Airship Read online

  For three weeks Allie Gray had sated himself with Claire, taking her to clubs, giving her meals, taking her gambling and allowing her to waste large bankrolls. By this time she had found out that her lover was rich and that the world he moved in was entirely alien to the staid and stable home-life she had experienced at her parent’s house in Kent. Allie Gray’s world made her feel nervous but also excited. It was like something from a storybook, romantic and intoxicating. She moved at his side through strip clubs, gambling casinos and sex-shops, protected by his far-reaching authority. Her excitement did not diminish even when she realised that he was party to many other vices and that the modelling job he was going to offer her had been a part in a blue movie. That didn’t matter now. She was Allie Gray’s woman.

  Then she had gone to her parent’s house in Kent to collect some things. Her father had been at home and had discovered that she had left university and was involved with Allie Gray. She didn’t know how he had found out. The next thing was that he was ordering her, coldly and unemotionally, not to see Allie Gray again. She had shouted at him, defending herself and her lover. He had remained impassive — just gone on talking in that cold, sneering voice of his. She had started to scream obscenities, trying to stir up some emotion in him. He had turned, walked into his study and shut the door. In fury she had thrown some belongings into a bag and stormed out of the house.

  When she returned to Allie Gray’s apartment and told him, and talked about her love for him and about setting up home together, she had not understood the amused look in his eyes. He had not taken her out that night but made some excuse to spend the evening in his club without her. He had come in late. She was already in bed, drowsy and half-asleep. He threw off his clothes and climbed in beside her.

  Now he lay on his side, snoring gently, leaving her strangely alone and dissatisfied. She felt used.

  She must have dropped off to sleep for she started awake, conscious of a loud banging, of the lights flashing on and people milling into the room.

  ‘Alright you two love-birds,’ sneered a voice. ‘Get out of that!’

  She blinked and found herself focussing on uniformed policemen.

  Beside her Allie Gray was swearing violently.

  ‘That’s enough, Allie,’ admonished a voice. ‘Plenty of time for that down at the station. And before you say it … yes, we do have a warrant.’

  The speaker was a stocky man in civilian clothes, who was obviously in charge of the uniformed officers.

  ‘Let me get my mouthpiece,’ Gray was muttering.

  ‘Later,’ returned the detective. ‘Get a move on, Allie.’

  Confused, Claire was struggling to hold the sheet in front of her, hiding from the amused gaze of the policemen.

  ‘I beg your pardon ma’am,’ sneered the detective, affecting a slight Oxford accent. ‘Had I known you would be embarrassed I would have rung the doorbell and waited outside.’

  ‘Leave the kid alone,’ Gray said. ‘She don’t know nothing.’

  ‘Yeah, I believe you,’ replied the man. ‘Forbes!’

  A policewoman came forward.

  ‘Take charge of Allie’s tart.’

  Claire didn’t have time to protest before the policewoman bustled over and gruffly ordered her to get her clothes on. Claire abruptly realised that Allie Gray was standing naked as the police milled through the room. She stared about in speechless confusion and, as the policewoman tried to get her out of the bed, she struggled to keep the sheet around herself.

  ‘Don’t try to kid me that you’re bashful!’ scowled the police officer. ‘Get your clothes on!’

  Claire found herself shivering with fear.

  ‘What’s … what’s happening?’ she whimpered.

  ‘Got it, inspector!’ cried a uniformed constable, entering the room. ‘It was just where our snout said it would be … ‘

  The inspector turned with a triumphant smile to Allie Gray, now clad in a shirt and slacks.

  ‘There now, Allie, and isn’t that good news? A pound of heroin, all stashed neat and tidy in your private safe … a bit stupid, wasn’t it? Especially when you know a number of your former comrades would like to see you doing a stretch somewhere safe like Parkhurst so that they can carve up your little vice kingdom between them.’

  Allie Gray clenched his hands and swore.

  ‘Tell me who the bastard was who grassed and … ‘

  The inspector laughed.

  ‘And what? I’d calm down if I were you. You’ll have plenty of time to meditate on the situation. You’re on your way down, Allie. We are going to throw the book at you … drugs, porn and prostitution for beginners, and you haven’t seen anything yet. Alright, constable, take him away.’

  Uncomprehendingly, Claire watched as Allie Gray was led from the room. He did not look once in her direction. She was sobbing as she tried to struggle into her clothes before the amused gaze of the policewoman.

  The inspector glanced round the room, then called to the policewoman.

  ‘Get Allie’s tart down to the car immediately, Forbes.’

