The Passengers

by John Marrs

  “Ben . . .”

  “Why couldn’t it wait until I was in my eighties to appear, when I’ve lived my life and watched our kid grow up? It wouldn’t matter then. Why is it happening to me now?”

  “It’s not just happening to you, it’s happening to us.”

  “Well, forgive me but you’re not the one with an aneurysm inside your head.”

  It was as if he resented Claire for being healthy. “That’s not fair.”

  “I know it’s not . . . I’m sorry.”

  Three hours had passed since the specialist’s diagnosis at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital. It had followed a battery of tests including MRI scans, CT scans, and angiographies. Finally, a dye had been injected into his arteries, and the shadow it created revealed what the surgeon suspected—an aneurysm buried deep inside Ben’s brain. At seven millimetres, it was on the larger end of the spectrum, and its positioning meant the risk of brain damage or a stroke was too high to operate.

  Now back at home, they remained on the bed, hand in hand, as Claire punished herself for failing to acknowledge the recent changes in her husband. He had begun to forget things that were important to him, like his sister’s birthday and an appointment to meet a client at a nearby hotel. One morning she found him sitting at the breakfast table halfway through a bowl of cereal. She reminded him it was a Saturday and that he didn’t work weekends.

  Claire had blamed each memory lapse on pressures at work and concern over whether the baby would reach full term. It was only when she discovered a handful of empty Nurofen packets hidden in his car’s glove box that he admitted the increasing frequency of his headaches.

  “I need a timeout,” Ben said, and rose to his feet.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the park.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  “Thank you, but I want to be alone.”

  Alone was how Claire felt for the next three months. While husband and wife continued to go about their daily routines, a chasm opened that she couldn’t close by herself. Instead, she filled the cracks where and when they appeared, trying to lift Ben’s spirits even after he’d lost interest in being a husband and a dad-to-be. The dilapidated house they’d taken on a year earlier still required much renovation work, so she took on the project management in the hope it might be completed before the baby arrived.

  Eventually, she could hold her tongue no longer.

  “Do you know where I’ve been all afternoon?” she snapped, storming into their bedroom one day. “No, of course you don’t, because you’re too busy lying here in the dark feeling sorry for yourself. I’ve been at the hospital scared shitless I was losing the baby.”

  Ben sat upright. “What happened?”

  “Oh, now you care. I was cramping at work and started spotting so I took myself to A and E. You would’ve known that if you’d bothered to answer your phone.”

  “Sorry, I must have set it to silent.”

  “No it wasn’t, it’s switched off like it always is because you can’t deal with reality. But while you’ve pressed pause on life, the world is still going on around you. And the paediatrician said it was just a scare, the baby is okay.”

  “Thank God.” He lay back on the bed, relieved. But Claire wasn’t finished.

  “I’ve had enough, Ben. This should be the happiest time of our lives but you’re ruining it for us. I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend the rest of my pregnancy living with the walking dead. It’s time for you to stand up and be my husband instead of moping around and waiting for an artery in your head to burst. If you don’t want to be a part our lives, then pack your stuff and leave now, because I’m running out of strength for the three of us.”

  Claire’s tough talking appeared to switch on a lightbulb inside Ben’s head. It began with a heartfelt apology and developed over the following days into the return of the husband she loved. He put time and effort into their relationship, and together, they allowed themselves to imagine being parents.

  “There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Ben began one evening. He put a plank of wood and a nail gun down on the lawn and invited her to join him on the half-completed decking. The sun began to disappear behind the roofs of the houses ahead. “I’ve been thinking about this, and if it ever reaches a point where I know the inevitable is going to happen, then there’s something I need you to do. Don’t call an ambulance. I want you to get me to the office.”

  Claire raised a brow as if she’d misheard. “You mean the hospital?”

  “No, there’s no point in taking me there. When the aneurysm ruptures, that’s it, game over, there’s nothing they can do. If you take me to work and leave me there, then my medical insurance will pay out.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You and I have life insurance, right? Which is all well and good. But because I have an existing medical condition, it’s capped at £110,000. But at work, all staff are insured for up to £340,000 if they die on work premises, and that includes the gardens, the grounds, or in the car park. I rechecked the policy to make sure. That money will be your and Tate’s future.”

  Claire shook her head. “I can’t just drive you to your office as you’re dying and dump you there! It’s a ridiculous idea.”

  “No, it’s a sensible idea. It’ll make no difference to me, Claire, I’ll be unconscious, dying, or dead anyway. This way I know you two will have security. You can’t afford the mortgage on your own, especially when you go down to statutory maternity pay. Please, just think about it.”

  Claire knew that what he was saying was true, but it sat awkwardly with her. Ben must have sensed it because he didn’t mention it again. Four weeks later, he was dead.

  The morning of the hijack, it was his failure to turn off the alarm clock that made her jab him in the ribs to wake him. He didn’t move. There was no response when she said his name, or pushed him, shook him, rolled him over, or begged him to wake up. Multiple times she ran her fingers across Ben’s body, searching for a heartbeat or a pulse, but he was still. When her fingers cupped his chin and stroked his cheeks, he was cold and his skin was already stiffening. It was too late. She held her protruding stomach, partly for comfort, partly out of fear their baby might vanish just as suddenly as his father.

