Rat Race

by Rat Race (v4. 0) (epub)

  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.

  ‘God,’ said Goldenberg automatically. ‘God.’ 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 button. Fire engines screamed up and foam poured out of the giant hoses onto the pathetic scraps. 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 passengers 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 passed 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.

  ‘He says he is sure that he relocked the doors,’ they said, ‘But even so wasn’t it your responsibility to look after the safety of the aircraft, not his?’

  Quite so.

  ‘Wouldn’t it have been prudent of you to accompany him to fetch the paper?’

  No comment.

  ‘The safety of the aircraft is the responsibility of the captain.’

  Whichever way you turned, it came back to that.

  This was my second interview with the Board of Trade. The first, the day after the explosion, had been friendly and sympathetic, a fact-finding mission during which the word responsibility had not cropped up once. It had hovered delicately in the wings. Inevitably it would be brought on later and pinned to someone’s chest.

  ‘During the past three days we have interviewed all your passengers, and none of them has any idea who would have wanted to kill them, or why. We now feel we must go more carefully into the matter of opportunity, so we do hope you don’t mind answering what may be a lot of questions. Then we can piece together a statement for you, and we would be glad if you would sign it…’

  ‘Do all I can,’ I said. Dig my own grave. Again.

  ‘They all agreed that the bomb must have been in the gift wrapped parcel which you yourself carried on board.’

  Nice.

  ‘And that the intended victim was Colin Ross.’

  I sucked my teeth.

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘I honestly have no idea who it was intended for,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think the bomb was in the parcel.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘His sister bought it, that morning.’

  ‘We know.’ He was a tall man, with inward looking eyes as if they were consulting a computer in his head, feeding in every answer he was given and waiting for the circuits to click out a conclusion. There was no aggression anywhere in his manner, no vengeance in his motivation. A fact finder, a cause-seeker: like a truffle hound. He knew the scent of truth. Nothing would entice him away.

  ‘And it sat on a shelf in the changing room all afternoon,’ I said. ‘And no one is allowed into the changing room except jockeys and valets.’

  ‘We understand that that is so.’ He smiled. ‘Could the parcel have been the bomb? Weightwise?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Miss Nancy Ross says it contained a large fancy bottle of bath oil.’

  ‘No pieces in the wreckage?’ I asked.

  ‘Not a thing.’ The tall man’s nose wrinkled. ‘I’ve seldom seen a more thorough disintegration.’

  We were sitting in what was called the crew room in the Derrydown office on the old R.A.F. airfield near Buckingham. Such money as Derrydown spent on appearances began in the manager’s office and ended in the passengers’ waiting lounge across the hall. The crew room looked as if the paint and the walls were coming up to their silver wedding. The linoleum had long passed the age of consent. Three of the four cheap armchairs looked as if they had still to reach puberty but the springs in the fourth were so badly broken that it was more comfortable to sit on the floor.

  Much of the wall space was taken up by maps and weather charts and various Notices to Airmen, several of them out of date. There was a duty roster upon which my name appeared with the utmost regularity and a notice typed in red capitals to the effect that anyone who failed to take the aircraft’s documents with him on a charter flight would get the sack. I had duly taken all the Cherokee’s records and maintenance certificates with me, as the Air Navigation Order insisted. Now they were burned to a crisp. I hoped someone somewhere saw some sense in it.

  The tall man looked carefully round the dingy room. The other, shorter, broader, silent, sat with his green bitten HB poised over his spiral bound notebook.

  ‘Mr Shore, I understand you hold an
Airline Transport Pilot’s Licence. And a Flight Navigator’s certificate.’

  He had been looking me up. I knew he would have.

  I said flatly, ‘Yes.’

  ‘This taxi work is hardly… well… what you were intended for.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘The highest possible qualifications…’ He shook his head. ‘You were trained by B.O.A.C. and flew for them for nine years. First Officer. In line for Captain. And then you left.’

  ‘Yes.’ And they never took you back. Policy decision.

  Never.

