Margot Bennett - The Man Who Didn't Fly

AT ELEVEN IN THE MORNING THE AEROPLANE BEGAN ITS westward flight across England; shining like snow under the blue sky; losing its glitter in the thick, white clouds; passing, heard but unseen, over the Welsh hills. On the shore at Aberavon, children struggling wet into jerseys; parents snatching at animated papers, cramming sandwiches back into boxes; flinched as the plane flew too low over their heads; then watched with angry, admiring eyes as it lunged into the black clouds that pressed down on the black sea. No one saw the plane again, although there were reports of a fireball that had rolled, slower than lightning, down the sky to the sea. Rescue planes searched the Irish Channel, but they might as well have looked for Lycidas.

After the accident comes the casualty list; deaths must be documented, and no man is allowed a death certificate without first dying for it.

The death of the pilot was as indisputable as the loss of the plane. The status of the passengers was more difficult to define. Neither friend, relative, enemy, insurance company, nor coroner was willing to admit that any one of the passengers was conclusively and legally dead. Four men had arranged to travel by the aeroplane; four had disappeared; only three men had arrived at the airport, only three passengers had entered the plane.

The man who didn’t fly had been spared by chance or providence. He should have appeared, smiling uneasily, to describe how he had stopped to tie his shoelace and missed his bus. He was silent as though he had taken a bus to eternity. He was not only silent, he was invisible, and, worst of all for the authorities, he was any one of four people. He could be classified only as the man who didn’t fly, and he created the impossible situation of leaving three deaths to be shared out among four men.

THE patient enquiries began; crackling and exploding around the Wades; splashing through Moira Ferguson’s stupor; rubbing like sandpaper over the indifference of bus conductors and railway porters all the way from Furlong Deep to Brickford Airport; and tenderly nursing the facts that drooped like limp seedlings in the Fairway Arms.

The man in the bar was unco-operative. That was another piece of bad luck. It was a man. A girl would have been interested in the customers who came in that morning, or at least she would have been interested in what she thought about them. She might have studied them like tea-leaves, to see if they could affect her future; observed their positions in society or their failure to resemble film stars; built up in her head a lifetime of five seconds with one of them; or flattered herself that she could recognise a man who was up to no good. Girls are romantic, but sometimes before they sail into the outer space of invention they remember the shape of a nose or the colour of a tie.

The landlord was old. He had a disease of the liver that prevented him from working at anything but the study of racing form. He spent most of his life in a back room making imaginary bets on a three-column system, and keeping accounts with the precision of a nationalised industry. In five years he had made a theoretical profit of £18,640. His wife didn’t allow him any money for betting, so on the few occasions when he had to take her place he became mute of malice. He sat on a low stool, his great, yellow, rectangular face hanging over the bar like a disfigured moon; occasionally pouring a drink; taking the customers’ money with disgust, as though it might be radioactive; and putting the change, one coin at a time, on the counter. He was surly, and made useless by circumstances, but he had never been in trouble with the police, so they accepted him as a good citizen, and asked their questions patiently, almost genially.

He listened to what they had to say, shaking his head slowly from side to side, to indicate complete incapacity to help. When they persisted, he retired into his own world, and answered wearily, like a man who needed sleep.

“I know you feel you can’t describe any of them, Mr Crewe,” the detective-sergeant said. “But there must be something that you noticed. If one of them had a moustache, now. You’d have seen that?”

Crewe shook his head again.

“You mean a man sat a few yards away from you and you didn’t see his moustache?”

“I didn’t.”

“There you are. They were all clean-shaven. You didn’t remember a moustache, and you were right.”

Crewe looked bewildered.

“Now what about hats? Did any of these men, your first customers of the day, wear a hat?”

“Could of done. Or they couldn’t.”

“Would you be willing to say that one of them wore a hat?”

“No. And I’ll tell you why. Because I didn’t see. And if I did see, I didn’t remember. And if I didn’t remember, it was because I was thinking of something else. And if I was thinking of something else it was the three-thirty at Lingfield. And if I was thinking of the three-thirty at Lingfield there’s no law against it.”

“Racing?” the sergeant said stiffly, as though it was an indecent word. “Well, we needn’t discuss racing. What we have to do is get these men identified. They all had names. If you heard any part of their talk, you might have heard one of their names, as I would say to you, Do you sell cigarettes here, Jack?”

“My name’s Raymond,” Crewe said in a confused voice.

“They were called Joseph Ferguson, Maurice Reid, Harry Walters, Morgan Price.”

Crewe yawned, and sat down with his stomach resting on his knees. He looked up, blinking, then shook his head again.

“We have only one photograph. It’s of Joseph Ferguson.” He held out the picture of a dark, square-faced man, with a large, strong nose, and a suggestion of amiable jowls. He looked like a first, or perhaps a second, generation Englishman. “Was this man here?”

“Never seen him.”

“Are you prepared to say he wasn’t here?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Is there anything you would say? Look, Mr Crewe, the position is this. Four men arranged to meet here somewhere around ten-fifteen before going on to the airport to get on a plane that was supposed to leave at ten-forty-five. Now, I’m asking you a straight question, Mr Crewe. Did they come here?”

“There was men here. They had whisky. They drank it and had another. And there wasn’t four. There was three.”

“Three? Are you sure?”

“Three. You got me mixed all the time, talking about four. Three doubles and splash and the same again. One pound four shillings in the till. The wife’ll tell you,” he added venomously, not looking at her.

She sat beside him, indicating by twitches of nostril and eyebrow how complete was her dissociation from her husband and his stupidity.

“One pound six and eight in the till, Raymond,” she said sharply.

“There was two bitters later,” Crewe agreed dully.

“Two men?”

“Suppose so. Couldn’t say.”

“It was only three days ago, Mr Crewe.”

“It was all of three days ago,” Crewe agreed.

“Did these other two speak to you?”

“They ordered bitters. It’s a manner of speaking.”

“I’ll make enquiries among our regulars,” Mrs Crewe promised. She seemed to recognise the urgency of proving she was on the right side.

“As a matter of curiosity, did you hear any of the men’s conversation?”

“Which men? I don’t know which men you’re talking about. First it’s four, then it’s three, now it’s the two bitters.”

“No, Raymond, not the two bitters. It’s the three whiskies,” Mrs Crewe said officiously.