“Sorry!” Sofia gave her another hard shove and ran to the door. She sped down the steps after the children.
At the bottom, they had stopped to wait for her. They looked scared and confused, years younger now.
“Come with me,” she said. Sofia ran towards the gate she’d come through.
“Hey!” A voice came from behind. “Where are you going?”
A bus stood on the tarmac a hundred metres from the bottom of the slide. People crashed onto it, shoving their way in. Other children piled on with them. One of them called out to Sofia’s group. A name: Elena.
The girl she’d grabbed last, one of the ones not on the list, called back. She broke away from Sofia’s group and ran towards the bus. She leaped onto it just as the doors closed. She stared back through the glass, her eyes on Sofia.
Sofia had seven children now. She hoped that would be enough for Titi. He wanted to give them a new life too, like he had her. That poor girl had missed her chance.
“Come with me,” she said. She ran for the gate. Up ahead, Adam held the wire aside as the other men led a group of women through. Sofia’s heart lurched to see her sister in the middle of them.
“Andreea!” Sofia picked up pace. They were rescuing her sister, too. Bringing them together.
Energised by joy and relief, Sofia ran as fast as she could. At the gate, she stopped to let the kids through. Adam was already through, which made her the last.
As she turned sideways to squeeze through the gap, her trouser leg snagged on the wire. She tugged. The children were in the van she’d arrived in, and the engine was running. The other van had gone, Andreea on it. She couldn’t be left behind.
She grabbed her trouser leg and tore at the fabric. Her leg came through.
Sofia let out a cry and ran to the van, sliding into a seat just as it sped along the narrow road it had come in by.
Chapter Twelve
Zoe sat in the back of a fire service car, being driven out onto the runway. It was fully dark now, the January night closing in. Behind her, the lights of the airport building blazed. Up ahead, planes were dotted across the tarmac, abandoned like she was driving across some kind of aeroplane graveyard.
The fire had been extinguished and smoke rose up, lighter than the night sky behind it.
“I still don’t get why you were called out,” she said to Ian. “And how you got here so quickly.”
He shrugged. “M6 brings me straight here from Castle Vale. I was shopping at the Fort with Alison and the kids.”
“So you’ve abandoned them there?”
“Of course not. I got them an Uber.”
“How are your kids?”
“Getting better. Slowly. I’d rather not talk about it.”
Ian’s kids – Maddy, aged twelve, and Ollie, aged four – had been abducted the previous October. Ian had been brought onto her team after they’d been found. Brought wasn’t really the right word. Parachuted in was closer. Professional Standards wanted him in Force CID, gathering evidence against David Randle. They suspected Ian was bent himself, which made him the perfect poacher turned gamekeeper.
“OK,” she said. “The brief I’ve been given by the Super is to do everything we can to preserve forensics. If this is a terror attack, then FSI will need everything they can get to find out how it happened and who’s responsible.”
“Surely someone’ll claim it.”
“You know it doesn’t work like that anymore.”
“Or it could be a lone nutter. Take explosives onto a plane, kill yourself in the process, get your seventy-two virgins in the afterlife.”
“First off, we don’t know it’s Islamist terrorists. Secondly, getting explosives onto a plane as a passenger isn’t exactly easy.”
“If it’s made of plastic, won’t trigger the detectors.”
“It won’t get past the dogs.”
“Yeah.” Ian screwed up his nose. Zoe eyed the man driving the car. He was in plain clothes, not a firefighter. But not senior. Clive Junger, who she’d correctly identified as the man in charge back at the ops room, had summoned him and told him to escort her.
“You’re right,” she told Ian.
“I am?”
“Whatever evidence might have been on that plane, it’ll have been destroyed. We need to focus on the airport.”
“But the plane just landed. It hadn’t come into contact with anyone here as far as we know.”
She sighed. “That means it’s the airport at the other end. Where did that plane come from?”
“Karachi, ma’am,” said the driver.
“That doesn’t help.” The plane would have taken off hours ago. If someone had got explosives onto the plane there, maybe by infiltrating the baggage handlers, they’d be long gone.
“We’re never going to get anything,” she said. “It’s useless.”
“This is bigger than you and me,” Ian pointed out. “It’s an international incident.”
“Still. We’re here and we’ve been given a job to do.”
The car stopped a good distance from the plane.
“Don’t go too close, ma’am,” said the driver. “Authorised fire service personnel only.”
So he was more than just the driver. He’d been sent here to stop her interfering. “I understand.”
She opened the door and swung her legs out, not ready for the sharp smell of burning aeroplane. She was overcome by the feeling that Randle had sent her out here to get her out of the way.
Chapter Thirteen
The van was full of women and smelled of sweat and perfume. Andreea looked out into the night, hoping she was being taken to Sofia. She had no idea who these other women were. She’d seen them on the plane sitting near her, none of them talking to each other. It was unusual to see so many single women travelling like that. But she’d been lost in anxiety and guilt.
Her sister had a boyfriend. He was a big deal, according to Sofia. Someone who could make things happen. He had a job lined up for Andreea, Sofia had told her. What kind of job, she hadn’t said. But something that paid well.
