The Death Pictures

by Simon Hall

  He let the silence run, then prompted, ‘Go on.’

  Ed sighed. ‘Well, there was talk of… violence too. That Kid had a nasty temper. Would occasionally… lose it. And take it out on Joanna. But that was just the talk, all right? I’ve got no evidence to back it up.’

  Dan held the professor’s look, nodded. So, perhaps Kid wasn’t the peaceful man he’d claimed to be. Maybe he was capable of murder… killing Joseph McCluskey by slitting his wrists, just as Adam believed. The information would be no use to the inquiry – it sounded like pure gossip, no evidence to substantiate it – but it was certainly an interesting insight.

  ‘Anyway,’ Ed continued, ‘Joanna was besotted with him and stuck with it, whatever the relationship was like. And when Kid left her…. she was distraught. McCluskey and Abi looked after her for quite a while, but the word was she never got over him. She stopped painting and moved away. I don’t know where she went. That was what caused the split. McCluskey blamed Kid for ruining her and destroying her talent and they didn’t talk after that. Well, not until McCluskey knew he was dying and they had that much publicised reconciliation.’

  Dan noted all that down. ‘What did she look like, this Joanna?’

  Ed swirled his pint again and screwed his eyes shut. ‘I don’t really know. I met her once I think, but it was a long time ago and I can only vaguely remember it.’ He paused, took a drink. ‘The one thing I do remember is her hair. Vivid red it was, really striking.’

  A flame-haired woman. The one riding the mobile phone in the first of the Death Pictures? It had to be. So did that painting take on new significance? Was she one of McCluskey’s lovers, or just someone he wanted remembered? And what did the mobile phone mean? Dan felt an urge to get away, to start looking at the pictures again, but he had another couple of questions first.

  ‘Ed, you must have looked at the pictures and thought about the riddle. Any ideas?’

  The professor shook his head. ‘Not a clue. I did work through them, but I couldn’t make any sense of it. I’m an artist, not a bloody magician.’

  Dan studied him. No, he wasn’t keeping anything back, he was sure of it. Almost sure anyway.

  ‘Was there anything in his life that McCluskey built? Or helped to build, like some project he was involved in? Or anything to do with digging? I know they sound like odd questions, but I’m wondering if there’s a hint about something like that in the pictures.’

  Ed finished his beer, gave a wry smile. ‘You think you’re on to something?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve thought that before and got nowhere, but it’s worth a try.’

  ‘Well, there was only the Advent Project that I can think of. He supported and helped in the marketing and even did a couple of pictures for it. He was a great advocate of Advent. He thought it was a wonderful idea.’

  Advent. Advent! The garden of the world captured under plastic domes in an old Cornish china clay pit. That had risen from the earth. And there was the chough in one of the pictures, the symbol of Cornwall. Dan felt a stirring of excitement. Could any of the numbers relate to something at Advent?

  ‘There is one thing you should know if you’re going to go hunting for McCluskey’s prize.’ Ed hauled himself up from his seat and put out his hand. Dan shook it warmly. ‘Thanks for the drinks, by the way,’ the professor added. ‘But I really should go and do some more mundane work now.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ replied Dan, also getting up and trying to ignore the slight dizziness the effort brought.

  ‘Remember this about McCluskey. He was basically a good man and if he says the answer to the riddle is in his pictures somewhere, then it is there. But he was also a little sod. He loved to tease and get one over on people and he was incredibly vain. He thought his way was the only way. What he believed was right was right, and he also thought he was cleverer than anyone else. Remember that. It might just help you.’

  Outside, Dan took a series of deep breaths and decided to walk home to sober himself up. He wanted to look through the pictures again and needed a clear head to do it. It should take 25 minutes from the University he thought, but it’s uphill most of the way and I bet it’ll be more like 35 carrying the weight of these pints.

