The First Cut (35 page)

‘Leave it! Don’t touch it!’ Greg yelled with new conviction. ‘Swap seats with me.’ Nicky hesitated. She could see the dark water below them as the plane cut through a gap in the cloud. They swapped places in an untidy sprawl over the seats, the sea coming ever closer. Blind panic swamped her. ‘Yank it, yank!’

‘No. It’ll start a spin.’ There was no sky visible in the windscreen as the plane pitched for several seconds closer and closer to the sea. Nicky slammed herself back against her seat in a puny attempt to delay the end by a millisecond, then the nose inched upwards and she saw the coast of France, a smudge on the horizon.

She stared at her husband as he inched the plane back to horizontal. His face was set, his jaw straining under his skin, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple as he tried to keep a lid on his terror. He grabbed the headset and connected to the nearest tower. She saw they were gaining height as the plane swayed and wobbled. ‘You know how to fly?’

Greg nodded. ‘I never told you. Like so much else in my life, I never told you.’

‘You mean you can land this plane?’ A manic giggle erupted from deep inside Nicky’s belly as Greg hurriedly reported Lawrence’s actions to the tower. She had been staring down into the darkest abyss, and suddenly and inexplicably she had been released. ‘What happened in Le Touquet, Greg? What happened to Cathy?’

Greg didn’t look at her. ‘I met Cathy learning to fly. I was twenty. I had dreams of becoming a pilot, going off to Africa and ferrying important people around – the stupid dreams you have when you’re young. But I fell in love with her and used to come down and see her when he was away working in London. Hayersleigh was our playground. We wanted to celebrate when I got my pilot’s licence. She left the baby with Connie and we took Lawrence’s plane. I flew us to Le Touquet.’ He sobbed. ‘It was cloudless.’ The plane swung violently as if in protest at the present conditions ‘We—’

An alarm sounded and cut through the roar of the wind in the cabin. Greg swore. Nicky looked out of the windscreen and at that moment her heart learned the real definition of agony. The propeller wasn’t moving.

Greg let out a strangled noise. He thumped the control panel and vainly began trying to restart the engine.

‘What’s happening?’ she cried.

‘There’s no fuel.’ The useless sound of the engine not engaging carried through to her. ‘He’s cut the fuel line!’ The plane was slowing down, gliding not flying, drifting inexorably towards the ground. The French coast came closer as they drifted earthwards. ‘Not again!’ screamed Greg. ‘We never got to Le Touquet. My first flight as a qualified pilot and I didn’t do the proper safety checks. We ran out of fuel. We were coming down and I didn’t think we’d make land. There was only one parachute—’

The parachute! Nicky cast about wildly for the parachute that Lawrence had taken off before he jumped, and saw it at her feet. She picked it up and gripped it tightly. ‘We have to jump together.’

‘No! The one not in the chute would be ripped away when it opened.’ Greg shook his head. ‘Lawrence wants me to choose. He’s a cunning old bastard!’ The plane wobbled again in the wind. ‘You’re staying here with me, Nicky. You’re not going out there! You see, I made Cathy put the parachute on. She wanted to stay with me, but I didn’t think we were going to make it. I forced her to jump because I thought it would be safer. I crash-landed on the beach and . . .’ He paused, fighting for breath. ‘I walked away without a scratch. They were running across the sand towards me, so many people, and I was screaming Cathy’s name, shouting at them to find her.’ He stopped talking as they passed over the beach into France.

‘It took them twelve hours to find her. Her parachute never opened, or maybe she never tried to get it open. I basically pushed her out to her death. I was called the miracle man, the luckiest man in Dorset. And the woman I loved had free-fallen thousands of feet to her death. If she had stayed in the plane with me, like she begged to do . . . she would have lived.’ Greg gave a sob and held his head in his hands. ‘And so would the others!’

‘Greg, this is not your fault.’

‘But it is, Nicky! Don’t you see? It’s entirely my fault! She died because of decisions I took.’

‘It was an accident! You are not to blame for the others!’

‘I haven’t been in a cockpit since that day. Like so much other shit in my life, it all started then! I walked away from that life, the people I knew. I walked off into the sunset, but it followed me, it stalked me every day that came after! He took everyone I loved from me! Every single one . . .’

Nicky reached out and put her hand on Greg’s arm. ‘But he didn’t take me.’

