See No Evil

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘How is he?’ he asked as she came into the small relatives’ waiting room.

  Her face was even paler than usual and her dark hair fell in bedraggled curls over her red-rimmed eyes. As she sat in a ball in the chair next to him, small and hunched up, she was shaking. ‘Oh, Alex. He’s still unconscious. They’ve stitched up the wound, but they think he’s fractured his skull.’

  ‘Is he breathing OK?’

  ‘Yes. It’s just they don’t know how long he will be under. And when he comes round whether there will be any … damage. You know. Permanent damage.’ She began to sob, and leaned into Calder who put his arm round her and squeezed gently. ‘He looks so pale. And his head … they had to shave some hair off. It’s all bandaged now. I asked them when he’ll wake up and they wouldn’t answer.’

  Calder’s face tightened as he stared blindly ahead. Kim seemed to be trying to bury herself into his chest. ‘What if he doesn’t wake up, Alex?’ She looked up at him. ‘What if he doesn’t wake up?’

  ‘He’ll wake up.’

  For a second there was a glimmer of confidence in her eyes and then she sat up, pushing him away. ‘You don’t know that. You’re just saying that to make me feel better, like you did with the aeroplane.’

  Calder shrugged helplessly. ‘We have to believe he’ll wake up.’

  ‘You said it was perfectly safe. I was worried that the plane was so old, but you said it didn’t matter.’ A tear slipped its way into the corner of her mouth and she sniffed. ‘You always did take bloody idiotic risks. Like that time you crawled over the roof of South Court to get into the college ball. You were pissed out of your head and I was convinced you were going to kill yourself. You thought it was funny, but it was just so stupid.’

  Calder knew he couldn’t run from this. ‘I know what I said, Kim. And it should have been safe, but it wasn’t. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.’

  Kim glared at him for a couple of seconds. And then she bit her lip. ‘What happened? No one here is absolutely sure. I can’t make sense of it.’

  Calder gave her an account of the engine fire and the landing on the sandbar.

  ‘What do you think caused it?’

  ‘I don’t know, but my first guess is a cracked cylinder.’

  ‘Don’t they check for that kind of thing? The maintenance people? You said the plane was thoroughly checked.’

  ‘It was. I had another look at the logs just now. All the maintenance was up to date and signed off. I don’t think there’s anything else anyone could have done. Engine fires are nasty things, but they are rare. This is the first one I’ve experienced.’

  ‘So we just have to accept it? Will there be some kind of investigation?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The AAIB, that’s the Air Accident Investigation Board, will get involved. They’re very thorough. They’ll look through all the records, they’ll probably drag the aeroplane out of the water and examine it. They’ll find the cause, they nearly always do.’

  ‘Are you worried?’

  ‘About an investigation? No. I don’t think I did anything wrong. I’m worried about Todd.’

  Kim gave him a weak smile. She clung on to his arm and more tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.

  Had he been at fault? Should he have ditched? No, Todd could just as easily have hit his head on impact with the water, and it would have been hard to fish him out. Flying aeroplanes, especially old aeroplanes, was inherently dangerous. He should have admitted as much to Kim. She had trusted him, and because she had, Todd had.

  ‘Will the police be involved?’

  Calder glanced at her. Pensive traces of a new worry furrowed her brow. ‘Probably,’ he replied.

  ‘Is there any way that someone could have caused this?’

  ‘You mean deliberately?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I don’t think so. Unless they tampered with the engine somehow. Weakened the cylinder. But it’s pretty unlikely.’ Calder looked at Kim. ‘Isn’t it?’

  Kim bit her lip. ‘Yes, I’m sure it is. It’s just that Todd has been asking all these questions about Martha’s death and no one else has shown any interest. That seems strange to me. His whole family seems strange. It’s almost as if they didn’t want him asking those questions.’

  ‘You don’t think …’

  ‘I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘Should you talk to the police about this?’

