One of Us Is Dead

18 Tuesday 27 September 2022

‘Of course you can, James!’ Tommy Towne said.

It was 5.20 p.m. The moonscape of fog below them, through the Pilatus cockpit windows, was proper dense pea soup. Taylor was in a holding pattern at three thousand feet. They’d been flying around and around, in the race-track holding pattern to the east of the nine-by-five-mile island of Jersey, for thirty minutes now, after flying down from Manchester, where his mercurial octogenarian employer had been at a board meeting. Towne was now anxious to get home for his granddaughter’s twenty-first birthday tonight. Anxious and increasingly stroppy. ‘You just need to descend a bit more, you’ll find it won’t be so bad. There’ll be a pocket in it.’

‘Jersey Tower says visibility on the ground is 300 metres, Tommy,’ Taylor said, his voice authoritative and calm. ‘When I flew for easyJet, they needed a minimum here of 450 metres RVR — runway visual range — at the touchdown point, and that’s less than British Airways who required 550 metres. Today we need a minimum touchdown of 550 metres in order to make an approach.’

The Pilatus PC-12 had less than ten minutes of fuel reserve remaining before they would need to head to an alternative airport. Guernsey was still shrouded in fog, so unless they got a sudden window in the fog — and it sometimes happened that they got lucky and did — they would be flying back to mainland England or Dinard in neighbouring France, which was a regular splash-and-dash refuelling spot. Maybe put down at Shoreham, in case they had to overnight, and try again after refuelling.

Tommy — Sir Thomas — Towne, was short, bald as a coot, always bristling with restless energy and with a total can-do mindset. He sat on Taylor’s right in the co-pilot’s seat, peering down into the murk, opening and closing his pudgy fingers, which, Taylor had long noticed, he always did when he was agitated. ‘I can definitely see the church tower, James.’

‘You’ve got better eyesight than I have,’ Taylor humoured him.

‘They say in the flying club, if you can see the church tower, there’s enough visibility to land, right?’

‘If you can see the church tower from this level through thick cloud, you’ve probably noticed the number of pigs flying past us too?’

He grunted. ‘I’m serious, James. We’re good to go, you can get this crate down.’

Tommy Towne was like this every time bad visibility caused them a problem at any airport they were approaching. Towne had had a somewhat cavalier attitude towards his personal safety all his life, Taylor was well aware. He’d paid a fortune to be one of the first civilians to be blasted into space; a pilot himself before failing eyesight had lost him his licence, he’d taken part in air races in Second World War aircraft. And the fact that Tommy Towne had survived all these exploits, and countless more, made him a dangerous passenger. There had been a number of previous occasions where Taylor had had to put his foot down and remind his boss, as he did once again now. ‘Tommy, how many times have I told you, there are no old bold pilots.’

Towne tapped his chest. ‘Yes there are. Me.’

Grinning and shaking his head, Taylor looked at the fuel gauges and then down again. Then he blinked — was it his imagination or was the fog actually thinning a little?

‘We’ll go around once more and I’ll ask for an update.’

Taylor hadn’t told Towne, but he was equally anxious to land now if he could, drop him off and then fly back to England. He had a lunch date on Saturday and had been banking on a day off tomorrow to sort out a new suit that he planned to wear to the date. Well, maybe not exactly a date but... how did you define a date? He was having lunch with a beautiful woman, taking her to his current favourite restaurant, Wild Flor in Hove. It was because he had a hundred questions to ask her, that was the reason he’d asked Debbie out. And that was the real reason, wasn’t it, and not because he fancied her? And she had looked pleased to see him, or had he just imagined it?

He was kidding himself, he knew. Just like Tommy was kidding himself he could see the church tower. But then suddenly, through a break in the clouds, he actually could see it. He radioed the approach controller. ‘Request the latest RVR.’

‘Roger, Golf Uniform Zulu, current RVRs are touchdown 600 metres, midpoint 550 metres, stopend 500 metres.’

Taylor responded, ‘Roger, request approach to runway two-six.’

‘Golf Uniform Zulu next time over the beacon you are cleared for the ILS approach runway two-six, report established.’

A short while later, Taylor confirmed.

There was a further series of exchanges between Taylor and the air traffic controller. Then after a further few minutes, with Tommy looking at him anxiously, Taylor transmitted, ‘Jersey tower good afternoon, Golf Uniform Zulu, ILS established at 8 kilometres.’

Immediately the tower responded, ‘Current RVRs are touchdown 550 metres, midpoint 450 metres, stopend 400 metres, you are cleared to land runway two-six, surface wind two one zero degrees nine knots.’

‘Copy the RVRs, cleared to land two-six, Golf Uniform Zulu.’

Despite the assurances from the tower, as they descended blindly and bumpily through the increasingly wispy cloud, Taylor realized he was holding his breath.

‘Good boy!’ Tommy Towne said, breezily.

Taylor didn’t respond. He was still holding his breath.