“All right. Cheerio, Super.” “Goodbye to you,’ said Dalziel, again whipping open the door very smartly.
Standing there, his fist upraised as though to knock, was a slim blond youth dressed all in white.
“Hello, Franny,’ said Henry. ‘ look like a symbol of White Power.”
He stared incuriously at Dalziel who found himself vaguely intimidated.
“Wrong place. This is police HQ now,’ said Henry.
“The principal’s in the new admin, block,’ said Dalziel.
Thank you, sir,’ Franny said politely. ‘ day.”
He padded silently away in his tennis shoes.
“What was that?’ asked Dalziel.
That was Roote, our student president. An interesting boy,’ said Henry.
“Don’t you think so, Sam?” But Fallowfield, Dalziel observed, was only half listening, staring after Roote with a troubled look in his eyes.
Chapter 9
… the first great judgment of God upon the ambition of man was the confusion of tongues; whereby the open trade and intercourse of learning and knowledge was chiefly inbarred.
“I’m sorry,’ said Sergeant Pascoe helplessly. ‘ you say that again?”
Up till now his sympathy with those living near airports had been casual, unthinking. But for the past hour, ever since he had arrived at the airport, he seemed to have been interrupted either in his talking or his hearing every five minutes.
It wouldn’t have mattered so much if he had been getting anywhere, but the net result of all the repetitions and amplifications was so far nil.
Only the presence at one of the reception desks of a Giant, Unrepeatable Offer, Super-Size pair of breasts had prevented his visit from being utterly pointless. Noting his interest as they walked by to the sound-trap they rested in now, the airport’s Deputy Executive Officer, a cheerful, middle aged man called Grummitt, told him that the girl had wanted to be a hostess, but according to rumour no airline was willing to risk her presence on a plane.
Grummitt remembered the Christmas in question quite well. He had been lower down the airport hierarchy then, out at one of the desks himself.
“It can be hell if you get a bit of fog just as the holiday planes are starting. It’s bad enough in the summer, but at Christmas it’s always worse, not just because it’s more common, mind you, but because it’s so bloody short for most people.
It’s… “
The rest was noise.
“I’m sorry?’ said Pascoe.
“I said, it’s a matter of four or five days for many of them, so if they get held up here for half a day or even a few hours, they see a substantial chunk of their holiday disappearing. And they get mad. Now, I’ve checked as much as I can, and if my memory is correct, that particular day it was thick. Hardly anything got off till the early hours of the next morning. But it was a late-night flight you were interested in, wasn’t it?”
That’s right.”
“Not that that makes any difference if I’ve got the right day.
Everything would have piled up. There’d be bodies lying around everywhere.”
“That’s what we’re interested in,’ said Pascoe drily.
Grummitt looked puzzled, but continued, ‘ course, as you’ll realize, even in normal conditions, after all this time it’s unlikely anyone would recall your Miss.-whatsitgirling? — but in circumstances like that, it’s impossible.” “Flight lists? Customs?’ suggested Pascoe without hope.
“No use, I’m afraid. It’s too long ago. Contrary to popular belief, no one stores up great sheaves of paper for ever. Do you know what flight she was supposed to be on?”
“No,’ said Pascoe gloomily.
“Not to worry,’ said Grummitt, trying to cheer him up. ‘ if you did, it probably wouldn’t help. Everyone would be desperately trying to jump up in the queue, trying to get an earlier alternative flight. It’d mostly be families, of course, and they would stick together. But someone alone would stand a better chance. She was alone, you say?”
“Yes. We think so.’ Pascoe realized guiltily he had not really thought about it at all. Had Dalziel? Naturally.
“What do you mean, an alternative flight?”
Another metal cylinder full of fragile human flesh lifted itself laboriously into the air.
“I’m sorry,’ said Pascoe. ‘, please.” “I said, if you were due on a flight at midnight and shortly after midnight the mid-day flight finally got away — to your destination of course — you’d obviously be interested in getting a seat on it. Or you might even take a flight to another airport and hope to move on from there.”
There wouldn’t be any record kept of people changing flights?” “Oh no. Not now,’ said Grummitt with a laugh.
Pascoe scowled back at him. But a new idea was forming.
“What about baggage? Your baggage is checked in for one flight. You change to another. Does your baggage get shifted automatically?”
“Yes. Of course. It’s a matter of weight, old boy. Someone may pick up the ticket you’ve vacated and he’ll have baggage too.”
“Oh,’ said Pascoe, disappointed.
“Mind you, I’m not saying that baggage and passengers never get separated. Especially in conditions like the ones we’re talking about, anything’s possible. But they’d end up at the same destination. Unless the passenger changes destination as well as flight.”
He laughed again. His cheerfulness was beginning to get on Pascoe’s nerves.
“So you can’t help?’ he shouted through the incipient uproar of another jet.
“Afraid not, old boy. Have you tried the Austrians? They probably keep lists for ever. Very thorough fellows. Or travel agents?”
“What?’ screamed Pascoe.
“Travel agents. Probably someone fixed it all up for her. It might even have been a charter. Perhaps they had a courier running around, ticking off names.”
The noise became bearable. It’s too early in the morning, thought Pascoe. What else haven’t I done?
“You’ve been very helpful,’ he said to Grummitt as they walked out together through the reception area.
“Sorry I couldn’t be more useful,’ said Grummitt. ”s it all about?
Or must I just watch the papers?” “I wish I knew what it was all about,’ said Pascoe. I’ll watch the papers with you.”
They passed the Giant Super-Size Unrepeatable Offer. Grummitt nudged him.
“No wonder they built Jumbo jets, eh?’ he said.
“You can say that again,’ said Pascoe lasciviously.
Grummitt with a look of polite resignation began to say it again.
Superintendent Dalziel had breakfasted early and well. Unless the college domestic staff were putting on a special performance for his benefit, they did themselves rather well here, he thought. As he was still segregated from the communal breakfasters in the dining-hall, he had no chance to make comparisons. And, a cause of relief, no need to make conversations.
Perhaps this was the reason why his wife had left him. Often breakfast was the only waking period they spent together during the whole day, and try as he might (which hadn’t been very hard) he could not force himself to be sociable.
Unwilling to cause offence by leaving anything (there was another school of working class gentility which believed that something always should be left, but not in his family, thank Heaven!) he took the last slice of toast from the rack, spread the remaining butter on it to a thickness of about a quarter-inch, scraped his knife round the sides of the cut-glass marmalade dish, and took two thirds of the resulting confection into his mouth at one bite.
The door opened and the pretty young girl in the blue nylon overall entered. She seemed to have been told by the powers that were in the kitchen to look after his needs. Dalziel approved. Paternally, of course, he assured himself, dismissing a mental image of himself slowly unbuttoning the overall which in the height of summer was probably over very little. His fingers compensated by unbuttoning his waistcoat, leaving dabs of butter on the charcoal grey cloth.