by Malcolm Rose
Chapter Ten
The Authorities had agreed to let Luke use the original crash site to reconstruct the accident. They had already delivered three Masta units to the industrial zone in Coventry by the time that Luke and Malc arrived. The cab tracks ran right into the heart of the industrial zone for the benefit of the workers. Since the accident, though, the whole place had been shut down. The chemical industry was building a new development to the west of the Midlands because starting afresh was considered easier and cheaper than repairing this scarred estate. The area remained exactly as it was after the spilled chemicals had been washed away, the remains of the dead taken to the pathology laboratory, and the remnants of the aeroplane removed for the accident inquiry.
It looked like a rusting metal jungle, full of twisted girders, warped and crumpled towers, shattered empty warehouses, and burnt-out laboratories. It was a creepy ghost town but it reminded Luke most of a giant body with its flesh burnt away, leaving only a blackened skeleton. Where there had once been workers, vehicles, steaming chimneys, and the hefty thumps and clangs of machinery, there was now only sinister stillness.
A breeze swept through the lifeless estate but the clear cold weather was helpful to Luke and Malc. Fog, snow or rain would have interfered with the complicated projection, making the image unstable and blurred.
Positioned at the corners of the triangular crash scene, the three Mastas informed Malc that they were ready to recreate the scene as a hologram. They were ready to put all of the fragments of Flight GGW17 back into place, including what remained of the plane’s passengers and crew.
Talking to Luke, Malc said, “I can coordinate the reproduction when you wish.”
“Off you go, then.”
“Where do you wish me to go?”
Luke sighed. “I want you and your Mastas to show me a virtual reality version of the accident. I know it happened at night but give me a daylight version so I can see everything.”
“Processing.”
Within seconds, misshapen parts belonging to the wreck began to appear as if they were growing rapidly out of the ground. The battered tailfin, detached from the rest of the fuselage, appeared on top of a two-storey building. Below it, the rear part of the main body expanded like an inflating balloon until it was the correct size. The smashed nose cone materialized like the cracked shell of a colossal egg against a distillation tower. From where Luke stood, he could see right into the pilot’s cabin. He could still recognize seats and a bank of controls.
In between the nose and the tail, the main part of the fuselage lay, diced into three sections. One of them had swivelled so that it was at right angles to the other two. Another had rolled onto its side. One wing was nowhere to be seen. It must have been thrown behind one of the buildings or exploded into hundreds of pieces. The other was a mangled mess but it still hung on grimly to the rest of the aeroplane. It formed a bridge from the fractured fuselage to the wood at the edge of the estate.
Cargo was scattered all around Luke. Surveying the chaos, he could make out parts of suitcases and packages but most of the wreckage was too badly burnt or splintered or corroded to be identifiable. There were a few bits of charred paper, a couple of identity cards, and scraps of clothing as well. In reality, all of these morsels had long since been collected by TCIs and taken away for identification. Each had become a small piece in a giant three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle when investigators had built a complete picture of the disaster. The larger pieces, like the intact wing and chunks of the main body, had been airlifted to Birmingham Airport. Malc had downloaded all of the findings so that he could identify most of the unrecognisable remains.
Luke let out a long breath. The nightmare that had suddenly sprung up in front of his eyes was disheartening. He couldn’t imagine the terror of being involved in such devastation and, as an FI, he didn’t know where to start his own investigation.
“You said they didn’t find Camilla Bunker.”
“Confirmed.”
“Was anything of hers found?”
“Yes. Her pairing ring – inscribed with her partner’s initials and her own – and her identity card. The card was damaged by fire and acid spilling from a ruptured storage tank, but it was partly readable.”
“Where was it found?”
“I will show you.”
Luke followed Malc as his mobile glided above the relics of the accident. Luke was tempted to be careful where he put his feet, imagining that he was treading on valuable evidence. But he didn’t. He told himself that it was okay to stride carelessly through it because it wasn’t real.
It seemed odd to Luke that there was no smell. The air should have been foul, almost unbearable with the stench of burning, death and a cocktail of chemicals. But the noxious fumes would have blown away years ago.
The likeness of Camilla Bunker’s identity card, part clear, part scorched, was lying on an ordinary concrete corridor in the V-shape formed by the middle section of fuselage and the buckled wing. The likeness of Camilla’s face on the plastic surface had blackened beyond recognition and the edge of the card was touching an evil-looking pool of liquid.
Luke squatted down and narrowed his eyes. “Is this water?”
“No. It was sulphuric acid from the chemical works.”
“What would happen if someone walked through all this?”
Malc answered, “It depends on the material, quality and thickness of the shoes, but acid of this concentration would have corroded them quickly. However, you should remember that the greater danger would have been the intense fire.”
“Mmm.” Luke was about to stand up when a black lump a metre to his left caught his eye. It was thicker at one end than the other, like a burnt log. He pointed to it and asked, “What’s that?”
“It was a human foot.”
Luke recoiled and swallowed. “Not Camilla’s.”
“The intense heat degraded any DNA so identification was not possible.”
Beyond it was a small collection of stumps like burnt chips. “Are they what I think they are?” Luke said with a frown.
