Bailing Out

We'd been asked to switch our phones off, so I couldn't even get in touch with anyone in the outside world. I imagined the news would have broken by now, though, and I could only imagine what sort of worries would be going through the minds of friends and relatives of all those who'd been scheduled to jump this afternoon.

Eventually, after the best part of an hour, Samantha finally appeared. She was pale and shaking, and it seemed as if, without the support of the WPC, she might well have been unable to stand, let alone walk. The policewoman looked over to me and asked: "Mr Davies?" I nodded and she said; "You can go in, now."

As I stood up, Samantha looked at me with bloodshot eyes and said: "I'm not going home, Robbie. I'll be booking into a hotel for now. Call my mobile when you're free, will you? Please?"

I could only nod. Seeing her in that state made me feel terrible and I was afraid I'd choke up if I tried to say anything. I walked into the committee room and found that there were three people seated on one of the long sides of the table. I sat down and was introduced to each of them, and it was the one named DC Robertson who set things in motion by asking for my full name, address, date of birth and so on. Then he asked if I was an official of the club and I told him that I was the treasurer.

Even though they'd told me the interview was being recorded and pointed out the equipment that was being used, he still took a note of everything. Then it was Mark's turn:

"Robbie... can you just run through the qualifications you hold -- the skydiving ones, I mean?"

"Well... I've done an ICC... oh, sorry, that's an Instructor Certification Course, but I've only held that for a few months. I have to have it for at least a year to go with my jumpmaster qualification before I can become an instructor. I've also got a Senior Rigger's certificate that allows me to make minor repairs and pack reserve and main parachutes.

"If you want details of all the jumps I've done and so on, the details are in my log book, naturally, but I can tell you...."

"That's okay, Robbie," Mark interrupted, and then DI Kelsey, in a surprisingly soft voice asked:

"So, Mr Lloyd... does that mean that you pack the parachutes?"

"Sometimes I do. The Instructor prefers to pack his own... and all the ones for his pupils, as he's probably told you. I always pack my own and the one my wife uses... and a couple of times recently I've done Samantha's for her."

"Did you prepare it for her today?" Kelsey asked, giving me what he probably thought was an intimidating stare.

"No... she brought it with her, already packed and ready to go; I presume it was done by her husband... you'd have to ask her that... but he has the qualification to do it, and he always has until he stopped coming recently... after he hurt himself. Look... speaking of her husband... can we...."

"We know all about that, Robbie," Mark assured me, "Samantha gave us the whole story... you don't have to worry about it at the moment. For now, we'd just like to concentrate on what happened... and on what you actually saw."

And so, with the help of just a few questions to clarify stuff, I told them how I'd arrived at the club earlier that day and, first off, checked what time what time my 'call' would be -- the time to board the plane. Then I'd gone through the usual routine of checking the AGL altitude I'd be jumping from, the jump path, the wind line and the uppers (upper air speeds), and all the other things necessary.

Then I'd seen Sammy arriving and gone to meet her to share the information I'd got, but she had other things on her mind. She said that she wanted to have a long talk with me about a private matter....

"What 'private matter' was it?" DI Kelsey interrupted.

"Well... I can't be certain. I mean, we never really had much opportunity for privacy before the... well, you know. But I'm pretty sure I know what it was about."

For some reason they brushed that aside and asked me to go on from where I'd left off. There wasn't a great deal more to tell, really. I'd gone into the office and changed the manifest so that we wouldn't be jumping at the scheduled time. There were a couple of spaces available later so I asked for us to be pencilled in for them.

Sammy and I had just bought ourselves a couple of lemonades and were settling down at a quiet table when Joe and his friend, Donald, interrupted us. They said they'd heard we weren't going as we were supposed to and wondered if there was any chance of borrowing our 'chutes. Well, I asked them if there weren't any of the guests' ones available -- there are normally quite a few and they're always 'in date,' -- but there was some sort of party going on, some company doing a 'team-building' exercise, or some such shit - and there wouldn't be any repacked in time. So Sammy volunteered hers for Joe and I let Donald use mine. I knew there'd be plenty of time to repack them before we got our call.

