Hostage by Clare Mackintosh
NINE
12 HOURS FROM SYDNEY | MINA
The rest area is more crawl space than room, the walls curving inward till they become roof, the shape of the plane as clear here as in the cockpit. The floor is made up of tessellated mattresses, reminiscent of school gym mats, separated by curtains that hang from the ceiling like in a hospital ward, each bunk the size of a coffin.
We were all too wired to sleep. Only Erik pulled the curtain around his bunk, leaving the rest of us to talk in whispers.
The remaining crew—seven of us—sprawled on the floor, exchanging the sort of passenger gossip that can’t safely be had in the galley.
“There’s a guy about halfway down—no word of a lie—must be thirty stone,” said one of the crew from economy.
Carmel made a face. “Poor guy. He must be so uncomfortable.”
“Poor guy next to him, you mean! He’s got the aisle seat, and I keep getting the trolley stuck. I’m like: Um, would you mind moving your…um…stomach?”
They all roared with laughter, cutting off abruptly when Erik harrumphed from within his curtains. We all knew what it was like, trying to sleep when no one else wanted to, but there was a childish atmosphere in the air—a midnight-feast-at-a-sleepover vibe—that made us all giggle, pressing our hands over our faces. The passengers wouldn’t be disturbed at least: no sound travels between the rest area and the cabin. When we’re up there, we’re completely sealed off.
I was only half there. Half joining in with the snog-marry-avoid game and Carmel’s interior design decisions, half trying to work out when I’d last seen Sophia’s EpiPen.
It had been in the rucksack yesterday morning, I was sure of that. I always check it when I take out her lunch box and flask, and there’s no reason for me not to have done so yesterday. Could I have taken it out when I emptied her lunch box after school? I never had before, and even if I did, that still didn’t explain how I’d brought it on to the plane.
Could someone be playing a practical joke on me?
I remember Adam, years ago, creasing with laughter as he told me how he’d been “initiated” as a new police recruit. “My sergeant said we were going to freak out the new mortuary assistant by making him think one of the bodies was alive,” he’d told me, barely able to get out the words for laughing. “So I get on the trolley, and they cover me with a sheet and slide me into the fridge. And I’m lying there, chuckling to myself about how I’m going to do the whole wooooo! ghost thing when they pull me out, only…only…” Another burst of laughter bent him double, and I couldn’t help but laugh too, even though the idea of being surrounded by dead bodies made me shiver. “Only next thing I know,” Adam went on, “I hear this voice from the corpse on top of me, saying, ‘Bloody freezing in here, isn’t it?’” He creased up, apoplectic with mirth at the memory of discovering he’d been the intended recipient of the joke all along.
Adam’s world is one of stark contrasts. On the one hand, critical decisions and violent altercations. On the other, cling-filmed loos and mobile phones Sellotaped to desks, fake loudspeaker announcements summoning nervous officers to a humorless superintendent.
“Comic relief,” Adam always says. A lightness—however childish—to counterbalance the darkness of a road death, a rape, a missing child.
Adam was already a police officer when I met him, and I’ve often wondered what he was like before, whether he’s always had the sort of mood swings that pull him down into a place I can’t reach. When we got married, these moods would last a few hours—a day at most—but as time went by, the black dog snapped for longer at his heels. The last year has been unbearable.
“Who are you texting?” We were watching TV—it must have been around this time last year—but Adam had barely looked up from his phone. Katya was in her room, Sophia asleep.
“No one important.”
“You don’t look too happy about it, whoever it is.”
Adam’s jaw was tense, his thumbs jabbing at the screen. I left it, snatching glances at him for the rest of the evening and unable to focus on whatever comedy series we were supposed to be watching. After Adam moved out and Katya was back in Ukraine, anxiety kept me awake till the early hours. I’d drift into a restless sleep, only to jerk awake when my phone beeped with a text. Adam, hit by remorse—or guilt—midway through a shift.
I’m sorry.
I miss you.
I love you.
I took to keeping my phone on silent.
One morning, there were six texts and two missed calls from him, and as I stumbled downstairs, hungover from lack of sleep, my phone flashed insistently. Instead of letting it ring out, I canceled the call, a small act of defiance I knew would hurt. Downstairs, it took me a moment to pinpoint the strange smell that pervaded the downstairs rooms. I checked the kitchen, wondering if I’d left something in the oven, but the chemical smell was strongest in the hall.
