‘I will,’ said Calder thoughtfully. He considered her question. Sabotage was technically possible. ‘Do you really think Todd’s family would do something like that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kim said. ‘I don’t really trust them. I don’t trust Edwin — that’s Todd’s half-brother — at all. And Cornelius? Cornelius has been trying to get his claws into Todd all his life, and Cornelius usually gets what he wants. We had a major row with him a few days ago about whether Todd should go back to Zyl News. We walked out of his house and stayed in a hotel.’ She raised her wide grey eyes to Calder. ‘Would you go and see Benton Davis? Please? Ask him if he knows why Martha was killed.’
Calder nodded. ‘All right.’ His previous reluctance seemed churlish now. After what had happened that afternoon, he would do anything for Kim.
‘Thanks.’ She smiled quickly. Then she groaned. ‘Oh, God. I should tell Cornelius what’s happened.’
‘Do you want me to do it?’
‘Would you? Here, I’ll give you the number.’ Kim pulled out a PDA and tapped its screen. ‘There. It’s the London one.’
Calder pulled out his phone and dialled.
‘Hello?’
‘Can I speak to Mr van Zyl?’
‘This is Edwin van Zyl.’ The voice was South African, curt, precise. And he pronounced his name ‘fan Sail’, as opposed to ‘van Zill’, the way that the name was usually pronounced in England and America.
‘Can I speak to Cornelius?’
‘Who is this?’
‘My name’s Alex Calder. It’s about Todd.’
‘You can speak to me. I’m his brother, man.’
Calder gave up his attempt to get to the father. ‘I’m with Kim. We’re in a hospital in Norfolk. He’s had an accident.’
‘One moment.’
A few seconds later another voice came on the phone. Stronger, more authoritative. ‘What happened?’
Calder gave a thirty-second description of the afternoon’s events.
‘I’ll come up there right now,’ the voice said.
It took him just over two hours. Calder stayed with Kim, sitting next to Todd, watching him lie amongst the tubes and machines, still. A nurse informed them of Cornelius’s arrival, and they went out to meet him. Calder was impressed by the man’s size and aura of determination. He had Todd’s square jaw, but he looked harder, stronger, tougher than his son. He also looked very worried. As soon as he saw Kim he held out his arms. Kim hesitated and then let herself be enveloped by that large embrace.
He held her for several seconds and then glanced at Calder. ‘You the pilot?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Was it your fault?’
‘No.’
Cornelius’s blue eyes stared hard at Calder. Calder held his gaze. He was sensitive to Cornelius’s concern, but he wasn’t going to be intimidated by the man.
Kim pushed away from Cornelius’s chest, her eyes igniting with anger. ‘Alex has told me in detail what happened and it’s quite clear that he did nothing wrong. In fact, he saved Todd’s life.’
Cornelius ignored her. ‘Because if I find you were responsible for my son’s injuries, you will pay. You will pay dearly.’
The next day was busy. Kim had stayed the night at Calder’s cottage but spent most of the time at the hospital. There was no change in Todd’s condition. The brain scan showed no signs of permanent damage, apart from probable memory loss, but the doctors couldn’t be sure. They also had no idea how long he would be unconscious. They were keeping him on a ventilator, giving him drugs to try to control the swelling in his brain. Kim just sat there and watched her husband.
Cornelius waited with her in the hospital for a couple of hours the next morning, but then he returned to London, extracting a promise from Kim to let him know if there was any change to Todd’s condition, one way or the other. He grilled Calder for twenty minutes on exactly what had happened, but seemed satisfied with his responses. Calder was under no illusions that if the accident report showed that someone had blundered, be it himself as pilot, or Colin, the maintenance engineer at the airfield, or a fitter at the specialist firm in Lithuania which had undertaken the last major overhaul on the engine, that person would pay.
The air accident investigators were soon on the scene. They were working on salvaging the Yak and they had lots of questions for Calder. Calder also talked through everything with his partner, Jerry Tyrell, who was the chief flying instructor at the flying school. Jerry’s opinion was that Calder had done everything correctly in very difficult circumstances. Calder was pleased and relieved to hear this: Jerry had never shrunk from criticizing Calder whenever he had caught him doing something that didn’t comply with his own strict interpretation of safety procedures.
A uniformed police constable came to ask questions, but this seemed more of a formality. Feeling slightly foolish, Calder did as he had promised, and asked the policeman to let him know if he came across anything that suggested the accident was a result of sabotage. This perked the constable’s interest, but faithful to his promise to Kim, Calder denied that he had any concrete reason to think that someone might have wanted to kill him or Todd.
He had a close look over the patch of grass between a Warrior and a Seneca where the Yak had been parked, and asked around to see if anyone had seen anything suspicious at the airfield the day, or more especially the night, before the accident. Jerry and Angie, who manned the radio, had left at about eight o’clock the evening before. Angie thought she had seen a lone man walking along the footpath by the poplars on the far side of the airfield as she was locking up, but there was nothing unusual about that. Otherwise all had been quiet. The aerodrome was really not much more than a field; someone could easily have climbed over a fence in the middle of the night and tampered with the Yak’s engine without anyone noticing. But the more Calder considered it the less likely he thought that was. The strain of worrying about her husband was causing Kim to lose her sense of proportion.
Amongst all the activity he did allow himself one quick diversion. When he switched on his computer in his office he couldn’t resist checking the Spreadfinex web page. The US bond markets had tumbled over the previous twenty-four hours and he was now sitting on a £5,000 loss. He thought for a moment, clicked a couple of buttons and doubled his bet at the lower price.
He picked up Kim late that evening from the hospital and drove her home. She looked worn out, even though she had done nothing but sit and watch her husband all day.
Calder’s house was an old cottage nestling at the edge of a salt marsh about a mile from the village of Hanham Staithe. It was dusk as they arrived and the rooks were kicking up a fuss in the trees behind the house. It was clear Kim had eaten very little all day, so Calder warmed up some soup and threw together a salad.
‘Glass of wine?’ he asked.
‘God, yes please,’ Kim replied. ‘Suddenly that’s exactly what I want.’
Calder opened a bottle, poured two glasses and placed them on the solid oak kitchen table. ‘Back tomorrow morning?’
Kim nodded. ‘And the next morning, and the one after that.’ She was still pale and shaken but there was no mistaking the determination in her voice.
‘They still have no idea how long it’s going to take?’
‘No. It could be days, weeks, months. Half the time I’m relieved he’s not getting any worse. But I’m also scared what he’ll be like when he does come round. Whether he’ll remember who he is, who I am. I sit there looking at him and all kinds of wild thoughts go through my head.’
‘We have to take it one step at a time,’ Calder said. ‘We know he’s alive, and it looks like he’s going to stay that way. They didn’t spot any serious damage on the scan, did they?’