  He delicately consulted his notes. ‘And then you flew as Captain for a private British airline until it went into liquidation? And after that for a South American airline, who, I believe, dismissed you. And then all last year a spot of gun running, and this spring some crop spraying. And now this.’

  They never let go. I wondered who had compiled the list.

  ‘It wasn’t guns. Food and medical supplies in, refugees and wounded out.’

  He smiled faintly. ‘To some remote African airstrip on dark nights? Being shot at?’

  I looked at him.

  He spread out his hands, ‘Yes. I know. All legal and respectable, and not our business, of course.’ He cleared his throat…. ‘Weren’t you the… er… the subject… of an investigation about four years ago? While you were flying for British Interport?’

  I took in a slow breath. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mm.’ He looked up, down, and sideways. ‘I’ve read an outline of that case. They didn’t suspend your licence.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Though on the face of it one might have expected them to.’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Did Interport pay the fine for you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But they kept you on as Captain. You were convicted of gross negligence, but they kept you on.’ It was half way between a statement and a question.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  If he wanted all the details, he could read the full report. He knew it and I knew it. He wasn’t going to get me to tell him.

  He said, ‘Yes… well. Who put this bomb in the Cherokee? When and how?’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  His manner hadn’t changed. His voice was still friendly. We both ignored his tentative shot at piling on the pressure.

  ‘You stopped at White Waltham and Newbury…’

  ‘I didn’t lock up at White Waltham. I parked on the grass outside the reception lounge. I could see the aeroplane most of the time, and it was only on the ground for half an hour. I got there early… I can’t see that anyone had a chance, or could rely on having a chance, to put a bomb on board at White Waltham.’

  ‘Newbury?’

  ‘They all stayed in their seats except me. Colin Ross came… We put his overnight bag in the front baggage locker…’

  The tall man shook his head. ‘The explosion was further back. Behind the captain’s seat, at the very least. The blast evidence makes it certain. Some of the metal parts of the captain’s seat were embedded in the instrument panel.’

  ‘One minute,’ I said reflectively. ‘Very nasty.’

  ‘Yes… Who had an opportunity at Haydock?’

  I sighed inwardly. ‘I suppose anyone, from the time I gave the keys to Major Tyderman until I went back to the aircraft.’

  ‘How long was that?’

  I’d worked it out. ‘Getting on for three hours. But…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘No one could have counted on the aircraft being left unlocked.’

  ‘Trying to wriggle out?’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  He dodged an answer: said: ‘I’ll give it to you that no one could have known whether it would be locked or unlocked. You just made it easy.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘If you’ll also bear in mind that pickers and stealers unlock cars every day of the week, and that aircraft keys are the same type. Anyone who could manufacture and plant a bomb could open a little old lock.’

  ‘Possibly,’ he said, and repeated, ‘But you made it easy.’

  Damn Major Tyderman, I thought bleakly. Stupid, careless old fool. I stifled the thought that I probably would have gone across with him, or insisted on fetching his newspaper for him, if I hadn’t been unwilling to walk away and leave Nancy.

  ‘Who could have had access… leaving the matter of locks?’

  I shrugged one shoulder. ‘All the world. They had only to walk across the track.’

  ‘The aircraft was parked opposite the stands, I believe, in full view of the crowds.’

  ‘Yes. About a hundred yards, in fact, from the stands. Not close enough for anyone to see exactly what someone was doing, if he seemed to be walking round peering in through the windows. People do that, you know, pretty often.’

  ‘You didn’t notice anyone, yourself?’

  I shook my head. ‘I looked across several times during the afternoon. Just a casual glance, though. I wasn’t thinking about trouble.’

  ‘Hm.’ He reflected for a few seconds. Then he said ‘Two of the Polyplanes were there as well, I believe.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think I’d better talk to the pilots, to see if they noticed anything.’

  I didn’t comment. His eyes suddenly focused on mine, sharp and black.

  ‘Were they friendly?’

  ‘The pilots? Not particularly.’

  ‘How’s the feud?’

  ‘What feud?’

