Chapter 30
Berlin Brandenburg Airport was heaving, and Mattie scowled as she stood in line at passport control.
Granted, it was three days before Christmas, which made it one of the busiest times of year for international travel, but she was in a hurry.
She checked notifications on her phone for the nth time.
Still no response from the text she’d sent to Nell from the cab on her way here.
Damn. The queue shuffled forward, and she showed her documents to the official.
“Danke schon,” she said, when he gestured for her to go through the gate.
Once inside the departures lounge, she found a quiet corner and swiped to Nell’s number in her contacts list. Her call went straight to voicemail.
“Hi, it’s me. Hope you’re okay. I need to speak to you urgently.
Can you call me when you get this, please?
” Fingers crossed that Nell would pick it up soon.
Time was running out, and Mattie absolutely had to speak to her before boarding the plane.
Mattie unzipped her padded jacket, feeling overwarm in the heated hall.
Had she packed everything? Travelling light was one thing, but she still needed all the essentials.
She wandered past a row of brightly lit shops decked out festively, clearly targeting the last-minute-presents’ crowd.
Nell’s Christmas present was tucked safely at the bottom of Mattie’s carry-on bag.
No way was she entrusting it to the luggage hold.
She needed to buy some chocolate, that was part of her survival kit.
Antacids, toilet paper, and antibacterial gel too.
Shopping completed, she checked her phone again.
Nell still hadn’t read the earlier text, so the chances were that she hadn’t heard the voicemail either.
Why wasn’t she responding? It was a work day, but usually she’d check in during her lunch break.
Maybe she was in a long meeting, or she had no signal.
Wait, hadn’t Nell said she was in court today? Or was that tomorrow?
On the departures board, the status for Mattie’s flight flicked from “wait in lounge” to “boarding.” She groaned aloud as she reluctantly headed for the departure gate.
She hovered at the back of the line of passengers.
Once she was air-bound, she’d have to switch off her phone.
The queue to board moved quickly, and she was almost at the front all too soon.
Time had run out. She’d have to leave Nell another voicemail.
Her mouth was suddenly dry. “Hi, sweetheart, it’s me again.
I really wanted to tell you this in person, but I can’t get hold of you, and they’re making a last call for passengers for my flight, so I need to get on it and—” She dropped her head into her free hand.
Stop babbling and get to the point. “I’ve been seconded to cover the earthquake disaster in southern Turkey so, um, it means I won’t be able to spend Christmas with you.
I’m so sorry. Please, know that I’ll be thinking of you.
I know I’m letting you down, and you might hate me for this.
It’s just that I’ve been desperate to get back to reporting on a major story like this, and I couldn’t turn down the opportunity. I wish there was some way—”
An airline attendant waved at her. “Last call,” he said, his fixed smile and corporate politeness covering up any irritation he might be feeling at her prevarication.
“Oh, fuck, I’ve got to get on the plane. I’ll miss you.” She ended the call, threw an apologetic glance in the attendant’s direction, and headed for the aircraft.
Vibrations from the airplane’s engines hummed through Mattie as she sat buckled in her seat, the belt heavy across her lap. She couldn’t breathe properly because her lungs ached, and they hadn’t even taken off yet.
“All set?”
She switched her gaze from her phone to Moeen. “Huh?”
He frowned, his bushy eyebrows meeting in the middle. “You look a bit spaced out.”
“I’m fine.” She gestured at her phone. “Just cancelling plans.”
“Tricky?”
“Yeah.” It wasn’t the first time she’d blown off family or friends at Christmas.
Sure, it was awkward and inconvenient timing, but they all knew what the score was.
Work came first. She had no control over world events and natural disasters.
She sucked in a breath. She hadn’t felt this fucking awful about ditching a big party or Christmas celebration before. Why now?
Moeen secured the seatbelt across his lap. “Did you get a chance to read the email from Ed?”
“No, not yet.” She had, but her brain had been too fixated on working out how to let Nell down rather than reading her location manager’s message. She knew from experience that it’d be long and detailed. She reached for her tablet. “I’ll look now.”
“Travel from the airport’s going to be challenging. There are huge cracks in the main highway and the infrastructure is trashed. Ed said he and the rest of the first team there haven’t witnessed anything on this scale before.” Moeen whistled through his teeth at a picture on the screen.
Mattie called up the same photos on her own tablet.
Bloody hell. The early-morning earthquake, measuring a magnitude of 7.
8, had struck Turkey’s southern province.
The figures were unfathomable: tens of thousands of people dead, millions homeless.
Entire cities had been destroyed, becoming little more than huge mounds of rubble.
A week after the initial event, the country was still struggling to grapple with the scale of its impact.
“I covered the disaster in Japan in 2011, and the damage looks comparable to that.” She shivered as she remembered how the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in that country caused a tsunami that had led to a nuclear disaster.
Mostly, she remembered the shocked and frozen faces of strangers.