  ‘God, no.’ Kim’s voice was firm. ‘Todd would hate me to do that. I’m probably just imagining things. But see if you can get them to check that there was nothing funny going on, or at least bear it in mind.’

  ‘I will,’ said Calder thoughtfully. He considered her question. Sabotage was technically possible. ‘Do you really think Todd’s family would do something like that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kim said. ‘I don’t really trust them. I don’t trust Edwin – that’s Todd’s half-brother – at all. And Cornelius? Cornelius has been trying to get his claws into Todd all his life, and Cornelius usually gets what he wants. We had a major row with him a few days ago about whether Todd should go back to Zyl News. We walked out of his house and stayed in a hotel.’ She raised her wide grey eyes to Calder. ‘Would you go and see Benton Davis? Please? Ask him if he knows why Martha was killed.’

  Calder nodded. ‘All right.’ His previous reluctance seemed churlish now. After what had happened that afternoon, he would do anything for Kim.

  ‘Thanks.’ She smiled quickly. Then she groaned. ‘Oh, God. I should tell Cornelius what’s happened.’

  ‘Do you want me to do it?’

  ‘Would you? Here, I’ll give you the number.’ Kim pulled out a PDA and tapped its screen. ‘There. It’s the London one.’

  Calder pulled out his phone and dialled.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Can I speak to Mr van Zyl?’

  ‘This is Edwin van Zyl.’ The voice was South African, curt, precise. And he pronounced his name ‘fan Sail’, as opposed to ‘van Zill’, the way that the name was usually pronounced in England and America.

  ‘Can I speak to Cornelius?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘My name’s Alex Calder. It’s about Todd.’

  ‘You can speak to me. I’m his brother, man.’

  Calder gave up his attempt to get to the father. ‘I’m with Kim. We’re in a hospital in Norfolk. He’s had an accident.’

  ‘One moment.’

  A few seconds later another voice came on the phone. Stronger, more authoritative. ‘What happened?’

  Calder gave a thirty-second description of the afternoon’s events.

  ‘I’ll come up there right now,’ the voice said.

  It took him just over two hours. Calder stayed with Kim, sitting next to Todd, watching him lie amongst the tubes and machines, still. A nurse informed them of Cornelius’s arrival, and they went out to meet him. Calder was impressed by the man’s size and aura of determination. He had Todd’s square jaw, but he looked harder, stronger, tougher than his son. He also looked very worried. As soon as he saw Kim he held out his arms. Kim hesitated and then let herself be enveloped by that large embrace.

  He held her for several seconds and then glanced at Calder. ‘You the pilot?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Was it your fault?’

  ‘No.’

  Cornelius’s blue eyes stared hard at Calder. Calder held his gaze. He was sensitive to Cornelius’s concern, but he wasn’t going to be intimidated by the man.

  Kim pushed away from Cornelius’s chest, her eyes igniting with anger. ‘Alex has told me in detail what happened and it’s quite clear that he did nothing wrong. In fact, he saved Todd’s life.’

  Cornelius ignored her. ‘Because if I find you were responsible for my son’s injuries, you will pay. You will pay dearly.’

  The next day was busy. Kim had stayed the night at Calder’s cottage but spent most of the time at the hospital. There was no change in Todd’s condition. The brain scan sho
wed no signs of permanent damage, apart from probable memory loss, but the doctors couldn’t be sure. They also had no idea how long he would be unconscious. They were keeping him on a ventilator, giving him drugs to try to control the swelling in his brain. Kim just sat there and watched her husband.

  Cornelius waited with her in the hospital for a couple of hours the next morning, but then he returned to London, extracting a promise from Kim to let him know if there was any change to Todd’s condition, one way or the other. He grilled Calder for twenty minutes on exactly what had happened, but seemed satisfied with his responses. Calder was under no illusions that if the accident report showed that someone had blundered, be it himself as pilot, or Colin, the maintenance engineer at the airfield, or a fitter at the specialist firm in Lithuania which had undertaken the last major overhaul on the engine, that person would pay.

