Falling Off Air (41 page)

“The snow hadn't settled on the path around the house itself—there was too much foot traffic. After that … well, we don't
know which direction she took, of course. The guard at the gate did not see her. There was snow and ice on this path down
to the wood, but no one even noticed Melanie was gone until midday on January eleventh. When she didn't turn up at class,
the instructor assumed she was sick and had stayed in her room. So the alarm wasn't raised until the afternoon. By which time
we'd had a dozen men and women tramping up and down here. I think the sun even shone. So all we had left was sludge. Look.”
Bentley came to a halt and pointed up ahead. “We call this the booby trap trail, we want our clients to learn how to use their
eyes and their brains. Here, look, the path forks and one route has been blocked off with a log. You should ask yourself,
Who did that? Why did they do that? Is someone you can't see forcing you to choose this path through the woods? There's a
hut over there, it would provide excellent shelter. Someone's piled firewood in the doorway—you'd have to clear it away before
you could get in—”

“And it would blow up in your face,” Finney said, finishing the sentence for him. Bentley nodded.

Bentley's analysis of what we saw around us was delivered with clinical calm. I felt a chill creep into my bones. The beech
trees in these woods had been here for a century or more, their thick foliage keeping out what little daylight there was.
Even the rain fell more thinly here.

“And here's our execution ground,” Bentley said, his voice still bare of inflection. He stood in a clearing in the trees.
A perfectly circular patch of ground had been concreted over and a high brick wall constructed along one section of the perimeter
with rough windows built into it. It looked like a theater set.

“Not that an execution ground has to look like anything in particular, but when we're doing this exercise we want our clients
to be able to identify this as a defined area, a killing zone, in which their efforts to save themselves take place.”

William hurtled past me and ran out into the center of the concreted area, then stopped and shouted something unintelligible
toward me. We all stared at him. I had to stop myself from bodily seizing him up and carrying him out of this godforsaken
place.

“William wants a ball, Mummy,” Hannah told me.

I told her that I didn't have a ball with me, and she ran to William to pass on the message. He started to scream and stamp
his feet.

“What happened that day?” Finney asked Bentley. “Did Melanie say the right thing, did she talk herself out of it, or would
she have been executed?”

Bentley puffed out his cheeks, and I thought he seemed uncomfortable with Finney's question. When he spoke he had to raise
his voice so that he we could hear him over William's tantrum.

“We don't deal in right or wrong answers here. We preach first psychological preparation and avoidance, and if that fails
we teach problem-solving techniques. No one pretended to execute Melanie that day, if that's what you're asking. We're not
here to terrorize people. There's no need to. Our clients are not stupid. They know what they are getting themselves into.
As I understand it, Melanie had extricated herself from some tight situations.”

William had fallen silent and was gazing at the ground as the drizzle became heavier, the raindrops fatter. They fell and
burst against the concrete stage like ten thousand tiny explosions. Bentley glanced at his watch.

“My men will be using this area for a training exercise in a few minutes. Let's go and get some lunch.”

The dining room was almost empty, just a few tables occupied by people who looked like staff getting an early lunch. We took
a table by the window and sat down. Bentley pointed out the adjoining bar, where Melanie had last been seen. She had been
on the course for three days and was due to leave on the fourth. The bar had a separate exit into the grounds. It was through
this exit that Melanie had left the bar at ten p.m.

“Why go outside at all?” I asked. “Wouldn't it have been quicker to go through the dining room?”

“It would have been quicker. Also it was dark outside, and cold. But there is another entrance by the bedroom wing, and people
do take the overland route. Usually to have a cigarette or make a phone call. The entire building is a no-smoking zone, including
the bar. And mobile phone reception is bad inside the building and marginally better outside. I seem to remember someone said
they thought she was speaking spoking into her mobile just before she left.”

“Her mobile …” Finney was thinking aloud. “I don't think it's been found, am I right?”

“Right,” I agreed. My knowledge of the newspaper reporting on Melanie's disappearance was second to none. “The police checked
her phone records, and there was an electronic signal logging off from the local transmitter shortly after ten that night.”

“Which means either that the battery ran out or that someone switched the phone off,” Finney said, “but either way the phone
was somewhere in this area at that point.”

“The transmitter's footprint covers a much greater area than just HazPrep, of course,” Bentley said quickly. “And we shouldn't
forget that she might have switched it off herself as she left the area, so she couldn't be tracked.”

“She hasn't used it since,” I pointed out.

“Anyone who's technologically literate would know not to use their mobile if they wanted to disappear,” Bentley responded.
“From what I've seen of these guys, camera operators are using sat phones and videophones, and GPS units, and digital editing.
If she's out there, Melanie Jacobs knows what she's doing.”

As he spoke, I felt a warm, wet sensation spread over my lap. Hannah, more asleep than awake, had done the inevitable. I could
feel the urine trickle down my legs and see it splashing into a little puddle on the floor.

“Here—” I dumped William on Finney's lap and grabbed a handful of paper napkins from the table. “I'm sorry, we're going to
need someone with a mop over here.”

Andrew Bentley looked blankly at the pool, then waved a waitress over with some urgency. Hannah and I retreated to the ladies'
to mop up in privacy, but she was embarrassed and would not stop howling. I picked her up and cuddled her and looked at the
two of us in the mirror. You wouldn't have thought we were related. Hannah had her dead father's dark good looks. Huge tears
were running from swollen eyes down her plump freckled cheeks, and her mouth was wobbling. In the mirror I was pale in comparison,
my red blond hair cut in a short, messy bob. My eyes were huge with tiredness, and I was thin from running around chasing
after the children and trying to work and having too little time to eat.

