The Passengers(45)
‘We don’t know that we’re about to die,’ Heidi continued. ‘We don’t know anything right now.’
‘Didn’t you hear what the Hacker said?’ he replied. ‘And what if the kids are in one of those schools with the bombs inside?’
‘Sam, you need to take a breath and think about this. The odds of that happening are remote. I’m sure the kids will be okay.’
The more Sam pictured their faces when they discovered what was happening to their parents, the more he began to sweat. ‘What are they going to think when they see us on TV? They’ll be terrified.’
‘They might not know yet.’
‘You said earlier they probably knew! Every kid of their age is on social media. Even if they haven’t seen it, their friends will have told them by now. Sometimes I don’t think you want to admit to what’s going on around you.’
Heidi felt her muscles knot and she opened her mouth ready to attack, then thought better of it. With just a few words, she knew she could cut her husband down to size. Not now, she told herself. Wait until you really need to fire that bullet. Then a darker thought rose to the surface. Or perhaps you should let him continue ranting and wait until he buries himself? She shook her head. She was cool and collected but that wasn’t her style.
The nickname Elsa the Ice Queen from her workmates hadn’t bothered Heidi. She didn’t know many police officers without an epithet, or who hadn’t had their surname shortened, extended or had a ‘y’ tacked on to the end. Before she joined the police, she had volunteered as a Community Support Officer in her spare time, patrolling the neglected council estate in which she was born and raised. Unafraid of the threats made to her by gangs and drug dealers, her high citizens’ arrest rate and fearless approach to the job brought her to the attention of her bosses who encouraged her to apply for a full-time position. Once she’d settled into the Criminal Investigations Department, they too appreciated her ability to remain composed even in the most testing of investigations. And with her long, blonde hair and delicate features, they awarded her the new nickname Elsa, inspired by the Disney cartoon Frozen.
If they were watching her now, they might struggle to recognise the woman before them. This Elsa was wracked with fear. The threat of being blown up or in a collision would do that to anyone, she thought. And for the first time in as long as she could remember, she longed to have Sam’s hand to hold for comfort.
This isn’t you, she told herself. Whatever the hell is happening here, this is not how you respond. Calm yourself down – and you don’t need Sam to do that for you.
However, there was a decision that needed to be made. She would rather Sam came to the conclusion himself than have viewers see her bringing it up and risk appearing mercenary. But time was running out and she couldn’t wait any longer to broach the subject.
‘There’s something we need to talk about,’ she said carefully. ‘Only one person is going to survive this. Because the public and the jurors aren’t being asked to vote for us as a married couple, the kids aren’t going to get both of us back. So we need to start thinking about how we’re going to play this.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that it makes sense if one of us takes ourselves out of the running to give the other a fighting chance.’
‘You mean sacrifice our own life?’
‘If it comes to that, then yes. If we both start getting votes, we risk cancelling one another out.’
Sam paused as he processed her suggestion. You heartless bitch, he thought. She assumed it was unlikely he would garner much support so she had written him off already. He ran his hands through his hair then pushed down upon his anxious leg to try and stop his foot from bouncing up and down again. Heidi was right – they both couldn’t survive until the end of the morning. However, there was one thing she hadn’t considered – he didn’t want to die.
Because Sam’s life wasn’t just about Heidi and their children. There was much more to him than that, which she was not party to. And the more he considered her proposal, the more he was sure of what needed to be done. He would have to convince the jury and the public that Heidi should die, not him.
Chapter 33
The room was silent as each person in it absorbed the graphic aftermath of Shabana’s murder.
News networks used mobile footage, drones and helicopter cameras to try and eclipse one another with the most shocking pictures they could find.
‘How can they be showing this?’ Libby asked.
‘Live feeds on social media have changed the way television news is broadcast,’ Cadman replied. ‘The only way for the networks to compete and stay relevant is not to censor what’s happening, and, instead, go balls out with the same attack on the senses.’
‘At least it means they’re not focusing on us,’ said Fiona.
Muriel, the first person to lend their support to Shabana, took her gaze away from the screen, and faced the table instead. She turned a wooden crucifix hanging around her neck the opposite way around, as if to hide Jesus from the wickedness of the world he’d left behind. ‘Why would the Hacker do this?’ she muttered in disbelief.
‘People have been killing people since Cain and Abel, you of all people should know that,’ muttered Jack. ‘And I’m sorry to say it will continue for generations to come until there is no one left in this world to either kill or be killed.’