  He rang El on the way, but got a response he’d never had before. The photographer’s phone was turned off. He stared at his mobile in surprise. Yes, it was the right number he’d called. There it was in the phone’s address list. There was no answer machine service – El didn’t need one, he prided himself on being available at all hours – so, baffled, Dan left it. He could call again later. What would El possibly be doing that meant his phone was off?

  He made it to the top of Mutley Plain and gathered his strength for the final hill to Hartley Avenue when his mobile rang. El? No, it was a withheld number. Bad news, that usually meant work. Should he answer it? He’d better. He already felt guilty about sneaking a day off. He fumbled the phone from his pocket.

  ‘Dan, Lizzie.’ Her voice was sharp, fast. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m on Mannamead Road, just up from Mutley. But I can’t drive anywhere. I’ve had a few…’

  ‘Keep walking. Nigel will pick you up.’

  ‘What’s going...?’

  ‘Wessex airport. Plane crash. Need you on it.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  A lane of solid traffic loomed motionless in front of them. Red brake lights formed an unbroken line up the hill. Nigel didn’t hesitate. He swerved the car onto the empty oncoming carriageway and headed past the queue, up to the road block. Dan closed his eyes, then opened them again when he started to feel sick. He grabbed the bottle of water Nigel held out to him and downed as much as he could. With an afterthought he splashed some on his face.

  A police car was parked diagonally across the road, blocking it. A uniformed officer held up his hand. Nigel pumped the brakes and they stopped. Dan stuck his head out of the window. There was no time to negotiate. Every second was vital in a big story. He checked the man’s shoulders for signs of a rank. Just a constable, good.

  ‘Officer, Dan Groves, TV News. We’re here to meet Chief Inspector Breen.’

  The name-dropping did its work. The policeman jumped back as if pulled by an elastic band and waved them through. Nigel accelerated towards the airport. ‘Nice bluff,’ was all he said. Ahead they could see a knot of fire engines and ambulances, blue lights flashing through the grey gloom of the day. Beyond them a thickening plume of angry black smoke stretched towards the sky. Suddenly Dan felt very sober.

  His mobile warbled. El. His phone had given him a missed call message.

  ‘Hi mate, just wanted a chat, but I think you’ll want me now,’ said Dan quickly. ‘There’s a plane crash at the airport. You’d better get here. Where are you? The hospital? You OK? Then what are you..? Oh never mind, we’ll talk later.’

  Nigel pulled the car up on the grass verge by the terminal and leapt out. He ran to the boot and grabbed the camera. Dan took the tripod and microphone and they strode into the building. The doors to the runway were open so they jogged through, then stopped suddenly at the sight.

  It was a twin propeller aircraft, the type he’d flown on many times to London. Instead of sitting upright, it rested pathetically on the remnants of its left wing. The engine was gone, looked as if it had been ripped off. The remaining wing was just a stump, reduced to blackened, melted plastic and spindly, twisted wire. The right wing was untouched and stretched up into the air. The plane’s passenger doors were open and an inflatable gangway bridged the drop to the ground. Some survivors then, at least some…

  The side of the fuselage closest to them had been licked a charred black where the hungry flames played along it. The white tail fin was scorched too, one of its rudders warped by the blaze’s heat. Fire engines surrounded the plane, jets of water directed onto it. An acrid smell of scorching plastic
stung the air. Tiny streams of running foam stretched out from the wreckage like tentacles.

  Nigel hoisted the camera up on his shoulder and began filming. Dan stared on, shaken. Where were the passengers? About 30 people would have been inside. They weren’t still in there, surely? What chance would they have had? He sensed a movement to his side, spun around.

  A group of people walked slowly from the side of the terminal building. Some had their arms around each other, a few wore orange blankets over their shoulders. Survivors. Just what he needed. The golden rule in a disaster; always interview the survivors and eyewitnesses first. The police, fire and other uniforms will hang around to talk. The victims just want to escape.

  ‘Nigel!’ he hissed. The cameraman turned, saw the group and they ran over to them.

  ‘Out of the way please,’ said a small man in a dark blue uniform who was leading them. ‘They’re upset. We need to get them to hospital.’

