Into the Fire

by Rachael Blok

  ‘The way of the future!’ the pilot calls. ‘And we’re off!’

  Filip watches the ground lower beneath them, having the sensation of barely moving at all. Then his stomach lifts, and he sinks back against the seat, enjoying the release of rising.

  He sees the tops of the trees fall beneath them; the Roman city lies sprawling out, as they rise to join the clouds in their tumbling and scattering. Richard’s hand is tight on Sarah’s, whose face is pushed back, head pressed into the rear of the seat. She looks green, staring at the ground, her eyes opening and closing slowly.

  ‘Hold on!’ Ebba calls, laughing. ‘This helicopter is one of a kind!’

  ‘Archipelago takes flight!’ Aksel calls.

  Flying is as close as Filip gets to feeling free. It’s not so much exhilarating as relaxing, and his shoulders settle back; he watches out of the window, thinking of the figures Ruben had sent him, the bare-faced lies he was told that morning. He had been angry, but he never does anything when he’s angry. Decisions are about rational action. Everything can wait.

  A shout comes from up ahead.

  It’s not clear what’s happening, but Sarah screams. He looks to her first. But she’s looking to the pilot. She shouts, ‘What’s wrong?’ and he realises her fear is coming from the noises at the front of the helicopter.

  A shout again. Craning his neck, he sees it’s Ebba shouting. The noise of the helicopter is loud, but he listens, and he can make out part of it: seat belt.

  And this all begins to make sense, as, despite the take-off, Aksel has stood up. He falls to the side, bent over.

  ‘Put your seat belt back on!’ Ebba screams again.

  Aksel stands, wobbling. He clutches his chest and his stomach, bending double and lurching forward. He grabs Ebba, opposite, and she looks terrified.

  ‘I…’ He doesn’t finish.

  ‘Sit down! You’ll throw the weight off!’ Richard is shouting again.

  Now Marieke has joined in the call: ‘Sit down, sit down!’

  Sarah is crying.

  But Aksel howls, bestial.

  Something is going badly wrong.

  Marieke, opposite Filip, pales, and looks at him with eyes wide and full of fear. He hasn’t known how to speak to her since last night, unsure of what is happening, terrified of her wrath. But he leans forward and takes her hand, which she grips tightly. ‘What’s happening?’ she asks, her nails biting tight into his skin.

  The sound of the wind rushes outside, like a train.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he says, and then he looks back to Aksel, who is now bent double, one hand on the side of the helicopter, the other grasping the back of the pilot’s seat in front of him.

  It isn’t going to be OK, he thinks.

  Aksel pushes himself off the back of the pilot’s seat, and as he turns, he stumbles forward. Time slows, the whirling of the blades slow, and Filip loosens his seat belt so that he can rise to reach Aksel. The helicopter veers slightly as Aksel catches the head of the pilot.

  Taking off is the most dangerous part of the journey.

  ‘Fil…’ His name is twisted, spat out and dry, and Aksel leans into him, arms embracing him like a lover. Filip smells his breath, smells the adrenaline, smells his fear. Aksel is many shades of pale, light of breath. He pants in puffs, danger signals.

  ‘It was never, meant…’ Aksel says, and then speaks in Norwegian; Filip understands most of the words, but they’re broken and wrenched out.

  ‘What is it? What is it, Aksel? You’ve got to sit down! Land the helicopter! Land it now!’ Filip shouts to the pilot.

  They are caught between heaven and earth; screams and shouts from all around.

  ‘Oh my God! We’re going to crash! Oh my God!’ Sarah is screaming.

  Pushing off, Aksel stands in the middle of the two rows of seats, then falls backwards, managing one step; he collapses hard against the pilot, whose head crashes forward, on to the controls.

  ‘Please, land…’ Aksel grabs the controls, wrestling with the pilot as the helicopter swings like a cradle in the sky.

  ‘Aksel!’ Ebba screams.

  Sarah is crying; Marieke is moaning. Filip feels locked down. His life spins out before him. What has he been thinking? Why has he kept himself so small?

  The lurch is sudden, dropping down to the right. There are screams from all around, the sound full of engine noise, of fear; Filip can feel the pilot fighting gravity. They jerk upwards again.

