Murder at Twilight

by Fleur Hitchcock

  Far too far in front of us are the cosy windows of houses in the village, but they just aren’t moving towards us fast enough. I try to get my legs moving properly. They ache with the effort. “We’re not going to make it.”

  “Left,” shouts Noah. “Run to the planes. Dad’s plane.”

  “We should find a phone. What good…?” I pant, but swing to the left, racing down the thin strip of concrete in the middle of the runway, Noah charging along in front of me.

  “What?” I shout again.

  Behind us, the Land Rover’s engine surges as we’re spotted by their headlights, and too far ahead, the little group of aircraft clustered at the far end of the runway catch in the leftover beams.

  “The red one!” shouts Noah, veering from right to left, and back again.

  I follow, my brain briefly registering that Noah has lost all reason, that he thinks we can just steal a plane. I watch as he ducks under a wing, and quite suddenly opens a door on one of the planes.

  “Whoa!” My bare feet are slapping across the concrete, burning from the impact. I force myself to sprint until my fingers touch the wing tip. The hot engine of the Land Rover pulls alongside me and the door swings open.

  “No you don’t!” And I’m yanked back by a hand on the collar of the rugby shirt.

  Dave. I struggle to turn. I once watched a film where a woman police officer beats up another officer and in my uncoordinated and frozen way I try to copy her. “Sorry, Dave,” I say jabbing my elbow backwards, catching him under the chin, using my other elbow in his ribs, and then knee him, hard. Doubled over, he staggers back and I clutch at the wing, dragging myself forwards towards the plane. Overhead a green firework blossoms and, distracted, I glance up, which gives him the second he needs to lunge for my sleeve.

  “Viv!” shouts Noah from the little plane, and suddenly lights come on and the engine sparks into life and the air starts to vibrate.

  I pull away from Dave and stagger backwards towards the plane, throwing myself in through the door and slamming it behind me.

  “Do up your seat belt.”

  “What are we doing?” I shout over the clatter of the engine as I struggle with the straps. It’s like a really old-fashioned car in here – brown tweed seats, loads of dials, low lights.

  “Getting in the air,” he shouts back.

  “What?” I look around me. There are two seats in the front, and the back’s full of boxes. “I thought we were going to use the plane as a car.”

  Noah shakes his head and we jerk forwards.

  Dave’s face suddenly jams up against the glass of the door. “Ah!” I scream. Then I undo the little window catch and slip my hand out. “Your own fault!” I say, and jam my fingers into his bearded throat.

  “Ow!” He staggers backwards.

  “Go,” I shout at Noah, and the plane lurches forwards, bouncing over the concrete of the runway. Off to our right there’s a figure running. Chris?

  Then overhead a firework bursts purple and pink and suddenly we’re accelerating along the runway, the figures behind us getting smaller.

  “Can you seriously fly this thing?” I shout.

  “Yeah,” says Noah after a pause. “No – well, yes. I’ve kind of done it, loads of times.”

  And I remember the computer games in his room.

  “Flight simulators,” I guess.

  He nods, and taps one of the dials. “Horizon,” he says. Then taps another. “Roll, pitch, yaw – all that.”

  A new kind of fear grips me. I’m in the hands of a mad person. A person who thinks that a computer game is the same as real life. That flying a plane is no different to flying a computer. Aaaargh.

  “Don’t do this if you can’t do this,” I say. “You’ll kill us both. People don’t survive air crashes. Stop – please – Noah!”

  But he ignores me completely, leaning forward, tapping dials, pulling out random knobs, flicking switches and peering through the tiny windscreen. “We used to go on picnics, barbecues – fly to France for an afternoon, all three of us. Back when Dad was more fun.”

  “Stop, Noah. Don’t—”

  “And they were happy and we were all happy, and Dad would make fires on the beach with his old petrol lighter and a pile of driftwood.”

  “STOP!”

  “No, Viv. Trust me. Trust me like you used to when we were little – when you rode on the back of my bike.”

