‘Well, I rather presumed that to be the case,’ says Bill. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’
‘Yes, thanks for that,’ I mutter. ‘Anyway, Mr Hartley collected a bag that wasn’t his and has brought it back in the hope that either his has been left behind and brought down here, or that we might be able to register him so that when the other person realizes their mistake and brings the bag back, we know how to track him down.’
‘Sometimes they don’t bring them back,’ offers Bill helpfully.
‘What?’ says Mr Hartley. What little colour he had in his face has now totally drained away. ‘But I’ve got . . .’ He gives up.
‘Sometimes,’ continues Bill, oblivious to Mr Hartley’s sensitivities, ‘if they like what they see they keep it.’
‘Great,’ says Mr Hartley as golden cufflinks and expensive Savile Row shirts disappear before his very eyes.
‘Yeah, well.’ Bill shrugs – like he can control human behaviour. ‘What flight were you on?’
Mr Hartley hands over what remains of his ticket and baggage tag, and Bill punches the flight number into the computer. He is using a programme called World Tracer, a global system for lost bags. You type in your name, address, flight number and a coded bag description and the system will supposedly tell you exactly where your bag is anywhere in the world.
‘So, we’re looking for a . . .’ Bill leans over the counter and checks out the large black holdall at my feet. ‘A black nine,’ he says. ‘A black nine ... black nine,’ he mutters. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘It looks like it might be here. In that pile over there. Do you want to take a look?’
Mr Hartley can hardly contain himself. He rushes over to the bags and starts searching through them as if he is looking for his long-lost daughter. His mind is focused, a black holdall the only thing computing in his brain. It takes him a good five minutes but he finds it, right at the back and covered in what looks like a burst bottle of shampoo. But he doesn’t seem to care. He hauls it out to the front, checks the labels and immediately undoes the thing to check that the contents haven’t been tampered with.
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Thanks, mate,’ he adds to Bill. Bill half-heartedly acknowledges him. He’s not that interested in the man’s find; he is more pleased that there is one less bag in the pile for him to deal with. ‘Thanks,’ Mr Hartley says to me again. ‘Thanks very much for your help.’
‘Pleasure,’ I say. ‘Another satisfied customer,’ I add, with a certain amount of irony. ‘Do you want a trolley? To take it back through Customs?’
‘No thanks,’ he says. ‘It’s not actually that heavy.’
We walk back through Customs together and the mirrored hall appears to be empty, although I am pretty sure there are a couple of blokes keeping an eye on us through the glass. We reach Arrivals and there are the usual mini-cab drivers hanging around with poorly written names scrawled on small pieces of cardboard. There are about thirty to forty hopeful friends, or relatives, leaning against the metal barrier – wives, husbands, children, lovers – their faces trained in our direction, their expectant expressions falling slightly as we walk through. I stop to say goodbye to Mr Hartley, who seems very impressed that he got his bag back so speedily. Poor man, he probably expected his nightmare to continue for another couple of hours. He shakes my hand and walks off in the direction of the complimentary long-term car park buses.
I am about to return to the office when someone taps me on the shoulder.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Yes?’ I turn around.
‘Where can I get a taxi from here?’ asks a rather short fat man standing underneath a taxi sign.
‘You are standing right underneath the sign.’ I point it out.
He looks up. His mouth hangs open. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Which way?’
‘If you follow the arrow . . .’
‘What arrow?’
‘The arrow on the sign. It’s pointing outside.’
‘Oh, right,’ he says, his face still skywards, his mouth still open. ‘It’s quite hard to see from here.’
‘Evidently,’ I say, and start to walk away.
‘Excuse me?’ the fat man says again.
‘Yes?’ I turn around again.
‘Will they take me to Leeds?’
‘Leeds?’
‘Yeah, Leeds.’
‘That will cost you a lot of money,’ I say slowly.
‘Oh.’
‘I think perhaps you should take the train,’ I suggest.
‘Oh, right!’ he says, as if it’s the most novel idea he has ever heard.
‘How did you get here?’ I ask, wishing I hadn’t got involved in this conversation. My stomach is rumbling. It’s almost time for my lunch break.
