Point of Impact

by Point of Impact (retail) (epub)

  ‘Is that really all it is?’

  ‘Until there’s some hard physical evidence to the contrary, yes.’

  Power’s expression was challenging, but urbane. The silence that hung between them was broken by the ringing of the telephone.

  It stopped as Michelle picked it up in the kitchen. A moment later, she called out, ‘My boss on the phone for you – says he’s returning your call.’

  ‘I’ll take it in the study,’ Power answered. He turned back to Drew. ‘I’ve also got some paperwork to do, but we can carry on the conversation after dinner if you like.’

  Michelle came in a moment later. ‘Had a good chat?’

  ‘Fascinating. He seemed particularly well informed about me.’

  She showed no reaction. ‘Good. Dinner’s in forty-five minutes. We’ve time for a swim if you fancy one.’

  ‘Is there a pool near here?’

  ‘Quite near – it’s in the basement.’

  ‘Sorry, we didn’t have too many houses with swimming pools in Liverpool. Not the bit I lived in, anyway.’

  ‘I know. And you had to carry your boots to school so as not to wear out the soles.’ She smiled. ‘We could skinny-dip, but the Air Vice-Marshal wouldn’t approve, so perhaps it’s better if I lend you a pair of his trunks.’

  ‘Great,’ Drew said, recovering. ‘Can I have the ones with the gold braid and medals?’

  ‘I’ll do my best. I’ll dig some out and see you down by the pool. Third door on the left as you go down the hall.’

  The phone began ringing again, but Power picked it up in his study.

  ‘Shit, that reminds me,’ Drew said. ‘Can I phone Nick and warn him I can’t collect him tomorrow?’

  ‘Sure, use the one in the hall. I’ll see you downstairs.’

  Drew heard the murmur of Power’s voice from the study and then silence. He waited a moment, then walked into the hall and picked up the handset.

  Power was still on the line. Drew started to put it down again, but then had second thoughts. He raised it to his ear and covered the mouthpiece with his hand.

  ‘Yes,’ he heard Power say, ‘but I can’t guarantee how much longer I can do so.’

  ‘You have to, Charles. It’s as simple as that.’ There was a click as the connection was broken. ‘Get through?’

  Drew whirled around, almost dropping the phone. Michelle touched his arm. ‘I’d take something for those nerves, Drew. Did you get Nick?’

  ‘Er… no, engaged,’ he said. ‘I’ll just try again.’ She draped a pair of old-fashioned swimming trunks on his head. ‘All his others have got elbows. I can’t wait to see you in these.’

  As she pushed open the door and ran down the stairs to the pool, Drew dialled 1471. The recorded voice recited back a number that meant nothing to him, but he scribbled it down on a scrap of paper as he dialled Nick. He left a hurried message with Sally, then followed Michelle downstairs to the pool.

  She was swimming lengths underwater, the light dappling her body like a Hockney painting. She broke the surface close to where Drew was standing and swung easily up and out of the pool, her jet-black costume clinging to her body, beads of water glistening on her skin.

  Their eyes locked for a moment and Drew felt the heat building in the pit of his stomach. He took a step towards her. ‘Michelle…’

  She seemed about to respond, but then smiled a secret smile, turned and dived back into the pool. As she surfaced, she called out, ‘Remember Baden-Powell, Drew: total immersion in cold water cures everything.’

  He smiled back. ‘Who needs cold water when I’ve got your father’s trunks?’

  Drew changed quickly. He lowered himself into the pool and swam to the far end. By the time he reached it, Michelle was already out of the water and towelling herself dry.

  ‘Is it my imagination,’ Drew said, ‘or are you always one step ahead of me?’

  ‘In every way, Drew, in every way. I’m going to change. See you back upstairs.’

  He swam a few more lengths then showered and put his clothes back on. When he got upstairs he found Michelle and Power waiting for him. Michelle looked stunning in a black Versace dress. Power had changed into a charcoal-grey Savile Row suit. Drew felt suddenly uncomfortable in his off-the-peg jacket and trousers.

