"s what he"s been doing. I"ll murder the little sod. I told him so, too."
"What did he say?" the Major asked.
"Said I wouldn"t get the chance. c.o.c.ky little b.a.s.t.a.r.d."
They thrust their gear angrily into the baggage compartment and stood talking by the rear door in voices rumbling like the distant thunder.
Colin Ross came last, slight and inconspicuous, still wearing the faded jeans and the now crumpled sweat shirt.
I went a few steps to meet him. "Your sister Nancy asked me to check with you whether you had remembered to bring the present for Midge."
"Oh d.a.m.n..." More than irritation in his voice there was weariness. He had ridden six hard races, won three of them. He looked as if a toddler could knock him down.
"I"ll get it for you, if you like."
"Would you?" He hesitated, then with a tired flap of his wrist said, "Well, I"d be grateful. Go into the weighing room and ask for my valet, Ginger Mundy. The parcel"s on the shelf over my peg. He"ll get it for you."
I nodded and went back across the track. The parcel, easily found, proved to be a little smaller than a shoe box and was wrapped in pink and gold paper with a pink bow. I took it over to the aeroplane and Colin put it on Kenny Bayst"s empty seat.
The Major had already strapped himself in and was drumming with his fingers on his binocular case, which was as usual slung around him. His body was still stiff with tension. I wondered if he ever relaxed.
Goldenberg waited without a smile while I clambered across into my seat, and followed me in and clipped shut the door in gloomy silence. I sighed, started the engine, and taxied down to the far end of the course. Ready for take-off I turned round to my pa.s.sengers and tried a bright smile.
"All set?"
I got three grudging nods for my pains. Colin Ross was asleep. I took the hilarious party off the ground without enthusiasm, skirted the Manchester zone, and pointed the nose in the general direction of Newmarket. Once up in the sky it was all too clear that the air had become highly unstable. At lower levels, rising pockets of heat from the built-up areas b.u.mped the aeroplane about like a puppet, and to enormous heights great heaps of c.u.mulo-nimbus cloud were boiling up all round the horizon.
Airsick-making weather. I looked round to see if an issue of waterproof bags was going to be required. Needn"t have bothered. Colin was still asleep and the other three had too much on their minds to worry about a few lurches. I told Annie Villars where the bags were to be found if wanted, and she seemed to think I had insulted her.
Although by four thousand feet the worst of the b.u.mps were below us, the flight was a bit like a bending race as I tracked left and right to avoid the dark towering cloud ma.s.ses. Mostly we stayed in the sunshine: occasionally raced through the small veiling clouds which were dotted among the big ones. I wanted to avoid even the medium sized harmless ones, as these sometimes hid a dangerous whopper just behind, and at a hundred and fifty miles an hour there was little chance to dodge. Inside every well grown c.u.mulo-nimbus there were vertical rushing air currents which could lift and drop even an airliner like a yoyo. Also one could meet hailstones and freezing rain. n.o.body"s idea of a jolly playground. So it was a good idea to avoid the black churning brutes, but it was a rougher ride than one should aim for with pa.s.sengers.
Everyone knows the horrible skin-p.r.i.c.kling heart-thudding feeling when the normal suddenly goes wrong. Fear, it"s called. The best place to feel it is not with a jerk at four thousand feet in a battlefield of cu-nims.
I was used to far worse weather; to bad, beastly, even lethal weather. It wasn"t the state of the sky which distracted me, which set the fierce little adrenalin-packed alarm bell ringing like crazy.
There was something wrong with the aeroplane.
Nothing much. I couldn"t even tell what it was. But something. Something...
My instinct for safety was highly developed. Over-developed, many had said, when it had got me into trouble. b.l.o.o.d.y coward, was how they"d put it.
You couldn"t ignore it, though. When the instinct switched to danger you couldn"t risk ignoring it, not with pa.s.sengers on board. What you could do when you were alone was a different matter, but civil commercial pilots seldom got a chance to fly alone.
Nothing wrong with the instruments. Nothing wrong with the engine.
Something wrong with the flying controls.
