Dead if You Don’t

33

Saturday 12 August

18.30–19.30

BA flight 2731 had finally taken off nearly two hours late from Tenerife. It now touched down at London Gatwick Airport just after 6.30 p.m. local time. Martin and Jane Diplock were upset that, even allowing for a speedy passage through passport control and baggage reclaim, after going home to freshen up and change, they were unlikely to arrive at Christopher’s birthday dinner much before 8.30 p.m.

But at this moment, Jane Diplock was more worried about the young Albanian woman seated beside her. The woman was sweating profusely and her pupils were dilated. Just a few minutes earlier she had vomited into a sick bag.

‘Would you like me to ask one of the cabin crew to get you a wheelchair?’ Jane asked her, kindly.

Florentina Shima looked at her, vacantly. ‘No, thank you, I fine. I fine.’

All the same, the retired couple insisted on staying close to her as they navigated the seemingly endless airport corridors. Martin and Jane each took one of her arms, as her walk became increasingly unsteady.

The couple were very seriously concerned about her as they approached the passport control. Reaching the point where they were due to be separated, the Diplocks going into the E-Passport line and the young Albanian woman into the long, snaking queue for non-EU passport holders, Jane Diplock again asked her if they should find someone to assist her.

But the young woman vehemently rejected the suggestion.

‘I’m fine, I’m good. OK? Thank you! Nice to meet you!’

Wishing her well, they parted and said they would see her down in baggage reclaim.

Florentina joined the queue.

She was feeling terrible. Her vision blurring. She looked at her watch, calculating.

Her head swam. She was feeling increasingly giddy, remembering something Frederik had told her. Watch the time. Watch the time. Sixteen hours, the absolute maximum.

The clock had started ticking early this morning, Albanian time.

Two hours of delay.

She was fast approaching sixteen hours.

But she was nearly there. Nearly. Nearly. Just one person in front of her and she would be at the passport desk, where there was a nice-looking Border Control Officer, wearing a hijab.

The officer’s name was Shakira Yamin. As with all Border Control Officers on passport duty, she had been trained to look up and look ahead. To keep a constant, vigilant eye on everyone in their queue, to spot anyone loitering, hesitant, or whose body language was nervous.

Five minutes earlier, she had already clocked the elegant, attractive young woman with a pallid complexion, unsteady on her feet and looking at her watch anxiously.

The floor seemed to be moving beneath Florentina, as if she was standing on a conveyor belt.

The Border Control Officer in the hijab turned into two people. Then four. Then back to two again.

To her horror, Yamin saw the young woman, now one back in the line, fall sideways. She lay on the floor, her face sheet white and clammy, like a heart-attack victim.

Yamin hit the panic button beneath her desk, summoning the airport emergency medical team and her own security team.