  Power made no further references to the Tempest as he led the dinner conversation. Drew could not decide if the references to Glyndeboume, Grenoble, Henley, Ascot and Bermuda were designed to emphasise the social and financial gulf separating his daughter from him. He dismissed the idea that he was simply making conversation; he did not believe Power ever did anything without a purpose.

  Michelle brought the evening to a close. ‘Drew, I’m off to bed. We’ll need a five o’clock start to get back to Finnington. I’ll show you your room.’

  He nodded and rose to his feet.

  ‘I’ll drive you into Northolt in the morning,’ Power said. ‘I need an early start as well.’ He turned to Drew. ‘Goodnight. Give some thought to what I said earlier.’

  ‘I’ll certainly do that,’ Drew said.

  There was no warmth at all in either of their smiles.

  Michelle led Drew upstairs to his room. As he paused in the doorway, she leaned into him and kissed him fleetingly, her lips just brushing his. Then she disappeared down the corridor and a moment later Drew heard her door shut. He touched his fingers to his lips and then closed his own door and went to bed.

  * * *

  When Power dropped them off at Northolt the next morning, Drew waited until the Jaguar had disappeared from view. ‘Change of plan, Michelle. I’m going to nip into London and then catch a train up. Do you mind?’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she said. ‘Can’t take the pace?’

  ‘I thought I might do some shopping.’ He smiled and kissed her on the cheek. ‘See you later.’

  When he got into London he made his way to the Farringdon Road. It took him four calls before he got through to Danny Mulvoy.

  ‘Drew,’ he said. ‘How are things? How’s Josie?’

  ‘We’ve split up – but don’t worry, I haven’t called to cry on your shoulder. I’ve got a story for you. I’m in London. Can you spare me a minute or two?’

  ‘No problem, where are you?’

  ‘In the payphone across the street.’

  Danny laughed. ‘Then perhaps we should meet here. It’ll be less cramped.’

  Drew hung up and walked across the street and into The Guardian offices. He looked curiously around the sprawling, neon-lit newsroom as Danny led him to his desk. ‘I’m disappointed,’ he said. ‘Just a lot of desks and VDUs. There’s not a green eyeshade in sight and no one’s shouting “Hold the front page”.’

  ‘You’re a bit early for that,’ Danny said. ‘Come back just before deadline and it might be a little more exciting.’

  Drew turned down the offer of a cup of coffee and Danny picked up his notebook. ‘So what’s happening?’

  ‘It’s the Tempest,’ Drew said. ‘They suddenly go out of control for no apparent reason. There’ve been almost a score of incidents in the last two years. The people flying them at the time are either dead or as baffled as I am by what caused them. There’s no obvious reason. One minute you’re flying along, the next every alarm in the aircraft’s going off and there’s no response from any of the controls. If you’re lucky – like me – you may get time to eject or even pull things round. If you’re not…’

  Danny nodded. ‘What evidence have the RAF looked at?’

  ‘Every scrap. There’s a Crash Procedures book on the desk in every squadron, a big bright pink folder that tells you what to do. You impound absolutely everything: all of the flying order books, the aircraft and weapons manuals, everything to do with the squadron’s flying – and everything to do with the aircraft, because the engineers impound all of the engineering records as well. Everything is immediately frozen and within two or three hours a three-man Board of Inquiry’s been selected from other stations and
they’re on their way – to Finnington in my case. They take immediate informal statements within hours of the incident and then they formally interview you later, under oath.’

  Danny kept scribbling. ‘Who else has to give a statement?’

  ‘Anyone who so much as glanced at the aircraft in the previous few weeks. The pilot and the navigator say that they flew the aircraft correctly; the engineers say that it was entirely serviceable when it took off.

  ‘They also recover the wreckage and go through it minutely. They can tell things like whether a warning light went on before or after the crash. If you’ve told them that you had a right-hand fire warning, they’ll know from the state of the filament whether that’s true.

