CHERUB: The Sleepwalker - Robert Muchamore Page 0,94
also being supervised by one of the campus maintenance workers and their time wouldn’t be counted against their punishment if they took more than a ten-minute break.
‘They want me to put some filler in a crack over the other side,’ James said, as he swung out on to the scaffolding.
‘James,’ Kerry called after him.
He peered back through the window. ‘What?’
‘I didn’t freak you out, did I? We can still stay friends and apart from the whole poaching-her-man thing, I’m getting on really well with Dana these days.’
‘Of course we’re friends,’ James smiled. ‘Nothing should ever get in the way of that.’
It was only as he walked along the scaffold, ducking around the aluminium poles with the warped planks rattling underfoot, that his conversation with Kerry really sank in: she’d offered him her body and he’d turned it down because he loved Dana. He was so shocked at himself that he walked into an open can of paint.
The tin toppled off the edge of the scaffold and rotated as it fell, streaking the brickwork and a grey shirt who was working directly below before hitting the ground with a metallic clank.
‘Watch where you’re going, Adams,’ the kid shouted, as he reached up and banged furiously on the wooden boards above his head. ‘Have you got shit in your eyes, or what?’
38. SLEEPWALKER
Lauren didn’t sleep too well and woke up at six on Wednesday morning. She turned on her laptop to check on a movie she’d set to download overnight and saw there was an e-mail from Mac in her inbox.
Subject: FAA preliminary finding (do not discuss openly at this stage!)
Hi both,
I’ve been on the phone with Geoff Glisch from the Federal Aviation Administration and I thought you’d be interested to hear that on Friday, they’re planning to announce a preliminary finding on what caused the Anglo-Irish jet to crash.
Having been unable to find any traces of explosives in the wreckage recovered from the Atlantic, Geoff said that the investigation team already felt that a bomb was an increasingly unlikely cause for the crash.
Our discovery of the uncertified parts led the team to concentrate their investigation upon components that were replaced during the overhaul at the DNM maintenance hangar in Madras.
Their preliminary finding is that some of the tubing in the fuel system was not replaced according to the maintenance schedule. At the same time, four valves within the fuel system were improperly replaced with elderly components that have now been traced back to an aircraft burned deliberately in a fire-fighting exercise at Gatwick Airport in mid-2005.
Not only were the components from this burned-out aircraft old, they had been exposed to extreme heat and this is believed to have made the plastics brittle. When a section of the badly maintained tubing ruptured, valves which should have shut down the leak failed to operate and fuel began leaking into the cargo hold. This fuel then ran into electrical systems within the aircraft. These systems short-circuited and the resulting sparks caused an explosion.
This led to the first bang heard by passengers aboard the aircraft. It also damaged the control flaps in the right wing, causing the aircraft to roll. The pilots were able to stabilise the plane and automatic fire control systems extinguished the blaze. However, the part of the aircraft between the wing and fuselage – known as the wing box – was torn open by the explosion and the force of air entering the hole at more than 600kph eventually caused the wing to separate completely. Once this happened, the pilots had no option but to ditch into the sea.
The crash investigation team are confident that this will be their final conclusion, but they won’t make the announcement until a team of engineers from the aircraft manufacturer have concurred with their findings. Until the announcement is made, please keep this under your hats.
Speak soon,
Dr McAfferty
Lauren smiled half-heartedly. She was glad that her mission had helped solve the mystery, but the businesslike tone of Mac’s e-mail belied the fact that he’d lost four members of his family. She knew he was hurting more than he let on.
After taking a shower and making sure that she had all the right books and equipment for morning lessons, Lauren headed downstairs to the reception area on the ground floor. She knew Zara started work early on mornings when her husband got the kids ready for nursery, and wanted to catch up with the chairwoman before she got snowed under with meetings and phone