  Now Ebba has undone her seat belt and she steps forward towards Aksel, pulling at his waist; she pulls him off the pilot and he falls back down on his seat. His head tips on to the floor in a roll.

  But it’s too late.

  Filip shouts, ‘Buckle up!’ They are going down.

  They’re not high enough to have room for error. They’re off balance. They’re going down.

  The pilot is fighting. Fighting with everything she has.

  They lurch again, this time downwards to the left, and Ebba falls backwards, landing heavily on the floor. Filip undoes his seat belt and rises, reaching and holding the seat opposite, managing to grab Ebba’s shoulder. He heaves her up, pushes her in the direction of her seat. ‘Do your belt up!’ he shouts. ‘We’re going down!’

  Marieke grabs her seat belt. Her eyes catch Filip’s, wide with fear, bright with tears.

  His words summon another scream from Sarah, still crying. Richard, white as a sheet, holds her hand and pushes himself back into his seat. He’s next to the sliding door, and he turns his face away from it.

  Filip manages to push himself backwards and his fingers are quick on the buckle.

  His military service training kicks in; he issues commands to those nearest him, holding Marieke’s hand, and thinking of Sophie, luminous in his head.

  ‘Brace! Brace!’ he shouts. ‘We’re going down! Once we land, we need to get clear of the helicopter. Undo your seat belt and get out. The fuel will be dangerous. Hold steady. Here we go!’

  The lurching is more violent this time, like a roller coaster. Aksel’s body slides down, slipping backwards, landing on the floor.

  There’s no chance of reprieve, the damage is done. The pilot wrestles with the controls, and while the helicopter levels briefly, Filip can feel the momentum has gone. They’re spinning.

  Down. Plummeting, falling as heavy as stone.

  Marieke screams, still grasping the seat belt with knuckles white like snow. The helicopter spins. It picks up pace and the pilot shouts loudly, the rasp of her voice like gunfire through the rushing air, competing with the whir of blades. The slow-motion quality to the falling is like a movie now, with seconds inching slowly. The blades seem to wind down; their spinning and tipping takes hold of the helicopter. It turns in the air, pushing Filip back into his seat. Air rushes in, cold and hard. Opening his mouth is difficult, breathing impossible.

  There’s a shuddering. A great rattling, and his bones shake. We’ll be shaken apart, he thinks, and he closes his eyes.

  The rotor’s gone. Leaning out and looking down, he starts shouting how far he thinks they are from the ground.

  ‘Thirty metres!’ His shout enters the cacophony and he has no idea if the pilot can hear but he carries on. ‘Twenty metres!’

  They’re close enough to survive, even land, if the pilot can hold it. The spinning flings him further to the back of the seat. His eyes close again and he forces them open. Stay alert, stay alert.

  As they fall to the earth, he catches a glimpse of the others in the edge of his vision. Fingers grip tightly to anything they can touch. Mouths offer prayers.

  ‘Brace, brace, brace!’ he shouts.

  The noise of the falling is so loud he thinks they must have crashed into the ground, and he opens his eyes just as the black of the helicopter meets the earth.

  40

  LOIS

  The explosion lights in a flash. Screams around her are loud, as vivid as the flames; like a mini sun, the fire forces her to turn her head, colours bright and
sharp. They bite like hot metal.

  ‘Ebba,’ she cries, standing and running towards the fire. It has been the two of them against the world for so long. She cannot lose her sister. ‘Ebba!’ she screams. The heat beats her back.

  She sees Iqbal, making his way slowly, bent, with Ebba on his arm. Both of them walking towards her, dark against the bright flames.

  ‘Ebba!’

  Sirens are loud behind her.

  She sinks to the ground, holding her sister, who is conscious but shaking. Hugging her, trying to calm her, dropping tears as she says her name over and over, ‘Ebba, you’re OK. Ebba, Ebba…’

  So many people running now. So much smoke.

  Lois strokes Ebba’s brow. She sits cross-legged on the high seats of the amphitheatre. Ebba stirs beneath her hands and she cradles her head. The fire before her makes the surrounds shimmer, unsettles every horizon.

  ‘Did Aksel get out?’ Ebba asks, her lids opening slightly.