  ‘They’ll know whether the engines were serviceable before they hit the ground, even if they’re in a million pieces and spread all over the crash site. There’s also the Accident Data Recorder – the spy in the sky – like a tachograph in a lorry driver’s cab. It’s a digital recording that tells them every detail of the flight up to the moment of impact. It also has a voice tape, so they can listen to the pilot and nav talking to each other.

  ‘The inquiry can take months to report, but they put out their best initial guess of the cause of an incident in what’s called the forty-eight-hour signal. Then they take several months to reach a more considered verdict. If it’s not an obvious mechanical failure, it could be a fire or a fuel leak.

  ‘It might also be pilot incapacitation, either through contamination of the oxygen system or a heart attack, where the pilot just dies at the controls; or it could simply be a cock-up – pilot error. Once they’ve decided, then that’s it; unlike a court of law, there’s no right of appeal.’

  ‘And all that has produced no hint of a cause?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. They just keep blaming pilot error.’ Drew shook his head before Danny could even frame the question. ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘Okay,’ Danny said, closing his notebook. ‘What have you got to back this up?’

  ‘Not much,’ Drew admitted, handing him the photocopied notes. Danny read them quickly and looked doubtful. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Isn’t it enough?’

  ‘Not as it stands, no. I’ll do some digging around and see what I can come up with.’

  ‘I’m not making this up, Danny,’ Drew said.

  ‘I’m sure you’re not, but there’s a big difference between the truth and the truth you can prove. Our libel lawyers are really only interested in the second sort, I’m afraid.’

  He looked back through his notes, frowning. ‘To be honest, I think the most we’ll be able to get out of this will be a piece about the strange number of Tempest crashes recently. We can’t go dropping hints about mysterious faults without some facts to back them up.’

  ‘Well leave my name out of it for the time being, will you? As soon as I get some, I’ll let you know.’

  * * *

  Drew spent the journey north staring uninterestedly out of the train window at a landscape faintly tinged with the first green of spring.

  When he got back to the flat, he dumped his bag and changed his clothes. As he transferred his change from his pocket, his fingers closed on a slip of paper. He pulled it out and found the telephone number he had scribbled the previous night. He picked up the phone, punched in 141 to conceal the source of the call and then dialled.

  It rang twice and a woman’s voice answered. ‘Good afternoon,’ Drew said. ‘British Telecom, we’re following up your complaint of a fault on the line.’

  ‘We’ve made no complaint.’

  ‘Someone’s reported a fault, perhaps a caller trying to dial you. Is this a business or private phone?’

  ‘It’s a private one.’

  ‘And it’s Mr and Mrs David Richards?’

  ‘No.’ The voice was becoming increasingly irritated. ‘Mr and Mrs Henry Robertshaw.’

  ‘And what line of business is Mr Robertshaw in?’

  ‘What? You’re not from British Telecom. Who is this?’

  Drew hung up and stood motionless in the deserted flat. Then he dialled Danny at The Guardian. ‘Does the name Henry Robertshaw mean anything to you?’

  ‘Off the top of my head, not a damn thing. Who is he?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Drew said, ‘but I’d like to find out.’

  * * *

  Nick was already waiting outside when Drew arrived to pick him up the next morning.

  ‘So how did it go?’ he asked, as soon as he was settled in the passenger seat.

  Drew gave him a suspicious look. ‘How did what go?’

  ‘The meeting with the MP, of course.’

  ‘Oh that. Absolutely perfectly. I told him the story and by the time I got to Power’s house forty-five minutes later, Norman Feather had already been on the phone to him. It turns out they went to Charterhouse together.’

  Nick stared at him. ‘Sod Charterhouse, what about Power’s house? You actually went there?’

  Drew nodded. ‘By invitation.’

  Nick whistled. ‘Hell, Michelle must be keen if she’s already inviting you back to meet the folks.’

  ‘If only. I don’t think it was even Michelle’s idea. Big Daddy wanted a friendly fireside chat about the Tempest.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘Much the same as Russell the previous day though more subtly. Power would never be this obvious but the message was: butt out or we’ll break your balls.’