"Can you explain why Joe wasn't attached to the... what d'you call it... static line?" Kelsey asked.

"He was a category 3," I explained, "he's allowed to pull the ripcord himself. But I know he shouldn't have waited as long as he did... you have to be category 4 before you can wait ten seconds to do it. To be honest, and without wishing to speak ill or anything, I think he was a bit of a 'skygod' from what I've heard."

"Basically, a bit of a show-off," Mark said after Kelsey raised his eyebrows, "someone who tries to do more than they're really experienced enough to."

There were a few more questions about what I'd actually seen -- which was probably no more than anyone who'd been there, but then the questions suddenly changed direction.

"How well do you know Joseph Carpenter, Mr Davies?" Kelsey asked me, and I noticed he asked it in the present tense, so I responded with:

"Well... he works at the carpet factory, so I know him to talk to. I can't say I know him particularly well... he's only been there a couple of years or so and I spend most of my time in the office nowadays."

"So, you're his boss?"

"I suppose I am, sort of... but not directly. There're supervisors for each section and a foreman in charge of the whole workshop. I'm just part of the management team."

There was a silence then, as the DC caught up with the note-taking; then I saw a look pass between Mark and Kelsey, as if they were talking without speaking, somehow, until the senior officer eventually gave a deep sigh and, looking directly into my eyes, asked: "Were you aware, Mr Davies, that Joseph Carpenter had an affair with your wife?"

For a moment or two, I just stared straight back at him -- and I'm sure he saw the look of shock on my face as, in the traditional English fashion; I finally managed to say, "I'm sorry? I mean... what did you say...?"

He was the first to break the eye contact and he looked slightly embarrassed as he stared at his own notes and said; "According to a number of people... the two of them were seeing each other before your marriage... and after it. Apparently it ended earlier this year. Were you aware of that?"

I didn't know what to say, and I'm pretty sure my reaction showed a maelstrom of emotions churning deep inside me. Confusion, hurt, disbelief were all displayed for the other men in the room to see, before I shut my eyes and allowed my chin to slump down onto my chest. As I slowly opened them again, I saw a bottle of water being pushed towards me and heard Mark's voice saying:

"Sorry, Robbie... if you didn't know, it's a hell of a way to find out."

"But who... I mean, how... I can't believe it. I knew they were friends... but...."

"Take it easy, Robbie," Mark soothed, "I'm surprised you didn't know, to be honest. I'm not saying it was common knowledge, but apparently he used to boast about it to his workmates. He used to say that his job would always be safe because... well, anyway...."

"No... don't stop there! Tell me... why?"

"Well... it seemed his take on it was that you knew all about it, but... well, you weren't bothered because he could... errm... take care of her needs in a way that you couldn't."

"That's ridiculous!" I practically exploded and stood up so quickly that my chair fell over with a loud crash. "There's no way that...."

"Please... sit down, Mr Davies," Kelsey said firmly and the young note-taker came around the table and picked up the chair for me. I didn't just sit -- I more or less fell into it. They started to ask me how well I'd known Abbie before we were married and, in all honesty, there wasn't much I could say. I'd known that she had a bit of a reputation but I hadn't really asked about it. What was in the past was of no interest to me and we'd never got round to talking about it. Once we were together, it didn't seem to matter.

Strangely, you might think, I didn't doubt the truth of what they were telling me, even though I did my best to suggest that such boasting didn't mean anything. But I saw the slightly pitying looks on their faces and I eventually fell silent.

"You do realise, I hope," the Inspector said, "that we have a very good reason for asking you about this, Mr Davies? The fact is that someone who was your wife's lover until recently has just crashed to the ground from about 4,000 feet... thanks, possibly, to a fault in a parachute that belonged to a very good friend of yours."

This time, I'm sure the colour did drain out of my face as I realised what he was trying to imply.

"It wasn't me that packed it," I reminded them, "and, before you ask... I didn't touch it after Sammy arrived here, either! It was with her all the time."

"Did she take it with her when she went to the ladies room, Mr Davies?"