Snowfall had accompanied the tsunami, and the freezing temperatures had hindered the rescue operation. It’d been so damn cold and wet.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please switch any mobile devices to airplane mode and ensure your seat tables are in an upright position,” said an airline cabin crew member over the tannoy.
Reluctantly, Mattie complied. The flight was three and a half hours, so she’d have to wait before she could check her phone again.
Had Nell listened to the voicemail yet? If so, how was she feeling?
She couldn’t bear to imagine the disappointment in those beautiful eyes of hers.
Or the hurt on her face, the slump of her proud shoulders.
All their plans ruined. Breakfast in bed on Christmas morning, superb food, a stroll along the coast. Boxing Day lunch with Angie and family.
She rubbed her face, but it did nothing to stop an unexpected wave of nausea.
“You okay?” Moeen asked.
“I’m fine, like I already said.” Mattie tried to take the sting out of her words. It wasn’t Moeen’s fault she’d potentially blown her relationship with Nell. “Where are we staying?”
“It looks like our hotel accommodation is a fair distance away from the epicentre. The initial team have been doing a mix of using that and sleeping in the van they’ve hired.”
Mattie ran her eyes over the rest of Ed’s email.
She and Moeen were the follow-up team rotating with the reporter and cameraman who were part of the initial response one.
That meant an infrastructure was already in place: temporary accommodation, a van for transportation, batteries and satellite phones in case they lost power, bottled water and basic food supplies that didn’t need refrigerating.
They’d also hired a local freelancer who knew the area and spoke English.
Mattie absorbed it all. She needed to watch everything that’d already been broadcast on Worldwide News and catch up on written dispatches too.
With a start, she realised they were already airborne and she was travelling to Turkey instead of the UK. Will Nell forgive me? Or will she want out? Mattie pressed her fingers against her temples.
“Here, drink this.” Moeen thrust a bottle of water into her hand. “You clearly need it.”
She sighed deeply as she unscrewed the lid.
How high was the price going to be for choosing the job over Nell?
Too high? Work comes first, work comes first. Tears pricked her eyes, and she shut them, not wanting to cry in front of Moeen.
She needed to focus on the job at hand. Her brief was to cover the growing humanitarian crisis. So damn well do it.
With a monumental effort, she concentrated on listening, and reading, and absorbing. Her brain raced from idea to idea, sketching out possible angles for stories. This was what she was good at. This was who she was.
By the time the plane landed, Mattie had amassed a wealth of information and understanding.
Turkey experienced frequent earthquakes because it sat at the crossroads of three major tectonic plates, and the people of its largest city, Istanbul, had long feared the advent of a monster one.
Their fears were amped up frequently because the country experienced thousands of tremors each year.
She made notes of pertinent facts and figures.
How did people manage living with that? It was fascinating and petrifying in equal measure.
“Raring to go?” asked Moeen as he shrugged his camera bag onto his shoulder.
She nodded as she switched her phone on and waited for it to go through the start-up process.
Then she saw the notification: You have a voicemail, followed by Nell’s number.
Instantly, her heartbeat went into overdrive.
At the same time, her body worked on automatic as she followed Moeen along the aisle and down the steps of the aircraft into the chilly and damp night air.
Once in the arrivals building, she headed for the restroom.
She locked the door behind her and listened to Nell’s message.
“Hi. I got your messages. Work comes first, I know that. I’ll be watching your reports. Stay safe.”
Mattie rocked back on her heels as she listened to it a second and then a third time.
That was it? The taut voice and precisely spoken words didn’t sound like Nell’s.
They belonged to Chief Inspector Abraham.
Nausea washed over Mattie, and she sat on the closed toilet seat before she fell down.
Nell had brushed the situation off like it didn’t bother her.
What had Mattie envisaged Nell saying? That she was deeply disappointed, inconsolable, or heartbroken?
At least something more emotional or heartfelt.
She dropped her head into her hands. This was exactly why she’d wanted to talk to Nell in person.
Her phone buzzed with a notification. Do I need to send in a search party? Moeen’s message nudged her into action. She used the toilet, cleaned up the tears she hadn’t realised she’d cried, and found Moeen at the luggage carousel.
Ed had organised transportation from the airport, and it was waiting for them when they emerged from the terminal building. “I’m dog-tired,” Mattie said as they loaded their bags into the back of the van. “I’ll catch up on some sleep while we’re travelling.”
“Grab every chance we can,” said Moeen. “We both know how rare sleep is once we’re at the scene.”
Except she couldn’t doze off. She stared out of the passenger window at fuzzy car headlights and buildings occasionally lighting up the dark night.
Nell’s message replayed on a loop in her head.
What should she say or write in response?
For someone who earned their living using words, she was remarkably bereft of them right now.
But she had to send something, or Nell would think she was ignoring her.
Thanks. You take care too, sweetheart. Xxx
Before she pressed send, she deleted sweetheart. If Nell was going to be practical about this, so would she.