  Nick swivelled in his seat. ‘So what now?’

  Drew sighed. ‘I’m not going to get anywhere going through official channels. You should have seen the photos on Power’s piano. He’s so well connected – the Queen probably bows when he walks into the room. I’m going to have to go outside the system.’

  Nick smiled. ‘Would that be revolutionary warfare or Fleet Street in the first instance?’

  ‘You tell me.’ Drew fell silent for a moment. ‘I also eavesdropped on a snatch of a very strange phone conversation while I was at Power’s.’

  ‘Saying what?’

  ‘Power was complaining about the difficulty of keeping the lid on something.’

  ‘Who was he talking to?’

  ‘Someone called Henry Robertshaw, I think.’

  ‘And who’s he?’

  ‘I don’t know. Who would have an interest in keeping the Tempest fault quiet?’

  ‘The Air Force, the government and the manufacturers, for a start. But you don’t even know that’s what Power was talking about, do you?’

  ‘What else would he want to keep the lid on?’ Drew asked as he swung the car onto the Finnington slip road and pulled up at the barrier.

  ‘His septic tank?’

  ‘Morning, sir.’ The guard checked their ID. ‘Either the Queen’s paying a visit or we’re going to war. There’s all hell broken loose this morning.’

  ‘Bet you it’s Bosnia,’ Nick said.

  As he drove towards the squadron, Drew could see the whole base buzzing with activity. Even the cooks, clerks and administrators seemed to be more purposeful.

  ‘Looks like a major deployment,’ Nick said. ‘You don’t get the paper-clip squadron breaking sweat for anything less.’

  Outside the squadron, aircrew were swarming over the jets and a fleet of Hercules were being loaded with equipment under armed guard. Drew was amazed to see the amount of weaponry being put on board.

  ‘It seems a bit of a waste doesn’t it?’ Nick said, following his gaze. ‘Using million-quid missiles just to knock poxy old Serb helicopters out of the sky? The missiles probably cost more than the choppers.’

  ‘There’s nothing poxy about their Hind helicopter gunships. You won’t be lying back in your seat like that if we come up against one of those.’ Drew yanked on the handbrake and jumped out.

  He hurried into the crew room. DJ glanced up. ‘Briefing in twenty minutes. Six to four on it’s Bosnia, ten to one against a surprise birthday party for Russell.’

  Russell was alread
y standing at the podium when they filed into the briefing room. ‘You’re probably wondering what all the activity is about this morning.’

  ‘Not really,’ Nick whispered.

  ‘Let me put you out of your misery straight away. We’re off to Bosnia again.’

  ‘Surprise, surprise,’ Drew said, ‘alert the media.’

  ‘We’re deploying to Gióia del Colle in Italy today and we begin patrolling the exclusion zones from dawn tomorrow. You have ninety minutes to go home, pack what you need and be back on base ready to go to work.’

  When Russell finished speaking, there was a buzz around the room. Drew could see DJ and Ali sharing excited speculation about flying over Bosnia, though he suspected it was also tinged with apprehension at the thought of their first combat. As they filed out of the briefing room, they hurried to overtake Drew and Nick and began bombarding them with questions.

  ‘What was it really like last time?’ DJ asked.

  Drew exchanged glances with Nick. ‘Ninety-nine per cent boredom and one per cent pure, unadulterated terror.’

  Nick nodded. ‘You’ll sit there in the skies over Bosnia with your thumb up your bum and absolutely nothing happening for day after day. Then all of a sudden, for no discernible reason, someone will start shooting at you.’

  ‘Come on,’ DJ said, looking from one to the other. ‘You were just as excited as us in there. This is what we joined up for.’

  Drew shook his head. ‘Not really. We’re not defending our country, we’re not really defending anything at all, because if it’s like last time both we and the Serbs know we won’t be allowed to strike back. All we’re doing is flying the flag for the politicians. So don’t get too carried away. If you die out there, you’re not dying in some great heroic cause, you’re just dying, and no one will thank you for it.’