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

just be at the doctor’s? Didn’t the police say that the house was empty? Mary must have taken him off.”

“No, sir. He’s up to something, I’m sure of it.”

The phone in the outer office rang. A moment later, the call was put through to Periwinkle.

“Station Commander,” he answered. “I see. And that’s as much as you can tell us, is it?”

He said a polite thank you and hung up. “ATC say the only MU traffic this morning was indeed an Anson. There was no flight plan, but the aircraft departed to the north-east.”

“North-east?” Kilton looked around the office and pulled a southern England chart from a shelf, spreading it open on the conference table. With his finger, he drew a line running north-easterly from West Porton. It led to Cambridge.

He looked up at the station commander. “Get your corporal to call Cambridge Airport and ask them if they’ve had a visitor this morning. Anson TX183.” He wrote the serial number on a scrap of paper and handed it to Periwinkle. The station commander moved from behind his desk.

Kilton stood by the chart and listened as Periwinkle relayed the message in the outer office.

“Oh, and could we have a pot of tea, please?”

“Call Cambridge first!” Kilton shouted.

Periwinkle walked back into the office. He eyed Kilton as he dealt with some correspondence on his desk. Kilton stood in silence, gazing down at the chart. Why Cambridge?

After a few minutes, the corporal appeared at the door.

“Nothing, sir.”

“Nothing?” said Kilton. “Really?”

“No, sir. Cambridge confirms they’ve had no visitors at all this morning.”

“Bollocks!” Kilton stood up and hunched over the chart again. “North-east. Could just have been their initial heading.” His eyes moved either side of an imaginary line to Cambridge. RAE Bedford was a common destination for test crews; the place hosted a lot of aeronautical engineers.

The corporal stood next to him, also looking at the chart.

“RAE Bedford, corporal. That could be it. Call them, will you?”

“Yes, sir. Would you like me to make a list of the other airfields along the route? They could have gone beyond Cambridge, of course?”

“Quickly then,” Kilton snapped. He watched as the corporal scribbled at speed.

Marham

Wyton

Alconbury

RAE Bedford

Bicester

Brize Norton

Abingdon

As he returned to the outer office, Kilton shouted after him. “Start with RAE Bedford.”

He paced the room.

“Cup of tea, Mark?” asked Periwinkle.

Red Brunson stood by one of the planning desks and drummed his fingers. He’d been watching the comings and goings since their abrupt return to West Porton, including the order of the police to Rob May’s house.

Jock MacLeish appeared beside him.

Red looked over his shoulder to ensure no-one was too close.

“First, they came for Brian, then they came for Millie.”

“And now they’ve come for Rob.” MacLeish finished the thought.

“Did he ever say anything to you?” Red asked.

Jock shook his head. “Nope. I wondered if he would, but he seemed happy with the project.”

Two West Porton security men in uniform marched into the planning room. They tapped on Jean’s office door. Red and MacLeish watched as she led them to the wooden lockers and handed over a set of keys.

It didn’t take them long to tip the contents of Rob’s locker into a bag.

MacLeish shook his head and went back to his planning, but Red loitered for a moment, before heading over to Jean.

He tapped on the glass window in the door.

Jean looked up and beamed, waving him in.

“Well, hello, Lieutenant Brunson.”

“Hi, Jean. I need to check a few items for the funeral. Do you have the contact list, please?”

“Of course,” she said brightly, then delved into a file, handing him a sheet with the names and telephone numbers.

“Thank you. I won’t be long.”

Rob went into the Abingdon guardroom at the main gate and filled out a visitor form for Susie, making up a name. One of the smaller illegalities of the day.

At the 47 Squadron operations desk, JR explained they would have a female VIP passenger, and Susie was duly treated like royalty with offers of cups of tea and biscuits.

JR filled out the departure details, and he sat on the sofa next to Rob as they ran through a copy of the Anson pilots’ notes.

They hadn’t been able to contact anyone at Lundy. Apparently, the island wasn’t connected to the mainland by wire. However, JR had found a description of the strip; it was one thousand four hundred feet long, which was tight.

The more they read in the notes, the better they felt their chances were. The handling instructions for take-off at eighty-five knots had a considerable margin of error, as the actual stall speed was closer to fifty knots.

During his test pilots’ course, Rob had placed various aircraft in all sorts of marginal situations. He felt this was acceptable.

JR agreed.

He shrugged. “Well, we’ll find out one way or another.”

Rob donned his flying coveralls and the three of them headed out to the waiting aircraft.

A few minutes after JR, Rob and Susie had left, a phone rang on the 47 Squadron operations desk. The duty desk sergeant picked it up.

“47 Squadron Operations. Sergeant Wilkes… Thank you. Put him through.”

As he listened, he jotted down an aircraft serial number.

TX183

“I think so. Stand by, I’ll check.”

Wilkes could have done without this extra task on a busy morning. Cupping the receiver, he looked across to his corporal.

“Those VIPs? Were they in an Anson?”

“I think so.”

“Serial?” He waited as the corporal opened the visitor log and ran his finger down to the last entry.

“Tango X-Ray one-eight-three”

“What time did they leave?”

The corporal looked at the wall clock. “Ten minutes ago.”

The sergeant uncapped the phone. “You’ve just missed them, sorry.”

A new voice appeared at the other end of the line and the sergeant had to hold the receiver away from his ear.

“Yes, sir.” He dropped the phone and shouted at the corporal.

“Stop the Anson!”

Rob switched on the main magnetos in the aircraft and switched off the starting mags. He scanned the rest of the checklist while a member of the ground crew outside waved to confirm