LITMIR.BIZ

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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

       aisle

       Seat 49D: Patrick, Monica

       Seat 49E: Patrick, Andrew

      In that part

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