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Back The Lucky Eight Save as PDF
Chapters (64)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Five Years Later
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. Forty-six
  51. Forty-seven
  52. Forty-eight
  53. Forty-nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Fifty-one
  56. Fifty-two
  57. Fifty-three
  58. Fifty-four
  59. Fifty-five
  60. Epilogue
  61. Acknowledgements
  62. Canelo Crime
  63. About the Author
  64. Also by Sheila Bugler

‘I was on holiday when it happened.’ Rachel bit into a chip, savouring the tangy heat of vinegar and deep-fried potato. ‘But I heard all about it from my colleagues who were there. Some of them are still getting counselling because of it, even now. And, of course, I was roped in to help when I got back. Along with every other officer in Sussex and Surrey. It’s not something I’ll ever forget.

‘It’s never one reason when a plane crashes. I didn’t know that before. In this case, there were two causes: a strong wind that made landing conditions really challenging; and the pilot had been drinking.’

The rumours about the pilot had started a few weeks after the crash. A particularly scurrilous piece in one of the tabloids, followed by several more newspaper articles and then an hour-long documentary on Channel 4. All of them exploring whether or not Gary Wakefield had caused the plane to crash. Finally, two and a half years later, the Department of Transport’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch announced the outcome of their investigation. The AAIB’s statement, widely welcomed, confirmed what many people already knew to be true. If Gary Wakefield hadn’t been drinking, there was every chance that 160 people would never have died.

Rachel’s brain snagged on something. The pilot.

‘The press blamed his wife,’ she said. ‘He’d recently got divorced. There were a lot of stories saying that’s why he’d been drinking.’

‘Ooh hang on,’ Ade said, taking her phone out of her pocket. ‘Let me take a look.’

‘I wonder how that made her feel afterwards,’ Rachel said, ‘knowing people were saying all those deaths could have been avoided if her marriage had never broken up?’

‘I hope she didn’t dwell on it too much.’ Ade’s eyes were glued to her phone as she answered. ‘You could drive yourself mad thinking about what might have been.’

‘It’s hard not to,’ Rachel said. ‘Hard too, not to feel sorry for those poor people who’ve got to deal with this after everything else they’ve been through. It doesn’t seem fair.’

‘It’s life,’ Ade said. ‘When is it ever fair when someone dies before their time? Shit, Rach. Look at this.’

She handed her phone to Rachel. The screen was open on an archived news story, written about six weeks after the crash. Rachel scanned the text, trying to find what Ade wanted her to see. It was a piece about the pilot, Gary Wakefield. From what Rachel read, it seemed to be nothing more than a rehash of the same stuff written elsewhere. The journalist who’d written the piece claimed Gary’s divorce had left him ‘broken and bereft’ and drink had become ‘his only solace during those lonely months.’ It sounded like a load of old tosh to Rachel, and she didn’t know why Ade had got so worked up about it.