“I do not know what you are thinking. They are unidentified fingers.”
Luke nodded and shuddered. “This place gives me the creeps. How many died, Malc?”
“Seventy-seven.”
Sometimes, Luke wished he were like Malc: completely immune to horror. Then he wouldn’t feel the need to weep. To keep back the tears, he stood up and said, “Where was she? Camilla. Which seat?”
“She travelled in Row 15. That was in the middle segment.”
Luke glanced at the wrecked, hollow tube, punctuated with a line of broken windows. The outer shell of the fuselage was folded back like the opened lid of a can of food.
“You cannot go into it because it is not really there. However, I can strip it away layer by layer to show you the inside.”
“Let me see her seat, please.”
The skin of the aeroplane dissolved, revealing a cross-section of the metallic body. Malc adjusted the hologram so that Row 15 glowed red. There were three deformed seats. Two were empty. The third was occupied by a skeleton in what appeared to be ripped black clothing. It was probably charred skin.
Luke shook his head in despair. “Enough. Where did they find her pairing ring?”
“On the ground at the back of this section. It would have been Row 31 if the fuselage had remained intact.”
At once, Luke frowned. “Well away from her identity card. How come it ended up back there?”
“The speculation at the time was that, after the flesh burned away, the ring rolled...”
“Look at the angle, Malc. The plane nose-dived. If it rolled anywhere, it would’ve ended up at the front, near Row 1.”
“That’s why there were alternative possible explanations. She could have been in conversation with someone near Row 31 at the time of the accident, or she might have been exercising her legs, or returning from the toilet, situated at the rear of the craft.”
Luke shook his head in disbelief. “At the first sign of trouble, surely the crew would’ve told her to go back to her seat if she wasn’t in it.”
“Likely, but not known.”
Luke took a deep breath of the curiously fresh air. “What’s over there, where I can’t see?” He pointed beyond the broken aeroplane.
“The canal. It was used to ship products from the factories to warehouses and suppliers.”
Luke turned and walked parallel with the discoloured wing, towards the muddy verge where the industrial zone gave way to a wood. His foot went through the virtual version of a warped emergency door that had flown off the main body of the plane. He stopped when he saw what was lying next to it. “Give me a hand here, Malc.”
“Impossible. I do not have...”
“I mean, tell me where this came from.” He pointed to a plastic bottle full of water. “Did a TCI leave it here or was it from an engineer working on the site?”
“No. It came from the aeroplane.”
“What?” Luke exclaimed. “Look! The place is like a bombsite. How could it have survived?”
“Some items were blown clear, did not catch fire, or were protected from damage in some way by their surroundings. It may appear odd but it is normal at crash sites. A few artefacts are frequently recovered intact.”
Luke wagged a finger at Malc. “If a bottle of water can survive in one piece, why not a person as well? Why not Camilla Bunker? Maybe she was thrown clear, didn’t go up in flames, or was protected somehow.”
Malc hesitated for an instant. Then he said, “That is valid reasoning.”
Chapter Eleven
The tip of the lame wing rested on the wet soil at the boundary of the wood. Luke wandered around it, looking carefully at the ground. Then he asked, “Was this scan taken before investigators walked all over the place?”
“Confirmed.”
“What did they make of these shoeprints, then?”
Malc searched the file notes. “There is no entry describing impressions of shoes at this location. I conclude that they were not regarded as significant.”
The illusion of the soft ground on the day of the accident was lying over the present-day scene like a carpet. Bizarrely, Luke’s shoes sank through it as he stood on the real earth below and examined patterns in the soil that the weather had long since eroded.
The first print had been made by a left shoe with its heel towards the wing and its toe pointing away, towards the wood. A stride away, there was the matching impression of a right shoe. There were two more prints before the hologram reached its outer limit. Something else intrigued Luke. There was a set of the same shoeprints returning to the site. He could not tell where the trail led because the soil gave way to the concrete corridor – a hard surface that left no impressions. The third and final shoe impressions led back into the wood, paralleling the first ones he’d noticed.
Luke looked back towards the shattered aeroplane and said, “Someone could have walked out of the fuselage – where the emergency exit used to be or just through one of the holes – and onto the wing.” He pointed to the spot. “It’s not far from Row 15. From up there, maybe Camilla could see the ground was covered in chemicals by the light of the fire. She could have used the wing as a bridge over it all.”
“It would have been very hot.”
“Okay. She ran along the wing and jumped down here. She headed for the wood but then stopped and came back. Why would anyone come back when it’d be dangerous? Flames everywhere. Acid and other stuff. Explosions, maybe.”
Malc said, “This is gross speculation but, if there were a survivor who returned, the likely purpose would be to salvage something.”
“Mmm.” Luke shook his head. “What about the opposite? Maybe she wanted to leave something behind.”
He took out his own slender identity card and, taking careful aim, he skimmed it towards the vision of the crashed plane. It cut through the air and flew several metres beyond the spot where he’d seen the remains of Camilla Bunker’s identity card. He raced after the valuable rectangle of plastic and retrieved it from under the holographic layer.
