The Rhythm Section

5

It was a savage strain of influenza that laid Stephanie low. Proctor offered her his bed but she refused, preferring the sofa. He made her soup, brought her tea, fed her aspirin. She was sullen and silent. For four days, she did little more than sleep. Her temperature fluctuated wildly and during the first forty-eight hours, she vomited repeatedly. The aches never ceased. It was like narcotic withdrawal, the destructive drug being Stephanie herself, her body rejecting every aspect of her poisonous life. At one point, Proctor considered consulting a doctor but Stephanie was adamant that he shouldn’t. When she awoke on the fifth morning, she knew she was getting better.

Proctor was making coffee. Not instant coffee, but real coffee. Stephanie enjoyed watching the little rituals of preparation, from the grinding of the beans to the cup. She noticed that Proctor was a man who enjoyed practical precision. She saw it in the way he kept everything so clean, in the order that ruled his flat and his appearance. There was no chaos around him and, she suspected, none inside him, either.

They returned to the living room. On the cherry table there were two bulging files, a folder, which was open, and an enlarged colour photograph of a Boeing 747. The fuselage and the engines were deep blue. Running forward of the wing’s leading edge were three enormous, crimson letters: NEA. North Eastern Airlines. The letters reached from the belly to the upper deck, and almost as far forward as the flight deck. On the tail, there was a white circle with two arrows pointing out from the centre, one heading north, the other heading east.

Proctor saw Stephanie looking at the photograph and said, ‘Flying in a pressurized aircraft at altitude is like flying in an aerosol can. Now if you imagine –’

‘I don’t want to imagine anything. Just tell me what happened.’

Proctor flicked through one of the files and unclipped a sheet of paper from it, which he then spread across the table-top. It was a diagram of a 747, seen from the front, from both sides and from above, this view including the lay-out of the seating. The North Eastern logo was in the bottom right-hand corner.

‘There were two explosions. The first one – the smaller of the two – occurred at an altitude of thirty-seven thousand feet. It blew a hole in the fuselage just in front of the wings, here –’ He pointed at one of the side views. ‘– and, less destructively, at the same point on the other side. Critically, the force of the blast was not powerful enough to tear the aircraft in two. As soon as it happened, the 747 fell into a steep descent while the flight crew tried to regain control. They were experienced enough – they had over forty-five thousand hours of accumulated flying time between them – but in this situation, there wasn’t much they could do.

‘At this point, it’s probable that most of the casualties were behind the blast. Those in the nose and on the upper deck – first and business class, mainly – would have been less likely to suffer the worst of the deceleration injuries, although they’d still have been damaged by them. In the end, of course, it made no difference. At twelve thousand feet, there was a second explosion and this was what tore the aircraft in two. Or rather, into pieces.’

Proctor poured some coffee into a pale lilac cup which was sitting on a saucer. Stephanie lit her first cigarette in almost a week, then took the cup and saucer and returned her attention to the diagram between them. ‘So what was all that stuff about electric wiring?’

‘The official verdict was inconclusive. The eventual findings dealt only in probability and theory, one of which suggested that a section of electrical wiring may have been faulty. There are lawsuits pending against both Boeing and North Eastern Airlines but while the cause remains only “probable” they are unlikely to be found culpable. If there was more conclusive proof that the cause was something mechanical or negligent, you can be sure that both Boeing and NEA would be investigating the matter more thoroughly, looking for ways out. With this verdict, they’re as happy as they can be in an unhappy situation. It’s no coincidence that pilot error is so frequently the cause of a crash; when the accused is dead, he can’t provide awkward answers to tricky questions. Pilot error is a lot cheaper than structural, mechanical or procedural failure.’

‘But there must be investigators who know the truth. What about the ones who discovered the evidence?’

‘Normally, when there’s a tragedy of this nature, there are investigators all over it. FBI, FAA, members of the NTSB – the American National Transportation Safety Board – to name but a few. They swarm all over the debris and all over the dead. In this case, however, the crash site was in the middle of the Atlantic. That severely reduced the number of agents who could physically get there. What’s more, the FBI reduced the number yet further by vetting those allowed to make the trip.’

‘I wasn’t aware the mid-Atlantic was part of their jurisdiction.’

‘It isn’t. But ultimately the ships and planes involved were, since the FBI was heading the investigation. Which is how they came to have the final say. They were very careful – and influential – about which FAA agents and, more specifically, which representatives from the NTSB were allowed out to the crash site. The same security applied to the testing conducted on recovered debris and human remains when they were returned to the United States.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘According to my source at MI5, the FBI received two warnings that a terrorist attack was on the cards. The first was about six months before, the second was just three weeks before. In their wisdom, they decided not to pass the warnings on to the airlines.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know. They’d probably say that they get a lot of dud information – and a lot of hoaxes, too – and that they have to make a tough call each time. Perhaps they weren’t convinced of the sincerity or legitimacy of the warnings.’