  ‘I think so,’ Lois answers, desperate to reassure her. ‘And Filip, and I saw him carry Richard. I haven’t seen Sarah. But Iqbal brought out Marieke.’

  ‘I went for Aksel and started to pull. He was unconscious…’ Ebba’s voice is weak.

  ‘Shhh, it’s OK, I’m sure I’ve seen him,’ Lois says, thinking that she had seen Filip dragging him out earlier. What she does see, but can’t say, her heart rising towards her mouth, is that Filip is bent over a mound of a body nearby. The helicopter is burning on the stage, but higher up, Filip is giving someone mouth-to-mouth. Whoever it is, she doesn’t know.

  What has happened? How can it have come to this?

  Filip is pumping the chest now.

  The smoke on the lawn is thick and obscures her view; Lois turns her head away. Anxiety tight. She can’t see if the body is male or female. She looks back quickly, not knowing what to do. Filip is bending repeatedly over the body.

  Lois glances to her left, where Marieke lies. Iqbal had brought her first, and Lois had checked her breathing and laid her in the recovery position. She is unconscious but her pulse is strong and Lois couldn’t see any serious bleeding beyond scratches.

  Ebba has not lost full consciousness, but drifts between disorientation and lucidity, sleepy and jumpy.

  She opens her eyes again now. ‘Filip? Is he OK? It’s all my fault. If only…’

  ‘He’s with the others. He’s helping them.’ Lois looks again, but doesn’t want to say that Filip is now banging with his fist on the chest. The ribs must be breaking beneath those hands. There are two others helping now. They’re not stopping. But it’s been a few minutes.

  Watching with growing horror, she tries to even out her tone, to reassure. ‘Ebba, you organised an outing, you couldn’t know the helicopter would crash. This is not your fault.’

  The fire is getting stronger.

  There’s another figure lying on the grass, at the edge of the Roman theatre, but it’s impossible to make anyone out. Whoever it is lies in the recovery position too.

  A few metres away, Iqbal half carries, half helps someone up the steps, walking up to the house.

  Lois scans the scene. Blood and fire.

  Looking back at Filip, it isn’t good. He’s back to giving mouth-to-mouth. Someone else takes over on the chest. Filip sits back on his heels. His jacket is off, his T-shirt ripped. The black smoke creeps towards him and his face, already dark, marks a silhouette against the greying grass. He rests, but his stance sinks into sadness, and, with a stab, Lois realises that whoever it is, whoever they are working on, is already dead.

  A wind chases the smoke away. Looking back to the body, Lois stares in horror.

  She’s got no doubt. It’s Aksel.

  Aksel is dead.

  PART TWO

  41

  LOIS

  Broken, Lois watches the fire climb.

  Fire crews have arrived, running towards the amphitheatre. The main entrance is via a lane accessed from the main ring road round St Albans, leading to a big estate further up. The red engines hurtle down, all lights and noise.

  The ambulance crews enter via their drive and have started to arrive on the lawn. The walking wounded sit; like a MASH unit, paramedics are beginning to assess and attend.

  ‘Can you tell me how many were on the helicopter? I need to check. I didn’t see everyone get on.’

  Lois looks up into the face of DCI Jansen. He’d been here earlier. He mustn’t have left. Or maybe he came back? He’s smudged with smoke, sweat glistens black.

  ‘I think six?’ she says, forcing herself to concentrate. ‘The pilot, Ebba, Marieke, Richard, Sarah, Filip, Aksel… Not Sophie, she’s on the lawn somewhere, she didn’t go up.’ Lois rubs her brow. ‘And I didn’t go – catering, and I thought I should look after Sophie, after last night.’

  ‘That’s seven, not six. Are they all out?’

  She looks around, desperate to see. With the smoke, it’s impossible to tell who is who. ‘Yes, I think so. I haven’t seen Richard or Sarah?’

  She stands, searching. Ebba sits, her head bent over her knees. Lois stands close to her, letting her sister lean on her legs.

  The other figure lying on the lawn is still impossible to make out. Is it Richard?

  A few metres away, Iqbal half carries, half helps someone up the steps, walking up to the house, and looking again, it’s clear it’s Sarah.