  No chance, thought Dan. Not a hope. I’m the only journalist here and I’m not missing this scoop. Just a few seconds, that’s all we need. Just got to stop them for a moment.

  Dan pulled Nigel in front of the group. The cable linking the microphone he carried to the camera made an effective barrier. The little man’s arm went up but Dan pushed it aside. Behind him, the survivors stopped.

  ‘I’ll have you arrested,’ the man gasped.

  ‘In a minute,’ said Dan, thankful he was slight and easily held off. ‘Just a word first.’ He pushed the microphone under the nose of a young-looking man, a good bet for being composed enough to want to talk.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Dan quickly

  ‘Shit, it was terrifying.’ His voice was shaking. ‘We were coming in to land normally. Just before we hit the runway, this voice came over the intercom, shouting brace, brace, brace!! Undercarriage failure. So we all tucked our heads down between our knees like you’re supposed to. The plane hit the runway and tilted horribly on its side. We were catapulted forwards. People were screaming. There was this sickening screeching, grinding sound. I smelt burning and smoke and I thought we were all going to die. It seemed to go on for ever. Then the plane spun round and stopped and I looked up. There was smoke everywhere and I could see flames coming out of the side. People had stopped screaming. They were just whimpering now. No one knew what to do, but the stewardess was wonderful. She calmly said to everyone to walk towards her slowly. Then she opened the door and we jumped down onto this bouncy thing. There was smoke all around and the plane was on fire. I think we all got out, but Hell, it was a close thing. I thought my number was up.’

  Brilliant thought Dan. But another one would be even better. Just one more, a woman if possible. The little man was pushing hard at him and he could see other uniforms approaching fast from the terminal. They only had a few seconds.

  He spotted a middle-aged woman in the middle of the group. She was nodding at what the other passenger had said. ‘What did you see?’ Dan asked quickly.

  ‘Everything was going normally,’ she said. Her voice was thin and breathless, her face pale. ‘We were about to land and then the pilot told us to brace. I was so scared… so scared. I just kept my head down and said my prayers. There was smoke and flames everywhere. There was so much noise, horrible, screeching noise. Then we all had to jump out of the door onto this mattress thing. It was the most frightening thing I’ve ever known.’

  Wonderful. The key to the story. Two fantastic interviews with the survivors and even better, not a sniff of another hack. Some great pictures too. The golden secret to television cracked in just a few minutes work. People and pictures always made stories and he had the lot.

  Now just the rest of the details to get. What happened, how many were on the plane, did they all survive, that sort of thing. He was so lost thinking about it he hardly felt the arms on his shoulders and the police officer telling him and Nigel they were under arrest.

  Dirty El ran as fast as his lumbering frame would allow, across the hospital grounds to his car. His eyes were fixed on the smoke in the sky just to the north.

  He was about to jump in to the driver’s seat and roar off when he had a thought. The airport was only five minutes away, but there was just one road in. It would be closed and heavily patrolled. He didn’t stand a chance of talking his way through. The police knew him too well now and would delight in stopping him after all the tricks he’d pulled on them. There was a mug shot of him on the wall of the cop stations in Plymouth, alongside the wanted criminals.

  El let his panting subside while he thought. He was in a hospital. And what had he just seen gathered here that could help him? He dumped his white doctor’s coat, got his camera out of the boot and jogged back over to the Accident and Emergency Department. It was more exercise than he’d had in months, but it would be worth it. Plane crash pictures sold.

  A line of three ambulances stood waiting, all empty. Discharging their patients no doubt. He tried the back doors of the nearest one. They were open. El climbed in, shutting them softly behind him and slid under one of the two beds. It was a gamble. What if he ended up at some school football match watching a twisted ankle being treated? But it was this or nothing. He’d never get to the airport any other way. He stroked his camera for luck.

