I felt him clamber up.
‘Put your arms around my neck.’
He clung onto me like a limpet.
With an immense effort, I rose. Began to make my way forward. Clutching Bubs against my chest, I climbed over luggage and fibreglass. Scrambled across a man lying face up, his stomach drenched in blood. People shouted for help but I didn’t react. I had to get myself and the kids out.
Two men pushed ahead of me and hurried through the hole. Another followed. Many more were trapped, faces rigid with fear, but I couldn’t think of them. My arms and legs were starting to tremble. I tried to move faster.
Suddenly I heard a popping sound followed by a small explosion. A gout of black smoke swept past us. Yellow and red flames appeared. I felt a blast-furnace heat. My world was reduced to Bubs and Josh and the fire racing down the aircraft, straight for us.
‘Hold tight!’ I yelled.
I shouldered my way to the hole. I didn’t look down, simply jumped. We landed in a scrambling heap. Bubs was screaming, a high-pitched sound of pain and terror. For some reason I was wet. Bubs was wet. We’d jumped into a lake of spilled fuel.
With Josh still clinging to me I picked up Bubs and ran. I ran like I’d never run before, all my senses on the aeroplane behind us, waiting for the explosion.
I ran towards a rocky knoll. A man raced past me. I tried to keep up but with Bubs weighing down my arms, Josh strangling me, I quickly fell behind.
The man vanished over the knoll. I kept running. I didn’t stop until I heard an almighty whoomph. Gasping, my breath red-raw in my throat, I stopped and turned around.
Grasses burned outward from the fuselage. People were engulfed in flames from the waist down. Passengers were screaming and calling for help. Each piece of the aircraft was burning – the wings and tail, the nose cone. People ran and thrashed through the fire, tearing at their clothes.
I turned away, ran behind the knoll. Collapsed to my knees. I was shaking uncontrollably. A keening sound came from my throat. I couldn’t stop it.
‘Dan?’
A woman was soothing him. She had sheets of white-blonde hair and deep blue eyes.
‘My love,’ he heard her say. ‘You’re dreaming. Wake up.’
The smoke vanished. The weight of Bubs left my arms. Josh’s grip eased.
I realised I was weeping.
‘Dan, darling…’ Jenny sounded distraught.
‘I couldn’t save them,’ I gasped. ‘Oh God. I wanted to. I wanted to go back…’
‘Who couldn’t you save?’
‘Josh and Bubs’s parents.’ I closed my eyes as the horror of the crash returned with its full force. ‘Bubs is Kaitlyn Rogers. I’m sure of it. I saved her and her brother’s lives.’
10
Lucy had spent the rest of Saturday with Mac, exploring Camden Market. The sun had come out, making trawling art galleries and the like not half as attractive as sipping a beer on a roof terrace, watching the crowds seething below, drinking in the smells of crisping falafels, burgers and chips, sweet sugary churros. It felt like heaven to Lucy. She’d grown fond of Stockton, especially the team up there, but she couldn’t help it, she was London born and bred and still missed it like crazy.
They were on their second beer, kicking back, eyes closed, faces raised to the sun, when Mac asked if she wanted to be seconded to Kaitlyn’s murder investigation team.
‘God, yes. But it’ll never happen. They’ll bring in locals.’
‘What if I could swing it?’
Her eyes snapped open. ‘Really?’
‘I know the SIO. We were at Hendon together.’
Lucy felt a rush of excitement, her thoughts whistling past.
I’ll be on a murder case again, I’ll solve it within the week, get Ricky home and Reg at the pub will give me Dad’s address and when I’ve found Kaitlyn’s killer and put them behind bars we’ll go to the pub and crack open a bottle of bubbly and celebrate, he’ll be so proud of me…
Hurriedly, she brought her thoughts under control before they went stratospheric. A doctor once told her that her mood swings meant she was bipolar, frightening her into thinking she might lose her job, but when she got a GP friend of hers to run a test under the radar, it transpired she was vulnerable at each end of the mood spectrum. Which meant she had to be careful when she was high, not to be overconfident and think she was invulnerable, and when she was low, to make sure she ate and kept her fluids up to avoid a potential crash.
Having a medical professional tell her she didn’t have a mental health issue that needed medication, or that she’d have to suffer some kind of psychotherapeutic intervention, had been an incredible relief.
Lucy looked across at Mac, feeling a rush of tenderness.
‘You’d really do that for me? Get me on the case?’
‘I’m not being entirely altruistic,’ he admitted. ‘London’s a lot closer to Bristol than Stockton.’
‘What about Wimpy?’ She was referring to her new boss, nicknamed because rumour had it that the first thing he’d mentioned when he’d arrived at the station was that Wimpy Bars could be on their way back to Teesside.
‘I’ll talk to him too.’
By the time they’d finished sharing a plate of raclette – a gooey mess of melted cheese over potatoes and something you’d never get north of the Watford Gap – Mac had spoken to Wimpy and his Hendon pal, and put things into motion. Which was all very well, but she still hadn’t told him about Dan. How he was connected to the case. The trouble was that although Mac respected the ex-MI5 officer on a professional level, and appreciated the fact that Lucy was godmother to his little boy, the last time Dan had called upon Lucy to help him out, she’d nearly died.
Mac was looking at her and smiling, his eyes crinkling at the corners and filled with warmth.
I’ll tell him later, she