  The air accident investigators were soon on the scene. They were working on salvaging the Yak and they had lots of questions for Calder. Calder also talked through everything with his partner, Jerry Tyrell, who was the chief flying instructor at the flying school. Jerry’s opinion was that Calder had done everything correctly in very difficult circumstances. Calder was pleased and relieved to hear this: Jerry had never shrunk from criticizing Calder whenever he had caught him doing something that didn’t comply with his own strict interpretation of safety procedures.

  A uniformed police constable came to ask questions, but this seemed more of a formality. Feeling slightly foolish, Calder did as he had promised, and asked the policeman to let him know if he came across anything that suggested the accident was a result of sabotage. This perked the constable’s interest, but faithful to his promise to Kim, Calder denied that he had any concrete reason to think that someone might have wanted to kill him or Todd.

  He had a close look over the patch of grass between a Warrior and a Seneca where the Yak had been parked, and asked around to see if anyone had seen anything suspicious at the airfield the day, or more especially the night, before the accident. Jerry and Angie, who manned the radio, had left at about eight o’clock the evening before. Angie thought she had seen a lone man walking along the footpath by the poplars on the far side of the airfield as she was locking up, but there was nothing unusual about that. Otherwise all had been quiet. The aerodrome was really not much more than a field; someone could easily have climbed over a fence in the middle of the night and tampered with the Yak’s engine without anyone noticing. But the more Calder considered it the less likely he thought that was. The strain of worrying about her husband was causing Kim to lose her sense of proportion.

  Amongst all the activity he did allow himself one quick diversion. When he switched on his computer in his office he couldn’t resist checking the Spreadfinex web page. The US bond markets had tumbled over the previous twenty-four hours and he was now sitting on a £5,000 loss. He thought for a moment, clicked a couple of buttons and doubled his bet at the lower price.

  He picked up Kim late that evening from the hospital and drove her home. She looked worn out, even though she had done nothing but sit and watch her husband all day.

  Calder’s house was an old cottage nestling at the edge of a salt marsh about a mile from the village of Hanham Staithe. It was dusk as they arrived and the rooks were kicking up a fuss in the trees behind the house. It was clear Kim had eaten very little all day, so Calder warmed up some soup and threw together a salad.

  ‘Glass of wine?’ he asked.

  ‘God, yes please,’ Kim replied. ‘Suddenly that’s exactly what I want.’

  Calder opened a bottle, poured two glasses and placed them on the solid oak kitchen table. ‘Back tomorrow morning?’

  Kim nodded. ‘And the next morning, and the one after that.’ She was still pale and shaken but there was no mistaking the determination in her voice.

  ‘They still have no idea how long it’s going to take?’

  ‘No. It could be days, weeks, months. Half the time I’m relieved he’s not getting any worse. But I’m also scared what he’ll be like when he does come round. Whether he’ll remember who he is, who I am. I sit there looking at him and all kinds of wild thoughts go through my head.’

  ‘We have to take it one step at a time,’ Calder said. ‘We know he’s alive, and it looks like he’s going to stay that way. They didn’t spot any serious damage on the scan, did they?’

  ‘There’s damage,’ Kim sighed. ‘They really won’t know how bad it is until he wakes up. Did you talk to the police and the accident investigators?’

  Calder told her about his various interviews and the fact that no one had seen anything suspicious.

  ‘It still worries me,’ Kim said. ‘The more I think about it the more worried I become.’

  ‘It must have been an accident,’ Calder insisted.

  Kim sipped her wine thoughtfully. A curl of dark hair fell over her face and she let it rest there for a few moments before pushing it out of her eyes. The gloom gathered around the kitchen as the evening light over the marshes outside slipped away. The rooks were settling themselves. ‘I suppose you’re right. But I would still be very grateful if you could talk to this man Benton Davis. Todd was sure there was something weird about Martha’s death, and he’s our best bet for finding out what.’

