Rat Race Part 5

'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 pa.s.sengers, 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 pa.s.sengers' 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 pa.s.sed the age of consent. Three of the four cheap armchairs looked as if they had still to reach p.u.b.erty but the springs in the fourth were so badly broken that it was more comfortable to sit on the floor.

Much of the wall s.p.a.ce 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 doc.u.ments 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 Sh.o.r.e, 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 gra.s.s 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.'

d.a.m.n 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 a.s.sessingly. '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 d.a.m.n.'

'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 a.s.sociate with you at the faintest hint of trouble. The c.o.c.k crows until it's hoa.r.s.e, 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.'