One of Us Is Dead

98 Tuesday 18 October 2022

‘Oh Jesus!’ Grace said.

Branson nodded, grimly.

‘Could you go back and play again, please,’ Grace asked the elegant, fair-haired woman seated in front of the screen in the airport management office, ten minutes later.

Hannah Thatcher stopped the clip and sped it back to the start of the segment. Moments later, the three of them again watched the footage, taken on a wide-angle lens, of the figure in a hard hat and hi-viz tabard. Grace and Branson could see immediately that it was Rorke. Carrying a large holdall in his left hand and a much smaller black bag in his right, he entered the hangar and looked furtively around. After a few seconds, either not spotting the CCTV camera or ignoring it, he hurried towards the Pilatus and around the port wing towards the back of the aircraft.

After looking around again, he tested the rear door, as if unsure whether it would be locked or not, lifted it up, looked around yet again, put the two bags in, clambered in, and immediately shut the door.

‘The planes aren’t locked, Hannah?’ Branson asked.

‘No, the hangar is locked at night so there’s no need.’

Turning to Grace, Branson said, ‘What’s Rorke up to? Is the pilot knowingly smuggling him out of the country, or is he a stowaway? Has he got drugs in those bags? Or has he planted something and then left the plane before take-off?’

Grace asked Hannah Thatcher to play the footage again and watched it pensively. Then they jumped to the point where the Pilatus was towed out of the hangar. Rorke had not reappeared. Maybe he climbed out later, but Grace didn’t think so. He thought about the strange activity of the aircraft they’d watched on the radar screen. Followed by the Mayday call. Then the anguished voice of the pilot saying, loudly, Oh shit — no!

Which didn’t chime to Grace with the calm voice from the cockpit that followed.

He replied to his colleague. ‘What we know about Rorke is that he is a qualified fixed wing and helicopter pilot. What we saw on the radar could be explained by a malfunction on the plane’s autopilot. But the voice of the pilot shouting, Oh shit — no! is not in my opinion the same voice as the person who assured Air Traffic Control that all was now fine.’

Branson frowned. ‘Meaning?’

‘The pilot, James Taylor, who filed the flight plan, is no longer flying the aircraft. Rufus Rorke is.’

‘Shit.’

Grace nodded. ‘We do need the military up there to tell us what the hell’s going on.’ He picked up his phone and called Alan Moss in the tower.

Then they headed back up there. As they entered, a few minutes later, Moss said, ‘The RAF have scrambled a Typhoon from Coningsby. The ETA to be alongside the Pilatus is ten minutes.’