  He doesn’t look at me and I don’t say that I was terrified all those years ago when we hurtled into the river, me on the back, him steering. That we only did it once. That that was probably the last time we got on with each other. That after that, Daisy became my best friend. That I had gone home and cried and vowed I’d never lose control ever again, that I’d always be boss. That I’d never broken that vow. And here I am again, trusting him with my life. I must be as deluded as he is.

  Our lights show the runway stretching ahead. “Perhaps we could turn and get on to the lane.”

  “Wings,” he says. “Wings.”

  I see what he means. “We could get to the other end of the runway and get out and run.”

  Suddenly another pair of headlights joins ours.

  “Land Rover, on the right,” I say.

  “OK,” says Noah. “Hang on, this might be…” I hear the engine roar, he pushes the steering thing forward and the little plane quivers, bouncing once, twice, and then leaping into the air so that as the Land Rover pulls across to cut us off, we skim over its roof.

  “Yay!” I shout.

  “We could head for Upper Stanwick – it’s the nearest airstrip.”

  “Plan!” I shout, peering out of the window as we bank around.

  Below us small fireworks burst, and the Land Rover appears to park in the middle of a black area that must be the airstrip. We’re not exactly soaring, but I don’t want to say anything. I can feel Noah’s concentration as his hands fly around the various knobs and buttons.

  Bang.

  Was that a firework?

  Bang. Over the sound of the engine I hear another explosion.

  “Are they firing at us?” he asks.

  We turn and, far too low, whizz back over the runway. I can’t see anyone holding a gun – but then I can’t see much of anything.

  “Why are we doing this?” I say, my hands spread in front of me as if they could possibly prevent certain death. Another pass over the Land Rover gives us an overly close view of two fireworks going off over by the church tower.

  Just as the green sparks fall all around us, Noah shouts, “Not high enough to make it over the trees.”

  “Are we ever going to be high enough?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Do we need another plan?”

  Again, he doesn’t answer, so I undo my seat belt and clamber into the back where the stack of boxes looks promisingly heavy. Pulling open the first pair of flaps, I reach inside and my hand closes around a bottle. I count twelve. And another box of twelve. The box after that is full of something in wrappers, I wrench one open and reach inside. Cheesy snack things. I cram a handful in my mouth and rip the tops off all the others. The next box contains cartons. I can’t see the labels but I pull the tag off one and take a glug. Tomato juice. Excellent.

  “Can we fly over the Land Rover again!” I shout, holding out a palm full of cheesy snacks that he eats with his tongue like a cat.

  “Seriously?” yelps Noah, but he swings us around surprisingly steadily at the end of the aerodrome so that we get a brief, overly close-up view of the church tower, backlit by fireworks. As we head back over the airfield, I see the Land Rover standing in the middle of the runway and one of the figures, a big figure, Chris, silhouetted by the headlights.

  The fireworks are really kicking off now, popping up from the village in mushroom bursts every few seconds.

  Bang.

  Another far-too-close firework goes off and I can’t help but jump as the sparks fall all around us.

  Beside me, Noah jerks, whis
king the plane to the left, and we lurch, and I hear something scrape on the underside of the fuselage.

  “Trees!” he shouts, wobbling around them, but not getting any higher.

  Now I understand why we’re flying back and forth along the airstrip, he doesn’t know how to get any higher.

  “Head for the hangars. Try and circle there!” I shout. The hangars are near the entrance to the airfield. There’s an old control tower there, which Mum and I used to pretend was haunted because sometimes there were lights even though it’s been locked up for years. We make an unsteady circle, our altitude increasing a little, and I watch as the Land Rover glides up the runway in our direction.

  “Fly over it,” I shout.

  “Why?” yells Noah.

  “Just do it,” I say.

  We break from the circle and I load the bottom of the little opening window next to me with four pristine boxes of tomato juice, a bunch of cheese snacks and a single bottle wedged in the open gap.

