from the remaining defendants—promises made, escape routes planned—and a picture emerges of manipulation, grooming, and radicalization at the hands of one woman.
Missouri.
Every tributary leads back to her, and although she had covered her tracks well—the hijackers’ dark web message board was never recovered—police found paperwork in her house that tied her to each of her accomplices.
On the final day of the trial, when we’re called in to hear the judge’s verdict, I look around the courtroom at the people who have become as familiar to me as my own family after six months in court. Derek has a suit on today—he must be doing an interview later. He’s moved seamlessly from print to television, in stark contrast to Alice Davanti, whose career crashed into oblivion after one of the passengers leaked video footage of her trying to claw her way into an already-occupied seat.
Jason Poke has done better. He gave a heartfelt and impassioned public apology for all the insensitive jokes of his past and pledged to atone for his seat grabbing on Flight 79. “When you think you’re about to die,” he said on Good Morning Britain, “your whole life flashes before your eyes—and what I saw didn’t make me proud.” He’s become the go-to presenter for disaster documentaries, traveling the world to find the human stories behind tsunamis, earthquakes, forest fires… Woke Poke, the tabloids have dubbed him. A born-again empath.
Caroline and Jamie Crawford haven’t returned to hear the verdict. Jamie left straight after giving evidence; Caroline hung around long enough to announce the launch of the Crawford Youth Sports Foundation. Their divorce sounds messy. SCREWED OVER FOR SCREWING AROUND, one tabloid said, listing the millions Jamie had signed over to his wife’s charity, only for her to give him his marching orders.
I thought the media would grow tired of the case, but the coverage has been relentless. With the hijackers on remand, it was the passengers who provided fresh copy, from AUSTRALIAN HIJACK HELL SURROGATE COUPLE GIVE BIRTH TO MIRACLE TWINS, to the haunted face of Carmel’s parents: WE’LL AVENGE OUR DAUGHTER’S DEATH.
The judge gives them life. Although really, he is taking it away, bestowing each with a minimum sentence of forty years. I squeeze Mina’s hand. Even Becca (I still think of her as that, despite her real name being plastered across the papers), the youngest defendant, will be in her sixties when she gets out. She’ll have no children, no career, no life.
We don’t cheer. There’s no feeling of euphoria as we leave the court; the length of the trial has sapped us of adrenaline. There’s just the overwhelming feeling of relief that it’s finally over.
“That’s that, then.” Derek looks almost disappointed. He claps me on the back, turning it into an awkward man hug, before kissing Mina on the cheek. “Brave girl.”
There are few people Mina would allow to call her a girl, but Derek is one of them. He has slotted into our lives like an additional uncle, and I like to think he sees us as family too.
“Cesca’s turn for dinner, I think?” he adds.
“It certainly is,” she says. “I’ll ping an email around.”
The monthly dinners had begun as a one-off, a few weeks after Cesca left the hospital. They were Mina’s idea, to introduce Sophia and me to Cesca, Rowan, and Derek. Conversation was stilted to begin with. We scratched about for small talk that kept us away from the very thing that had brought us together.
It was Sophia who broke the ice. “What will happen to the ’jackers?”
“They’ll go to prison,” I said firmly.
“They should send them on an airplane and tell them it was going to crash so they would be as scared as you were. And then put them in a horrible freezing cellar and set fire to their house and see how they like it.”
There was silence after this little speech. I wasn’t sure whether to applaud my daughter’s sense of justice or worry I was bringing up a psychopath, but when I looked at Mina, she was laughing. “I couldn’t agree more.” She raised her glass. “To Sophia.”
“Sophia!” we echoed.
“Maybe you should be a judge when you grow up,” Rowan said, but Sophia shook her head.
“I’m going to be a police officer.” She’d smiled at me, then looked at Mina. “And a pilot.”
“Busy woman,” Derek said.
“And an environ…” Sophia stumbled over the word “…mentlist.”
She might as well have said Macbeth in a roomful of actors. Derek flinched, Cesca closed her eyes, and Rowan—usually so unflappable—lost his