Chapter 31
Em holds the passport at arm’s length, squints, then holds it up to me.
‘Doesn’t look much like you.’
‘It got me through security, didn’t it?’
‘They check again at the gate.’
‘Oh.’
We’re at Heathrow.
Jonny arranged the flight by various dark online methods.
(Or so he claimed. When pressed, it turns out he’d just booked it.) Hand luggage only, and we’re booked on a return flight taking off thirty-six hours after we land.
We have Marshall Rivers’ address; we have a little technical device that will help us immeasurably; we have no phones, nothing that could be used to track us, and about twenty Covid masks.
We have everything we could need to make this trip a success.
There really is no need for me to be feeling this nervous.
Then it occurs to me that this is just the sort of journey Davy was slated to make, and look how he wound up. Even though he missed his flight, and we’re about to catch ours, it’s not a parallel to spend the next ten hours brooding on.
Em and I are in Departures. I was a little clumsy going through security, and needed a bit of assistance from the distinctly unfriendly staff, and Em told me I was making a scene, so I know now she’s as nervous as I am, although neither of us has admitted it, in the vain hope that if we don’t comment on the other’s anxiety perhaps they won’t notice our own.
I think the stress of the last week might be catching up with us, but as long as nobody else is catching up with us, I’m happy.
I’m also trying to keep one particular fact from Em, which I should have known is a fool’s errand, but for the moment I’ve managed it.
‘So this is your brother?’ She looks again at the picture. ‘Frederick. He doesn’t look like a Frederick. 1997. So he’s younger than you, right?’
I take the passport back and pocket it. ‘Do we need suncream?’
‘For a trip of twenty-four hours?’
‘What, you think you won’t burn in a full day of Caribbean sun?’
‘Good point.’
I go to Boots and buy the most expensive bottle of factor 30 I’ve ever seen. Back at our seats, I find Em standing and ready to go.
‘They’ve called us.’
Half an hour later, we’re through the gate and on the plane. We have our own row; the third seat is empty for the time being.
‘Window or aisle?’ Em asks.
‘I’ll take the window.’
There’s a lot of rubbish in my seat – a blanket, a set of headphones someone must have left from the previous flight – so I chuck all that into the third seat and take off my mask.
Then I slide in and look out onto the tarmac.
A big crawling machine is loading the cases.
I’m trying to modulate my breathing, but it’s hard to do when you don’t want the person you’re with to know you’re doing it, so I’m conscious of every breath I take, never mind every move I make.
Then I look ahead, and see something that makes me gasp.
Two rows in front of us, sitting on top of a torso six inches taller than mine, is a shiny bald head.
Breathe, Al. Lots of people have shiny bald heads.
Lots of people are tall and built like weightlifters.
It’s probably just an innocuous crypto bro, maybe the boss of a chain of gyms. There are plenty of reasons for someone to be that jacked and enormous and on the same plane as us.
I didn’t see him at the gate, though. Oh, God.
I nudge Em. She looks, pales, and slides down in her seat.
‘What do we do?’ I ask.
‘We don’t know it’s him.’
‘Bloody looks like him.’
We mask back up.
‘So what do we do?’
‘I just asked you that.’
‘Well, I don’t know.’
‘I don’t know either.’
And then the head swivels, and we realise it’s a completely different man. Wrong nose, wrong eyes, wrong everything.
‘Jesus, Al.’
‘You thought it was him too.’
We take our masks back off.
‘Why are the seat belts so old-fashioned?’
‘They’re just plane seat belts.’ Em gives me a quizzical look. ‘Al, when did you last fly?’
‘A few years ago now. It’s very bad for the environment.’
‘Ah. And they had the newer kind of seat belts on your last flight?’
‘Definitely.’
‘Where were you flying?’
I was hoping she’d ask me that, because (Rule 9 Never fewer than two backstories) I have prepped this one. I answer confidently: ‘Algeria.’
‘Where’d you fly into?’
‘Algiers International.’
She narrows her eyes. ‘Al, I’m going to ask you a question now, and I really don’t intend any insult. Have you been on a plane before?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
The plane staff are moving up and down the row, telling people off. One of them, a young man in a waistcoat and tie, arrives beside us and tells me three times to put my tray table away before I understand his drift, and I get so flustered he has to lean over and help me.
‘Oh my God,’ Em says after he leaves. ‘You’ve never been on a plane. In your life.’
‘Of course I have.’
‘Yeah? When do they bring around the ice cream, then?’
‘Just after we take off.’
‘There is no ice cream, idiot. Oh my God. This is why you’ve been jiggling your leg since the Uber. This is why you didn’t want to come.’
‘I didn’t want to come because this was a stupid way to waste two days. And going through an airport when you’re wanted in connection with a murder is the dumbest idea imaginable. And I didn’t have a passport.’
‘Because you’ve never been on a plane.’
She’s worn me down. ‘Fine. All right. I’ve never been on a plane. Is that a crime?’
‘No, it’s just … it doesn’t fit with your Raffles the Gentleman Thief vibe, does it? I bet Raffles had a passport. And the Pink Panther.’
‘Yeah, OK.’
‘James Bond never had to nick his brother’s ID.’
‘Shut up, will you?’
I’m relieved by a gravelly announcement, then a security briefing, which I pay close attention to, unlike everyone else around me. I look either ahead or to my left, out of the window, and then examine the back cover of my travel Grisham.
A few minutes pass, crossly.
Eventually a small voice comes from my right. ‘I’m sorry, Al. That was mean of me.’
I’m a wall of ice.
‘I think you’ve done great. It took me ages to notice. Most people would have blabbed it was their first flight, looking for some attention. Not you, though.’
The wall of ice is cracking a bit.
‘And I think it’s amazing you’ve been doing this interloping for eight years by yourself. Even with three of us and all Jonny’s skills, it’s still hard sometimes. I haven’t told you how impressive I think it is.’
‘Oh, all right, you’re laying it on a bit thick now.’ But I can’t help smiling. And five minutes later, when I’m clutching the armrest as the plane rolls down the runway, Em places her hand on mine and squeezes, and it’s impossible, physically impossible, not to turn my hand over and squeeze back.