In one of the two files that were on the table, Proctor had stored all the relevant articles he could find. They ranged from newspaper and magazine reports published in the immediate aftermath of the crash to coverage of the investigations executed by the FAA, the FBI and the NTSB. The initial assumption had been that flight NE027 had been brought down by a terrorist bomb. In the first forty-eight hours, all the usual suspects were accused; Arab terrorist organizations, Colombian drug cartels, home-grown fanatics from the mid-western militias. But during the months that followed, each potential villain was removed from the equation. Cocooned by her decline, Stephanie had still retained enough awareness of the outer world to recall the glacial progress towards a verdict that favoured structural or mechanical failure, ‘favoured’ being as close as it ever got.

There were photographs with the articles. Some were familiar; the section of pockmarked fuselage floating on the Atlantic’s surface, the huddle of women clutching one another for support at Heathrow. Other photographs were new, like the small collection of recovered items laid out on the deck of one of the salvage ships; several shoes – none of which matched, two soggy passports, a portable CD-player, a denim jacket, a necklace with a gold heart, a teddy bear with one of its legs missing. There was another set of photographs from inside the vast hangar where the retrieved wreckage was gathered and sorted. A series of struts running back from the 747’s nose to its hump were twisted like spaghetti. There was a seat that had been toasted to the frame, which was all that remained of it. Sections of fuselage had been burned black. In one shot, an investigator stood over some fragments of engine cowling. Behind him, fading from focus as the lines of perspective came together, was the rest of the hangar, its entire floor carpeted by debris. Disbelief was etched into the investigator’s face.

Stephanie said, ‘There must be some kind of evidence somewhere.’

‘There is. And wherever it is now, it’s conclusive. High explosives leave clues. A fuselage puncture is distinctive to look at. It’s petal-shaped and the petals themselves are bent in the direction of flight. The metal is super-heated by the roasting gases created by the explosion – we’re talking about a temperature as high as 5000°C – and is then instantly cooled by the freezing, speeding air outside. The heated forces generated by high explosives stretch, fracture and blister the aluminium skin of an aircraft in a way that leaves no doubt as to the cause. Similarly, those super-hot gases leave their mark on those who inhale them, in the form of severe burns to the mouth and lungs.

‘According to my source, the evidence shows that there was a bomb on board and that it was probably a shaped charge; that is, it was placed against the fuselage and designed to blow outwards, creating a hole in the aircraft’s skin. The smaller hole on the other side is really incidental.’

‘Why this flight?’

‘Who can say …?’

‘There wasn’t anyone important on board?’

‘Not really. Some prominent businessmen, a Congressman from Alabama, a French diplomat, a Swiss heart surgeon. But no one who ranks for something like this.’

The dismissive tone in his voice stung because it rang true; her family didn’t merit consideration. They were simply there to make up the numbers. ‘What about the second explosion?’

‘That was almost certainly a consequence of the damage sustained by the initial blast and by the descent that followed it.’

‘So how come Boeing and North Eastern bought the faulty electrics theory?’

‘They haven’t bought anything yet. But that theory is technically possible. The 747 is a very safe aircraft. A lot of trouble is taken to avoid the possibility of any kind of spark or electrical charge being released inside any of the fuel tanks. No electrical wires run through the central fuel tank in the belly of the aircraft. The pumps are housed on the outside. However, on some of the older 747s, there are wires running through the fuel tanks on the wings. But as a precaution, these are coated with aluminium, as well as two protective layers of Teflon.’

‘Was the North Eastern 747 one of that generation?’

‘Yes. It was the oldest aircraft in their fleet. It was still in operation after twenty-six years of service. Not that there’s anything unusual about that, you understand.’

‘So what was their theory?’

‘Their theory is that compromised wiring in one of the wing tanks caused flames to ignite. These travelled rapidly to the tip of the wing and then blew back into the centre tank along a venting tube that is supposed to let fuel vapours escape. Like I said, since this is only a possibility, it’s hard to blame anybody. For Boeing and for NEA, it could be a lot worse. Also, since this only affects ageing 747s, the cost of the alterations won’t be nearly so high for the industry. In fact, the proposed changes aren’t even mandatory. All that’s mandatory is close inspection, to see if wiring changes are necessary.’

‘And since there’s officially no terrorist involvement, no intelligence agency comes under scrutiny for ignoring the warnings?’

‘Correct. As a compromise, this works for all the parties involved. Everyone gets to breathe a sigh of relief.’