‘I took the train,’ says the man.
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Then perhaps you should go back the same way you came.’
‘OK then,’ he says. He picks up his bags and heads off in the direction of the taxi rank.
By the time I get back to the office all I can think of is lunch.
‘I’m starving, who’s for lunch?’ I say as I walk in, only to be confronted by two policemen in uniform with guns and flak jackets, and Andy sucking on a mouthful of mints. ‘Oh,’ I say, stopping in my tracks. ‘Morning, gentlemen. What can I do for you?’
‘You the airport duty manager?’ one of them asks.
‘That’s right.’
‘We’re making the rounds of the airport just to make you aware that there are a few things going on today,’ he continues.
‘Right.’
‘And we’d like you to brief your staff when they come in later.’
‘OK.’
‘Firstly,’ he begins, ‘we’ve been tipped off that there’s a gang of Brazilian bag snatchers coming in who are planning to rip the place off and then fly out again.’
‘Right.’
‘I know it’s not really your area, but if you could keep an eye out. They’ll normally clean out duty free, move on to handbags and then get the next plane out, thinking we can’t catch them. So if you see anything . . .’
‘We’ll call you,’ says Andy, putting his little finger to his mouth and his thumb in his ear.
The officer ignores him and carries on addressing me. ‘And we’ve got wind of a gang who might well try to board your Thailand flight this afternoon.’
‘OK,’ I say.
‘We’ve heard that they might be taking money back to Thailand or that they might be bringing drugs back. Either way, we’d like you to look out for anyone buying an expensive ticket at the last minute. Someone who doesn’t look like they should be travelling first or club. Anyone who is at all suspicious.’
‘OK.’
‘Customs are putting plenty of foxes [plainclothes officers] in the area,’ he adds, ‘so as soon as you see anything . . .’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘I know the drill.’
I’ve actually done it before. A few years back when we had flights to South America, I cracked a cocaine cartel through exactly the same means. This gang of young chaps were buying first-class tickets at the last minute to Bogota, which I thought was a little odd, as eighteen-year-olds don’t normally carry three grand around in cash. Anyway, at the last minute they got a telephone call through and asked for another ticket. I told them, untruthfully, that only club was available and they didn’t bat an eyelid. I had to let them go because there was no reason to hold them. But then, a couple of hours later, they were all back again. They said that they’d missed their flight and could they fly the next day. They didn’t look like the usual duty-free scammers who buy an expensive refundable ticket, say a £600 ticket to New York, stock up on duty free or a half-price Cartier watch, miss the flight, catch the bus to Terminal 2 and then land themselves in the country, claiming their ticket refund as they go. So they must have been up to something else.
I therefore contacted Customs, told them about my suspicions and what time they were coming back, and they said they’d keep
an eye out. But when the gang came back the next day there was no-one from Customs to be seen. I was scared and furious. I delayed the gang as much as possible, checking out their passports, that sort of thing. Eventually I telephoned Customs and said something along the lines of ‘Where the fuck are you?’ They turned around and said, ‘We’re everywhere. See the old woman at Costa’s café? That’s us. See the two backpackers in Waterstone’s? That’s us. See the man with the newspaper? That’s us.’ They had staked out the whole place with foxes. In the end they let the gang fly and followed them to South America, catching them on the way back with £3m of coke in a suitcase. Six months later I got an award.
‘Good,’ says the officer. ‘Just so long as you are aware.’
‘Fine,’ I say, taking a step to one side to let the policemen pass. Neither of them looks as if he is moving. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yes,’ says the other officer. ‘The government is flying out a terrorist on your Thailand flight.’
‘Oh,’ I say, not really knowing how else to react.
This is a first for me. I’ve heard that this happens, but I didn’t think I would ever have to deal with it. Governments and security services fly terrorists all the time. Either they are allowing them to fly because the government wants to see exactly what they are up to, or we are repatriating them with as little fuss and nonsense as possible. The airline doesn’t have the right to refuse these passengers, but they do have the right to be informed.