  As the early-morning light gleamed through the bedroom shutters, Claire reached for her phone and dialled two nines. She hesitated before pressing it a third time, reflecting on Ben’s instructions for when this moment arrived. Then she collapsed into an armchair in the corner of the room, crying and racked with guilt for even considering it.

  Through the thick mist of her grief, she knew that Ben was right. The extra life insurance money would pay for the completion of the house renovations, pay off their mortgage, and place less pressure on her to hurry back to work after Tate’s birth. All that needed to be done was to transport Ben to his office’s car park and wait for his body to be discovered.

  Pulling herself together, she dressed and chose something appropriate for Ben to wear for a working day. Her tears splashed upon his chest as she removed his T-shirt and shorts and put him in a pair of khaki-coloured chinos and a crisp white shirt. She paused to take him in one last time and couldn’t help but resent him. “You lied,” she whispered. “You told me that thing in your head wasn’t going to beat you.”

  Moving Ben to the car was a challenge as he was a bulky man. She dragged him by the arms from the bed and to the floor, then slowly across the landing and down the staircase, pausing every so often so as not to strain herself or hurt the baby. She texted the car to reverse into the garage, then pressed the tailgate button so it lowered to ground level. And with one final heave, she pushed Ben onto it. As it lifted and scooped him into the boot before shutting, she decided she would figure out how to move him into the passenger seat later.

  Claire was exhausted and emotio
nal, but her brain ran through what needed to be done next. She dictated notes into her phone so that she wouldn’t forget—programme the car for Ben’s office, book an Uber using a guest account, go to work, start texting Ben mid-morning. Then when she told his employers she was worried that she hadn’t heard from her husband but that her app was confirming his vehicle was parked at work, they would likely investigate and Ben would be discovered.

  Claire acted out the next few moments like she would any other day so as not to arouse suspicion. She left the house through the front door, set the alarm, waved to her neighbour Sundraj, and then climbed inside the car before it pulled away and along the road.

  Only the Hacker had a different plan for Claire. Now, two hours later, it was unlikely that by the end of the morning, Ben’s would be the only body in the car.

  At least we’ll all be together when it happens, she thought as she stroked her stomach again.

  Without warning, there felt like a popping sensation inside her followed by a slow trickle of liquid down her leg. Claire assumed the baby had been resting on her bladder and putting pressure on it. But she didn’t feel the urge to urinate. Then, to her horror, she understood what had happened. Her waters had broken, two months early.

  The baby was on its way.

  CHAPTER 44

  Matthew returned from the fridge in the corner of the room, carrying five bottles of water on a wooden tray. He placed them on the tabletop in front of each juror, beginning with Libby. She smiled her thank-you.

  “I could do with something a lot stronger than this,” said Muriel, unscrewing the cap and pouring it into a tall glass.

  “I assumed you were teetotal,” said Fiona.

  “Why? Because I have a faith?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Sending four people to their graves would be enough to turn the pope to drink.”

  Fiona comforted her colleague with a pat on the arm.

  Meanwhile, Libby diverted her attention towards the wall clock, acutely aware of how time was passing more swiftly now that they were living under the shadow of a deadline. She focused solely on the declining seconds just to ensure the Hacker hadn’t altered the speed to pile more pressure upon them. Underneath it, Cadman and his team busied themselves with a never-ending stream of data but remained respectfully silent as the jurors debated each Passenger.

  A glimpse of sunlight streaming through the tall, arched windows distracted her. Libby realised it was the first time that morning she had given thought to what would happen when this ordeal was over. She was certain to leave the room a very different woman to the one who arrived. All eight Passengers’ faces would join her brother Nicky in the roll-call of ghosts that haunted her.

  Fiona cleared her throat with an exaggerated cough to gain the room’s attention and picked up her tablet. “Shall we move on to Sofia Bradbury?” she asked. Seconds later, the main screen cut to a dark, blurred silhouette. “Where is she?”

  “I think she’s covered her camera with something,” said Matthew, puzzled. “She’s hiding.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” said Fiona. “She’s spent her life craving attention, and now, when she has the biggest audience of her career, she can’t face them.”

  “Do you think she can hear us?” asked Muriel.

  “I have no doubt the Hacker will have given her no choice but to,” Matthew replied.

  “I honestly don’t know what to say about her,” continued Fiona. “It’s not often that words fail me, but on this occasion, I am truly lost.”

  “If what the Hacker said is true—and we only have his word that it is—how could she cover up what her husband did?” asked Muriel.

  “Unless she actively participated in it,” said Fiona. “Perhaps they did it together, a shared recreation of sorts. I’ve represented a few couples over the years who have been accused of similar crimes.”

  “How can you defend people like that when you have a daughter of your own?”

  “Innocent until proven guilty.”

  Jack laughed. “Only when it suits you. Ten minutes ago you were ready to throw Miss Arden to the wolves.”

