‘I don’t need a chair,’ Sarah replied. The answer was a lie, but she was not going to let her nausea slow her down. ‘It’s more important you have the shot.’

‘But how will you get a question in?’ Benson asked. The concern had returned to his voice. ‘If you’re not seated with the rest? They won’t see your hand.’

‘They won’t be answering anything that’s worth asking. Not today. We’ll get a statement about the crash, a few safety passes with answers straight from that same statement, then they’ll disappear. These things always go the same way. All that matters is that you catch that first statement.’

Benson nodded his head but he didn’t seem convinced. Not that it mattered. The decision was Sarah’s to take.

And he’ll learn, she thought.

‘I’m heading outside,’ Sarah said. ‘I need some fresh air.’

‘You said you were quitting those,’ Benson observed.

‘What are you, my mother?’

‘Someone has to look out for you.’

‘Lucky I have you then, I guess. But no need for you to worry. I really do mean fresh air this time. I just need to clear my head.’

Benson’s expression moved from amusement to its previous concern. He seemed to want to say something more. Instead he reached for a pile of what had looked like thick rags at the base of his camera stand. Out of it, he picked a grey tracksuit hoodie.

‘At least put this on,’ he said. An instruction rather than a request. ‘You’re already sick and it’s bloody freezing out there.’

Sarah smiled. She was as bad at taking orders as she was at apologising. Both were weaknesses in a world of alpha personalities vying for advancement. But Benson’s concern was genuine, and on this occasion his instruction was harmless.

And besides, Sarah thought, it is bloody cold out there.

The British Airways branding that dominated the exterior of the Waterside Building was impossible to miss. The UK carrier’s insignia seemed to be emblazoned on every spare part of the wall. A branding campaign that left no hint of the complex’s other occupant: Pan-Atlantic Airlines.

People sure as hell know it’s here now.

Sarah stood for a moment and stared out across the Waterside car park, at the mass of outside broadcast vans occupying it.

The sheer number of them was not unusual. These days Sarah rarely covered a story that didn’t attract the full attention of the rival news networks. But for that story to take them somewhere big enough that they could actually park?

That was new.

She looked away from the vehicles and down at her hands. They were shaking in the cold of the night.

Benson’s hoodie was doing its job well. Every covered inch of Sarah’s body remained warm, despite the rapidly falling temperature. But her hands were exposed. Sarah needed them out so she could watch the press conference on the increasingly shaky screen of her phone. It was a sacrifice she was fast coming to regret.