  He stared at me assessingly. ‘You’re not that dumb. No one could work for Derrydown and not know that they and Polyplanes are permanently engaged in scratching each other’s eyes out.’

  I sighed. ‘I don’t give a damn.’

  ‘You will, when they start reporting you.’

  ‘Reporting me? For what? What do you mean?’

  He smiled thinly. ‘If you infringe the rules by as much as one foot, Polyplanes will be on to us before your wheels have stopped rolling. They’re doing their best to put Derrydown out of business. Most of it we shrug off as simply spite. But if they catch you breaking the regulations, and can produce witnesses, we’d have to take action.’

  ‘Charming.’

  He nodded. ‘Aviation will never need a special police force to detect crime. Everyone is so busy informing on everyone else. Makes us laugh, sometimes.’

  ‘Or cry,’ I said.

  ‘That too.’ He nodded wryly. ‘There are no permanent friendships in aviation. The people you think are your friends are the first to deny they associate with you at the faintest hint of trouble. The cock crows until it’s hoarse, in aviation.’ The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable. But impersonal, also.

  ‘You don’t approve.’

  ‘No. It makes our job easier, of course. But I like less and less the sight of people scrambling to save themselves at any cost to others. It diminishes them. They are small.’

  ‘You can’t always blame them for not always wanting to be involved. Aviation law cases are so fierce, so unforgiving…’

  ‘Did your friends at Interport rally round and cheer you up?’

  I thought back to those weeks of loneliness. ‘They waited to see.’

  He nodded. ‘Didn’t want to be contaminated.’

  ‘It’s a long time ago,’ I said.

  ‘You never forget rejection,’ he said. ‘It’s a trauma.’

  ‘Interport didn’t reject me. They kept me on for another year, until they went bust. And,’ I added, ‘I didn’t have anything to do with that.’

  He gently laughed. ‘Oh I know. My masters in that Government put on one of its great big squeezes and by one means or another forced them out of business.’

  I didn’t pursue it. The history of aviation was littered with the bodies of murdered air firms. Insolvency sat like a vulture in every boardroom in the industry and constantly pecked away at the bodies before they were dead. British Eagle, Handley Page, Beagle, the list of corpses was endless. Interport had be
en one of the largest, and Derrydowns, still struggling, one of the smallest, but their problems were identical. Huge inexorable costs. Fickle variable income. Write the sum in red.

  I said, ‘There is one other place, of course, where the bomb could have been put on board.’ I stopped.

  ‘Spell it out, then.’

  ‘Here.’

  The tall investigator and his silent friend with the pencil went down to the hangar to interview old Joe.

  Harley called me into his office.

  ‘Have they finished?’

  ‘They’ve gone to ask Joe if he put the bomb in the Cherokee.’

  Harley was irritated, which was with him a common state of mind. ‘Ridiculous.’

  ‘Or if Larry did.’

  ‘Larry…’

  ‘He left for Turkey that afternoon,’ I pointed out. ‘Would he have planted a legacy?’

  ‘No.’ Short, snappy and vehement.

  ‘Why did he leave?’

  ‘He wanted to.’ He gave me a sharp glance bordering on dislike. ‘You sound like the Board of Trade.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said in conciliation. ‘Must be catching.’

  Harley’s office dated back to a more prosperous past. There was a carpet of sorts on the floor and the walls had been painted within living memory, and his good quality desk had mellowed instead of chipping. Limp blue curtains framed the big window looking out over the airfield and several good photographs of aeroplanes had been framed and hung. Customers, when they visited him, were allowed the nearly new lightweight armchair. Crew sat on the wooden upright.

  Harley himself was proprietor, manager, chief flying instructor, booking clerk and window cleaner. His staff consisted of one qualified mechanic past retiring age, one part-time boy helper, one full-time taxi pilot (me) and one part-time pilot who switched from taxiing to teaching, whichever was required, and on alternate days taught in a flying club twenty miles to the north.

  Derrydown’s other assets had been, before the Cherokee blew up, three useful aircraft and one bright girl.