Who Are You?: A life in danger. A race against time.

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‘This one last thing,’ Jack said. ‘Then I’m done with work. Finished. That’s a promise.’

He kissed her lightly, then took off at a trot in the direction of the newspaper stand, pulling his suitcase behind him. He waved without looking back and disappeared around a corner.

‘Do not miss this plane,’ she called to the empty corridor. ‘That’s an order!’

Margo felt a little shiver of something. Anxiety? Fear? She didn’t know. She shook it off and boarded the plane. Later, when it all had gone wrong, she would remember that ominous feeling.

TWO (#ua15073bf-20ce-59d0-aaa9-4f53c2af034e)

Inside the 757 Margo handed the flight attendant her coat and scarf and took her seat by the window in the last row of the first-class cabin.

‘Can I get you something before we take off, Mrs McCarthy?’

‘Two glasses of champagne, please,’ Margo answered. ‘My husband will be here any moment.’

‘He’d better hurry. They’ll be closing the doors soon,’ the young woman explained as she placed the champagne on the table between the seats.

‘Don’t worry,’ Margo smiled. ‘He’ll show up just as the jet bridge is pulling away. He likes to live dangerously.’

Margo sipped her champagne mechanically, never taking her eyes off the door. Five minutes passed. Then, ten. He should be here by now. That feeling she’d had as she watched Jack walk away came back.

The purser was on the intercom now giving the usual prior-to-takeoff instructions. Margo dialled Jack’s mobile but the call did not go through.

The crew began making their final pass down the cabin, picking up glasses. Margo was on her feet. ‘My husband’s not here yet. You have to hold the plane.’

‘I’ll have the purser check with the ground crew,’ the flight attendant said. She gently urged Margo back into her seat. ‘Your husband probably thought you would wait for him out in the terminal.’

‘No, he didn’t think that! I’m getting off. Something’s wrong,’ Margo exclaimed.

She stood up again, scrambling to pull her bag out of the overhead locker as the purser approached, smiling.

‘Trench coat?’ he asked.

Margo was faint with relief. ‘Ancient trench coat. He never goes anywhere without it.’

‘He’s on the way down the jet way.’

Margo dropped into her seat and fastened the seatbelt. From where she was sitting all she could see of Jack was his rumpled trench coat as he bounded through the door. The crew hustled him into a seat in the bulkhead just as the door slid closed and the big Airbus pushed back from the gate.

‘We’ll move him back here once we’re airborne,’ the flight attendant said.

‘That’ll give me time to think up a suitable punishment for him.’ Margo smiled, shaky with relief.

Within minutes the plane was rumbling down the runway and lifting up into the lead-coloured Chicago sky. The moment the plane reached its cruising altitude and the seatbelt sign was turned off, Margo got out of her seat and headed toward the front of the plane.

She looked down at Jack, who had the nerve to be cocooned in the airline quilt, sleeping. She put her arms around him and kissed him on the head. ‘Were you trying to give me a heart attack?’ she whispered.

The man’s head emerged from the blanket and Margo froze. This wasn’t Jack. It was a stranger.

Jack was not on the plane.