Greg glanced at her and looked away. ‘Lawrence murdered Francesca and Grace because those were the people I was closest to. He knew their loss would hurt me the most. Nicky, what were you doing with Adam?’ The plane was dropping lower and lower, rooftops and cattle visible through the rain, the grey strip of the runway at Le Touquet tantalizingly far away. ‘I can’t do it!’ He was starting to panic again.

‘Yes, you can, Greg! Francesca and Grace were snatched from you – I am still here, I am still here. I am not perfect. I did so many things wrong; I am as flawed as you are and I’m sorry. Lawrence wanted your one mistake to colour your life for ever but he’s gone. And he was wrong. It’s over. It’s finally over. For their memories and for Cathy’s, land this plane!’

‘I’m too low!’

Nicky sat rigid as the plane coasted closer to the runway. They just missed the top of a low outbuilding and somehow, with the help of a gust of wind, rose over a chain-link fence. Greg tried to ease them down to earth but they didn’t have the force to carry them to tarmac and they hit the rough grassy ground before the runway. The wheels bumped down and the plane sheared sideways, forcing it airborne for a few seconds before it slammed down on its opposite wing.

Nicky heard the drawn-out crunch of metal warping as Greg rammed down on the brake and began a skid towards the runway, the grey blur of tarmac sliding past inches from her husband’s shoulder through the open door. She could hear Greg shouting incoherently as the wing disintegrated, shrapnel cartwheeling away across the runway. They were spun around and thrown about as the plane bumped along the unyielding concrete, buckling and distorting with every smack, the force of which slammed up her spine and made her teeth chatter. They slid to a halt at a forty-five-degree angle in a heap of burning rubber, friction sparks and a disintegrated wing.

‘Get out, get out!’ Nicky hollered, trying to beat back visions of fire engulfing them. She heard the distant squeal of the emergency services racing towards them. She tried to push at the door next to her and get it open but it had buckled with the force of the impact and wouldn’t open. She jabbed at her seatbelt to get free, the frantic motion her reaction to finally coming to a stop. It was then she realized that Greg wasn’t moving. He lay slumped over the crumpled flight controls, his head cradled in his arms. Nicky reached out a tentative hand for the back of his head and placed her palm upon it. There was no reaction. The sirens got louder but she simply lay her head on his neck and waited.

‘C
irculation have told me that last week’s sales were the biggest jump in two years, so a big slap on the back for you all!’ The new editor certainly had enthusiasm, Nicky thought. Well, he should have, she reasoned; he was younger than she was. His round John Lennon glasses caught the strip lights in the conference room and made it difficult to see his eyes. His hair was already receding. ‘The Lord Chief Justice is making a statement about Lawrence Thornton today. We’ll run that on the front page, and do we have that first-person piece about the tragedy of fathers who commit suicide?’ He looked at the features editor, who slurped coffee and nodded. ‘Let’s run that big –’ he glanced at Nicky – ‘if Nicky doesn’t mind.’

‘I’ve just heard that Hayersleigh House is on the market,’ said the homes editor excitedly. ‘We could tie in a feature on country houses with grisly histories, for Thursday.’ She paused. ‘If Nicky doesn’t mind.’

‘Yes, good,’ said the editor. He turned to Bruton. ‘What’s happening on that woman who was shot at through her window at the carnival? Has she given us an interview yet?’

There was silence while they all waited for Bruton to open his mouth. ‘I’ve got the story,’ Bruton growled. He turned to Nicky and raised one eyebrow sarcastically. ‘Nicky, you mind?’

‘Oh for God’s sake!’ scoffed Maria, slapping some papers down on the desk. ‘Of course she bloody minds!’

Nicky put her head in her hands. It was too early to be back at work. She should have taken more time off. They were only doing their jobs, but talking about what she had just lived through as though it was nothing more than copy to fill column inches was making her head spin. ‘I’ll just be a minute,’ she said and left the room. Maria came out behind her. ‘I’m sorry, Maria, I shouldn’t be here.’

‘No, you shouldn’t.’

‘I thought I could cope—’

‘You know, you can take all the time you need. Go and put your feet up. You look pale.’

‘Walk with me.’

They took the lift to the ground floor and paused in the lobby. ‘Things will be difficult for a while, but it will get better.’ Maria put her hand on Nicky’s arm. ‘You’ve already been through so much.’

