B006U13W The Flight (Jenny Cooper 4) nodrm Read Online Free Page B

damage,’ Jenny said. ‘And she obviously had time to put on a lifejacket.’
    ‘Almost makes it worse, doesn’t it?’ Alison said. ‘Knowing what’s coming, I mean.’
    Jenny recalled the experts’ speculation on the radio. The stricken plane appeared not so much to have crashed, but to have crash-landed on the estuary. From what she had read of such disasters, bodies could emerge from the wreckage in all manner of conditions: some mangled beyond recognition, others more or less intact. It all depended what debris the body collided with. The brutal randomness of passengers’ injuries added yet another layer of horror onto an event already too large for her fully to comprehend.
    The forensics officer zipped her camera into a case. ‘How soon till you take her to the D-Mort?’ she asked. ‘Only we could do with the tent.’
    ‘D-Mort?’
    ‘Disaster mortuary. They’re setting one up on a field at Walton Bay – where the plane went down.’
    ‘Who’s “they”?’ Jenny asked. ‘North Somerset?’
    ‘The Ministry of Justice is appointing someone more senior to take charge,’ Alison interjected. ‘They don’t think us provincial hicks can be trusted.’
    Jenny had been so shocked by the scale of the accident that she had barely turned her mind to the complicated logistics of managing it. There were standing protocols for handling a high-casualty event which involved setting up a disaster mortuary as close as practicable to the scene. There bodies would be identified, autopsied and stored until it was appropriate to release them to families. A handful of coroners had been specially trained to manage such situations, but despite the presence of an elderly nuclear power plant and several chemicals factories within her jurisdiction, Jenny had never been selected to be one of them, a minor snub that still rankled.
    ‘Any bodies lying in my area will be taken to the Vale as usual,’ Jenny said. ‘They’ll have enough to deal with at Walton.’
    The officer gave an uncertain nod. ‘How long are you going to be?’
    ‘There’s an ambulance on the way,’ Alison said. ‘You can spare your tent for ten minutes.’
    ‘I’ll be in the van,’ the young woman said, letting it be known that she was being caused serious inconvenience. She picked up her two bags and marched out.
    An odd, liquid sound issued from the girl’s body. Jenny looked down to see a small gush of water bubble up through her lips and trickle across her cheeks.
    ‘Muscles contracting,’ Alison said. ‘Must have had water in her lungs.’
    Some instinct prompted Jenny to lean down and touch the girl’s face – just in case – but it was as cold as porcelain. ‘If she inhaled water, she must have been breathing after the crash.’
    Alison made no further comment and turned back to the entrance. ‘You’d better have a look at the other one.’
    The second tent lay some ten yards closer to the water’s edge on a band of sticky black silt. Alison unzipped the flap and pulled it back to reveal the body of a bearded man lying with his right cheek on the ground, his arms spread out at his sides.
    Jenny placed him in his upper thirties. He was sturdily built and looked nothing like an airline passenger. He was wearing dungaree-style over-trousers, calf-length orange rubber boots, and a red plaid shirt rolled up to the elbows with a white T-shirt underneath. His forearms were veined and muscular, those of a man accustomed to heavy manual work.
    ‘He looks like a fisherman.’
    ‘Not at this time of year,’ Alison said. ‘There’s nothing in his pockets – we checked.’
    She handed Jenny a second piece of paper similar to the first. The medic had recorded his core temperature as 13.5 degrees.
    ‘He wasn’t flying to New York dressed like that,’ Jenny said. ‘I think we might have our first casualty on the ground.’
    She walked around the body on the duckboards the forensic officers had put down inside the tent and studied the