Free Requiem by Clare Francis Page A

after Nick solo, but he didn’t mention that.
    No one expressed wild enthusiasm, but then no one looked unhappy about it either. In an effort to leave no stone unturned, David said to Nick: ‘She says she’s an old friend of yours. The fund-raising lady, that is. Wife of an MP. Driscoll, is it?’
    Nick gave a shrug. ‘Could be.’ Like everyone in his position, he’d met thousnds of people for a few minutes each. It was impossible to remember them by name.
    ‘Perhaps you do know her,’ teased Alusha, narrowing her eyes. ‘Perhaps she’s an old flame.’ She rolled her tongue round the idiom with obvious pleasure, as if she’d just learnt it.
    Nick gave her a broad smile. ‘Before you, my love, it’s all a great big blank.’
    Alusha laughed with great delight, as if hearing the remark for the first time, although to David’s certain knowledge Nick had used the same phrase several times before. Perhaps this was the secret of a happy marriage: repetition, ritual and feigned delight at each other’s jokes. He wondered how they were getting on with their attempts to have babies. He would be careful not to ask. The last he’d heard Alusha was about to try yet another fertility treatment.
    ‘Is it agreed then?’ David pressed. ‘Shall I pursue the Save-the-Children idea?’
    Nick gave him an imperceptible wink of encouragement. Mel shrugged in what was not, apparently, disagreement. David breathed a sigh of pleasure and profound relief; against all expectations it seemed that Amazon was back on the road again. And from one charity concert, who knew what might grow?
    Duggan felt the sweat dripping down the side of his face. His eyes flicked over the instrument panel: engine temperature normal, no malfunctions. Cockpit heating off; vents discharging cool air. What the hell, he was just hot. Hot and tired. The headache had settled into a sharp stabbing pain behind the eyes. He put the Porter into a steep turn and lined up for the next run. Only three more runs before the end of this job, thank the Lord, then back for a feet-up. He pulled the throttle back, dropping the machine quickly towards spraying height. This was a little game of his, to see how quickly and proficiently he could level out at the magic spraying height after a rapid drop. On a good day he could hit it in one, on a bad day – and there were plenty of those – he levelled out too high and had to ease her down. Now and again he gave himself a fright and dipped a bit too low. One way or the other, it relieved the boredom.
    As usual, the job was forest. The terrain was almost flat and the trees of fairly uniform height, a doddle compared to ground crops, which were apt to be surrounded by tall trees, roads, telephone wires and houses with irate people.
    He found his height at about fifteen feet over the treetops, throttled down to a steady ninety-five knots, located a visual marker at the far end of the run, and, fifty yards from the edge of the plantation, engaged the atomizers. He glanced briefly back through the scratched Perspex, saw the answering cloud of vapour, and looked ahead to the marker. The marker was less than adequate, but since dear gormless Reggie had somehow managed to cock up the placing of the black boxes and the Hi-Fix wasn’t working, he had no choice but to rely on eyeball fixes, reciprocal bearings and old-fashioned seat-of-the-pants stuff. He had to estimate the spray widths, calculate what he’d already covered and find some landmark to keep him straight on the next run. Inevitably the spraying would overlap a bit. Just as inevitably there would be the occasional gaps. But he’d only get to hear about them when the angry proprietor complained about swathes of rampant bugs.
    He completed the run, and the next. He noticed that the wind had got up. That was all he needed. Not only did it make flying more difficult but it caused excessive drift, blowing the spray off-target. His theoretical wind limit was eight knots. It