`Yes, I know. It would have to be Roy. Aye, and with him and Lottie right on the edge of retirement. But, terrible as it is, unfair or not, life goes on. It means my game plan goes into play a year or so early. You'll be Roy's successor as Head of CID. Pull out of the Drugs Liaison thing, right now, and get back up here. I need you.
`This my friend, will be the biggest investigation that you and I have ever tackled.'
FOURTEEN
The Permanent Secretary told me that official attendance at scenes like this was one of the burdens of my office, Mr Skinner. But he couldn't help me to prepare for it.'
The Rt. Hon. Andrew Hardy MP, Secretary of State for Scotland, and his Security Adviser, walked slowly through the valley amid the wreckage and the heather, and at the heart of a forest of white marker flags. Around them the area was strewn with flight seats, some still in rows, some broken apart and lying individually. By now at least, all of the seats around them were empty.
Both men were ashen-faced.
It's your burden, but it's a duty of my job too, Secretary of State,' said Bob Skinner, 'and of every man and woman here. I don't make political comments as a rule, but next time public sector pay, or staffing comes up in Cabinet, I hope you'll remember this morning.
This is the most horrible task Society could ask any man or woman to perform, yet look around you. You'll see tens and hundreds of people carrying it out without question, although every one of them will be scarred by the experience. They'll carry it with them for the rest of their lives. And so will you. I'm sure it will make you an even better advocate on their behalf.'
The politician looked at the policeman, and nodded.
Skinner had got on well with the Secretary of State, ever since he had agreed to continue to act as his Security Adviser. However, he had been careful to deal more formally with Hardy than with his predecessor, having learned from that disastrous relationship that when dealing with Ministers of the Crown it is safest to serve the office rather than the man.
Or as Sir James Proud had put it in a moment of typical candour: 'Now you know, Bob.
Never trust the bastards any further than you can throw them.'
Privately, Skinner felt that he could trust the straightforward, serious Hardy, but hoped that he would never have to put it to the test.
`Where should we go now?' asked the Secretary of State. Skinner had briefed him earlier, in the command trailer, on the disaster and on the witness accounts of an explosion. Hardy had absorbed the information calmly and without any sign of panic.
I suppose we'd better look at the mortuary tent.' The policeman nodded upwards. Just beyond the crest of the slope, they could see the ridge of a great grey marquee which had been set up by the Army.
`Very good. Let's give these chaps a hand.' Two soldiers were walking past them, beginning the trudge up the hill with a laden, blanket-covered stretcher. The Secretary of State took a handle at the front, Skinner at the rear.
`Doesn't bear thinking about,' said Hardy quietly, as they climbed. 'This could be Colin Davey, or Roly McGrath that we're carrying.
Skinner glanced down at a small, bare, bloody foot which showed beyond the end of the blanket, and saw red nail-varnish.
`No,' he said. 'This was a woman.' He saw no point in reminding the Minister that from the accounts of Robert Thacker and the child, Davey and McGrath had been at the heart of an explosion big enough to blow the plane's nose section away from its fuselage.
There had been no room in the Army transporters for trestle tables, and so, inside the long tent, the victims recovered from the valley had been laid on the ground, in neat, ordered rows. Each one was in a black, zippered body-bag.
As Skinner, the Secretary of State and the soldiers laid their stretcher on the ground near one of the tied back entrances to the marquee, Sarah rushed across. Bob opened his mouth to introduce her to Hardy, but she ignored him and bent beside the stretcher. Her face was drawn and her eyes were creased. She was just over thirty, but for the first time ever, her husband saw how she would look in middle age.
Without a word, she drew back the blanket covering the body. Skinner felt the Secretary of State flinch beside him, and heard his gasp as he caught a glimpse of bloody blonde hair, and of a face without recognisable features. 'That's done by the seat in front,' said Sarah, in an emotionless, professional voice, acknowledging their presence without looking up. 'The brace position gives you a chance in a low-level impact, say a crash landing, but in an incident like this, there's no chance at all. All that the doctors here are doing is certifying death' As if to illustrate she placed two fingers against the woman's neck.
'In most cases, even with a post mortem, it's impossible to be specific about the cause. It could be a broken neck, it could be the shock as the impact pulps the internal organs, it could be, and in many cases it probably is, heart failure induced by sheer bloody terror.'
She stood up. 'Okay, boys,' she said to the soldiers. 'Bag her and lace her in order.'
Then: 'As we lay out the bodies, we're trying to Picture the floor of the tent as if it were the valley, south this end, north up there. They're being placed in roughly the position relative to which they were found. We figure it might help in the identification, that it might approximate to the seat order.'
`How many victims have you recovered so far?' asked the Secretary of State, his composure returned.
`They're coming in so thick and fast we ain't keeping a running tab.' She looked along the length of the tent. 'So far I'd guess about a hundred and forty.' She glanced at her watch.
'It's just gone eleven-thirty. Not bad for around two hours' work.'
`Will identification be a problem?'
`Not as great as it might have been. Quite a few of the bodies even have ID in their clothing. Normally, in a high-impact accident you'd expect widespread disfigurement and dismemberment, with bodies burned and personal effects destroyed. Most air accidents turn into human jigsaw puzzles. Not this one, though.'
‘Any ideas as to why?' asked Hardy.
`Well, in this case the plane seems to have been well into its descent when the incident happened, so the seat-belt signs would have been on. That will have had an effect. The people on board seem to have been fairly well disciplined, too. I'm no expert, but from what I've read on the subject, in a situation like this, people often unstrap themselves, so that on impact, they're thrown about, sometimes right through the fuselage, and torn apart.
Not all, but most of the bodies recovered here have still been strapped into their seats.
`Most of all though, I'd say it was the heather. It's so thick up here it seems to have had a certain cushioning effect. When the plane impacted, the fuselage disintegrated, the seats were ripped up and their occupants thrown all around. They were probably all killed instantly at that stage, incidentally. When the bodies landed again, you'd have expected dismemberment to a great extent, but the heather seems to have stopped that.'
Skinner thought of the body which he had found on the hillside and nodded.
`What about burning?' he asked.
`Not much,' said Sarah. 'The explosion of the wing-tanks and the disintegration of the fuselage seem to have happened simultaneously, so apart from a few scorched people in the central area, that hasn't had the effect you'd imagine. What is noteworthy, and the point that will interest you most, is that the greatest burning effect and the greatest damage to the corpses seems to have been found on those recovered from the far end of the valley, and we assume from the front area of the plane.'
`Where the Defence Secretary was sitting,' said Skinner.