Flight Path: A Wright & Tran Novel Read Online Free Page A

to send all four kids to America. A hospital in Washington State had pioneered a new treatment and was having some success with it. The only problem was the cost of seventy-five thousand dollars per child in addition to the travel and accommodation costs. All in all they needed to raise a quarter of a million pounds. It took a while, but in May, the week before the UK’s General Election, the parents were presented with one of those big promotional cheques for a total of two hundred and fifty six thousand pounds. That was on Saturday, the Second of May. The following day, Swift, and a friend called Amberley, went out deep-sea fishing, but Swift never made it back to harbour.”
    Kara frowned, “He fell off a boat?”
    “So everyone thought. Your old colleagues in the RAF launched an immediate air and sea search but it was near dusk when he was reported missing so there wasn’t much chance. Then on the Monday the police found the suicide note in his house in Ipswich. The reference to the money being gone and the children being disappointed raised obvious concerns. Swift had been one of the custodians of the charity account and sure enough it was empty. Nobody else involved had even checked and other than a few bank officials being reprimanded over shoddy audit practices, there was nothing anyone could do. The money was gone and so was Swift. The thinking was that he had been aiming to pay it back at some point, but the final total was reached quicker than expected. The loss would have been discovered as soon as the parents went to draw down the funds. With no time left, Swift took the decision to kill himself rather than be found out.”
    “Why didn’t this make the news?”
    “It was the General Election the following Thursday,” Franklyn said with a shrug, “The media had bigger things to pursue than some provincial celebrity committing suicide.”
    “How did the police rule out that he hadn’t done a runner, instead of drowning?”
    “As he was boarding the boat, a passer-by had taken a, umm,” Franklyn hesitated.
    “Taken a?” Kara prompted.
    “A photo of Swift and himself, as a memento of meeting him. I know there’s a name for it.”
    Kara laughed, “A selfie, Franklyn, had he taken a selfie?”
    “Yes. Quite. A selfie,” he said the word self-consciously.
    “So this convenient photo puts Swift on the boat, what else did the police turn up?” Kara asked.
    “The witness testified that Swift and this chap Amberley were on the boat when it left. The boat had a full communications suite and a GPS trace available, a result of the navigation equipment on board, so they knew where it had been. According to the printout, it had gone into a well-known fishing area, then circled around looking for Swift, then eventually came back into harbour. They had the time of the first distress call from Swift’s friend back to harbour and when the boat returned it was met by local police. All rather neatly packaged.”
    Kara drained the last of her coffee, “Do you want a fill up for your tea?”
    “No, I’m fine thank you.”
    Kara caught the eye of the waitress and ordered another latte, but in a takeaway cup.
    “Okay, so we have a dead minor celeb and a chunk of missing money. He spent it on a drug or booze or gambling debt if we believe his note and then dived off a boat. Why am I here Franklyn?”
    “Because it’s all too neat for me to be sure he’s dead. If he paid off a debt for drugs or illegal gambling or whatever, then he was paying it off presumably to prevent being killed, or at least beaten to a pulp. Yet he pays the debt off then commits suicide? It doesn’t sit quite right.”
    “Perhaps not, but guilt and remorse and who knows what could have been rattling around in his head. But that’s not quite what I meant.”
    Franklyn’s brow creased, “I’m sorry, what did you mean?”
    “I meant why am I here now? This money went missing in May, the man died, or didn’t, in May. It’s sad that