Andreea wondered why the boyfriend hadn’t found a job for Sofia. At home, she’d worked in a coffee shop in Bucharest, the kind of place only tourists and businessmen could afford to drink at. He’d taken her away from that, promising a new life and riches she could only dream of.
Andreea wasn’t so sure. If something’s too good to be true, then it’s probably a lie, was her motto. But anything had to be better than life at home. Stuck in that rundown farmhouse with her ageing mum and sick dad, she’d had enough of fetching and carrying, of being at her parents’ command.
She’d told them this was a holiday, a chance to see Sofia. They knew as well as she did that she had no plans to come home, but no one was saying it.
The van slowed. It was surrounded by cars, headlights bright. The road was wide, with occasional groups of shops. Most of the shops were open, even after dusk. Some of them looked luxurious. The shops were interspersed with restaurants, mainly Indian, some selling pizza or Chinese food. Andreea wondered if English people ever ate English food.
They turned onto a narrower street that was choked with traffic. The men in the front of the van were talking between themselves. One of them, the one who’d pulled her off the plane, looked pissed off. He’d looked pissed off from the moment she’d first seen him. She wondered if any of the men were Sofia’s boyfriend.
A woman in the row in front turned to her. “Do you know where we’re going?” she asked in Romanian. Her accent was heavy, rural. Andreea shrugged.
“They’re taking us to a hotel,” another woman, skinny with lank hair, said.
The first woman rubbed her hands together. “It’s cold here.”
“Should have brought a coat,” the skinny woman told her.
“Shut up back there!” The angry-looking man turned to them. “We’re trying to concentrate.”
Andreea’s English wasn’t good but she knew enough to tell that thi
s man wasn’t happy to be here. She wanted to ask where Sofia was. But she wouldn’t get a sensible answer out of any of them, she knew. And she wasn’t about to let them humiliate her.
Streetlights reflected off puddles in the road. The cars coming the other way moved slowly past them, drivers intent on the road ahead. Bucharest’s roads would be busy at this time on a Saturday night, but not as busy as this.
The man driving the van muttered something to the angry man, who slapped him around the ear. Andreea shook her head. She’d seen plenty of that kind of thing: the way her dad treated her mum, for starters. Until he’d become too ill to keep up with her.
The driver stopped the van. He shunted it back and forth until it was on the other side of the road, facing back the way they’d come. They started to move.
“Where do we go?” Andreea asked.
“You’ll find out,” the angry man said. He turned back to the third man. They spoke to each other, shaking their heads. The driver looked nervous.
Why were they going back to the airport?
She squeezed past the gap between the seats and jabbed a finger into the angry man’s back. He turned to her.
“Get back in your seat, for fuck’s sake. You’ll get us all arrested.”
“Where do you take us? Where is Sofia? My sister?”
“You what?”
“My sister. Where is she?”
A snort. “Don’t worry about that, darling. You’ll see your sister soon enough.” He gave her a shove in the chest. “Now sit the fuck back down.”
Andreea curled her lip at him. Men like him didn’t scare her. She retreated into the back of the van, her eyes not leaving his as she took her seat and fastened her seatbelt.
Chapter Fourteen
“This is useless,” Zoe said. She stared across the tarmac at the smouldering plane, Ian beside her. “I have no idea why we’re here.”
“Preserve evidence,” Ian said.
She turned to him. “I know that. But we can’t bloody well do anything with the firefighters not letting us on the plane.”
He shrugged. “Maybe we just wait.”
“Wait.”
Zoe didn’t like waiting. She grabbed her phone, tempted to call Randle and confront him.
Firefighters had started entering the plane now, searching for survivors or, more likely, bodies. No one had come out alive yet. The fuselage had a jagged hole where the explosion had hit, like something had taken a bite out of it. The tail had sheared off and was two hundred metres behind the rest of the plane along the taxiway. The plane was stained with scorch marks and soot, the airline’s logo obscured.
The firefighters emerged with a stretcher. They took it to a patch of ground that had been cordoned off in front of the plane and laid what looked like a body on the ground.
“Come on,” Zoe said. “If we can’t get onto the plane, the only forensics we’ve got is going to be those bodies.”
Ian shivered and followed her.
A woman was crouched over the body.
“Thank God for that,” said Zoe. She picked up pace. “Dr Adebayo.”
The woman stood up, her hands in the small of her back. She was tall and willowy, with piercing eyes. She grimaced as she stretched then smiled at Zoe. “DI Finch. I didn’t know you were here.”
Adana Adebayo was Zoe’s favourite pathologist. Direct and abrasive, but damn good at her job.
“I’m working on preservation of forensic evidence,” Zoe said. “You’re the lead pathologist?”
“For now. There are going to be so many victims that I imagine this’ll be taken out of my hands.”
“Do you have an ID for this body?”
They looked down at the body. It was a woman, her face covered in blood. A deep gash ran round the side of her head and her arm had been all but torn off.
“Give me a minute, Inspector,” the pathologist said. “I’m not Superwoman.”
Ian made a guttural sound. Zoe gave him a warning look.