‘He is being repatriated to Indonesia, via Thailand,’ says the officer. ‘And there will be two tigers flying with him, even though he is not dangerous.’
‘So un-dangerous that he needs only two guards,’ says Andy.
I shoot him a look.
‘You will be given his name later on a need-to-know basis only,’ continues the officer, looking down his short nose at Andy.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘That all sounds fine to me.’
‘Good. Do we have an understanding?’
‘Yes, absolutely,’ I say. For some reason I put out my hand to shake his. He rather stiffly reciprocates.
‘We’ll be in touch,’ he says.
‘Look forward to it,’ I enthuse, like they’ve invited me to some party.
Fortunately, neither of the officers reacts. I step to one side and they leave the room.
‘Fuck!’ says Andy, after they’ve left. ‘That sounds heavy. Let’s go and have some lunch.’
12–1 PM
ALL THE WAY to the staff canteen, Snackz, the flying terrorist is Andy’s only topic of conversation.
‘I wonder if he’s killed someone?’ he says. ‘Or blown anyone up? A plane or anything like that?’
‘I shouldn’t have thought so for a second,’ I reply. ‘They’d hardly be flying him club class on our airline if that were the case.’
‘If he’s going to Indonesia then he’s bound to be a Muslim,’ he continues. ‘D’you think he had anything to do with Bali? Or the World Trade Center? D’you think he was trained in Iraq?’ I don’t bother to reply. ‘I wonder if he has really killed someone? With his bare hands. Or with a gun? I wonder if he’s good-looking?’
‘Jesus Christ!’ I say, stopping in my tracks. ‘Does it always boil down to sex with you?’
‘Not always,’ Andy replies, grinning.
‘Anyway, will you shut up about the terrorist. It’s supposed to be on a need-to-know basis.’
‘What, like everything else around here?’ he says. ‘I bet half the airport knows already.’
Andy’s right about that if nothing else. It is almost impossible to keep a secret around here. I mean, everyone knew about Darren the BAA sex-change supervisor who became Karen after a long and painful operation way before someone sold the story to the Daily Mail. People love to gossip about the smallest thing here. And it’s worse in the air. They have a false intimacy problem born of hours and hours in a plane together, followed by excessive drinking and most probably sex. But it’s quite bad on the ground as well. We spend all day, every day, in small cliques performing monotonous jobs, living like vicarious voyeurs. The smallest thing takes on enormous significance. Just the other day Paul Newman came through and every single detail of his short trip into the airport to meet up with his daughter was passed around the place like gold dust. The fact that he sat in our airport office rather than the first-class lounge; the fact that he ate airline crisps and peanuts while sitting in the office; the fact that he chatted to blushing members of staff – all were noted, commented upon and probably embellished.
I do have to say that I have met so many celebrities passing through this place that I’ve slightly had my fill of them. There was a time when someone like Anthea Turner or Vanessa Feltz would have sent a frisson through the ranks, but now they have to be quite far up the list for anyone to take much notice. But it is interesting to see how they behave. There are pleasant celebs, like George Michael, who talk to the staff and hand out autographs, and unpleasant ones, like Shirley Maclaine, who was a demanding cow and wouldn’t stop attracting attention. Some of them go through incognito, like Gwyneth Paltrow, who pops on a baseball cap and travels economy, ensuring that she is not recognized at all. There are the cheapskates who insist on using the first-class lounge when they have economy tickets and are quite dogmatic about their upgrades. Then there are the glamorous stars, like Tom Cruise, travelling with his children, who get put into the inner sanctum in first class – the lounge within a lounge.
And then, of course, there’s the Chelsea Suite. The Chelsea, sited at the centre of the airport, is for royalty and the super famous. Unlike the other lounges, it guarantees you a private bus to your flight so that you don’t have to mix with the hoi polloi at any stage of your tricky journey. Built in the fifties with the sort of decor that reminds you of Burton and Taylor in their heyday, it is not the most brash or swish of places but it has everything a VIP traveller could possibly wish for on their short trip through. It takes passengers from any airline just so long as they are important enough. Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, anyone on a state visit to the UK tends to go through the Chelsea. Tom and Nicole certainly parked their backsides in there on occasion. Jude Law and Sienna Miller might make it in there at the moment. But your star does have to shine rather brightly to sit in the Chelsea. Then again, I think standards may be slipping a bit these days. I saw Claudia Schiffer in there last week and I couldn’t help thinking, surely first class is good enough for her?
