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was Courtney Moore, which means she was talking to Clemence and Gleeson. Can you remember what any of them was carrying, Mr Harland?’
    ‘Most of them had small pieces of luggage – overnight bags and work bags. Alan Griswald and I both had larger cases – we’d been travelling for longer.’ He thought about boarding the minibus. He and Griswald had had to stow their suitcases at the back while the others had held them on their laps. ‘The man you call C had a large shoulder bag and placed it on top of Griswald’s stuff. I think he may have been carrying something else – a smaller bag perhaps.’
    ‘When you got to the airport,’ said Ollins, rolling the cup between the palms of his hands, ‘you expected to be taking the shuttle. Then you came across Mr Griswald. Who saw whom first?’
    ‘I think I spotted Al.’
    ‘Who was he talking to?’
    Harland thought for a moment. ‘He was with C. They were standing together, but not talking.’
    Ollins looked around the ring of FBI agents to make sure they had understood the significance of this.
    ‘And he didn’t introduce you to him?’
    ‘Nor to anyone else, although I’m not sure how many people he knew on the plane.’
    ‘So where did C sit on the plane?’
    Harland went to the model. ‘Here at the front. One of the women, a blonde of about thirty-five, sat opposite him. She had been looking him over at the airport.’
    ‘That’s Elsa Meinertzhagen … And his baggage would have been placed in the hold with the bigger pieces?’
    ‘No, I think there was some trouble stowing it in the hold. He brought it into the cabin and the flight attendant dealt with it.’
    ‘And he didn’t talk to Griswald during the flight?’
    ‘Nope, I was with Griswald the whole time, except when I went to the toilet.’
    ‘That was what – ten, fifteen minutes short of La Guardia?’
    ‘Yes, about that.’
    ‘The lights were extinguished and you returned to your seat. You say you noticed the heating system was malfunctioning at that time. It was cold in the cabin, right?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Silence descended on the group as Ollins mulled this over. They all looked tired. The room held the sour atmosphere of long and unrewarded labour.
    ‘Do you want me to try and place people on this model?’ asked Harland.
    ‘Sure,’ said Ollins, ‘and then we’ll go out to the crash site. They’re switching the landing runway and delaying all take-offs for a half-hour. I need you to try to trace your movements out there.’
    Harland went through the cabin placing labels by the seats. He wasn’t sure about Male A and Male B and he couldn’t remember which of the women had been sitting across the aisle from him. But Ollins appeared to have lost interest and was anxious to get out on the runway. A call was made to the air traffic control tower and in a few minutes they got clearance to drive out to the far end of the runway.
    On the way, Ollins laconically indicated the positions where the main parts of the fuselage had come to rest and the Learjet had been hit. All the wreckage had been cleared away and on the spot where the tarmac had been damaged by the Learjet explosion a new surface had already been laid. They moved up the runway, beside the huge blackened scrape which marked the wreckage path of the Falcon. The distances seemed much shorter in daylight and when they got out of the Cherokee Jeep, Harland was astonished how close he had been to the side of the dyke. Now he understood why he hadn’t been seen. The main beam from the fire trucks, although appearing to illuminate his surroundings, must have overshot him. He could see that he’d been about twenty feet below the level of the runway.
    He walked to the edge of the dyke with Ollins and looked down. Out on the mudflats were several men wearing Day-Glo jackets, sweeping the surface with metal detectors. Two other men were in a rubber inflatable. One punted up the little rivulets while the other operated two probes. The