Permissible Limits

by Hurley, Graham

  In the end, at God knows what hour, I drifted off to sleep. Dawn woke me and by six o’clock I was over at the airfield, priming the Moth’s engine. Flying in the early morning was outrageously beautiful and I tucked in a little detour over the middle of the island before picking up the heading for Jersey. There were little pockets of shadow amongst the maze of lanes and fields south of Brighstone Forest, and I winged the Moth over, feeling new-born. Real flying, this kind of flying, had nothing to do with combat manoeuvres and four-g turns and getting in the other guy’s six o’clock. On the contrary, it was a glorious affirmation of all the best things in life and I swooped low over the little slate-roofed bungalow at St Lawrence before turning south. It was good to be free again. Good to be out on my own.

  About an hour later, I booked in at the Aero Club at Jersey airport. The club room was already busy but there was no sign of Michelle. I settled down to wait and I’d nearly finished my second coffee when I spotted her over by the door. She’d had a problem that morning with her daughter. Under the tan, she looked drawn and anxious.

  I bought more coffee. Michelle had a bag with her, a Berber design in lovely rich purples and reds, and she pulled out a thick brown envelope.’It’s in there.’

  I picked up the envelope. The object inside felt like a book.

  ‘What is it?’

  She frowned at me, then looked round. I’d never put her down as nervous before.

  ‘I just want you to have it,’ she said. ‘I was going to give it to the police but they’re bound to ask me where I got it, and how long I’ve had it, and why I never gave it to them before, and quite honestly I don’t need any of that. So you have it.’

  She tightened the little leather noose on her bag and began to get up. I reached out, stopping her.

  ‘But what is it?’

  It was a question I could tell she didn’t want to answer. I was in too good a mood to grind on about Adam, but if that was what it took, then I really had no choice. I began to tell her how much all this meant to me but she wasn’t listening. She must have looked at her watch at least three times. Whatever she had to tell me wouldn’t take long.

  ‘You remember that fire Steve had in the hangar?’ I nodded.

  ‘Harvey Glennister’s Spitfire,’ I said. ‘Half a million pounds’ worth.’

  ‘Well…’ Michelle was leaning forward, ‘… Steve knew it wasn’t his fault.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Everyone said he’d gone to sleep in the van outside. Left gear lying around, petrol, stuff like that.’

  I tried to remember the details. Michelle was right. The fingers, certainly, had been pointing at Steve.

  ‘And you think something else happened?’

  ‘Not me, Steve. Steve said he’d cleared up for the night, and locked the place, too. When it was on fire, and he went back in, the hangar was wide open.’

  ‘You mean unlocked?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because someone else had been in?’ ‘Obviously.’

  ‘And set the place alight?’ ‘That’s what he says.’

  I was frowning now. Something didn’t quite make sense.

  ‘So why didn’t he say? Why didn’t he tell the insurers all this? Or the police?’

  Michelle had gone quiet again, but this time I wasn’t taking any chances. The fact that Steve might have been the victim of an arson attack was a major development. I had to know the rest of it, come what may.

  Michelle must have seen the expression on my face. She beckoned me closer.

  ‘Steve installed a security system,’ she said. ‘After the fire.’

  ‘What kind of system?’

  ‘A couple of cameras. He did it himself. He’s not as thick as some people think.’

  It was hard not to detect the anger in her voice, the feeling that her ex-partner had been underestimated for most of his life.

  ‘Is that why you’re here? You feel sorry for him? You want to help him out?’

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. Her face had hardened. These were questions I didn’t have any right to ask.

  ‘He’s the father of my child,’ she said at last. ‘That’s not something you can just walk away from.’

  I thought at once of Jamie.

  ‘Let’s get back to the security system,’ I said quickly. ‘You’re saying he installed cameras.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So what’s in the envelope?’

  Again, for whatever reason, she wouldn’t answer, so I tore the envelope open, up-ending it. A video cassette clattered on to the table between us. It didn’t have a label, or even a box.

