B006U13W The Flight (Jenny Cooper 4) nodrm Read Free Page B

go,’ affirming that their instruments were in sync and that they were nearing level-off. First Officer Stevens checked in with Bristol and learned that aircraft up ahead had reported a belt of thunder clouds, but that no deviation was necessary. At 31,000 feet the autothrust pulled back, downgrading to a softer mode which caused the engines to quieten to an almost inaudible whisper and settle to the optimum fuel-efficient cruise speed: a steady 479 knots.
    ‘How’s the baby?’ Captain Murray asked his first officer. ‘Getting any sleep?’
    ‘Doing my best – on the sofa.’ Stevens unbuckled his belt and rolled his stiff shoulders.
    ‘Like that, is it?’
    ‘I told her, I’ll change all the dirty nappies you like, but getting up in the night, forget it. I’ve got a plane to fly.’
    ‘Off the leash tonight, then? I hope she doesn’t expect me to keep an eye on you.’
    ‘In New York? You really think you’d keep up?’
    ‘You’d be surprised.’
    The interphone buzzed.
    ‘Coffee time already?’ First Officer Stevens glanced up at the entry screen and saw a stewardess standing beyond the outer of the two doors which separated the cabin from the cockpit. ‘They could have sent the pretty one.’
    ‘Who’s that?’ Captain Murray asked.
    ‘You know – the little blonde one, Kathy, with the—’ He held his hands out in front of his chest.
    ‘Oh, yeah – her. ’
    Both men laughed.
    ‘You’re definitely on your own tonight,’ Captain Murray said. ‘Not my responsibility.’
    Stevens tapped in the entry code which would let the stewardess through the outer door.
    ‘Speed! Speed!’ The automated warning voice called out from speakers mounted in the instrument consoles.
    ‘What the hell is that?’ Captain Murray said, more puzzled than alarmed. ‘We’re at 470—’
    ‘Speed! Speed!’
    ‘Jesus—’
    ‘Speed! Speed!’
    There was a loud clatter and a scream of alarm from between the cockpit’s two doors as the aircraft’s nose pitched violently upwards and the stewardess was thrown off her feet.
    ‘I’m sorry, say again, Skyhawk . . . Skyhawk, uh, are you still on?’
    At his seat in the tower at Bristol airport Guy Fearnley saw Skyhawk 380 on his radar screen but heard only static through his headset.
    ‘Skyhawk, are you there?’
    The air traffic controller watched the numbers on his screen that indicated the aircraft’s altitude was starting to fall; slowly at first, then faster and faster. He blinked twice to make sure he wasn’t imagining it.
    He wasn’t.
    The brief message from the Airbus had been too fractured to make out. He switched channels and tried again. ‘Skyhawk this is Bristol eight-zero-nine –’
    There was no reply.

TWO
    T HE WORN TYRES HAD LOST their grip on the bend. The driver, who had been travelling at an estimated speed of seventy miles an hour, had stamped on the brakes, causing the already sliding wheels to lock. Skating across the wet surface, the car had ploughed into an oak at the side of the road, killing the single male occupant instantly. It was bad luck: the tree was the only one for fifty yards in either direction. That, at least, was the conclusion of the road traffic accident investigation officer who had spent the small hours of the morning measuring the skid marks on the remote stretch of country lane. Another car travelling behind appeared also to have skidded, probably to avoid the car that had spun out of control, but there was no evidence to suggest who the driver had been, and he or she had certainly not reported the accident to the police. Ordinary people could at times be shockingly callous. For the officer reconstructing the scene it had been a routine technical exercise, a matter of entering data in a computer that produced a neat 3D reproduction of the accident. But as a coroner who was often far too diligent for her own good, Jenny Cooper had been there to see the body and the wreckage, and to smell the blood. The airbags had