Dead if You Don’t

16

Saturday 12 August

Earlier that day

Passengers at Tenerife Airport were buckling themselves into their seats on the BA flight bound for London’s Gatwick Airport, four hours away.

Among them were retired Brighton solicitor Martin Diplock and his wife, Jane, a former legal executive. They were both a little apprehensive, as were many of the passengers of a similar vintage to themselves who were old enough to remember that this airport, on 27 March 1977, was the scene of the deadliest accident in aviation history. In thick fog, the pilot of a KLM Boeing 747 misheard the instructions of the control tower and began taxiing, straight into the path of a Pan Am Boeing 747. Five hundred and eighty-three people were killed.

But the elegant young woman seated beside them, in designer jeans and trainers, an expensive-looking leather jacket, a bling watch and sharply styled brown hair, who told them she was in transit from Albania, seemed even more anxious than themselves, trembling and perspiring, and constantly looking at her watch as if fixated by it. And each time she looked, her lips moved, as if she was doing some kind of mental arithmetic.

The unspoken thought went through both their minds, however irrational they knew it was, that she might be a terrorist, anxious about the timer on a bomb. To make conversation, Jane asked her if she was OK. The young woman assured her in limited, broken English that she was fine, this was only the second flight in her life and she was a little nervous, that was all. She was fine, thank you, really!

Jane Diplock felt better, too; she seemed a sweet little thing, not sinister at all — although how could you really tell?

The cabin crew closed the doors, but there was no sign of the engines starting. Then the pilot’s voice came through the intercom, calm and steady and very apologetic. He said there was a technical problem and they were waiting for an engineer. There was likely to be a delay of thirty minutes, maybe a little longer. Meanwhile, passengers could continue to use their electronic devices.

Martin Diplock checked the time. 12.10 p.m. It was a four-hour flight and they were due to attend his son’s birthday dinner in Brighton this evening — it would be tight as the plane wasn’t scheduled to land until 16.40.

The young woman produced a mobile phone with a gaudy cover from her new-looking handbag and started to play a game on it. After a couple of minutes, she looked at her watch yet again and began, feverishly, doing more mental arithmetic.

After almost an hour the pilot came back on the intercom. He was very sorry he told them, the engineer was delayed. He would give them a further update shortly.

The woman looked increasingly anxious. She was perspiring more heavily now.

‘Are you OK?’ Jane Diplock asked her.

She nodded, her complexion pale, then began counting again on her manicured fingers, her lips moving as she did so.