  I picked it up.

  ‘This is from Steve?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He gave it to you?’

  ‘Yes, for safe-keeping.’

  ‘And it’s part of that security system? The one you mentioned?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I weighed the cassette in my hand, asking myself a thousand questions. What kind of pictures were on this cassette? Why would Steve lodge it with Michelle, his ex-partner? And what, most important of all, could possibly justify this nervousness of hers? This determination to get rid of whatever evidence the cassette contained?

  Michelle was on her feet now, her bag slung over her shoulder. Our brief relationship obviously didn’t extend as far as a goodbye handshake.

  ‘Just promise me one thing.’ She was staring at the cassette. ‘What?’

  ‘If you take that any further, just leave me out of it.’

  I was at Dennis Wetherall’s office by ten. He had a video player at home and we walked the quarter-mile to his apartment. He was still telling me about Roper when he knelt on the floor in front of the TV set, slipped in the video cassette and pushed the Play button.

  ‘They’re laying the fuel on Liddell,’ he was saying. ‘The eighty-three quid’s worth at Hurn Airport. Roper checked Liddell’s log book. He flew over on the twelfth of February. Borrowed someone else’s aircraft. Refuelled on the thirteenth. Had to be him. Had to.’

  I was watching the screen. At first, it stayed black. Then, across the top left-hand corner, I saw two rows of figures. Top line, 02.16. Next line, 12/2/98. Time and date, I thought: 2.16 a.m., 12 February. The smallest hours of the worst day of my life.

  An image appeared, black and white. For a moment I hadn’t a clue what I was looking at. Then there was a flicker or two and the image jumped and settled again, and then shapes I recognised began to resolve. I was inside a hangar and I was looking at two aircraft. One of them was definitely a Yak. I recognised the big tandem cockpit. The other one?

  I leaned forward, pointing at it on the screen for Dennis’s benefit. ‘That’s a Cessna,’ I said, ‘a 172.’

  The camera was mounted up high. We were looking down on the interior of Steve Liddell’s hangar. I could see the black scorch marks on the floor from the fire. It was now 02.17. Something was about to happen.

  Dennis saw it first. He was down on his knees beside me. ‘There. Look.’

  A door had opened across the far side of the hangar. A figure appeared, too far away to recognise. It came towards the camera, stepping around the tail of the Yak, pausing to examine something on the elevator. I bent closer to the screen. I’d seen that walk, that sudden pause, that same tilt of the head before. His hand was out, the fingers running over the trailing edge of the elevator. It was an engineer’s touch, inquisitive, exploratory. He can’t leave anything alone, I thought. Not then. Not now.

  ‘It’s Harald,’ I breathed, ‘Harald Meyler.’

  He left the Yak and came across to the Cessna. He had a small cardboard box tucked under one arm. Standing beside the Cessna, his profile was unmistakable. The same set to the jaw. The same slight stoop. I even recognised the clothes he’d been wearing, exactly the same jacket and trousers as the night he’d turned up at Mapledurcombe to tell me how devastated he was.

  Bastard.

  He had the engine cowling off n
ow and I could see the clutter of pipes and wires inside. He put the box very carefully on the floor and slipped out a pair of gloves. From the box he took a small package wrapped in dark paper. He unfolded the package on the floor, squatting beside it. The camera angle couldn’t have been more perfect. Seconds later, I reached forward, fumbling for the Pause button. The image froze. Standing up again, Harald was examining an object about the size of a Psion organiser. Dennis was spellbound.

  ‘That small?’ he said.

  I hit the Play button again. Harald reached into the engine bay, positioning the device on the fire wall that separated the nose of the aircraft from the cockpit. The device must have contained a magnet because it hung there without any visible means of support. Harald stood back a moment, his head cocked to one side, then he reached in again and adjusted it slightly. I was trying to imagine Adam sitting in the left-hand seat. The device would have been level with his knees, I thought. Poor lamb. My poor bloody lamb.

