He drove along the back of the sheds and the hangars, right to the far end, parked and got out, watching and listening. There should be no one around, and fortunately that seemed to be the case. He was a very methodical man and he’d done a recce the day before. Nothing had changed. The Cessna, white with its blue stripe, was still in the same place, right outside the hangar where the mechanic had left it after the check he’d seen being done. So much the better. As soon as he got out of the car he realized how windy it was. Windy enough to stop them flying? He hoped not.
Even though he knew it was the right plane, he still took out the piece of paper, unfolded it and checked the registration letters. Attention to detail had always been his strong point. Straying into the realm of obsession, he’d even gone all the way up and down the line the day before in case there was another Cessna with similar letters which he might mistake in dawn’s light. There wasn’t.
He fetched the small scaffold tower on wheels which stood outside the hangar, an improvised inspection platform, and pushed it across to the plane, noticing the marks it left in the dewy grass and reminding himself to do something about them. Climbing up on to the platform, he could reach the top wing and he leant across to unscrew one fuel cap. He checked his watch. Too early. He climbed down, moved the platform away from the plane just in case anyone should pass by and used up five minutes pacing up and down, keeping on the alert for anyone, anything, turning up unexpectedly to interrupt him. No one came. It was far too early for the sort of people who flew Cessnas.
At exactly five forty-four, he put the platform in place again, climbed up it, took one of the two objects he’d prepared out of its bag and fed it carefully in through the fuel cap. It was a long, thin sausage – provided empty by the Magazine Man but now full. It went all the way in and he pushed it out of sight, into a corner of the tank with a thin stick. He checked it from all angles, craning his head around to ensure it couldn’t be seen, then he screwed the cap back on. It took barely more than a minute to move the platform round to the other side and repeat the process on the second tank. After that, he turned his attention to the interior of the plane. He’d researched Cessna access panels and their fastenings thoroughly and he knew exactly where to put the sticky lump which he unwrapped carefully, using rubber gloves to mould it into place.
Once he’d pushed the platform back to where it came from, he broke a leafy branch from a nearby tree and ran it back and forth over the dewy grass to confuse the marks. The dew would certainly be gone by the time anyone came and in any case they probably wouldn’t notice anything amiss, but he had his reputation to consider. He drove out of the airfield to a spot he’d found the day before, a little clearing down a farm track where someone had been dumping broken tiles and bits of concrete block. Through the trees he could see the Cessna a couple of hundred yards away. He got a Frederick Forsyth paperback out of the glove compartment and began to read.
There was a holiday mood about the party in the borrowed Volvo all the way down the M3. Except for Jo. She was nervous about the flight.
‘It’s only got the one engine, hasn’t it? What happens if it stops?’
It was meant to sound a bit like a joke, but Johnny knew it wasn’t really. ‘They’re very reliable, and just to make sure I’ve had a quick check-up done yesterday. It had a full service very recently. It will be all right, I promise.’
‘You’ll love it, Jo, when we get up there,’ said Heather, ‘Johnny let me fly it last time.’
‘You’re not going to this time, are you?’ she said in alarm. ‘I’d rather you flew it, Johnny. Here,’ she said in sudden alarm as a gust of wind buffeted the Volvo, ‘there’s a gale blowing. We can’t go if there’s a gale blowing, can we?’
‘We’ll get a forecast before we go. It’s a westerly so there’s no problem taking off. The airfield runs east-west.’
‘What about landing?’ said Jo, and her voice didn’t sound at all jokey this time.
Sir Michael picked it up and moved in. ‘I’ll never forget once,’ he said, ‘I was on some dreadful Aeroflot flight and the stewardess…’
The story meandered amusingly through the vagaries of Russian airline food and by the time it and the substories it spawned were over Jo had forgotten her objections. ‘I hope I remembered to put my passport in,’ she said.
‘You did,’ replied Heather calmly, ‘I saw it.’
Popham was a curious looking airfield, right alongside the A303 just a mile or two after they left the M3. It was a long thin ribbon of a field with quite a pronounced slope and a row of small aircraft lined up all down the far side. As they drew up by the hangar, a man came out. He looked blankly at the car until Johnny climbed out then he gave a welcoming shout.
‘What you doin’ in this bloody barge, Johnny. Where’s the old sporty job, then?’
‘Too many passengers, Frankie. We’re all going. Is she ready?’
‘Right, tight and ready for flight. No probs. Changed a bulb for you, topped up the oil. That was it. You in a rush?’
‘Hum want us there in forty minutes. We’re going to France. I’ll do the pre-flight right now.’
He did it even more carefully than usual, checking everything on the plane that could be checked, and Frankie came round it with him. He drew off a fuel sample, looked carefully for telltale globules of water, but there were none. He used the inspection platform to look in the wing tanks. They were half full but he planned to get more at Hum in any case.
Getting the passengers in took longer. Jo flatly refused to go in the front seat.
‘What happens if my legs twitch?’ she said. ‘I might do something dreadful. There’s all these knobs and things all over. Anyway if something happens, I don’t want to see it coming.’
‘Nothing’s going to happen.’
‘I’d still rather go in the back.’
It was difficult getting her in there but with some pushing and shoving they managed it. Minimum luggage, Johnny had said. It’s the light-plane flyer’s prerogative to look rumpled. He stowed their bags in the luggage compartment behind the seats but the wheelchair, although it was a lightweight one and folded up surprisingly well, still had to be wedged across Jo’s knees.
‘It’s a question of the centre of gravity,’ he explained, ‘I need the weight as far forward as possible.’
It was just as well none of them were too heavy. Adding up their weights and the chair gave him 125 lbs weight for fuel – just over two hours’ flying time. It was enough. Heather went in the other back seat, wrapping herself round the wheelchair, insisting that Sir Michael, with his longer legs, should sit next to Johnny.
‘I’ll sit there on the way back,’ she suggested, ‘then maybe Jo won’t mind me having another go.’
So Johnny climbed in the left-hand seat, the commander’s seat, and Sir Michael got in on the right.
‘Everybody ready?’ asked Johnny when they were all strapped in.
Jo gulped. The others nodded. He started up, letting the engine warm while he went through the rest of the check-list. When it was all done, he set the radio and taxied out, wings swaying over the bumps, heading for the downwind end of the strip. The plane, as usual, felt noisy, flimsy and gawkish on the ground – its undercarriage creaking over the bumps like a rusty gate – but when he pointed it down the strip, opened up fully and felt the wheels clear the ground, its true nature began to return.
The man in the parked Peugeot watched it go and checked his watch. He was pleased and relieved to see that Johnny was turning out to be extremely punctual. That had been his main concern, the part of the plan that was outside his control, and he didn’t like any part of his plans to be vulnerable to the sloppiness of others. He started the car and headed for Bournemouth to watch the next bit of the action.