Andy and I walk up the short flight of stairs leading to Snackz and through the swing cowboy-saloon doors, picking up a copy of the Villager newspaper on the way. Inside the canteen it is as crowded, noisy, smoky and depressing as ever, frequented as it is by any odd or passing sod who shift-works in the airport. An expansive room with lime-green walls, it has steamed-up plate-glass windows with views of the Royal Mail sorting office and seats up to 150 at any one time. It was decorated during some seventies nightmare where purple waves and orange squares were de rigueur, and all the brown plastic tables are nailed to the floor, as are the smokers’ chairs. The wicker chairs, reserved for non-smokers, are, bizarrely, allowed to roam free and socialize.
The room is quite cold and the air hangs heavy with grease, cooked meat and stale cigarettes. The food is served at stalls rather like in a motorway service station, each sporting a large, yellow-stained sign declaring its wares. From the Hot Wok to the International Exchange, the dishes are all heavily subsidized and taste more or less the same, whatever worldwide delight you plump for. It is not the sort of place you would choose to spend your lunch hour, but there really are only so many 10 per cent discounted burgers and fries a sane man can eat in a week. At least here you can make a stab at a lamb curry for £3.20, or spare ribs with potato and veg for £2.80, followed by a chocolate pudding with custard for 77p. When you’ve been on the go since five a.m., having woken up at 3.30, you tend to eat quite a lot, especially when you’re not quite sure when your next meal is coming. Fortunately, we get given £25 a mon
th towards our food on an airline card. I’d hate to think I was shelling out too much of my hard-earned cash on this stuff. That would just be too depressing.
I pick up my tray and walk along the stalls trying to work out what is the least offensive option. I plump for a bread roll, an apple juice and the Lancashire hot pot on the Home-style stall where you get a 60 per cent discount if you have a staff card. Andy always goes for the same chicken salad from the same salad bar and complains about the same things each and every time he comes.
‘Look at these tomatoes,’ he says, sitting down at a naileddown table. ‘They look like they are made of bloody cotton wool.’
‘I don’t know why you always go for the same shit and complain about it every time,’ I say, trying and failing to pull my chair closer to the table.
‘I’m a creature of habit – what can I say?’ He takes a small box out of his top pocket and lays out a vast selection of vitamin pills. Andy has a pill for every occasion and every ailment. ‘I think I might be getting flu.’ He shivers. Picking one pill up at a time, he pops each one individually into his mouth and makes a great show of swallowing them, chasing them down his throat with half-pint glugs of water. ‘I can feel it coming on. Do I look ill?’
‘You look hungover,’ I say.
‘Do I?’ He shivers again.
‘And thirty,’ I add, for good measure.
‘You bitch,’ he says, flicking his salad with his white plastic fork. ‘I feel terrible.’
‘There are a couple of blokes feeling pretty shitty in Baggage today,’ announces Garry as he sits down at the table.
‘Oh, all right there, Garry?’ I say, my mouth full of potato and unidentifiable meat.
‘I’m all right,’ he says with a sniff. ‘It’s just a couple of my blokes have come down with runway malaria.’
‘Really?’ asks Andy.
‘Yep,’ says Garry. ‘It’s the third batch we’ve had this year.’
The blokes who work in Cargo or Baggage are always picking up the strangest things. Exposed as they are to anything that seeps, crawls or flies out of any suitcase, bag or crate arriving from anywhere in the world, it is quite surprising there aren’t more cases of dengue fever, sleeping sickness and the like. But of all the illnesses, runway malaria is the favourite. All it takes is one mosquito to make the journey from a malaria-infested region like Gabon in some crappy holdall with a half-undone zip. The beast escapes in the baggage hold, bites a couple of handlers, and they come down with something a few days later. And there is nothing anyone can do.
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