When I returned to the table, I found William also melting down. He had slid off Finney's lap and was standing there screaming
for me, arms stiff by his side, cheeks red, face awash with tears. Andrew Bentley was trying to jolly him along, but his initial
child-friendliness was clearly being stretched to the limit, as indeed was mine.

I gave William a hug—which outraged Hannah even more—and grabbed a plate from the table.

“I'm going to take them outside. The lawn's not mined or anything, is it?”

Andrew Bentley looked taken aback, said, “No, no, no,” and made a “very sorry to lose you” face that reached only as far as
his lips.

It was not a dignified retreat, Hannah and William competing for ugliest child and clinging to my urine-soaked skirt. Me balancing
the plate of chips in one hand, clasping their two little hands in the other. The lawn was still wet from the rain, but I
found a bench that was almost dry under the canopy of a large beech tree. Gradually the children's sobs subsided sufficiently
for chips to be eaten.

I contemplated the parkland that dropped away from me into the valley. I could hear a muffled explosion from the woods below,
and then the rattle of automatic gunfire. I knew that I was not in danger, but that didn't stop my heart rate increasing.
My senses were more alive to threats than they had been. Ever since Adam was murdered and I was attacked by his killer, I
had not been able to regain my sense of safety. The moment I relaxed, my brain played tricks on me. I would go to sleep, then
awaken well before dawn, my ears straining for the sound of movement, my eyes raking the darkness for intruders. I no longer
trusted security or those who offered it to me.

I knew I'd been giving Finney a hard time. Neither of us have what you would call a traditional family background. My family
is almost completely female—it's a long story, and not one that inspires confidence in the reliability of men. Finney has
nothing by way of family, male or female. Yet it was Finney who seemed to be thinking about permanence and togetherness, Finney
who seemed to be offering me security, whereas I felt safer on my own. If I stayed separate, emotionally as well as practically,
then I would never have to relearn independence when he left. That, at least, was my logic. But I knew that Finney could sense
me keeping him at arm's length. Perhaps Finney's very lack of family also frightened me. It is one thing to be one of many
relationships in someone's life, but it is quite another to be everything to that person. I looked back at the house and saw
Finney talking with Bentley. He glanced toward me. I raised my hand in greeting, and he smiled briefly before turning back
toward the conversation.

People began to emerge from the woods, the group from the seminar room with their instructors. As they came nearer, I could
see that there were men in full military kit walking slightly apart from the group, talking quietly among themselves. One
had what appeared to be an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. Another carried a mesh bag that seemed to be full of grenades.
Soldiers and journalists, male to a man, they walked past us, their minds elsewhere. Only one of the group gave me a second
look as he passed, then he turned to walk across the lawn toward me.

“Hi, Max.” I stood and greeted him.

“Robin”—his eyes went to the children—“this is an eccentric choice for a family outing.”

“It's Saturday, I brought them along for the ride. How's it going?”

“A laugh a minute.”

“Any tips?”

“Grenade shrapnel travels up to forty yards in an inverted cone. Hit the ground with your feet pointing toward the grenade,
legs crossed, hands on your head.”

“I'll remember that.”

Max smiled slightly and nodded.

“Melanie Jacobs' parents wanted me to ask a few questions on their behalf,” I told him. “They still have no idea why she would
have gone missing.”

Max had turned slightly away from me and was gazing out over the valley. “I don't know if it's relevant … I've been away,
so I haven't followed the news … but has it been suggested that Melanie had met one of the instructors before she came here?”

I shook my head, intrigued. “I don't think so.”

Behind Max, I could see Finney and Bentley approaching, deep in conversation. I caught Finney's eye, and he must have got
the message that I didn't want to be interrupted just then, because he stopped dead in his tracks and Bentley had no choice
but to stop, too. Finney was doing most of the listening, nodding, interjecting the questions that kept Bentley talking.

“I don't know whether it's important,” Max said carefully. “In the entrance hall there are pictures of all the staff, with
their names written underneath. When I arrived here yesterday there was no one at reception, so I spent some time kicking
my heels there. One of the staff members is called Mike Darling. This took me by surprise, because I have seen a photograph
of Darling with Melanie.”

I understood why Max seemed unhappy. He was not a journalist given to speculation. He would hate to be the one to give birth
to a rumor.

Bentley started walking toward us again. Max watched him approach.

“Ask him,” he said, and set off after his colleagues, nodding to Bentley as he passed. I stared after him. Max Amsel didn't
make mistakes.

“Mike Darling was one of Melanie's instructors that day, wasn't he?” I asked Bentley as he reached me. Both men looked at
me in surprise.

Bentley frowned. “I would have to check.”

“I'd have thought,” I said pleasantly, “you'd know every detail of that day off by heart by now.”

“Why are you interested in Darling?” The words came like bullets.

“Darling and Melanie had met before,” I said. “Darling did tell you, didn't he?”

Bentley stared. I could see the headlines unfurling behind his eyes.

“My wife is waiting for me. I'll take you to your car now.” The mask of charm was dislodged, the depth of his disquiet revealed,
but he forced the words out nevertheless: “It's been a pleasure.” He turned to walk away.

“I'd like to talk to Mike Darling,” I said.

Bentley swung back round, his face tense. “No.”

“No?” I was startled by the abruptness of the reply.

“I'm afraid that won't be possible,” he said. “Mike's no longer with us.”