Джеймс Блатч - The Final Flight

“Tell me. I can cope with complicated.”

“Are you with CND?”

She reached to her handbag, unclipped the strap and pulled out a sheet of paper, placing it on the table between them. Rob looked down as she turned it around to face him. He didn’t recognise the handwriting, but the pattern of numbers and equations was familiar.

“These are Millie’s notes?”

“Millie?”

“Milford. Christopher Milford. Everyone called him Millie.”

She nodded. “I copied them out.”

“Where is the original?”

“Safe. Look, Robert—”

“Rob. And everyone calls me Rob.”

She gave a little laugh. “Rob and Millie. You boys. Just like boarding school.”

“I didn’t go to boarding school.”

“I know you didn’t.”

He stared at her. She laughed again. “You can call me Susie.”

“Is that your real name?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What sort of person makes up names?” She tapped the sheet again. “What does it mean?”

Rob studied the notes.

“You don’t know, do you?” she asked, sounding disappointed.

He put a hand on the piece of paper. “I might work something out, but I’ll need to keep it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Rob. You’re a bit of a loose cannon. Pitching up at a peace camp, shouting off to anyone and everyone. I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“You can’t trust me? I have no idea who you are.” He spoke louder than he’d meant to; a few heads turned at the bar.

Susie looked around and turned back to him, laughing. “You’re so funny.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips before slouching back in her seat and taking a sip of her drink.

His heart pounded. She was young and beautiful. He hadn’t kissed another woman since meeting Mary.

She sat up again.

“You see, Rob, I can’t even trust you to keep your voice down. Let’s try to look like a normal, run-of-the-mill couple, so no-one remembers us.”

“Sorry.”

“What’s your next move?” she asked, again with that same smile, as if enquiring about his plans for Saturday night.

“I need the box back, please. That’s why I’m here.”

“And what will you do with it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that sounds like a solid plan.”

He shrugged.

“OK. So how about I tell you what I know? Your friend Millie found something, didn’t he? Something that worried him. Something that needed reporting, but not through the usual channels. Am I getting warm?”

“Maybe.”

“Is that why he’s dead, Rob?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“He’s dead because I wasn’t paying attention.”

“The crash was your fault?”

He took a breath. “I don’t know. No, probably not. But I could have prevented it. I think.”

“And you feel guilty?”

“I’m sorry, who did you say you were again?”

“Another drink, Flight Lieutenant?”

He looked down and saw he’d finished his first pint. Susie headed off to the bar.

As Rob watched her chatting with the landlady, he tried to reconcile this smart, confident woman with a peace girl living in a tent.

She arrived back at the table.

He opened his mouth to speak.

“So what did he find?” she asked before he got the first word out.

“I can’t possibly discuss that with you.”

“I understand.” She nodded. “OK, let’s try this. I am not, as you might have guessed, a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. I was in fact under cover, keeping an eye on the subversive types from within. So. Now you know my secret and you could easily compromise me, isn’t it fair we share some information? After all, I’m not going to hand the box back unless I’m sure the security of the country is not at risk from you.”

“From me?”

She shrugged. “I don’t really know what you were doing with it, Mr May. All I know is, you’re desperate to get it back.”

He looked around the pub again. The farmers had sat down. The man with the golden retriever was still at the bar, and two other couples sat at nearby tables.

“You work for the police?” he asked.

“Sort of. A little higher up the chain. I’m the sort of person who could have helped your friend, if events hadn’t intervened.”

“You would have helped him?”

“He asked for my help. In fact we were due to meet on Saturday morning. He trusted me, Rob. So I think you can.”

“You were due to meet Millie?”

She nodded. “Yes. In St Mary and St Mellor church. I was ready to listen to whatever it was he had to say. But he died, hours before. And I’m finding it hard to see that as a coincidence.”

Rob put a hand to his forehead and rested one elbow on the table. He gave a long, deep sigh.

“I just don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

“What don’t you know?”

He shook his head. “The crash. It wasn’t deliberate. But…”

“But?”

Rob sat upright and stared at her.

“I think I’ve been played.”

He picked up the cryptic notes. “I can’t decipher these notes exactly, but it’s clear that Millie believed the system was flawed. I’m guessing that’s what the numbers are about. The thing is…” He stared at Millie’s handwriting. “The thing is, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It doesn’t?”

Rob shook his head. “No. The crash proved his point and in one way it achieved his aim. It’s put paid to the project. At the worst possible price.”

“So, Guiding Light is dead?”

“Yes. The Chairman of the Board of Inquiry has as good as told me they know the cause and it can only be the laser.”

“Laser?”

“Forget I said that, please.”

“Sure. But what I don’t get here, Rob, is how your place operates. Millie was a senior officer, right? If he had concerns, why were you still flying?”

Rob bowed his head. “I suspect that’s what Millie was going to talk to you about. There was no hard evidence. Just one moment when it may have gone wrong. So his objection was overruled.”

“Your boss overruled the concerns of his pilots?”

“Millie was an air electronics officer.”

Rob studied the bubbles in his pint.

“Oh, I see,” said Susie. “It was just Millie. So you didn’t believe him, either?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I mean… I sided with the boss because it felt like the right thing to do at the time.”

Susie leant back, not taking her eyes off him. For once she said nothing.

“It was confusing. Kilton, he’s the boss, he convinced me the system was working normally. I agreed for the sake of the project. I gave him an alternative explanation.” He met Susie’s eyes. “I did think it was the right thing, doing what experienced test pilots would do. They’ve seen everything and don’t get fazed by the odd moment in the air.

“Plus, he’s my boss. He gave me all this spiel about Millie being old and about to retire. He said that I was the future and when things happen quickly in jets, it needs fast acting decision makers like me. What else could I do?”

Again, Susie stayed quiet.

“Is Kilton in trouble now it turns out Milford was right?” she asked eventually.

Rob shook his head. “I doubt it. That’s not the way it works. I don’t even know if there’s an official record of the first incident. But he’s lost the project he was so devoted to. So I guess that’s punishment enough.”