  Harald was back beside the box. He was fiddling with something tiny, and even when I froze the picture again it was impossible to see exactly what it was.

  ‘What else do you need for a bomb?’ I was trying to remember what Mr Grover had told me.

  ‘A detonator.’ Dennis’s nose was inches from the screen. ‘And a power source.’

  ‘Power source?’

  ‘A battery. Look.’

  He’d put the tape into Play again. Harald was working in the engine bay. When he withdrew, there were two other objects taped to the device. One of them, very clearly, was a battery, the kind Jamie used for the back light on his bicycle.

  Dennis was showing off now.

  ‘One and a half volts,’ he was saying. ‘Unbelievable, isn’t it?’

  Harald’s work was done. He closed the cowling and latched it shut. As tidy as ever, he bent to retrieve the wrapping paper, folding it and folding it again before returning it to the box. As he headed back towards the door, I checked the time on the screen. It read 02.23. Seven minutes, I thought. Seven minutes, and a couple of ounces of some explosive or other, plus a trick or two he must have picked up from his years down in Central America. That’s all it had taken. Wire the bomb. Close the cowling. And my husband’s short, sweet life was effectively over. Only a change of plan or some malfunction could save him now, and even that - I suspected - would be nothing but a stay of execution.

  The screen went black again. I stared at it, my eyes hot with tears. Why had he done it? What purpose would it possibly serve to kill my poor dead Adam? Surely you couldn’t fall in love with someone so obsessively, so possessively, that it justified blowing their husband apart?

  Dennis was re-spooling the tape. He knew that Roper was still down the road at police headquarters. If we got a move on, we could deliver it in person. As soon as the tape rewound, he hit the Eject button. I was on my feet. I’d seen enough. The last person I wanted to talk to was Roper.

  Dennis stared up at me.

  ‘What’s the matter? Where are you going?’

  ‘Home,’ I said briefly.

  ‘But what about this?’ He was still holding the cassette. ‘What do I tell Roper?’

  ‘Anything you like,’ I said, ‘But don’t involve me.’

  When I got back to Mapledurcombe, there was a message waiting for me from Jamie. He’d been called away to London. There was no mention of why, or for how long, but he’d left the key to Ralph’s bungalow and an over-effusive note about holding the fort. Might I find time to pop into the hospital? And might I keep half an eye on Ralph’s two cats?

  Still dazed by the contents of the cassette, I drove over to Ralph’s place next morning. For weeks, I’d been hunting for proof that Harald had played some part in Adam’s death. Now that I knew for sure that he’d killed him, I felt nothing but a yawning hole inside myself. No amount of evidence could make the slightest bit of difference to what had happened. Adam was dead. He’d gone forever. And that was that.

  I parked the car in Ralph’s drive and let myself in. Jamie and Gitta must have decamped in a hurry. There was evidence of their stay everywhere and a quick check on the bedroom they’d been using did nothing for my peace of mind. The sheets on the double bed were strewn halfway across the room and there was a pair of rather nice black lace knickers lying beside the pillow.

  I fed the cats, watered the handful of plants and retrieved the morning’s mail from the front door mat. There were a couple of bills, and a subscription for National Geographic, and a bigger airmail envelope with a German stamp on the front. I turned the envelope over. On the back, in the space reserved for Return Addressee, there was an official-looking stamp. Deutsche Bundesarchiv, it read, Fehrbelliner Platz 3, W 1000, Berlin 31.

  I gazed at it a moment, wondering what the envelope might contain, then I remembered all the conversations we’d had about the photo Ralph was trying to get hold of from the German archive people, the one that featured the pilot that Karel Brokenka had shot down. I felt the envelope, trying to guess its contents, then glanced at my watch. Our first flight of the morning was scheduled for half past eleven. I was the one ferrying guests to the airfield and it was already close to ten. Slipping the mail into my bag, I pulled the front door shut and locked it. Later this afternoon, I was supposed to be flying over to Goodwood for the final air show brief. All the other pilots would be there, and with only a couple of days to go it was our last chance to iron out any wrinkles in the display programme.