The doormat had been drenched in petrol.
In my sleep-fuddled state, I wondered if I had spilled something myself before going to bed or trodden something in from the road. I opened the door to get rid of the fumes, blinking in confusion as I saw Adam get out of his car and walk up the path.
“I tried to ring. Are you alright?”
He looked manic, as if he’d slept even less than I had. His gaze shifted about, jittery, as though he’d taken something, although I knew he never would.
“Why were you trying to call?” The crisp morning air had woken me up, pieces slotting into place to form a picture I didn’t want to see. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“I need to pick up some clothes.”
“At seven in the morning?” I didn’t wait for his explanation. “I was about to call the police. Someone’s poured petrol through the door.”
I was surprised at how calm I felt, given the circumstances. Throwing Adam out had made me feel stronger, more in control; lack of sleep added a layer of distance to proceedings, as though I were viewing myself from above.
“What?” He looked around wildly, as though the perpetrators might still be hanging around. “When? Are you okay? Is Sophia alright?”
There was something off about him, as though he were keeping something from me. As though, I realized suddenly, he wasn’t shocked at all.
“She’s fine. She slept with me last night. I’ll call 101 and report it.”
“I’ll do it—I’m on my way to work anyway. Less chance of it getting binned that way.”
Later, when Sophia was in nursery, I changed the bulb in the porch light and asked Mo if she’d seen anything.
“Sorry, love,” Mo said. “The doctor’s given me something to help me sleep—I’m out like a light nowadays. There was a bunch of kids in the park a couple of weeks ago, though, trying to set fire to the rubbish bins. Could be the same lot.”
I called the police to give them this extra information.
“We don’t have a record of criminal damage at that address, I’m afraid.”
“My husband reported it this morning. DS Holbrook. He’s in CID.”
“Looks like he hasn’t got around to it yet. I can take details for you?”
Afterward, I messaged Adam.
Did you make the report?
Yes, all sorted. Not sure there’s anything they can do, but they’ll check known arsonists.
I stared at my phone. Why hadn’t he reported it? And why had he lied?
Another message came through.
I’d feel better if I was home with you. Just for a few days. I’ll sleep in the spare room.
In the murky recesses of my mind, a thought began to take shape. Could it have been Adam who put the petrol through the door, in some pathetic attempt to make me take him back? Did he think he was some kind of knight in shining armor?
We’re fine, thanks, I told him. I wasn’t scared: Adam might be an idiot, but he wasn’t a psychopath.
“You all should have gotten some sleep,” Erik says now as we leave the rest area and climb down the steep spiral stairs to the cabin. “We have a long time before our next break.”
“Thanks, Dad,” someone mutters from above me. There’s a stifled giggle.
Erik’s right, we should have slept, but the chatter of the other girls had been a welcome distraction from the question of how Sophia’s EpiPen had made it on to Flight 79. I can’t help but wonder if Adam is behind it. Is he trying to make me feel guilty for leaving her? Or hoping I’ll worry enough to need his support? Is this, like the petrol, some warped way of him being my knight in shining armor?
It’s no one I’m working with, that’s for sure. It’s not like Adam and his mates, who have worked together for years and know each other’s limits; I work with new people every time I clock on. Who plays practical jokes on a stranger?
Back in the cabin, my gaze falls on the man in 3F. Jason Poke has the sort of fresh face and dimples that make teenage girls melt and mothers say watch out for that one. You’d have to have been living under a rock to have missed Poke’s Jokes, a cult YouTube channel that swiftly went mainstream when it moved to Channel 4. I remember an episode I watched with Adam, long before everything went wrong for us. Poke’s dressed as a vicar—all prosthetic nose and gray wig—stumbling over the marriage vows before an unsuspecting couple. “To have and to scold—I mean hold.” Cue muffled laughter from the congregation. Poke hiccups, slurs the next line. The camera zooms in on an elderly lady, her lips pursed, as Poke turns his back on the happy couple and swigs from a hip flask marked communion wine. The bride’s mouth falls open. Behind her, the best man roars with laughter as Poke peels off his prosthetics, and a cameraman walks out from the vestry. “Just another of Poke’s Jokes!” goes the voiceover.
“Classic!” Adam said, snorting with laughter.
“I’d go absolutely ballistic.”
“Only at first. You’d see the funny side eventually.”