Luke thought about his idea some more. “Okay, Malc. Pure theory. Nothing more than that. But bear with me. Somehow, like the bottle of water, Camilla Bunker survived the impact. She clambered out of a crack in the plane and saw the place on fire and awash with chemicals. Dreadful smell. Her first reaction was to run. She dashed over the wing.” His eyes followed her imagined path as he walked back to the spot where he’d seen the footprints. “In a daze, maybe, she wandered into the wood. But then her brain clicked into gear. She saw a real opportunity. She could get away with all sorts if everyone thought she was dead. She came back and, to convince us she died, threw her identity card into the mess from somewhere around here. I’ve just proved it’s possible to skim it to where it was. Then, to make sure, she also chucked her pairing ring – because it was marked with her initials. Malc, find me a stone about the same weight as her ring.”
His mobile dissolved the holographic image near the wing tip. At the edge of the corridor, there was a small piece of broken concrete. His laser highlighted it.
Luke reached down and grabbed it. Standing upright again, he threw it towards the back section of the fuselage. It landed close to the spot where the investigators had found Camilla Bunker’s pairing ring. “There. Bob’s your uncle. It’s possible to chuck both things from here, without going into the flames. Thinking she’d left enough behind to convince everyone she’d burnt to a cinder, she went back into the wood. It gave her good cover while she sneaked away – maybe with an injury to her finger.”
“None of this is invalid reasoning,” Malc announced, “but all of the evidence in its favour is too ambiguous to be entered into case notes.”
Luke pointed downwards. “Shoeprints, Malc. I want you to try and check them against Camilla Bunker’s size. Anyway, they tell us one passenger came here twice.”
“That is likely, but not proven,” Malc replied. “Two people in similar shoes could have come once each.”
Luke laughed. “Come off it! Next, you’ll claim someone with one leg could’ve hopped here four times.”
“That is incorrect. The impressions clearly show both left and right shoes.”
Luke threw up his arms. “It was a joke. And don’t even start on the possibility that someone was walking backwards. Let’s look for real evidence. I reckon she escaped across the wing. She was probably bleeding from her finger, maybe with other injuries. Was there any blood on the top of this wing? Or anything else significant?”
“Unknown. Any chemical evidence was completely degraded by heat.”
“How about hospitals? Check if any medical centres in the area treated a woman who could’ve been Camilla Bunker but who couldn’t produce an identity card. As well as the finger, she might’ve had fire or acid burns. Maybe more.”
“Task logged. I will complete the electronic inquiries as soon as possible.” Malc paused before adding, “You should know that there were traces of illegally imported cigarettes in the hold.”
“Really? Interesting. Or pure coincidence.”
“Insufficient data. No conclusions were reached by the inquiry team, other than the fact that someone had smuggled tobacco on board.”
Luke took a last look at the crash site and then said, “I don’t think I’m going to squeeze any more out of this, Malc. You can shut it down.”
The wreckage proved that it was no more than a mirage by disappearing as quickly as a picture fading from a telescreen when the power was turned off. Here, though, Luke was left with much more than a blank screen. It reverted to a ruined industrial zone that reminded him of London.
In the cab, Luke thought about Camilla Bunker. If he was right, she had been caught up in the accident unwittingly, survived it, and taken advantage of the circumstances. Or maybe his imagination was in overdrive. Maybe he was turning a simple situation – Camilla killed in a plane crash, Rowan killed by
Everton Kohter – into an unlikely tangle. Why would his brain do that? Because he was naturally suspicious and naturally sympathetic towards Everton.
Interrupting Luke’s thoughts, Malc reported, “I have received replies to my inquiries about medical admissions near the crash site. There were no known living patients. No one presented themselves with injuries consistent with the crash and no one tried to get treatment without an identity card within five days of the accident.”
Luke nodded slowly. “Thanks. I suppose it makes sense. If Camilla was trying to play dead, she’s not going to turn up at a hospital. Maybe she just gashed her finger and that’s no big deal.”
“I have also searched all known files to discover her shoe size. No such record remains.” Malc did not sound disappointed. To him, it was simply another result to be reported to a forensic investigator and logged. He always announced success and failure with the same bland tone.
Luke was not immune to disappointment. He allowed himself a groan but he wouldn’t let it get him down while he had other leads. “Were there any muddy shoeprints in Rowan Pearce’s house that didn’t match Everton’s?”
“No.”
Luke muttered to himself, “Either she wasn’t there or she was careful.”
“Correct,” Malc replied as if Luke had been talking to him.
“Can you get a picture of her?”
“There are no images of her on file.”
“Not even in Rowan’s case notes?”
“No. She was neither a suspect nor a witness. Her earlier death made her irrelevant to the investigation.”
“Where do I go from here?” Luke asked himself.
“You requested to return to Sheffield.”
“Yes,” Luke said, closing his eyes and smiling at Malc’s misunderstanding. “To Jade’s place and then to Derby.”
“Is Jade Vernon relevant to your investigation?”
“She is now, yes. You see, Sadie Kershaw wanted to speak to her about identity cards. I’m very eager to speak to Sadie about the same thing.”