When I swerved gently to avoid yet another lurking cu-nim the nose of the aircraft dropped and I had a shade of difficulty pulling it up again. Once level nothing seemed wrong. All the gauges seemed right. Only the instinct remained. Instinct and the memory of a slightly sluggish response.
The next time I made a turn, the same thing happened. The nose wanted to drop, and it needed more pressure than it should have done to hold it level. At the third turn, it was worse.
I looked down at the map on my knees. We were twenty minutes out of Haydock... south of Matlock... approaching Nottingham. Another eighty nautical miles to Newmarket.
It was the hinged part of the tailplane which raised or lowered the aircraft"s nose. The elevators, they were called. They were linked by wires to the control column in such a way that when you pushed the control column forward the tail went up and tipped the nose down. And vice versa.
The wires ran through rings and over pulleys, between the cabin floor and the outer skin of the fuselage. There wasn"t supposed to be any friction.
Friction was what I could feel.
I thought perhaps one of the wires had somehow come off one of the pulleys during the b.u.mpy ride. I"d never heard of it happening before, but that didn"t mean it couldn"t. Or perhaps a whole pulley had come adrift, or had broken in half... If something was rolling around loose it could affect the controls fairly seriously.
I turned to the cheerful company.
"I"m very sorry, but there will be a short delay on the journey. We"re going to land for a while at the East Midlands Airport, near Nottingham, while I get a quick precautionary check done on the aircraft."
I met opposition.
Goldenberg said belligerently, "I can"t see anything wrong." His eyes swept over the gauges, noticing all the needles pointing to the green safety segments on all the engine instruments. "It all looks the same as it always does."
"Are you sure it"s necessary?" Annie Villars said. "I particularly want to get back to see my horses at evening stables."
The Major said "d.a.m.n it all!" fiercely and frowned heavily and looked more tense than ever.
They woke up Colin Ross.
"The pilot wants to land here and make what he calls a precautionary check. We want to go straight on. We don"t want to waste time. There isn"t anything wrong with the plane, as far as we can see..."
Colin Ross"s voice came across, clear and decisive. "If he says we"re going down, we"re going down. He"s the boss."
I looked round at them. Except for Colin they were all more moody and gloomy than ever. Colin unexpectedly gave me a flicker of a wink. I grinned as much to myself as to him, called up East Midlands on the radio, announced our intention to land, and asked them to arrange for a mechanic to be available for a check.
On the way down I regretted it. The friction seemed no worse: if anything it was better. Even in the turbulent air near the ground I had no great trouble in moving the elevators. I"d made a fool of myself and the pa.s.sengers would be furious and Derrydowns would be scathing about the unnecessary expense, and at any time at all I would be looking for my seventh job.
It was a normal landing. I parked where directed on the ap.r.o.n and suggested everyone got out and went into the airport for a drink, as the check would take half an hour, and maybe more.
They were by then increasingly annoyed. Up in the air they must have had a lingering doubt that I was right about landing. Safe on the ground, they were becoming sure it was unnecessary.
I walked some of the way across the tarmac with them towards the airport pa.s.sengers" doors, then peeled off to go to the control office for the routine report after landing, and to ask for the mechanic to come for a look-see as soon as possible. I would fetch them from the bar, I said, once the check was done.
"Hurry it up" Goldenberg said rudely.
"Most annoying. Most annoying indeed." The Major.
"I was away last night... particularly wanted to get back this evening. Might as well go by road, no point in paying for speed if you don"t get it..." Annie Villar"s irritation overcoming the velvet glove.
Colin Ross said, "If your horse coughs, don"t race it."
The others looked at him sharply. I said, "Thanks" gratefully, and bore off at a tangent to the left. I saw them out of the side of my vision, looking briefly back towards the aircraft and then walking unenthusiastically towards the big gla.s.s doors.
There was a crack behind me like a snapping branch, and a monstrous boom, and a roaring gust of air.
I"d heard that sequence before. I spun round, appalled.
Where there had stood a smart little blue and white Cherokee there was an exploding ball of fire.
CHAPTER FOUR.