  ‘I’ll go down to London to see him as soon as I can get away. But first you must tell me some more about Todd’s mother. The police claimed she was killed by guerrillas?’

  ‘That’s right. They said it was a random attack by African National Congress guerrillas from over the border in Mozambique, and the family accepted that. Obviously it was a horrible time for Todd; you saw how it still eats him up. Todd says Cornelius was devastated. He moved the family from South Africa to Philadelphia soon afterwards, he closed the Cape Daily Mail, sold his other South African newspapers and bought the Herald. Four years later he got married again, to Jessica Montgomery. You might have seen her in the gossip columns.’ Kim examined Calder doubtfully. ‘Or then again you might not.’

  ‘I think I’ve seen a photo of the two of them somewhere,’ said Calder. ‘Was Todd suspicious at the time about his mother’s death?’

  ‘Not then. There was a lot of random violence in South Africa, much of it blamed on the ANC. In fact, random violence seems to define the place.’ Kim’s voice was bitter. ‘The only thing that bothered him was when his grandmother, Martha’s mother, came to South Africa shortly after the murder. She asked lots of questions that Cornelius wouldn’t answer. After the initial grief, the tension between the two of them increased. Todd hadn’t heard then what those questions were, but he did have a conversation with her in 1997 when he went to visit her in Minnesota. She lived on the shore of a lake just outside Minneapolis. I went there myself once, right after we were married. It’s an absolutely gorgeous place. Anyway, Todd’s grandmother said that she had been in touch with Cornelius to suggest he bring a complaint to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Have you heard of that?’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘It was set up by the new constitution in South Africa to examine abuses during the apartheid regime. People could come to the Commission to tell them about torture or murder committed by whites or blacks, and the TRC would investigate. The perpetrators would be given amnesty if they promised to tell the truth. It looked at thousands of cases, some of them with high-profile victims, most of them just ordinary people. Todd’s grandmother thought this would be the perfect way to find out what had happened to Martha. But Cornelius refused.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  ‘Todd asked him. Cornelius said it would just bring back all the distress surrounding Martha’s death and it was better to leave it. Todd and Cornelius had a major row about it, and Todd threatened to go down to South Africa himself to talk to the Commission, but in the end Cornelius persuaded him not to. Given Cornelius’s position, Todd’s testimony would cause a major stir in the press and Cornelius felt that would be unfair on those members of the family who wanted t
o keep their privacy. Besides which, Todd himself had very little to say without the support of Cornelius. So, reluctantly, he let it drop.

  ‘Then last Easter Todd’s grandmother died. His grandfather had died shortly after Martha. He had had cancer and her death hadn’t helped him fight it. Martha’s brother had been killed in a car accident when he was in his twenties, so Todd and his sister Caroline were the only heirs. Todd was sorting through his grandmother’s papers when he came across the letter we were telling you about, from Martha to her mother. And that’s when he started asking questions again.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘Hang on. I’ll go and fetch it.’ Kim left Calder to go out to the entrance hall and rummage in her suitcase. She was back a minute later clutching a small leather photo frame and an airmail envelope. She handed the frame to Calder.

  ‘Todd always takes this with him wherever we go. I thought you’d like to see what she looked like.’

  The photograph was of a woman sitting on some steps in a garden, clutching an ancient yellow Labrador. She was slender with frank blue eyes and long blonde hair that rested on her collarbones. She was wearing faded jeans and a simple blue T-shirt, she wore no make-up and she was smiling at the photographer, a warm, relaxed smile.

  ‘She was gorgeous,’ Calder said.

  ‘That was taken a couple of years before she died. She must have been over forty.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘Her family were originally from Norway, I think. Her maiden name was Olson.’

  ‘You can tell.’ Calder studied the photograph more closely. ‘Can I see the letter?’