Horowitz Horror, More by Anthony Horowitz

Author:Anthony Horowitz
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780399245190
Published: 2006-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Judith never knew.

Nor did her parents.

None of them ever found out.

Because they weren’t at Heathrow, they didn’t see the passengers come off the plane. There were about three hundred of them. Apart from the Fletchers’ own empty seats, it had been a full flight.

The first person off the flight was a fat woman with large eyes and a shock of yellow hair. Then a young boy holding a teddy bear that was missing an arm. His parents were right behind him; a sullen-faced husband and wife, holding hands, not talking to each other. They were followed by a black man in a leather jacket. He was biting his fingernails. And so it went on . . .

The last person off the plane was the pilot. He was a thin man with long, untidy hair. Years ago he had been injured in a motorbike accident. There was a scar on his cheek and he had broken his nose. As he left the plane, he was looking tired and sick. His face was pale. He had been sweating. His shirt was still damp, sticking to his chest.

There were three officials waiting for him. “Are you all right?” one of them asked.

The pilot shook his head and said nothing.

But an hour later he told his story. The officials sat opposite him across a long table, taking notes.

“It was the plumbing system,” he said. “It must have sprung a leak. God knows how many gallons of water there were swilling around down there. And then, of course, with the altitude, it froze. Ice is heavier than water . . . I don’t need to tell you that. And it was heavy! I knew something was wrong . . . the way the plane was handling. But it was only when the flight attendant told me they couldn’t flush the toilets in economy . . .”

He smiled but there was no humor in his face.

“Anyway, by then it was too late. There was nothing I could do. As you know, I radioed ahead. Got all the emergency vehicles waiting. I could just about fly but I wasn’t sure I could land. Not with all that weight. It was a full flight.” The pilot had opened a can of Coke. He drank it all in one gulp. “To tell you the truth,” he went on, “if there had been one extra ham sandwich on that plane, I don’t think we’d have made it.”

“You were lucky,” one of the officials said.

“You’re right. I heard that there was a no-show at the last minute. A family of four and a ton of luggage.”

“Why weren’t they on the plane?” the official asked.

The two other officials shook their heads. “I’ve no idea,” the pilot said. “But I’m glad they weren’t. Because I’m telling you, I’m not exaggerating. If they’d been on that flight and we’d had that extra weight on board . . .” He crumpled up the can and looked at it for a moment, lying in the palm of his hand.

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