Hostage by Clare Mackintosh
THIRTEEN
11 HOURS FROM SYDNEY | MINA
The passenger’s face is waxy and slick with sweat. The doctor—a woman from economy with a neat ponytail and stud earrings in the shape of horseshoes—sits back on her heels.
“I’m sorry.”
Beside me, Carmel makes a sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob. I put an arm around her, as much to steady myself as to comfort her, because suddenly, my legs don’t feel like my own. The news travels around the cabin in a shocked murmur, and those passengers who had shamelessly stood and watched sink slowly back into their seats. I see Alice Davanti craning her neck from the other side of the cabin. She sees me looking and sits down, slipping a phone into her pocket. Was she taking a photograph?
“What do you think happened?” I’m unable to tear my eyes away from the body in front of me, from his blank, staring eyes to the pale skin on his exposed chest.
The doctor peels off the defibrillator pads and gently buttons up his shirt. “Some kind of seizure. Heart attack, possibly.”
“He did say he wasn’t feeling too good.”
Everyone turns. A tall man with glasses and a neatly groomed beard is standing in front of his seat. He’s wearing a gray sweatshirt, and he plucks at the sleeve, as though he’s uncomfortable at suddenly being the center of attention. “We were queuing for the loo earlier, and he had his hand pressed to his chest. A spot of indigestion, he said.”
“He was knocking back the port like it was Ribena.” At the other end of the cabin, by the entrance to the bar, soccer player Jamie Crawford has none of the other man’s awkwardness. I couldn’t name the team he plays for if my life depended on it, but thanks to the gossip mags in my hairdresser’s and my ridiculous memory for pointless facts, I do know that he retired at thirty-four, owns a nine-bedroom house in Cheshire, and is miraculously still with his wife, Caroline, despite shagging his way through several girl bands. The pair of them are in tracksuits: his gray and hers salmon pink, with love picked out in diamanté across the chest.
“And he had two of them cream cakes,” she says.
“Right. Thanks.” I’m suddenly defensive of the poor man on the floor, whose life choices are being picked apart by complete strangers. “Perhaps everyone could give us some space now?” Jamie and Caroline drift back to the bar, and I turn to Carmel. “You okay?” She nods uncertainly. “I’ll let them know in the flight deck.”
I walk the few feet to the galley and pick up the passenger list, noting that the dead man’s name is Roger Kirkwood. Crossing to the flight deck, I tap in the access code and wait the few seconds for the pilots to check the cameras that will show I’m alone. They buzz me in, and I feel the rush of conflicting emotions that always comes from being inside the cockpit. Instrument panels stretch in front of the two seats, with still more between them. Glass displays showing altitude, speed, fuel, and more. An array of switches on the ceiling shrinks the small space further; only the vast, bright whiteness outside stops it feeling claustrophobic.
I could have been sitting here. On the right, as first officer, or maybe one day in the captain’s seat. It could have been me, leading the lines of cabin crew through the airport, briefing the team at the start of each flight. Me, welcoming passengers to their destination or walking through the cabin, midflight, like the head chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Feeling that extraordinary surge beneath my hands as a B777 takes off.
And yet.
The buzzing in my ears tells me I’m far from over it. I can keep it in check by breathing steadily, by looking away from the controls. By focusing on my job. But it’s still there. The fear.
Ben is yawning widely enough to show off his tonsils. He stops when I tell them what’s happened.
Louis is making notes on the flight plan. “Bugger.” He looks up at Ben. “What do you want to do?”
“Right now? Kick back with a few beers and sleep in my own bed. But in the absence of that, I’d quite like this flight to go without a hitch.”
“Bit late for that.”
Ben looks at me. “He’s in business?”
“Yes.”
“Traveling on his own?”
I nod.
He drums his fingers on his thigh. “Leave him.”
“You’re sure?”
“Between the devil and the deep blue sea, aren’t we? Dindar’ll go ballistic if we abort his precious maiden voyage. Make sure the screen’s up around his seat, then put him in it and cover him up. And turn the heating down a notch.” He grins, and I swallow the bile that rises at the implication behind his words. We still have over ten hours left till we get to Sydney.
The protocol for dead passengers is one of those sections in a training manual you flick through, assuming the chances of needing the information are slim. But airplanes are cities, suspended in the air, and in cities, people live and people die. The gentleman from seat 1J won’t be legally declared dead until we land, and our responsibility until then is the same as for all our passengers. To look after him.
Roger Kirkwood weighs more than it seems possible any person can weigh. Carmel and I take a leg each, and Erik and Hassan manhandle his shoulders. Together we drag him to his seat and heave him into it. Carmel is trying not to cry.
“I’ll cover him up,” I say. “You lot go and check on the passengers, make sure they’re all okay. Some of them look as if they could do with a sugary tea or even a brandy. I know I could.” There’s a glass on the floor in the aisle, dropped as the man collapsed. A bloodred stain spatters the floor. I pick up the glass. There’s a drop of liquid in the bottom but something else too—a grainy residue, like when you lose a biscuit in a cup of tea. I sniff it, but all I smell is port.
Soon after I started working for World Airlines, a woman nodded off on a short-haul flight to Barcelona and didn’t wake up. The plane was full, and there was nowhere to move her to, so she stayed where she was, strapped in and holding her daughter’s hand till we landed. Emergency diversions aren’t uncommon, particularly if there’s still a chance of saving a life, but I’ve heard of bodies being stretched out across three seats or even on the floor in the galley. One urban myth, shared with much glee when I was training, tells of the unfortunate crew who stowed a body in the loo, only to discover him trapped once rigor mortis set in.
I shudder as I straighten Mr. Kirkwood’s legs. Someone—perhaps the doctor—closed his eyes while I was talking to Ben and Louis, but his mouth is open, his tongue swollen and lolling to the side between blue-tinged lips. He wears a wedding band, plump flesh on either side holding the gold in place. His next of kin won’t be notified until we land and he’s officially declared deceased, and I wonder if his spouse waved him off at the airport or whether they’ll be at Sydney, waiting to welcome him home.
He hasn’t used his blanket, so I take it out of its plastic wrapping and lay it across his legs, pulling down his rucked-up jacket, as though he might find the wrinkle uncomfortable. There’s a wallet in the left-hand pocket, and I take it out to keep safely in the galley. It’s rare we have thefts on board, and I can’t imagine anyone being cold-hearted enough to rob a corpse, but nevertheless, I’ll keep it safe. The wallet is black, an expensive but simple piece of folded leather. When I open it, a photograph falls out: a home-printed image on cheap paper.
I put out my hand to still myself, even though the plane is steady. It isn’t possible. It’s a coincidence, that’s all; a similarity to be dismissed.
But it can’t be. I know this face as well as I know my own. This is a photograph of Sophia.