  I sighed, heading up the path towards my car. Was I really in any kind of state to risk flying the Mustang? Could I hack the challenge of performing in front of God knows how many people? Wouldn’t it be wiser to make my excuses and back out gracefully?

  I tussled with the problem for the rest of the morning but it was a chance comment from one of our guests that decided the issue. He’d been at Mapledurcombe for the best part of three weeks and he’d loved every minute of it. He’d already had his trip in the back of the Mustang and he was only coming over to the airfield to watch. As Ellie B lined up on the runway, and our pilot gunned the Merlin, I felt a hand on my arm.

  It was our guest. The smile on his face couldn’t have been wider.

  ‘We bomber guys used to call them “Little Friends” ‘ he said. ‘And they looked after us just the way you have.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. And you know something else? About that husband of yours? He deserved a damn medal. A credit to your country. A credit to you. Finest rebuild I ever saw. Yessir…’

  We were both gazing up at the Mustang. It was airborne now, soaring away to the west, and watching it I knew exactly the debt I owed to Adam. Backing out of the air show just wasn’t an option. For his sake, as well as mine, I had to do it.

  The briefing over at Goodwood went like a dream. It’s a lovely setting, the grass strip and the encircling racetrack tucked beneath the soft green swell of the South Downs, and it was lovely to see so many faces I knew.

  There were about twenty of us there in the briefing room - all men apart from me - and we each offered a brief precis of the key elements in our own display. In my case, it was pretty basic stuff - a run and break from the east, a slow pass with wheels and flaps down, a steep climbing turn bringing me downwind in front of the crowd, and then a fast fly-by at 300 m.p.h., followed by a couple of climbing rolls and a final pass before I winged over and rejoined the circuit for a landing. As a piece of display flying, it wouldn’t hold a candle to the real aerobats but it wasn’t every day that a woman - a woman, for God’s sake - appeared at the controls of a hot American fighter and I could tell from their faces that these men were impressed as well as amused. Nearly all of them had been friends of Adam’s and it was entirely in keeping with their own philosophy that I should have chosen this particular way of sorting myself out. Thank God for our American guest, I thought. Thank God I hadn’t wimped.

  At the end of the brief, the airfield manager took us through the safety routines. There’d be the usual ambulances o
n standby and plenty of helicopters for casevac should anything dramatic happen. The air show was attracting plenty of advance publicity, and given a spot of luck with the weather, he was expecting a decent crowd.

  Afterwards, as he walked me out to the Moth, I asked him what he meant by a decent crowd.

  He paused, looking back at the enclosures alongside the Aero Club, trying to come up with some kind of figure.

  ‘Twenty-five thousand? Thirty?’ He grinned at me. ‘And another five because of you?’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘Not at all. Put a woman in a classic warbird and you’d be amazed who turns up.’

  The moment I touched down, back at Sandown, I knew something had happened. I could see Andrea’s four-wheel drive parked up beside the control tower. She’d had it for less than a month and it was impossible to miss. Lime green, you could spot it from 5,000 feet.

  She ran up to me the moment I swung the Moth into wind. Only when the engine stopped could I hear what she was saying.

  ‘It’s Ralph.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s come round. He’s conscious.’

  We drove to the hospital at Newport. Ralph was still up in the ICU but his eyes were open and there was even a bit of colour back in his face. Absurdly, I felt that I’d got to know him even better over the weeks of unconsciousness and I took his hand at once and gave him a big wet kiss on his cheek. The kiss brought a smile to his face, and when a nurse appeared, I watched his eyes follow her around the room, The sister in charge had warned me that he couldn’t talk, or even lift an arm, but I think I only half-listened. If he could surface after barely a month, then it was surely only a matter of time before he became the old Ralph once again.

  I settled down beside the bed, glad that Andrea had to go. The hospital had already contacted Jamie and they told me that he’d be coming down from London at some point in the evening. For now, I just wanted Ralph to myself.