Kim was waiting for him outside the flying school, the wind blowing her dark curls into her face. She was dancing from foot to foot in her agitation. They moved into Calder’s tiny office and closed the door. Kim sat in the chair in front of Calder’s desk.
‘So it was sabotage?’ Calder said.
‘Definitely,’ Kim said. ‘They found fragments from some kind of bomb.’
‘And presumably they have no idea yet who planted it?’
‘No idea at all. Did you find out anything from Benton?’
‘Not really,’ Calder said. He described his breakfast at Claridge’s.
She listened to him with disappointment. ‘Do you believe that’s all there was to it?’
‘Don’t know. Tarek didn’t know either. Benton seemed to be telling the truth. But the cynic in me thinks that he lies for a living. There’s no doubt that Zyl News was right on the brink of bankruptcy back then, and I suspect that would have been a shock to Martha.’
‘Yes, but enough for her to insist that her mother fly to New York if she died? And why would that information scare her? Because she was scared. All that stuff about “if something happens to me”. There’s something else, there must be.’
Calder nodded. ‘You’re right. Maybe that’s only half the story. Maybe the diary holds the other half.’
‘Or perhaps Benton Davis is lying?’
‘Possibly. But I know for sure he won’t tell me more. Perhaps the police can get him to talk.’
‘That’s what I wanted to speak to you about,’ Kim said. ‘They’re going to want to interview you, I know they are. They asked me where you were, and I said you’d be flying back here this afternoon. They’ll be here any minute.’
‘Good,’ said Calder. ‘I’ll be happy to talk to them.’
Kim looked down at her hands. ‘Well...’
‘Kim?’ He looked at her suspiciously. ‘You don’t expect me not to tell them about seeing Benton?’
‘Er... I’d rather you didn’t. Or at least only if you have to. And if you do have to, don’t link it to the bomb in the Yak.’
‘But you said—’
‘I know what I said, but I can’t be sure,’ said Kim. She was staring hard at Calder now. ‘You see Todd and I talked about this a lot before the crash. He was adamant that he didn’t want to get the police involved in his family’s business. That’s why we came to see you.’
‘Yes, but things are different now, surely? He was nearly killed.’
‘I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to help the police find who planted the bomb; of course we should. But I don’t think we should encourage them to ask too many questions about Martha’s death.’
‘But we can’t hide it from them,’ Calder said. ‘That’s probably against the law. Conspiring to pervert the course of justice or something.’
‘Please,’ said Kim. She said it with her voice and she said it with her eyes. ‘If it was just me, I’d be happy to tell the police all they wanted to know. But I know that Todd would want us to keep them out of Zyl News. And with him lying in that bed in hospital in a coma, I’d feel terrible going against his wishes.’
‘So what do we do?’ Calder said. ‘Sit back and let the police faff around without telling them the most likely motive?’
‘We don’t sit back. We find out what Benton knows, what the Laagerbond is, why Martha went to that game reserve, who she was scared of, and then we find out who killed her and why. And then we tell the police.’
‘We?’
‘Me and you. Well, OK, mostly you. But please, Alex.’
Calder sat back and thought about it. Then he shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, we have to tell them that Todd was asking awkward questions about Martha’s death. And I’ll have to mention the letter and my visit to Benton.’
Kim’s pale cheeks reddened. ‘Oh, Alex—’
Calder held up his hand. ‘Hold on. We’ll give them the bare minimum. We won’t tell them what you suspect or what Todd suspects. We let them investigate Cornelius and anyone else they want to investigate. Who knows? Maybe they’ll find the guy who planted the bomb. Maybe it had nothing to do with any of this. Maybe Todd had some enemies we know nothing about—’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘We don’t know, we can’t be sure. In the meantime I will help you try to find out what happened to Martha. And if we discover there is a direct link to the bomb in the Yak we tell the police. OK?’
Kim smiled. ‘OK.’ To Calder’s surprise she ran round the desk and kissed his cheek. ‘Uh-oh,’ she said looking out of the window. A man and a woman were making their way along the footpath to the entrance to the flying school. ‘That’s them.’
Two minutes later Kim was on her way back to the hospital and Calder was talking to two detectives. The woman was thin, with a pale face and short red hair. The man was slightly younger and much chubbier, with a brush of fair hair sticking straight up. The woman introduced herself as Detective Inspector Banks, and the man as Detective Constable Wardle.
They had lots of questions that Calder answered. He went over again how he had offered Todd a flight in the Yak and everything that had happened on the day of the crash. The police had already examined the ground around where the Yak was parked, and interviewed Angie, the radio operator, about the man walking on the footpath that ran along the boundary of the airfield the evening before the crash. Then Calder mentioned that Todd had some suspicions about his mother’s death and had wanted Calder to speak to Benton Davis.
Their interest was immediately piqued, and they asked lots more questions, during which Calder described the contents of Martha’s last letter to her parents. DI Banks was asking most of the questions, and watching Calder closely as he answered them. He was glad that he had decided not to lie.
‘Why do you think Mrs van Zyl didn’t tell us any of this?’ she asked.
‘I was talking to her just now about it,’ Calder said. ‘I don’t think she thought it was necessarily relevant.’
‘Oh, come on, Mr Calder,’ the inspector said.
‘The van Zyls are a private family, her instinct was to maintain that privacy,’ Calder said. ‘I did discuss it with her and I’m sure she’ll tell you anything you want to know. She has the letter, I’m sure she’ll let you see it.’
‘So am I. Has she gone back to the hospital?’
‘I think so,’ said Calder. The detectives stood up to leave. ‘Do you have any idea how the bomb was set off?’ Calder asked.
‘They recovered some fragments from part of an explosive device and what look like the remains of an altimeter.’
‘An altimeter?’ Calder thought it through. ‘I see. It detonates the bomb as soon as the aircraft reaches a certain altitude?’
‘That’s the idea. You told the accident investigators that the aeroplane was climbing when the bomb exploded?’
‘That’s right.’
‘They said that if it had been any other light aircraft the engine would have been blown right away from the fuselage. That Yak had such a big sturdy engine that it remained intact after the explosion. You were very lucky, Mr Calder.’
He returned home at about eight to find Kim already there cooking supper for the two of them.
‘How’s Todd?’ he asked, taking a bottle of wine from the fridge and pouring two glasses.