  “Now!” I shout at myself and hit my forearm down on the window. Everything disappears and I just hope it’s made contact in the right places as I load it up again. Tomato juice, snacks, unknown bottles. This time higher and, as Noah banks, I send it flying, getting the tiny satisfaction of seeing a tomato juice splat on to the concrete right in front of the Land Rover’s headlights.

  One of the figures runs with their hand over their head towards the shelter of the Land Rover.

  They don’t like it, but tomato juice is not going to make them go away. We’re going to need something more than drinks mixers.

  For a moment, the engine seems to cut out, and then restart. We lurch, but I don’t particularly think about it: I’m too busy watching the ground. From time to time I get glimpses of people over by the church, watching the fireworks, and then I spot the Land Rover and it all whizzes past again, sickeningly fast.

  I load the window a third time and Noah shouts, tapping at something in front of him.

  “Fuel!” is the only word I catch.

  I peer over his shoulder. The fuel gauge is at empty. “Did you check it when you took off?”

  “It’s old,” he shouts. “Dad was having it fixed.”

  And then I realise what he means. We’re in an ancient aircraft and we’ve sprung a leak. Of course we have. I imagine the long trail of aircraft gasoline connecting us to the airfield. Really easy to light. Really quick to explode.

  “Don’t go anywhere near the fireworks,” I shout, and he nods. I’m sure he’s worked that one out himself.

  The engine stops and starts again. We lose a little height, and my stomach lurches.

  “Are we going to crash?” I ask.

  “If I can just get it to work – there’s an auxiliary tank,” he shouts.

  “What? A second one?”

  He nods. “Dad had it put in so that we could fly to France,” he shouts. “Just hope there’s something in it.”

  I watch the gauge go into the red, hear the engine sputter and we stop-start, falling and rising and jerking across the field.

  “Come on, Noah, switch it on!” I shout.

  “Just using every drop,” he says, and the little propeller in front of us stops turning.

  “Are you mad!” I shout and Noah flips a switch, and the gauge jumps up to a quarter full.

  Wow. We soar away from the runway, the fireworks well below us again. I peer backwards towards the two figures by the control tower. Their Land Rover is parked at the bottom, blocking the runway. Even if we landed now, they’d get us. I imagine that’s what they’re waiting for. And it doesn’t look to me as if we’re going to land anywhere else. Noah doesn’t know how to do anything more than bumble back and forth. We have to get them out of the way – we have to stop them ourselves or we have to bring the police.

  But the trail of fuel that we must have left gives me an idea. A dangerous idea, but an idea all the same. I reach into the boxes. The lids of the bottles unscrew surprisingly easily and I sniff. It practically takes the skin off the back of my throat. I don’t know what it is, but it’s really strong, really flammable.

  “Do you think the first tank’s empty?” I shout.

  He nods.

  “Do you think we could still catch fire?”

  He shakes his head.

  Next to the control tower is a wooden hut. It’s got a roof, but I don’t think it’s much of a roof. Fires on airfields must bring fire engines, surely.

  If we could just start one.

  Frantically, I search the thing that I would call a glove compartment. There’s all sorts of old rubbish, sweet wrappers and maps and bits of paper and eventually I find what I’m looking for. And Dad would make fires on the beach with his old petrol lighter. An old petrol lighter, with a flint and a wheel like Connor uses for lighting the bonfires. They don’t go out when you let go of them. You have to close the lid to extinguish the flame.

  “When I say ‘go’, fly to the other end of the strip!” I shout. I drop twelve bottles of the spirit out of the window in a continuous stream until I’m sure that several of them have gone through the roof of the shed.

  And then I spin the wheel of the lighter. Sparks fly, but nothing else happens.

  “No!” I cry, and then I spin it again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Ping. A wobbly flame springs into the square.

  “Whatever you’re doing, do it quickly,” shouts Noah. “We can’t stay up here for ever!”

  I place the lighter, lit, in a Ritz cracker box with some paper from the glove compartment, and a bottle of the spirit and jam it through the window. I’m either killing us or saving us.