  ‘There were seven,’ she hears Jansen saying to someone. ‘Seven on board. We think they’re all out.’

  ‘Ebba.’ She takes her sister’s hand. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Christ, Lois. I feel sick. The shock of it. The falling. I thought it was all over. For a second, I thought I’d be pleased. Just to have everything stop. You know. But God, I wanted to live.’ She closes her eyes. ‘I thought of Dad.’

  Holding her hand, Lois lifts her fingers lightly.

  ‘Did something happen?’ she asks. ‘On board?’

  Ebba turns her face away. ‘I don’t really remember. I’m so tired, Lois.’

  ‘Pilot’s unconscious!’ someone in a uniform shouts, and Lois watches a stretcher go past.

  ‘Miss, can I check you?’ The face of a young man, a boy, looking barely out of school, kneels before Lois. He moves his hand towards her face; she touches her cheek.

  ‘I wasn’t on board,’ she says. ‘I must be covered in smoke.’

  ‘There’s some blood,’ he says.

  ‘It won’t be mine. Please, there are other people to see.’ If anyone is kind to her, she will start crying and she’s not sure she would stop.

  His partner is already sitting with Ebba and Lois makes space for them, standing up and looking round.

  ‘Marieke,’ she says, as softly as she can manage, as softly as she can be heard, against the background noise. She walks towards her as Marieke watches the helicopter burn. She’s wrapped in some kind of foil. The kind they put on you after a marathon.

  ‘Oh, Lois,’ Marieke says, her eyes red and her face hollowed out, aged. ‘Oh, what I have I done?’

  42

  MAARTEN

  Cordons are going up. They’re only just beginning to get a handle on the scene. There are ambulances arriving, even now. The air is acrid with black smoke, biting the back of his throat. Emergency crews flood the scene.

  ‘Maart? It’s all over WhatsApp! Tell me you’re OK!’ Liv answers, her voice strained over the phone.

  ‘I’m fine. I wasn’t on board. I just wanted to let you know. I love you, Liv.’ There is so much he wants to say, but it can wait. There’s noise everywhere.

  Adrika runs towards him. Shock stamps itself on her face.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Adrika says. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I helped – I wasn’t on board.’

  ‘What happened?’ she asks, looking round.

  He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. I was here, halfway down the drive, when I heard it. It was loud.’ He thinks of the smoke, visible in the rear-view mirror. ‘But Marieke was on board. It’s probably j
ust a crash, but we have to question if this is to do with the letters.’ He shakes his head. What had they been thinking, allowing this to go ahead?

  ‘This was on our watch, Adrika. The super will be livid.’

  ‘SOCO are on their way, sir. I just spoke to the Control Centre.’

  ‘The Roman theatre will be the incident scene, as soon as we’re able. We need interviews when those who were on board are up to it. There are crews waiting to assess the helicopter, once the fire is out. Kak, after the letter last night, the threats! The helicopter was checked earlier, but was it tampered with in some way? Was this just an accident? Adrika, we need to get this right. Can you get Sunny to help with the interviews?’

  Maarten sees Filip on the lawn. Sophie sits with him.

  ‘I’ll make a start over there,’ he says to Adrika. ‘Let me know how you get on.’

  ‘Filip?’ Maarten says, as gently as he can manage. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I don’t know what happened. What happened?’ Filip’s voice is hoarse.

  Maarten shakes his head, sits down. ‘We’ll find out. What happened on board?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think Aksel was ill? I don’t know.’

  Maarten raises his eyebrows. ‘He was ill? He was fine before.’

  Filip shakes his head, his eyes dark like soot, his face smeared as much with confusion as with blood.

  ‘He stood up, on board. I think he knocked the pilot off balance. We’re just lucky she brought it down as cleanly as she did. Other than that, I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

  ‘Why did he stand?’

  Filip closes his eyes, tries to visualise it all. It flashes back with frightening clarity. ‘He clutched his stomach and his chest. Maybe a heart attack? Maybe food poisoning?’

  ‘He was so healthy.’ Maarten looks across the lawn. ‘And we all ate the same things…’ Maarten thinks of the bowl of croissants on the table. ‘Did he say anything? As well as standing up, did he say something?’