Nicky shook her head. ‘I didn’t believe Greg, I—’

‘Don’t be hard on yourself. I’m the one who feels guilty and ashamed. I didn’t believe
you
, remember? And I’m sorry.’ Maria hugged her. ‘Now you go home and get some rest.’ Nicky looked at the revolving doors at the entrance. She had met Adam here, back on one of those hot days in the summer. How long ago it seemed now. ‘Nicky . . .’ She turned to Maria, her thoughts elsewhere. ‘You are going home, aren’t you? Nicky?’

There was another reason she couldn’t be at work today. There was somewhere she had to go.

The hospital receptionist had large hooped earrings and clacked the keyboard with long fake nails as she typed in the name and directed Nicky along a series of low-ceilinged white corridors to the room she needed. She came to a nurses’ station and stopped.

‘I’m here to see Connie Thornton. She’s been asking for me.’

The nurse pursed her lips. ‘She gets tired easily. Let me just check if she’s awake.’ She walked over to a door and looked through the viewing window, and at that moment round the corner of the ward walked Adam.

He had changed a lot in just two weeks. His face was thinner and he looked tired, a baggy jumper swamping his shoulders. He stumbled when he saw her and looked about as if for help from somewhere. They stood staring at each other as he recovered and came towards her. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’ The last time she had seen him he was clinging to the bonnet of Struan’s car, shouting that her life had been in danger. She had accelerated away, throwing him to the dirt as she escaped. She had ignored his warnings and followed her own course. ‘Were you expecting to see me?’

‘I hoped I would.’ The words were out before she could stop herself.

His brown eyes were searching her face, trying to read what she was thinking. ‘I’m sorry for what I did. Please believe me.’

He seemed to lose energy in his legs at that, and slumped on the row of hard plastic chairs along the wall by the nurses’ station. She sat down next to him and felt tiredness overwhelm her. The contrast between the two of them now, bent and sunken under the hospital lights, and their last battle at Hayersleigh was plain to see. But neither of them had known the truth then. They had not been weighed down by it.

‘Why didn’t you tell me what was going on when we were at the house?’

He made a small scoffing noise. ‘You’d have thought I was nuts.’ He shifted on his seat and let his hands hang between his knees. ‘I’d found your photo in his darkroom. You, hidden amongst all those trees. Connie knew your name; she said you needed to be saved – that you were going to die.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘I have a lot of free time and I like crazy stories, challenges.’

‘And you set out to meet me on that plane?’

‘I planned to meet you in London but your workmate was so nice and chatty, explaining all about your trip to Spain. The rest was easy . . .’ He tailed off. ‘I hadn’t expected you to make such an impression on me.’ He ran a hand through his hair and continued. ‘And then you told me Grace had been murdered, that you’d both had the same husband, and I sensed things running out of control. Connie also said you were a threat to all of us. Remember that my mother’s death had already driven a stake through the heart of my family – maybe I was trying to be a hero, acting to save what was left.’

Nicky put her hand on his shoulder in silent recognition of all that he had now lost.

‘Connie kept saying there was something incriminating at the house. I didn’t expect to read what I did.’ He paused and shook his head. ‘We were similar, you and I. You never knew your own mother, Nicky, just like me. Hearing what she really felt, reading about who she was, was . . .’ He groped for the right word. ‘Powerful. It was the closest I had ever been to her.’ After I fought Struan I became desperate to uncover the truth, I was mad to get to the truth. I couldn’t accept that my own father could be involved. He was so respected. If anything I was the wayward one. I needed to find the answers myself, at almost any cost.’

Nicky plucked at some lint on her black skirt. When truth shines a light into the darkest corners of family life, it can be blinding. Adam had done the wrong things for the right reasons. She could see that now.

‘Connie’s awake now, you can go in,’ the nurse said.

They both stood. ‘I was expecting to go to jail for what I’d done, but then you retracted. I took a lot of hope from that, hope that maybe you did believe me, that you didn’t simply think I was a psycho.’ He broke off and stared at her. ‘I’m glad I saved your life. I’m sorry that I couldn’t save the others.’

Nicky stopped him talking by grabbing his elbows. She looked into his big brown eyes, gathered him to her and gave him a hug. ‘I forgive you,’ she whispered in his ear, and they held each other for a long moment in the corridor, swaying gently this way and that. When he pulled away she saw him wipe away a tear.