  It was only a couple of minutes later that two paramedics leapt in, flicked on the emergency lights and siren and sped away. El crossed his fingers and lifted his head to look out of the windscreen. His chubby, freckled face relaxed into a grin. Off up the road, waved through the police cordon and into the airport in no time. This was the way to travel. He waited until the medics got out to talk to some firemen, then slipped out of the back, walked over to the terminal and began taking photos.

  The snaps were wonderful. A wounded and charred plane, striking and dramatic. The local papers would certainly take them and probably some of the nationals too. He could hear the cash register ringing. With what he’d managed earlier in the hospital, this was turning out to be his day.

  He hummed a little tune to himself as he clicked off a big close up of the melted wing, and improvised one of his limericks.

  ‘It can be a disaster,

  Needing more than a plaster,

  A fire on a plane,

  Usually brings pain,

  But for El it can mean earnings vaster!’

  The paparazzo thought he might even push his luck and buy a lottery ticket on the way home.

  ‘Officer, I hate to be pedantic, but trespass is a civil offence. You don’t actually have the power to arrest us,’ said Dan, as he and Nigel were marched back to the terminal.

  ‘We’ll see what the Inspector has to say about that, sir.’

  ‘Well, OK, but I’m just trying to give you a friendly warning. You’re going to make a fool of yourself.’

  ‘We’ll see about that, sir,’ said the officer determinedly.

  Dan exchanged a look with Nigel. Officious constables were a hazard of the job. It wasn’t the first time they’d been arrested. The last occasion was when they’d filmed a big crash on one of the South-west’s few dual carriageways. There was a five-mile jam, so they’d taken some back lanes and found a farm that neighboured the road. The farmer had been happy for them to cross his land. But the constable they met when they emerged on the road had decided he didn’t want the accident filmed. It was too shocking to be shown on TV, he said.

  It’s a matter for us what we show, Dan had tried to explain, not you. We won’t broadcast any distressing pictures, but we need something to explain to the viewers what happened. We’ll use less intrusive wide shots of the wreckage and an interview with some of the eyewitnesses. How’s that for a compromise?

  The officer didn’t seem to understand the concept and had tried to confiscate the camera tape. Dan stopped him and they’d been arrested. They were released an hour later after Lizzie scrambled a solicitor to
Police Headquarters with a writ citing the Chief Constable for wrongful arrest. A written apology had followed. Dan kept a copy of it in his bag for occasions such as today.

  ‘Do you want to see where you’re acting outside of your authority?’ he asked the constable, offering the sheets. ‘It’s right here.’

  ‘Shut up, please, sir,’ the man snapped. ‘Sit there.’ He pointed to a line of seats. ‘I’m going to book you in with the Inspector.’

  Dan and Nigel watched as he walked over to a police van and disappeared inside.

  ‘Two minutes it’ll take,’ whispered Dan.

  ‘Five,’ said Nigel. ‘Shall I see if anyone’s about in the canteen and get us a coffee?’

  The constable emerged from the van. Dan checked his watch. 95 seconds. He thought the man looked paler. He tried not to smile as the officer walked back over to them.

  ‘You’re free to go, sir,’ he said heavily. ‘But please keep behind the cordon we’re going to set up.’

  They walked out of the front of the airport to the gathering media scrum. The journalists and photographers were standing behind some newly strung out blue-and-white police tape. Dan and Nigel ducked under it and joined them. Loud was there, moaning to a radio reporter about the cost of a dentist’s appointment. He was wearing a shirt which boasted parading peacocks. Not great for a plane crash thought Dan, but better than it might have been. He seemed to have a memory that Loud owned at least one shirt patterned with aircraft taking off into a sunny sky.

  ‘They want loads,’ he grunted. ‘A big report and lots of live stuff. I guess we’ll be busy. And I was supposed to be going to a wrestling match tonight.’

  Dan didn’t know what to say to that. He couldn’t quite see Loud screaming and shouting as a couple of half-naked men twisted each other’s bodies into submission.

  A man in a black suit strode out of the airport and made for the pack. Cameras were hoisted onto shoulders and microphones offered. He stood in the middle and faced them.