The following morning, Stephanie ventured outside for the first time since Proctor had brought her back to the flat. It was a crisp day and the chill cut through to the bone. When she’d seen her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she’d been shocked to see how thin she had become. Her ribs and collar-bones had never been so prominent. The hollows beneath her cheeks were as deep and dark as those in which her eyes hid. As a teenager, her full breasts had made her popular with the boys in her school despite her acid tongue. Now, she was almost flat-chested and only her mouth retained elements of voluptuousness. At least, it did when her lips weren’t cracked or blistered.

She walked past the old book shops, the Willow Gallery, the bike shop and the antiques shop. Bell Street felt stranded in time. At one end, it opened on to the Edgware Road so that, in a matter of a few short steps, one could stride out of the Fifties and into the present.

She drank a cup of tea in Bell’s Café, which had a green façade and a net curtain in the window that looked on to the street. Stephanie sat at a small table and toyed with the spare keys to the flat that Proctor had given her at breakfast. His sense of trust was easier to win than hers.

Part of her wanted to leave immediately but a growing part of her was content to stay. She was increasingly convinced that he would do her no physical harm; so far, he’d had her at his mercy for six days and he hadn’t tried anything. Furthermore, Stephanie had seen no sign of it within him. Besides, she had nowhere to go and no one to see. There was no genuine reason to leave. Except that sooner or later, there would be some sort of price to pay for Proctor’s apparent kindness. Experience had taught her that much.

They were in the kitchen. It was early evening and Stephanie was sitting on a wooden stool watching Proctor cut chicken breasts into thin strips. When he’d finished, he started to slice broccoli and courgettes with a clean knife on a clean board. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed her staring.

‘Are you laughing at me?’

‘I’m smiling, not laughing.’

‘What about?’

‘Watching you chop food reminds me of my father. Not that you’re similar in any way. It’s just that he liked to cook and he was good at it. He taught me how to cook.’

‘Do you enjoy it?’

Stephanie shrugged. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘What about your mother? Didn’t she cook?’

‘Very well. But she didn’t enjoy it the way he did. I preferred to learn from my father. I liked to watch him work with knives. He always cut things really quickly. He had these huge hands but he was so precise with a blade. There’d be a blur of steel and suddenly everything was beautifully sliced.’

‘I guess that comes from being a doctor.’

‘He was a general practitioner, not a surgeon.’

Proctor nodded and then wiped his hands on a tea-towel. ‘What were they like, your parents?’

Stephanie’s smile vanished. ‘They weren’t like anything. They were my parents.’

It was five-thirty in the morning. Stephanie was unable to sleep. She rose from the sofa and dressed quickly; it had been a bitter night and the central heating didn’t come on until six. She made herself coffee the way Proctor made it. Then she took the mug back to the living room and lit herself a cigarette. Down in the street, a man was scraping ice from the windscreen of his Vauxhall. Frozen breath shrouded his head.

On the cherry table were the reports that Proctor had been going through the night before. Stephanie sat down and began to leaf through the photo-copies. On the front cover of one plastic folder, a date had been scrawled in fluorescent green ink. It was only three months old.

There was some analysis on the causes of death for those bodies that had been recovered. Twenty-eight passengers remained unaccounted for. Given the crash site, Stephanie felt that number was remarkably low. The divers had made almost four and a half thousand dives to retrieve the debris and the dead. Their task had been made harder by the vast area over which material had been scattered and by the violent storms which settled over the region twenty-four hours after the crash. Approximately two dozen of the recovered bodies were more or less intact. The condition of the rest of the corpses ranged from ‘partially’ to ‘totally disintegrated’. Of all the photographs of the dead that were taken, only eight were deemed suitable for circulation for the purposes of identification, according to a psychologist assigned to handle the liaison between the authorities and the relatives of those on board. In the end, none of the eight was used.

There was another section from one of the FAA’s reports that described the impact of explosive deceleration on the passengers. Many of them had been killed instantly. The force with which their bodies had been thrown forwards was so powerful that some of them had been decapitated, while others perished due to the violent separation of the brain stem. Those who survived this were then subjected to numerous alternative forces. The pressurized air leaked from the puncture points in the fuselage with a power ferocious enough to strip a body of its clothes, to rip contact lenses from eyes. During the free-fall, some passengers were burned to death while others were cut apart by structural debris.

In another file, Stephanie came across a passenger manifest. Proctor had made several copies of it and scrawled notes over most of them. His comments were mostly concerned with structural damage from the first explosion. Stephanie looked down the list until she saw their names.

Seat 49A: Patrick, Sarah

Seat 49B: Patrick, David

Seat 49C: Douglas, Martin

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