From there, they would follow the Severn Estuary and north Devon coast until they were visual with Lundy.
He showed the new lines to JR, who nodded in appreciation at their simplicity. He roughly measured the distance, checked their cruise speed, and noted the duration of each leg, just in time to start the stopwatch at Swindon.
After the navigation exercise, there was little else to do.
Rob sat back. With no distraction, lost in the rhythmic drone of the engine, the full enormity of what had happened started to sink in.
“You OK?” JR called over the intercom.
Rob pushed off his headset.
JR leaned across and tugged at his harness until it released.
He manoeuvred himself out of the P2 seat and staggered back. Susie caught him and helped him into the torn leather seat next to hers.
Susie’s breath next to his ear.
“It’s OK, it’s OK. Just breathe.”
He closed his eyes and folded himself forward. Her voice was soft and kind, and the breath on his ear was warm. He smelt her sweet scent.
Slowly, he took deeper breaths; the worst of the panic was passing.
Opening his eyes, still doubled over, he studied the dirty floor of the old aircraft.
The dust of a thousand troops transported around the world.
Some to their deaths. It could be worse.
Susie’s hand stroked his head; he sat up.
“Sorry,” he said.
“No need to apologise.”
“It feels like I’ve crossed the Rubicon.” He turned to her. “My old life, it’s gone, isn’t it?”
“We’re doing the right thing, Rob. Remember what Millie must have gone through, sitting in these very seats, terrified, lying to Kilton. And why? It must have been the most urgent thing in his life, and that’s why we’re here.”
Rob thought of Millie, alone in the back of the Anson, JR up front, helping but unaware of his real task.
“But what if we don’t get what we need? Like you said? I can’t go back now. I have nothing to go back to, except Kilton’s fury. He’ll have me arrested.”
“Let’s hope we’ll get what we need. And when we do, Mark Kilton will be the one under arrest.”
The aircraft banked and he looked up to see JR with the yoke in one hand and the chart in another.
“I have to help him.” Rob rose from his seat but turned back to Susie. “I’ve got no wife, no best friend and no career. I hope you’re right.”
Back in the cockpit, he apologised to JR, who dismissed his words with a wave and patted him on the back.
The Severn Estuary was directly ahead. Rob made sure JR was following his line on the chart to keep them clear of Bristol Lulsgate Airport.
THE SUN CAME and went as clouds drifted across the sky. Mary stared into the blue spaces between.
Standing in the Laverstocks’ front room, cup of tea in hand, in front of their large bay window, the wound of Rob’s betrayal still hurt.
But in the long night hours, with little sleep, she’d had her doubts.
And she had been surprised by another feeling creeping in.
Guilt.
“Why on earth should you feel guilty?” Janet Laverstock said, over breakfast.
Mary didn’t know the answer, but that didn’t stop the feeling nagging at her.
Three nights of quiet crying in a strange bed had taken their toll.
After breakfast, she decided she needed to take action.
She tried her best to put aside the emotion that clouded her thoughts and remember what exactly Rob had said.
Not much. But enough for her to believe she was missing something.
Something that involved Millie. Something that began a series of events which ultimately led her here, living with a snobby woman and her compliant husband.
The type of happy marriage she couldn’t begin to contemplate.
Janet had insisted that Rob be given no more chances. But she hadn’t really given him one chance.
She was losing him, even before Janet Laverstock had called with her shocking news. She knew that. But in the clear light, Mary found it hard to believe she’d lost him to a young lover.
His insistence, full of clichés about it not being what it seemed, played over in her mind.
But what to do? She didn’t want to simply arrive back at Trenchard Close.
She needed to embrace something that had been absent from their marriage for some time.
Truth.
And there was only one place she could start.
Only one person she could truly trust.
A noise came from the kitchen as Janet hung up the phone. She appeared, with her trademark bouffant of perfect hair.
“Good news,” she announced. “I’ve found her.”
JR TOOK them low over the island while he and Rob scrutinised the strip.
“It looks smooth enough, but then it would from up here,” Rob said.
They searched for clues to help them with wind speed and direction, eventually spotting a bonfire that showed a fairly stiff south-westerly.
JR descended on the dead side of a left hand circuit and set them up for a slow approach.
The Anson banked onto final. Rob gave JR full flaps. He slowed the aircraft down to sixty knots. With the stiff breeze that gave them a pleasingly slow ground speed, he felt confident that the short strip would accommodate them.
Rob watched as JR skilfully applied thrust with the nose attitude up, holding the aircraft just above the ground, and enabling him to drop on the first part of usable strip.
He glanced back at Susie, who gazed out of the window.
They landed with a thump and JR immediately pulled the throttles back to idle and lowered the nose. The ground was indeed rougher than it looked from above. They bounced in their seats before slowing enough to turn.
It didn’t look like they had much of an area to park, but JR carried on down the strip until they saw a small portion of cut grass off the westerly end.
After bringing the aircraft to a stop, pointing into wind, JR shut her down. Susie appeared behind them.
“We have a visitor.”
She was looking out at a man, maybe in his sixties, walking with a limp toward the aircraft.
Rob unstrapped and went to the door, opening it and lowering the folding stairs to allow Susie to leave first. He pulled off his flying coveralls before following her.
“This is Mr Bonner,” said Susie, raising her voice over the stiff breeze. “He knows where Professor Belkin’s cottage is.”
Rob leant back into the aircraft.
“We’re off. I hope we won’t be too long.”
“No problem,” said JR. “I’ll sit here and contemplate my next career.”
They walked from the grass strip, along a plateau that covered most of the island. Ahead of them lay what looked like a stone lighthouse, isolated and exposed to the prevailing wind.
“The old Light Cottage in the garden.” Bonner pointed at a small stone building. “The MacPhersons own it now. He’s staying there.”
Susie thanked him, but before they could walk off, the man asked them, “Who did you say you were again?”
“Oxford University business,” she replied. “Very urgent.”
Bonner didn’t look convinced.
“An urgent maths problem?”
“Yes!” said Susie brightly, and they set off.
THE COTTAGE WAS TINY. As they approached it, Rob looked for signs of an ageing maths professor, but it appeared empty.
They arrived at the small wooden door and glanced at each other before Susie gave it a few hefty thumps with her small fist.
No sound from within, but the wind carried a new voice to them. They whipped around.
“Are you looking for me?”
A grey-haired man, with woollen jumper and baggy red trousers, lowered himself down the grass bank with the aid of a walking stick. A pair of glasses hung from a chain around his neck, and he carried a pair of binoculars.