  “Even if Sofia was only vaguely aware of what he was doing, she wouldn’t need to physically harm a child to be complicit,” added Fiona. “Hiding him and paying off his victims makes her as guilty as he is in the eyes of the law and the public.”

  “Why did she elect to be sterilised?” asked Muriel.

  “The Hacker suggested it was because she didn’t want to have children with him,” added Matthew. “Perhaps she feared what he might do to them.”

  “That would indicate she isn’t all evil, that perhaps she has some kind of maternal instinct?”

  “Only when it comes to her own flesh and blood. But what about other people’s kids? By not reporting her husband and stopping him from what he was doing, it shows she couldn’t care less about them.”

  “Then why did she put so much time into raising money for so many children’s charities?” asked Matthew.

  “She’s hiding in plain sight,” continued Fiona. “Remember what we learned about Jimmy Savile after he died all those years ago? He did exactly the same thing. Spent his life in the public eye raising millions for charity, and all the while he was abusing children right under our very noses. I’m not saying Sofia is the same, but you cannot deny the similarities.”

  Muriel let out a sigh. “The public can forgive many a celebrity’s transgression, but never child molestation. I hate to say this, but perhaps for Sofia’s sake, she’d be better off dead.”

  Each of the jurors returned to Sofia’s silhouette.

  “Do we even need to vote on this?” asked Fiona.

  The others shook their heads and looked away from the screen.

  “Then let us move on to the next Passenger.”

  CHAPTER 45

  SOFIA BRADBURY

  Sofia hurled her remote control at the dashboard when it failed to turn off the volume. She ignored the sharp, jabbing pains running up her spine as she bent forward, moving quickly towards the console, pushing at random buttons, desperately trying to take back control. She had spent her career wanting to be talked about and craving attention. But not anymore. Now her only desire was to hide from the world and spend her final moments in privacy, just her and her dog.

  Listening to strangers as they pored over the secrets she had kept hidden for forty years was Sofia’s worst nightmare. But now they were exposed, and there was no coming back from what everyone knew about her. She would rather her car explode into a million tiny pieces than face another living soul. She removed her hearing aids from her ears and threw them to the floor.

  Sofia unwound a brightly coloured Hermès scarf from her neck, one that she’d purchased because it reminded her of the colours of a sunset she’d once seen on a film set in Morocco. She placed her handbag over the dashboard and wedged one part of the scarf under it, allowing the other half to dangle over the camera lens. Suddenly, she realised she would never see a sunset or film set again.

  “I wish people were like you,” she whispered to Oscar, scratching behind his ear. He cocked his head to one side for her fingers to go deeper. “I wish I could have found someone who was as devoted to me as you are. Then perhaps everything might be different. Perhaps I’d have made better choices. Perhaps you and I wouldn’t be sitting where we are now.”

  Sofia poured herself another brandy and drank half immediately, washing it down with two more painkillers. She had been teetotal until she met Patrick; she blamed him for turning her to drink.

  Amongst the bad choices Sofia had made, not having a family of her own had been a rare wise one. She’d had little interest in starting a family until her sister Peggy fell pregnant with Robbie, followed two years later by Paige. She’d seen other actresses in her peer group pass on potentially career-defining roles to start families. Most of
them later failed to reignite their star power once they were ready to return to work. Sofia had unashamedly soaked up their lost parts like a sponge. And they had earned her accolades and awards and made her the highest-paid British actress of the 1970s.

  However, her priorities shifted soon after being introduced to charismatic businessman Patrick Swanson. The way he carried himself reminded her of the Hollywood movie stars she swooned over as a girl. He possessed Cary Grant’s elegance and urbanity, James Stewart’s humour, and Clark Gable’s masculinity, all rolled into one handsome package.

  For Sofia, thirty-eight and with four divorces to her name, finding a fifth husband was the last thing on her mind. But she couldn’t say no to the twinkle in those deep blue eyes of Patrick’s when he invited her for dinner. After a whirlwind romance, she threw caution to the wind, and two months after meeting, she answered yes to his marriage proposal. Offstage, she was the most content she had ever been.

  Her failed marriage tally had made Sofia the butt of many a joke, from tabloid newspapers to stand-up comedians. On the surface, she’d laughed it off, but deep down, she detested being a laughing stock. It made her more determined than she had ever been to make this relationship work, no matter what. She’d taken onboard criticisms levelled at her by past partners and made a conscious effort not to emasculate Patrick. So theirs would be an equal partnership. She added his name to the deeds of her properties in Richmond and Buckinghamshire; her bank accounts became joint along with her many investments.

  The emotional security he offered gave Sofia the confidence to consider motherhood. It hadn’t been a role she’d ever felt the urge to play, least of all with any of her ex-husbands. But Patrick was different. Each time Paige and Robbie arrived for a sleepover, he lavished them with attention as though they were his own. And as she watched them play together for hours at a time, her guilt arose for denying him the opportunity to father children of his own. Eventually, when Patrick visited her at work on an American TV miniseries, she broached the subject as they strolled along Santa Monica’s beach and towards their hotel.