B006U13W The Flight (Jenny Cooper 4) nodrm by M. R. Hall

between the ground and the pilots?’
    ‘There were virtually none. They had only just sought clearance when they lost contact.’ His tone was clipped and brittle.
    ‘Do you recall the nature of their last communication?’
    ‘It was something perfectly routine about the weather. There was no Mayday, no indication of anything amiss, just a loss of contact. My controller tried all possible channels but there was nothing. He just had to watch the plane fall out of the sky.’
    ‘When you say “fall”—?’
    ‘You’ll find a graph. It won’t be as accurate as the one that’ll be produced from the flight data recorder, but it shows the rates and angles of descent.’
    Jenny said, ‘You make it sound like a series of incidents.’
    ‘The pilots clearly didn’t give up without a fight.’ He glanced away, the picture in his mind evidently not one he was eager to put into words.
    ‘I’ve had information that helicopters were at the crash site within minutes of the accident. Will your data cover that period?’
    ‘Our radar isn’t effective at very low levels. If they were below 500 feet they’re unlikely to show up.’
    ‘But surely you would have known if they were there?’
    ‘Everything below 2,000 feet is uncontrolled airspace. Coastguard, police, air ambulance – they’ll all check in with us. As far as I recall, it was at least thirty minutes before air sea rescue arrived. They’re from the Royal Navy and have to fly up from Cornwall.’
    ‘Is there any chance I can talk to the controller who was on duty at the time?’
    ‘His name’s Guy Fearnley. I let him have the day off,’ Chambers said. ‘I think that’s reasonable, don’t you?’
    The interview was over in less than ten minutes and Chambers had stuck rigidly to the company line. He refused to speculate about causes of the crash or about the movement of low-flying aircraft in its aftermath. Air traffic control was a commercial business, and there could be no admissions.
    Leaving the control tower, Jenny found herself drawn towards the high fence that separated the car park from the apron on which the smaller aircraft that used the airport operated. There were small cargo planes painted in the livery of courier companies, a handful of sleek private jets and a number of single-engine light aircraft of the kind she often saw flying over the Wye valley on summer afternoons. There was something about planes that both excited and terrified her. She needed a Valium before making even the shortest holiday flight; for every moment she was alive to the slightest change in the pitch of the engines and her stomach would lurch at the mildest encounter with turbulence. The very thought of travelling through the air at 500 miles per hour in an aluminium tube only ten inches thick had always seemed absurd to her, yet at the same time strangely exhilarating. But it seemed only right and just that the audacious freedom offered by an aeroplane came with an element of risk.
    ‘Are you with the police?’
    She turned abruptly to see a man with a vaguely familiar face standing watching her. He was wearing a waist-length flight jacket with a company logo on the breast: Sky Drivers. She tried to place him. Had he been one of those she had held up at the perimeter gate as she argued her way in?
    ‘No, I’m not with the police,’ Jenny said.
    The man studied her face and seemed to accept her answer. ‘Sorry to have troubled you.’ He turned away and started towards the building to their left, which looked like a freight depot.
    The voice. She remembered now – he was at the D-Mort, the man who had insisted on identifying a woman who had been his girlfriend.
    ‘Excuse me,’ Jenny called after him. ‘I’m a coroner. Is there anything I can do?’
    He stopped and looked back.
    ‘Not the coroner dealing with the crash. Mine is the next jurisdiction along – Severn Vale.’ His searching expression made her feel obliged to explain further. ‘I’m dealing