Two more men approached with a second body: a man this time. They laid him next to the first, with a gap of half a metre. Adana looked at the man, her mouth tight. “Nothing prepares you for a job like this.”
“No.” Zoe stepped forward. “Do we have a suspect? A bomber?”
“How should I know?”
“Surely they’re logging where on the plane people are being found?”
“That’s what I hope they’re doing. Maybe you should check.”
Zoe turned to Ian. “You stay here. Flag me down if there’s anything interesting.”
“OK.”
Zoe ran to the metal steps that had been wheeled into position next to the plane.
“Who’s in charge of bringing victims off the plane?”
“I am,” said a tall man in protective gear. “Who are you?”
Zoe raised her ID. “DI Finch, Bronze Command. I need you to chart where each survivor or victim is being found. It would be better if you’d let me and my colleagues on board.”
“No chance,” he said. “It’s not safe for anyone other than the fire crews.”
“We need to send a forensics team in there,” she said. “If the explosion started inside the plane…”
“It didn’t.”
“No?”
“It was near the wheel housing. Rear right hand side. You won’t find a suicide bomber on this plane, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“So how did it happen?”
“The airline investigator will be working on that.”
“We don’t believe this is a malfunction. We believe it’s a deliberate attack.”
“On what grounds?”
“This was the second explosion in the city in less than an hour.”
“Who’s to say they’re linked?”
She sighed. “West Midlands Police do. That good enough for you?”
He grunted. “You’ll have to speak to Clive Junger. He’s in charge of the fire service response. I can’t authorise any police ingress on that plane.”
“I’ve already spoken to him. As Bronze Command I outrank him.”
“You aren’t my boss. Sorry.”
She dug her fingernail into her palm. “What’s your name?”
He straightened. Behind him, another body was being brought off the plane. “Sam Hetherton. Incident Response Manager for West Midlands Fire Service.”
“Well, Sam Hetherton, have you received major incident training?”
“Of course I have.”
“Well in that case you know that Bronze Command outranks your bosses, no matter how loyal to them you might be.”
“You’re a mardy bitch, aren’t you?”
“I—” Zoe stopped herself. Letting this man rile her would get her nowhere. “Look, just let us take a look.”
“They’re still looking for survivors. No chance you’re getting in the way.”
“Wait.”
Zoe walked back to Ian, her body fired up with anger. The bodies were accumulating on the tarmac, a dozen of them now. Adana moved between them, making notes on an iPad. Ian was crouched over one of the bodies.
“What’s up?” Zoe asked him. “Seen something?”
He stood up quickly, rubbing his hands together. “No. It’s… it’s tragic, is what it is.”
She nodded. “I don’t imagine any of these bodies will provide us with evidence. It’ll be on the plane. But right now, they’re not letting us near it.”
Ian opened his mouth to speak but she put a hand up to shush him and took out her phone.
“Gold Command.”
“Sir, it’s DI Finch.”
“You’re supposed to use the radio. Find a grunt who’ll give you access.”
“I need your authorisation to go onto the plane.”
“They aren’t letting you?”
“Some jobsworth from the fire service is saying that he won’t let me and Ian on until Clive Junger gives the all-clear.”
“Ian’s with you?”
She glanced at Ian, who raised his eyebrows in acknowledgment.
“Sir?” Zoe said.
Ian had his phone out. “Forensics are onsite,” he said, moving his thumb across the screen. Zoe nodded.
“Wait a moment,” Randle said. “Junger’s right here. He wants to know who you’ve been talking to.”
“Sam Hetherton. Says he’s Incident Response Manager.”
A pause. “Junger’s been in contact with him. Looks like they’re bringing off survivors. You know we can’t obstruct that.”
“Sir, you told me to preserve the scene.”
“Their work takes priority. You don’t need me to tell you that, do you?”
“No, sir.”
“Right. Get back here, you can brief the forensics guys.”
“Sir.”
She turned to Ian. “Looks like we’ve wasted our time.”
He shrugged and looked back down at the bodies. He turned towards the airport building and she followed.
Chapter Fifteen
Sofia sat amongst the children, ignoring the way they kept looking at her as if she knew what was happening. She had no idea who they were, why their names had been added to that list. Except for two of them, who hadn’t been on the list. Should she have taken them? What about the one who’d run to the bus?
Maybe their parents were back on that plane or at the airport, looking for them? She couldn’t imagine what that would be like.
She pictured Andreea, being led away from the plane. She’d gone through the same gate as Sofia, been led into the first van. Sofia could only hope the two vans were heading to the same place.
A girl sitting behind Sofia began to cry. Sofia turned to her.
“Hey, it’s OK. You’re safe now. We’re going to take you somewhere nice where you can get some food. Maybe there’ll be chocolate.”
The girl stared back at her. She continued crying.
“Did you have anyone with you on the plane?” Sofia asked.
The girl ignored the question. Sofia turned to the two boys sitting next to her. They were huddled together, shivering. They didn’t have coats, just the jeans and t-shirts they’d been wearing on the plane. She wondered where their luggage was.
Deadly Terror (Detective Zoe Finch Book 4) Page 5