"But... but I didn't!" I insisted, "I mean.... I wouldn't have done that! Oh, for God's sake... this is stupid! There were other people there... they'd have seen... she was only gone for a minute or two...."

"It's okay, Robbie," Mark said as my voice had begun to rise, "we're not trying to accuse you of anything. Please understand that we have to ask these questions. Perhaps you'd like to explain why you thought it wasn't an accident?"

So I told them, as best I could, exactly what Samantha had told me about the e-mails she'd seen. I told them that I'd strongly recommended that she ought to go the police about them but had no idea whether or not she'd taken my advice. I explained how the finances of the company were set up; the fact that Gerald had only his salary to play with and that, if he and Samantha had parted, he would probably have found himself out of work and, without very much of any consequence on his CV, would have struggled to find a decent job.

"And what would have been his position if Mrs Lloyd Smyth had been the one involved in that incident today?" the Inspector asked.

"I can't be certain," I replied cautiously.

"Why not?"

"Well, I mean... I don't know if Sammy's made a will or anything...."

"Let's assume she hasn't."

"In that case," I answered after a few moments to think about it, "He'd probably be a very rich man. As well as the factory, there are three retail carpet stores under a different name which are doing very well... plus a lot of sound investments her father made. I assume it would all go to him."

They asked me how much it would all be worth and, after I'd given them a fairly conservative estimate, their eyebrows almost disappeared into their hairlines. Naturally, I was glad that the focus of the questions was shifting to where it needed to be, and there were a lot more about Gerald. I was totally open about the fact that I despised the man -- and even related the story about punching him -- I didn't want to keep anything hidden if they were likely to find out about it eventually.

I've no idea how long the questioning went on; it seemed like half a lifetime but, eventually, they decided it was enough for the time being. The light outside was beginning to dim and they asked me to be at the police station the following morning along with several other relevant witnesses.

As I clambered, uncertainly, to my feet, Inspector Kelsey said: "Just one more thing, Mr Davies."

If I was expecting some 'Columbo-like' penetrating and insightful question, I was disappointed. He asked the standard question asked of everyone who enjoys skydiving -- and I gave him the same standard reply that most of us do

"How can a rational human being do what you people do? Why do you step out of a plane when it's still all the way up in the air?"

"Because the door's open," I said.

CH04

The investigation took a while. As Mark told me, Detective Inspector Kelsey was a careful and very thorough policeman who would never be rushed.

To begin with, a lot of suspicion was thrown my way -- and Samantha's. This was because the Data Card on her parachute (the one with information on the reserve parachute, including type, last date packed, owner, serial number, etc.) seemed to indicate that it had been re-packed the previous week before she'd gone home -- and that the signature on the process was mine. This was, at first, backed up by Sam's husband who said I normally did that for her and that he hadn't had to touch it for several weeks.

His story was that Sammy and I were having an affair, and that she'd started blackmailing me to get a divorce from Abbie. According to him, she'd told me that she wanted me more than anything she'd ever wanted in her life and, being the spoilt rich bitch that she was, she was determined to do whatever it took to get her way. She had, he said, told him all about it -- and even offered him a large financial settlement to accept a divorce.

Naturally, being such a loving husband, his first thought had been for his wife. He'd tried to warn her that people like me -- people who'd grown up in the roughest areas -- were dangerous to mess with. We were capable of anything, he'd told her, but she'd refused to listen because she'd spent her whole life being able to get what she wanted and push people around.

It was, at best, a feeble effort; and once forensics confirmed that the handwriting on the Data Card wasn't mine, it was blown completely out of the water.

With the spotlight turned glaringly onto him, Gerald became more and more frantic in trying to wriggle out from what he'd done. When he was accused of trying to murder his wife in order to secure his future wealth, he totally denied it. He also totally denied Samantha's story about e-mails to a mysterious woman who'd helped him to formulate the plan for her demise (she hadn't had time, or the opportunity, to do as I suggested and get a copy of them) and, when they took his laptop away for examination, they found it was new and virtually unused.

