"Yes?"
"Be careful."
She smiled to herself, pleased with his evident concern.
The lobby-or what remained of it-was a long rectangular room with doors in each of the far walls. Since Newbury was heading fore she decided to take the other option and see what she could find towards the rear of the vessel. She supposed, as she trod carefully over the ash-covered floor, that she was heading towards the part of the ship reserved for passengers, since the bulk of the gondola's interior space seemed to lay in this direction. Fighting her way past the crisp shell of a wooden sideboard, and ducking under a nest of trailing metal cables, she came to a stop in front of the door. It was still relatively intact, although flames had obviously licked black soot up and down its fascia. She hesitated. She knew she was likely to happen across a body or two on the other side. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself. Her palate was growing used to the stench, now, and her clothes were so thick with grime, dust and soot that she'd given up paying attention. She reached out and tried the handle, then immediately withdrew her hand. It was still hot from the fire, and even through her red-leather gloves she knew it would scald her hand. Not only that, but the door appeared to have sealed shut with the heat. Stepping back, and looking around her to ensure no one was watching, she hitched her skirt up above her knees and sent her booted foot flying into the centre of the door. It gave a little in the frame, splintering where the wood had been stressed by the heat. She tried again, this time putting her full weight behind her as she drove herself forward into the door.
It gave, bursting open and slamming back against an iron girder that blocked the way on the other side. She wondered, for a moment, if Newbury would come running at the noise, but after a short while had passed and she could hear no sound of him, she decided to press on. Pushing back against the door, she decided she'd try to squeeze her way through the gap she had created between the doorway and the girder. She tucked her hat underneath her arm, her dark hair spilling out of its carefully prepared coiffure.
She manoeuvred her way into the opening. Inside, she could still feel the residual warmth from the burnt-out interior. The floor was covered in a sticky, mud-like residue, which she supposed had been created when the water from the hose carts had mixed with the soot and ash, forming a film of black grime upon the ground.
She looked around, and then dropped the handkerchief to the floor with a gasp. She stared in horror at the sight before her. Row-upon-row of passenger seats were filled with the remains of the dead. Horrific, skeletal cadavers sat fixed in their final death throes, gripping the seats in front of them, screaming at their neighbours, or else spilled out on to the floor where they had tried to find somewhere to run. It was as if someone had set out a grisly diorama, a charnel house audience locked away in this horrible room, awaiting an appointment with God. She approached, slowly, forcing back the rising bile in her throat. Her eyes filled with tears. It was the most appalling sight she had ever seen. She wondered why the people were nearly all still seated, why they hadn't tried to bail out of the ship as it crashed, or at least taken cover in the hope that they may survive the impending impact. The corpses were all blackened and burnt, cooked flesh still clinging to the bones, terrified screams still fixed on their faces. She had no way of telling which of them had even been male or female, save for the occasional piece of jewellery still hanging around a woman's throat.
Leaning close to one of the bodies, she noted the answer to her earlier question: the person had been tied into their seat, fixed by a hoop around their left foot to the base of the seat in front. She checked another, and another, and found that they were all the same. No wonder the people hadn't tried to run. They couldn't.
Veronica noticed a gentle patter of raindrops on her face. She looked up. High above, she could see the sky through the torn belly of the airship, the broken spokes of its internal structure poking up into the waning afternoon light. She realised almost immediately that the water droplets she had felt were not rain, but water from the hose carts, sprayed into the blazing inferno earlier that day and still dripping from the girders up above. She glanced around, looking for anything else that may be of use. She could see a hole in the left side of the room where the firemen had obviously dug their way through from the outside in an attempt to find survivors. She wondered how those men had reacted to the scene that had faced them. Had they too been as appalled as she was? She finally gave in to her horror and vomited on the ground, her eyes stinging as she retched, violently, over and over again, until there was nothing left for her body to expel. She stood, gasping, wondering if she'd ever be able to cleanse the smell of the burnt flesh from her hair and skin, or worse, from her nightmares. Perhaps she should have stayed outside after all.
She turned at the sound of the door banging against the girder. Newbury stepped into the room. He coughed, hacking on the smell of the still-warm bodies.
"My God." He rushed to Veronica's side. "Are you alright?"
Veronica coughed. "I'm not sure I shall ever be alright again. I just can't believe the devastation. So many people dead, burned alive in the fires. What a horrible way to die."
Newbury looked saddened. "It won't have been a lingering death. The collapse of the gasbags will have caused a series of massive fireballs to blow through the ship. That probably explains why they're all still in their seats."
Veronica crouched down beside a row of seats. "That, and the fact that they were all tied into position like common criminals." She showed him the loop of charred rope around the ankle of the nearest passenger.
"Stokes made no mention of the vessel being chartered as penal transport. Do you suspect he was trying to hide something?"
"I believe he was trying to cover his own back." She stood again, blinking. "What did you find in the control room?"
"Nothing."
"Oh." She moved to turn away, anxious to put space between herself and the grisly scene, and then paused when he continued talking.
"That's just it. Nothing. No pilot or co-pilot to be found. No bodies, no evidence to suggest they were ever there at all. It's as if the pilot simply abandoned the controls."
Veronica frowned. "Do you think that's why the ship went down? Because the pilot wasn't at the controls? Could he have bailed out before impact? Or could he be back here, unidentifiable now from the other passengers?"
"I suppose anything is possible." Newbury looked up, noticing that the light was starting to go. "Come on. I think we've seen enough, and this is far from my ideal of one's first time aboard an airship." He looked circumspect. "Besides, I do believe we have some more questions for Mr. Stokes."
Mr. Stokes was still standing around the police cordon when Newbury and Veronica edged up beside him. They were both filthy from clambering around in the wreckage, and Newbury was looking forward to retiring for the day, intent on a long soak in a hot bath. Stokes turned to regard them as they approached.
"Well, I do believe it's true what they've been saying. The Crown is prepared to get its hands dirty from time to time." He guffawed at his own joke.