The bomb had taken a fraction of a second to detonate. The public impact lasted three days. The investigations dragged on for weeks.
Predictably, the Dailies went to town on "Colin Ross Escapes Death by One Minute" and "Champion Jockey wins Race against Time". Annie Villars, looking particularly sweet and frail, said in a television news interview that we had all been fantastically lucky. Major Tyderman was quoted as saying "Fortunately there was something wrong with the plane, and we landed for a check. Otherwise..." And Colin Ross had apparently finished his sentence for him; "Otherwise we would all have been raining down on Nottingham in little bits."
That was after they had recovered, of course. When I reached them at a run near the airport doors their eyes were stretched wide and their faces were stiff with shock. Annie Villars mouth had dropped open and she was shaking from head to foot. I put my hand on her arm. She looked at me blankly and then made a small mewing sound and crumpled against me in a thoroughly un-Napoleonic faint. I caught her on the way down and lifted her up in my arms to save her falling on the shower soaked tarmac. She weighed even less than she looked.
"G.o.d," said Goldenberg automatically. "G.o.d." His mind and tongue seemed to be stuck on the single word.
The Major"s mouth was trembling and he was losing the battle to keep it still with his teeth. Sweat stood out in fine drops on his forehead and he was breathing in short shocked gasps.
Holding Annie Villars I stood beside them and watched the death throes of the aeroplane. The first explosion had blown it apart and almost immediately the fuel tanks had ignited and finished the job. The wreckage lay strewn in burning twisted pieces over a radius of wet tarmac, the parts looking too small ever to have formed the whole. Rivers of burning petrol ran among them, and great curling orange and yellow flames roared round the largest piece, which looked like the front part of the cabin.
My seat. My hot, hot seat.
Trouble followed me around like the rats of Hamlin.
Colin Ross looked as shocked as the others but his nerves were of sterner stuff. "Was that... a bomb?"
"Nothing but," I said flippantly.
He looked at me sharply. "It"s not funny."
"It"s not tragic, either," I said. "We"re still here."
A lot of the stiffness left his face and body. The beginnings of a smile appeared. "So we are," he said.
Someone in the control tower had pressed the panic b.u.t.ton. Fire engines screamed up and foam poured out of the giant hoses onto the pathetic sc.r.a.ps. The equipment was designed to deal with jumbos. It took about ten seconds to reduce the Cherokee sized flames to black memories.
Three or four airport cars buzzed around like gnats and one filled with agitated officials dashed in our direction.
"Are you the people who came in that aircraft?"
The first of the questions. By no means the last. I knew what I was in for. I had been taken apart before.
"Which is the pilot? Will you come with us, then, and your pa.s.sengers can go to the manager"s office... Is the lady injured?"
"Fainted," I said.
"Oh..." he hesitated. "Can someone else take her?" He looked at the others. Goldenberg, large and flabby; the Major, elderly; Colin, frail. His eyes pa.s.sed over Colin and then went back, widening, the incredulity fighting against recognition.
"Excuse me... are you...?"
"Ross," said Colin flatly. "Yes."
They rolled, out the fed carpet, after that. They produced smelling salts and a ground hostess for Annie Villars, stiff brandies for the Major and Goldenberg, autograph books for Colin Ross. The manager himself took charge of them. And someone excitedly rang up the national Press.
The Board of Trade investigators were friendly and polite. As usual. And persistent, scrupulous, and ruthless. As usual.
"Why did you land at East Midlands?"
Friction.
"Had you any idea there was a bomb on board?"
No.
"Had you made a thorough pre-flight investigation?"
Yes.
"And no bomb?"
No.
Did I know that I was nevertheless responsible for the safety of the aircraft and could technically be held responsible for having initiated a flight with a bomb on board?
Yes.
We looked at each other. It was an odd rule. Very few people who took off with a bomb on board lived to be held responsible. The Board of Trade smiled, to show they knew it was silly to think anyone would take off with a bomb, knowing it was there.
"Did you lock the aircraft whenever you left it?"
I did.
"And did it remain locked?"
The knife was in. I told them about the Major. They already knew.