‘No,’ I said flatly. ‘And that’s what scares me. You’d have to be damned ruthless to consider dumping a hundred innocent passengers into the sea simply to cause a diversion.’

‘Her record came in on the teletype just before I left,’ said Hanna. ‘She is ruthless. Utterly ruthless. She has a rap sheet as long as your arm and it’s not pleasant reading: she escalated from petty drug offences to become one of America’s most wanted criminals. You name it, she did time for it – burglary, fraud, assault, armed robbery. You won’t be surprised to learn that there are several murders with her fingerprints all over them, although she was never charged.’

‘So all that guff she gave me about being an air hostess …’

‘Just that – guff.’

Leotta said, ‘I don’t understand. How on earth did she fetch up all the way out here, with Haslam?’

‘Good question. They weren’t married that long before he signed up with Salton. It seems to me that she might have targeted him specially for this job.’

I said, ‘She told us she’d been planning it for two years.’

‘My guess is that was a conservative estimate.’ Hanna’s sleepy look had returned. ‘She may not have known exactly what she was going to do with him, but Haslam was on her radar a long while back. And it takes a certain kind of woman to go as far as marrying a man to achieve her nefarious ends.’

‘Sounds like he’s better off without her,’ I said mirthlessly.

‘Frankly, I think the world is. But what I need to know now is this: will that gang up there still carry out her plan in her absence?’

My stomach lurched. ‘You can’t let either of those planes take off.’

‘How am I going to stop them?’ he demanded. ‘I have three armoured riot trucks coming up, which I can slam on to the runway to stop anything taking off. But they’ll be another hour. That makes two hours they’ll have had, and I don’t think they’ll need that much time.’

The captain popped his head around the door. ‘I’ve raised the harbour police.’

‘Good.’ Hanna went out and Leotta and I followed more slowly. Outside the door we bumped into Dr Baines, who was wiping his hands on a towel. Leotta said, ‘How is Mrs Salton?’

The doctor put the towel on a table. ‘Easier, but we must get her into hospital.’

‘I thought it looked bad.’

Baines blew out his cheeks. ‘A bullet in the abdomen scrambles things up. I could do an emergency operation here, but I’m hoping I won’t have to.’

I said, ‘Where is the nearest hospital?’

‘North End, about ten miles from here.’

‘And how long before you … have to make up your mind?’

‘An hour at the most,’ he said. ‘I’m going to start sterilising my instruments now, just in case.’