They moved away, turning back to where their cars were parked. She sensed the security man's study of her as sharply as a lust. Bow legs do not a slow wit make, she recited, angry at her inept, unthinking lie. Complete Security… coincidence? The firm belonged to the Winterborne Holdings Group. Effectively, David owned the company that employed Fraser, who had, almost certainly, killed Michael Lloyd.
Not coincidence… She resisted the temptation to turn and look back.
The security guard would be watching, without the shadow of a doubt.
And knew she had tried to lie to him, and wore a mobile phone on his belt like a pistol.
"I want to see more," she announced, surprising Banks.
"I want to know how much is not being done. Did you bring the plans?"
He nodded.
"Everything. Each site, the whole overview. What do you want them for?" His words were uttered with the kind of childish, resentful whine that attempted to wheedle adults about to redirect their attentions.
"Because… if you want my help, Ray, I want to know what is really going on!"
Or do I…? She could not prevent the question. Conjuring images that mocked the PM, the grandiosity of this urban regeneration scheme, no longer seemed anything more than an insider's game, the irritating chuckles and giggles of people sharing an unimportant joke or piece of gossip.
"OK, OK what do you want to see?"
What do I want to see? Evidence that David is a crook and one of his employees is a murderer or evidence that Banks is paranoid and bitter and probably deserves to go out of business? Damn Kenneth's curiosity, she decided, it's infectious.
The heart of the matter," she announced. The biggest bits — are they dragging their heels on those as well? That's what I want to know, Ray."
Because here, with these three warehouses and stretch of canal to be rejuvenated, she could only count in hundreds of thousands, perhaps one or two million. David could have easily sold one of his small companies, floated a minor share issue, cashed in some stock, if that was the size of the stake. There was no evidence that tens, hundreds of millions were disappearing.
The video camera footage shot in the moments after the crash was replaying on a TV screen. The instruments that had thus far been removed from the flight deck were spread, like bones or runes, on a trestle table in front of Gant and Blakey from Vance Aircraft. As were photographs, weighted down with pebbles against the howling wind that blew through the frail canvas tent. Outside, the rescue and salvage work had been postponed until the storm abated. It lurched and bullied like an enraged drunk against the tent, which was erected in a hollow of sand and tussocky grass behind the low headland of the island.
"See?" Gant was saying, his finger pointing at the TV screen, where the video film flickered and swayed as if affected by the squall.
There's little or no kerosene. The tanks must have been empty when she hit. You agree, don't you?" he added angrily. It was as if the storm had gotten inside him somehow, and was shaking his stomach and heart with great buffeting blows. Or maybe he was possessed by an idea he couldn't rid himself of — that the 494 had suffered sabotage.
Out of politeness, because he was already convinced, Blakey leaned towards the screen, removing his glasses, his bearlike frame looming over Gant, his thick fingers scratching at his beard.
"Confirmed. No kerosene. The lack of fire damage backs that theory up. She was running on fresh air… How?" he added sharply, plucking at the greying beard, his damp-looking eyes doubtful.
"We've been through that, Mitchell.
There's nothing here…"
Ron Blakey had checked the fuel computer system on sophisticated portable monitors, and then rechecked on his instructions, angrily patient. And nothing… The fuel computer system, every last chip of it, worked. Gant knew there had to be something wrong with the fuel computer… instability, manual control, the uneven struggle against the pitching and yawing of the plane, the final loss of control and engine power when there wasn't enough fuel any more. It was all on the cockpit voice recorder, and what ne had experienced with Vance.
More gently, Blakey said: "I could have that system in the lab for a month and it would still read out the same. Sorry, Mitchell—" Gant pointed at the littered table.
"Except that," he said.
"I've explained what it does—" Blakey responded.
"But not why it's there," Gant snapped.
"No…"
"It's not standard it's not like the other components with the Microlite brand name. It's not like chips that I've seen that do the same job."
"No, it isn't but there's nothing peculiar about it except its looks.
It's just another dumb microprocessor carrying out simple tasks, taking orders, passing them on."
Blakey shrugged.
"So, why is it different?" Gant persisted.
"Why is it handmade — your word?"
"Maybe it's a prototype we can check with Microlite. It didn't cause the accident—"
"You say."
' You say it did. The only thing that looks any different from normal, and that's your answer? That it's that chip? It isn't. I did the tests you asked."
Gant looked up at Blakey.
"Ron please do the tests. However many, however long it takes. Take this back to Phoenix and find out why it dresses up different from the rest of the guys."
Blakey nodded.
"OK it's your call. And the old fella's desperate, right?" he added.
"Right."
They looked away from one another. Both Vance and Burton had been frantically engaged, by means of their mobile phones, in fending off armies of bankers, other creditors, the press, lobbyists, stockbrokers, the TV networks. The voices coming out of the ether were another storm, like the one outside, paralleling the one inside Gant himself.
Gant turned back to Blakey. When he had last glimpsed Vance he had looked ashen, buckled, Barbara at his side somehow drawing strength from him rather than supporting him. Lightning glared through the opacity of the canvas, then the thunder burst around them.
"Jesus," Blakey muttered, and shivered with reaction.
Gant stared down at the trodden sand beneath his feet, the flattened tussocks of grass. The tent was as frail and insubstantial as the 494 would have felt to the pilot. Gant's head jerked up and he stared malevolently at the chip on the table, dwarfed by the fuel flow gauge with its lying needle. It was that unexpected chip, he knew it was The flap of the tent was dragged aside. Flying sand scoured across the instruments, the photographs, ageing them. Gant looked up and saw Vance posed for a moment, the storm behind him. Vivid lightning struck down from the heavy cloud towards the sea. Yet Vance's face seemed more thunderous, incandescently angry.
Blakey assiduously dusted sand from the table. Barbara, her dark hair wild, was at Vance's side, pulling vainly at his arm like a child.
Vance lurched like a drunk to the table, leaning heavily on Blakey, a large hand clasping Gant's shoulder.
"Well? What have you got? What is it?" His breathing sounded hoarse as the rolling thunder died away. The storm was moving slowly away along the Gulf of Finland.
"Ron tell me what went wrong."
Blakey, almost as bulky as Vance, seemed to shy from the older man, his hands gesturing vainly, as if in supplication. Vance's features became ever more virulent, maddened.
"You?" He glared at Gant.
"Come on, boy wonder, tell me what happened to my airplane!"
"Alan, we don't know—" The hell you don't! I'm paying you way over the odds, Gant — and for answers, not apologies!"
Gant clenched his hands in the pockets of his anorak. Burton, dishevelled by the storm and his collapsed business, was standing in the opening of the tent, a stranger who had inadvertently walked in on some family crisis.