  “Go! Go! Go!”

  And I drop it – the box’s sides reflecting the lights of the car, falling, falling, and disappearing in through the hole in the roof of the shed.

  “Yesssss…!”

  We fly on, and I look back at the darkness, at the men standing by the control tower, and I hope that the shed is full of paper, or old furniture or petrol or something that’ll light. As we pass back, I look down and for a moment it’s all horribly black, but then a small ball of orange bursts where the shed must be and within seconds the roof is a silhouette, with fire behind. I watch transfixed as the orange advances along the structure of the shed.

  Then, there’s a puff, and smoke blocks the view, and a satisfying column of sparks rise from the walls as growing flames leap across the concrete, presumably finding the previous bottles of spirit. They illuminate the tower, the Land Rover, the men and the whole airstrip.

  “God, Viv!” shouts Noah. “We’ll be roasted – the fuel.”

  “You said it would be OK.” I swallow. “We’ll be all right, won’t we?”

  Suddenly the plane bumps and Noah’s head swings forward and he bangs his nose on the steering wheel thingy. “Arrgh!” he shouts, and blood bursts from his nose. “Ow!” He takes both hands and clamps them over his face.

  “Noah!” I shout. We head straight into darkness.

  “Noah?”

  I clamber back into the front and stare at the instruments. There’s one that looks like a horizon and then a bunch of others.

  Grabbing a mangy blanket from the back, I cram it over his face and grab the steering thing, pointing it upwards. A flag suddenly comes into view on my right and I realise we must be directly over the village. I spare a second and look down. I can actually see the roofs of houses and people pointing up at us.

  “Oh, god,” I mutter and pull the plane back round so that we’re heading for the fire by the control tower. Blue lights are racing down the lane – police? Fire? Brilliant – but they’re on the ground and I’m in an aeroplane.

  “Noah, what do I do?” I shout. “How do I land this thing?”

  “I don’t know,” he says through the blanket.

  “You mean you really don’t know or you don’t know right now because your nose is spouting all over the cabin?”

  He shakes his head. “I reall
y don’t,” he mumbles.

  “You mean you’ve never done it?”

  “No,” he says. “No – when I play games, I usually crash.”

  For the second time in ten minutes, fear almost paralyses me.

  “So I’ve as much chance as you do?” I say.

  He groans next to me and I wonder if he’s passed out.

  I set the wheel so that it’s pointing forwards, over the bonfire, towards the flat of the river. “Wake up, Noah. Wake up!”

  He groans.

  I can’t reach all the buttons. “Noah!”

  But he’s slumped there, leaden, not moving at all.

  “Oh, for god’s sake!” I cry, tugging at him.

  He stirs.

  “Get out of the seat!” I say, bashing him, pulling him to the side.

  He stirs and shuffles awkwardly, falling backwards into the space behind. I scramble over his legs until I cram myself into his seat. The pilot’s seat.

  “What do these pedals do?” I say, trying them. The plane dips from side to side and I realise I should just leave them alone.

  “Noah, wake up!” I yell, holding the plane steady and trying to ease it up higher, out of the way of the fireworks, and the trees, which I can’t see.

  Blue lights appear, chasing across the landscape.

  “Noah!” I shout. “Wake up!”

  Without meaning to I tilt the plane and we go into a long turn until we seem to be pointing back the way we came. I’m not sure, but at least we have some fuel and I seem to be able to keep us up off the ground.

  “Viv!” he mutters at last, and clambers forward until he’s sitting in my seat. “Sorry – I passed out.”

  “Yeah, yeah – I got that,” I say, pushing the stick thing forward and getting a little height. I try moving it a little to the left, and a little to the right. We tip noticeably, and the fire swings across the windscreen.

  “Speed’s important!” he shouts.

  I glance at him. Admittedly he’s lit only by the dashboard lights but he’s totally white, except where he’s covered in blood.