Of course, he said that he'd simply needed to update it and he'd cleared his old one and given it to a charity that helped elderly people to learn how to use them. That much, in fact, turned out to be true -- but by the time it was traced to a new owner it had a new hard drive in it and was completely useless as evidence. Once again, with the case against him being little more than circumstantial, he tried to turn it onto Samantha again. He admitted that he'd had a couple of brief affairs but that, he said, was because she wasn't interested in having sex with him after the first few weeks of their marriage -- mainly because she'd probably been getting what she needed from me.

The very idea of a mystery woman offering all kinds of uninhibited sexual favours -- the kind of things Sammy said were in the e-mails was ridiculous. He'd never thought of doing any of those things -- and he actually found them quite repulsive.

The investigation seemed to have stalled -- even though it now became clear that the parachute had been set up to fail the way it had and that someone had deliberately tried to end Samantha's life; but I rather admired the way that the police patiently went about their business, going over things carefully again and again, bringing each of us in to be interviewed whenever something new came along -- but there was little sign of any real progress.

By that time, of course, I was living on my own.

I'd arrived home after the accident that night and found that Abbie had been drinking heavily. As soon as I stepped inside, she'd thrown her arms around me, telling me how glad she was that I was okay. Apparently, the news on the local radio station had been all about a fatal accident at the skydiving club but they hadn't released details of who'd been killed.

I'd better just mention, I suppose, that the fall had killed Joe instantly. Unfortunately, when the St John's people arrived on the scene they thought they detected some movement. Whether it was just the body settling into position, or gases escaping is impossible to say, but the two of them had seen it and one of them attempted to do CPR. Now the rule is that, once begun, CPR has to continue until a doctor is in attendance to pronounce the patient dead -- and the official verdict is then that he was dead on arrival at the hospital. So, even though the radio news may have jumped the gun a little bit, they were correct.

Anyway, Abbie had no idea who the victim might be at that time and that was the first question she'd asked. I'd responded with a shake of the head, making my way to the bathroom and telling her to go back to the living room and pour me a drink. I also told her that I'd be out in a short while and to wait, then I'd tell her everything she needed to know.

When I'd re-joined her about ten minutes later, she was glued to the television news where they were showing a short clip -- taken on a mobile phone -- showing Joe hurtling to his doom. From that distance, of course, it wasn't possible to make out who it was -- or even whether it was a male or a female, so it was perfectly natural for to say; "That's Samantha's parachute!" because Sammy's was a customised one that was extremely distinctive.

"Yes, it was," I growled, and she turned her head towards me as I stepped forward and picked up the glass of 12-year-old Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey.

"Oh God! I'm sorry, Robbie... I mean I didn't like her... but...."

"But she wasn't using it," I said, coldly and stared at her.

"Then... who... who was it?" she asked, and I could see the tall glass of vodka and Coke trembling in her hand as I spoke and her eyes -- those brown eyes I'd once loved so much - were incredibly wide as I continued; "It was someone who's had his cock inside you more times than I have!"

"What? What d'you mean...?" she stuttered.

"It was Joe Carpenter," I said slowly and watched as her face began to crumple, and then the tears started to roll down her cheeks. Eventually, she managed to look away and murmur that he'd been a 'nice guy' and that it had all been 'a long time ago.'

"I don't think a couple of months is all that long ago, Abbie," I responded quietly and saw her flinch, but she still tried to lie her way out of it.

"I don't know what you mean," she tried, "I used to see him when we worked at the factory... it was never anything serious." And then, as she always did when she felt cornered, she tried to go onto the attack. "Anyway... the poor man's just died, for fuck's sake! Can't you have a bit of...?

"A bit of what, Abbie," I snarled, "Respect? Like the respect you've shown for me?"

"I don't know what you're...."

"Cut it out!" I shouted, and she was suddenly silent as she finally realised how angry I was. "You were fucking him... and several others in the factory... before you managed to get your hooks into me. So don't bother to lie to me! And you started fucking him again -- regularly - not long after we were married!"

"I ended it, Robbie; honestly I did. I told him it was all over...."

"It was all over where, Abbie? Your tits? Your ass? Stop trying to fool me... it's too late for that! I've found out all about it! Stop lying to me, you bitch!"