The Final Flight by James Blatch (books to read in your 30s .TXT) 📗

is there any chance Milford was that desperate? Maybe he was wrong about Guiding Light, but felt too committed to his theory. Could he have done something like this?”

“Absolutely not. No.”

“He was your friend, Rob. Are you being honest with yourself?”

“I promise you, it’s beyond any possibility that he would have done it deliberately. And frankly, I don’t buy for one second he did it accidentally.”

“But yet they found the switch in the off position. Do you have any reason to suspect this group captain of anything? You think he’s working with Kilton?”

Rob thought for a moment. “It’s possible, I suppose, but doesn’t seem likely. Look, I can’t explain it, but I’m certain of a few things. Millie didn’t switch it off. The system failed. And someone is covering that up to keep the project going, despite everything we should know about it.”

They stood in silence for a moment. The light was fading, and Salisbury’s street lamps were starting to illuminate.

“Before we go any further,” said Susie, “let’s examine your options. Firstly, the earlier incident you mentioned. Why not use that to have the project grounded? Tell them you regret agreeing with Kilton and get everyone else on board. Go in as a team. Go straight to the station commander.”

Rob shook his head. “The other people on that flight are dead or gone. Millie and Steve Bright are dead, Brian Hill was effectively sacked from TFU for insubordination. And…”

“And?”

“I’d have to say I lied, which doesn’t make me a good witness. Plus, Kilton was right. We had no evidence, anyway. Millie wasn’t running a tape. I just can’t see Periwinkle overruling Kilton based on my say-so.”

“Periwinkle’s the station commander?”

“Yes.”

“OK.” Susie took a deep breath. “Let’s say you’re Millie, coming to me with … what, exactly? That sheet of notes? Is that the evidence I need to take upstairs at my place? I can tell you the burden of proof for corruption is pretty high when you’re dealing with a national security project that reports directly to Whitehall.”

“The answer’s in there somewhere, I’m sure of it. I just need to decode it. Where is the box now?”

“Back at the B&B, but they strictly forbid visitors of the opposite sex after 6PM. It’s Saturday tomorrow. How about you come to me in the morning?”

He nodded.

“There’s one more thing, Rob. I can’t promise I’ll be here next week. Even telling them the project’s running again might not change their minds. As a matter of fact, I think they’re scared of this one. It’s a huge deal. We go in guns blazing, making serious accusations… We would need to have solid gold evidence.”

“I can’t let him down again.”

“I know. But the focus is now on your black-and-white evidence. Nothing more, nothing less. It can’t be about your remorse, Rob.”

26

Saturday 2nd July

The B&B was a red brick Victorian semi. Rob found a parking space close by and walked the short distance, feeling self-conscious in his RAF uniform.

An elderly woman opened the door; she wore a pinny and had rollers in her hair. Her eyebrows raised as she took in the uniform.

“Mr Attenborough?”

Susie appeared behind her.

“Hello, Robert.”

“You didn’t tell me your brother was an RAF pilot, my dear,” Mrs Holleroid said.

“Oh, did I not? He’s the family hero.”

Rob followed Susie upstairs to the first room on the left. She shut the door and then put her finger to her lips and whispered. “The old bat will listen for a bit.”

Rob nodded.

“How was dad when you saw him?”

“Fine, yes. On excellent form.”

“Right. So making a good recovery from the heart attack?”

Rob nodded. “Yes.” He whispered. “I’m not very good at this.”

She switched on a small transistor radio. A man was reading a tennis match report from Wimbledon.

Standing by the bed, Susie lifted the mattress and retrieved two black leather pouches. She spread the contents of Millie’s box over the bed.

“Why the bloody uniform? It’s Saturday.”

“I had to tell Mary something. I told her I had to work.”

Rob created separate piles for the papers.

The technical documents, the most damning to possess outside TFU, were straight from the project folders. But they contained no obvious clues.

The data sheets were more promising. Two large printouts containing lines of numbers, some of them were circled.

“I remember these. We saw them early in the project. They came back from DF Blackton.”

“What do the numbers mean?” Susie asked.

“They’re height readings from the laser. They’re sent to some sort of magic box that sits between Guiding Light and the autopilot. If I remember rightly, just one reel of tape produced a foot-high pile of paper, so this is just a few seconds’ worth.”

“That’s a lot of numbers for a few seconds.”

“The only fact I really remember is that the laser reported half a million height readings every hour.”

Susie picked up the sheet of Millie’s handwriting and placed it between the two of them.

Rob stared at Millie’s equations and notations.

Again, his eyes went to the bottom of the page and the underlined 8.75.

“This looks like a conclusion. The summary of what he was looking for. I just don’t know what kind of conclusion.”

Susie walked around the room. The radio now played classical music.

“Explain something to me. These tapes…” She pointed at the two cardboard sleeves. “You mentioned Millie recording something yesterday, when you talked about the first incident.”

“That’s how we got all these height readings. Millie recorded the numbers on the reels. We sent them off to DF Blackton and they checked everything. But that was more at the start of the project. In the early days we didn’t engage the autopilot. We just flew about with the laser running, collecting readings so the technicians could look at them.”

“Look at them? What does that mean? Did they play them?”

“Sort of. They have a powerful computer which looks at them and makes sense of it all.” Rob picked up one sleeve and tipped the reel onto his hand. “Millie definitely became more interested in these after the incident.”

“Rob, is it possible Millie was creating