“That poor girl.” On the television, we were being treated to the same “reaction shots” we’d seen a moment ago. The bride horrified, her mother in tears. “All those months of planning, and that wanker turns up and ruins it.”
“The best man organized it. Poke didn’t just rock up.”
“Even so.”
I walk past Poke’s seat, glancing at the screen to see what he’s watching. I’m surprised to see an Auschwitz documentary, and I flush when Poke looks up and sees me looking.
“Sobering stuff,” he says, his headphones making his voice too loud.
I must have brought the EpiPen on board myself. I remember transferring a magazine from my everyday bag to my work bag; maybe it got caught up in the pages. Or could Sophia have accidentally put it in the paper bag with my flapjack? That must be it.
I ignore the whisper in my head that says the pen would have been in Sophia’s schoolbag, not mine; that surely it’s a coincidence too far for it to fall from bag to bag not once but twice; that the pen was nowhere near the flapjack. I ignore the voice that reminds me of the petrol through the door, the dropped calls I’ve been getting recently, Adam’s strange behavior over the past few months. I ignore it all. It’s just an EpiPen. What would anyone have to gain from bringing it on board?
I wish I could text Becca, just to check everything’s okay, but ground control says there’s nothing they can do about the Wi-Fi. Dindar pulled out all the stops for this route—wider seats in economy, premium films, carbon offsetting, and free Wi-Fi for everyone, regardless of ticket class. In the in-flight magazine, a full-page ad urges passengers to live-tweet their journey using the hashtag #LondonSydney. He’s going to hit the roof.
I look around the cabin, trying to identify the journos. The first, a sharp-faced woman who writes a column for the Mail, is so much like her byline picture that I hardly need to check the passenger list for her name, although I do, to be sure. Alice Davanti is the name she writes under, Alice Smith on her travel documents. A married name, maybe, or perhaps Davanti is a pseudonym, chosen for its glamour.
It takes me longer to spot the second journalist. It’s no one I know by face or name, and without Google, I’m lost. I take a walk up and then down the aisles, glancing at laptop screens and into books. I notice that the man with the round glasses has slipped his wine list into a notebook, and as I pass him for the second time, he is using a proper camera, not a phone, to take the ubiquitous “feet up, watching a film” shot. Old-school. I check the passenger list: Derek Trespass. Despite his Wi-Fi woes, he looks perfectly comfortable.
I touch the EpiPen again, feeling at once close to Sophia and thousands of miles away. I think about the note I left on her pillow and wonder if she’s found it yet. I wish I could text her. There’s a Sky Phone in the flight deck, as well as the VHF radio the pilots use to check in with air traffic control every half hour and whenever we enter or leave a country’s airspace. It’s not unheard of for personal messages to be passed via these channels (I’ve been on flights where birth announcements were made, and when the World Cup is on, every England goal is celebrated), but this isn’t an emergency.
“I’m thinking of painting the walls gray, with an accent wall in rose-gold wallpaper. What do you think?” Carmel is talking me through the apartment she and her boyfriend have bought.
“Sounds lovely.”
“I’d like a soft-pink velvet sofa, but I wonder if it might be a bit much with the rose gold. What do you think?”
“Maybe.” I look at my watch again. Time has slowed down, and I long for the end of my shift so I can go up to the bunks and draw the curtain around me. Maybe the Wi-Fi will be up by then, and I’ll be able to message home.
A small figure creeps into the galley. It’s Finley, too shy, perhaps, to press his call bell.
“Hello, sweetheart,” I say. “Do you want something to eat?”
He holds up his headphones. “Could you—”
“Again? What on earth are you doing to them?”
Carmel takes over, unpicking the knots with white-tipped nails. “Mine do this all the time. I wrap them up really neatly, then, when I want to use them, they’re like spaghetti.”
There’s a shout from the cabin, the commotion building from both sides. I hear someone shout, “Get help!” and my heart sinks. It’ll be the woman from economy, causing problems in the bar again.
But just as I’m about to investigate, Erik comes running into the galley, his habitual blank expression flushed.
“What’s happened?”
He doesn’t answer, reaching for the intercom and speaking with a calm authority that belies his agitation. “If there is a doctor on board, please make your way to the front of the plane.”
“Is a passenger ill?” Carmel says, and I wait for Erik to snap at her about stating the bloody obvious, but he stares at her, and I realize he’s shaking.
“Not ill,” he says. “Dead.”