Purification

he was very much alone.
    ‘So what does he do round here?’ she asked, guessing that the man must have had some relevance to the group for Emma to have pointed him out.
    ‘Did you see the plane in the hangar?’
    Donna shook her head.
    ‘No, but I knew they had one.’
    ‘Apparently he’s the one who’s going to fly it.’
    ‘Why do you say it like that? What do you mean, apparently?’
    ‘Girl over there called Jo told me that he used to fly little tug planes at a gliding club…’
    ‘Hence the nickname…’
    ‘That’s right. Anyway, she says he’s not flown anything as big as the plane they’ve got here yet.’
    ‘Does he need to? They’ve got the helicopter, haven’t they?’
    ‘The plan is to keep sending people over to the island in threes and fours to make it safe. When it’s all clear they’ll load up the plane and take everyone and everything else over.’
    Donna nodded and finished her drink.
    ‘Come to think of it, I didn’t notice any planes out on the runway when we got here,’ she said, stifling a yawn.
    ‘So how did this Tuggie get here? Is his plane in the hangar too?’
    ‘Now that’s the part of the story I don’t think he wants anyone to know about,’ Emma explained. ‘Richard Lawrence says that he found him hiding under a table in an office at another airfield when he stopped to refuel the helicopter. He’s a bloody nervous wreck. I’m not convinced he’s going to be able to fly anywhere.’
    ‘Great,’ Donna mumbled.
    Jack Baxter crossed her line of vision and began to walk towards her. The tension and fear so evident in his face earlier had now disappeared and had been replaced with a relaxed, almost disbelieving grin.
    ‘You two all right?’ he asked. Donna nodded.
    ‘Fine,’ she replied. ‘What about you?’
    ‘Bloody
    fantastic!’
    ‘That good, eh?’ she mumbled, unable to match his enthusiasm.
    ‘That
    good.’
    ‘So what are you so happy about?’
    Baxter shrugged his shoulders.
    ‘Can’t you feel it?’
    ‘Feel what? We’ve only been here a few minutes, Jack.
    You can’t have had chance to feel anything yet.’
    He ignored her flippancy.
    ‘This is going to work out,’ he grinned. ‘I tell you, it won’t be long now before we’re out of this mess.’

23
    The observation tower was the focal point of the airfield and its growing community. The strongest and safest part of the complex by a long margin, it was where people ate, talked, slept, planned, cried, argued and did pretty much everything else together. Not really a tower as such, it was simply the tallest and safest building around and the first survivors to arrive there had naturally gravitated towards it.
    Its relative height and its distance from the perimeter fence and the dead hordes beyond provided them with a little welcome security. With the arrival of Cooper, Donna, Michael and more than thirty others, however, space was suddenly at a premium. At two-thirty in the morning Michael and Emma found themselves sitting together in a small, dark room off the main entrance corridor at the foot of the stairs. The temperature was icy cold. The couple held each other tightly and covered themselves with blankets and coats to keep warm. Conversation was sporadic.
    Michael had something on his mind. He’d wanted to talk to Emma about it for a couple of hours since an earlier discussion he’d had with Cooper and Jackie Soames, but for the first time in weeks she seemed relaxed and almost happy and he found it difficult to bring himself to speak knowing that what he wanted to say would inevitably upset her.
    After skirting round the subject for what felt like the hundredth time, Michael decided to take a deep breath and tell her.
    ‘Em,’ he began slowly, choosing his words with care, ‘I was talking to Cooper earlier…’
    ‘I know,’ she replied, ‘I saw you. The pair of you were as thick as thieves.’
    ‘Remember the conversation we had on the way over here?’ he continued, ignoring her.
    ‘Which
    one?’
    ‘When we talked about the island? I said I wanted to try and get over there pretty quickly so we could make sure we get everything we needed.’
    ‘I remember,’ Emma mumbled, already beginning to anticipate what he was about to say next.
    ‘Well…’ he began before pausing momentarily, ‘I’m going to go over on the next flight.’ Michael forced his uncomfortable words out as quickly as he could. Once they were spoken he felt sudden relief at having finally