  The words stung Claire.

  ‘How dare you!’ she cried.

  The inspector looked at her in amusement. There was also contempt on his face.

  ‘A bit young to be on the game, ain’t you?’

  Claire flushed.

  ‘I’m not!’ she countered.

  ‘Then what are you — Fairy Goody Two Shoes incognito? Come on, the sooner I get you to the station and charge you, the sooner I can get home to a meal and my beauty sleep.’

  ‘Charge?’ gasped Claire, going cold. ‘Charge with what?’

  ‘You’re a bloody good actor, kid. I’ll say that. What am I to be charged with?’ he mimicked. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll think of something. How about “accessory” for starters? I can promise you that you’ll be in the slammer quite a while. Give you a holiday, won’t it?’

  Chapter Five

  The two men were angry and Charles Renard took the opportunity of a lull in their highly technical argument to hold both hands upwards, like a priest bestowing a blessing, in an attempt to quell the tirade.

  ‘M’sieurs,’ he said, leaning forward over his large desk. ‘If you will allow me? I am a businessman — chairman of this company — not a scientist nor a technician. I do not understand all your complicated technical jargon but, please … can we go through this more slowly?’

  He paused and looked from one to the other of the two red-faced men who sat on the opposite side of his desk.

  ‘Firstly, let Doctor Villemur explain his point,’ Renard said quickly as it seemed, for a moment, as if they were both about to start a simultaneous monologue.

  The elder man, with an untidy thatch of white hair, snorted and glanced in triumph at his colleague.

  ‘It is simple, m’sieur,’ he began slowly. ‘You employed me two weeks ago as an acknowledged expert on aircraft metals and alloys. Is this not so? You told me your chief designer had resigned from your airship project and that you wanted to carry on with his design but needed someone of … ‘ he paused, stuck out his chest and looked defiantly at the other man ‘ … of authority to check over the project and point out any defective areas.’

  Renard nodded wearily.

  ‘You are entirely right, Doctor Villemur. But please come to the point.’

  ‘It is simply this: you are using an unsafe alloy for the shell of the airship.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ snapped the second man, Doctor Le Braz, one of the designers working for Dirigeable-Commercial SA, the company of which Renard was chairman and executive director. The skin is perfectly safe … we have conducted countless tests on it.’

  ‘One moment/ said Renard sharply. ‘Let me get this clear. Doctor Villemur, you claim the skin is unsafe? You obviously have some reasons for this claim?’

  The doctor jerked his head emphatically.

  ‘Your design is of a honeycomb design skin made up of carbon-reinforced plastic.’

 
Renard acknowledged the fact.

  ‘Carbon is a conductor of heat and electricity.’

  ‘Elementary! Elementary!’ muttered Le Braz.

  ‘Should the airship be struck by lightning,’ went on Villemur, ignoring him, ‘there is no telling what the results would be. The charge of electricity or heat would be absorbed into the carbon of the alloy and that would generate heat. It is a dangerous structure. Most dangerous.’

  Renard was right when he said he was not a scientist nor a technician. He was purely a businessman and, at thirty-four years of age, a young businessman at that. Born the younger son of a farm labourer in the Normandy village of Balleroy, Renard had been too poor to stay on at school to obtain his baccalauréat. He left without qualification and went to work at a local garage where he quickly learnt how to buy and sell cars at profit. Poverty had made him ruthless and ambitious: he owned his own garage by the age of nineteen. Soon he had two garages and then a concession on a nationwide string of gas stations. By the age of twenty-five he had invested in an engineering works, obtaining his first government defence contract for making fuel tanks for a series of fighter-aircraft.

  By the time he was thirty Charles Renard’s name was well-known in the aviation industry. His garages and filling stations had been sold off as his investment in aviation grew. His position had been enhanced by his marriage to the only daughter of Marshal Victor Dubray, one of the most wealthy and influential men in the Air Ministry. For Renard it had simply been a marriage of convenience; most people realised the fact except — at the time — Janine Dubray. People either liked or disliked Renard with a burning intensity. No one was indifferent to him. He was regarded as a ‘whizz kid’, a nine-day wonder. But whether people liked or disliked him, they all agreed that he managed to get things done. He was a hustler, unscrupulous and temperamental, who worked hard and played hard in alternative bursts of fierce energy.

  The formation of Dirigeable-Commercial SA was his own pet project; he had used all his finances and those of many of his friends and business acquaintances to invest in the idea of building and launching a commercial freight-carrying airship. And now, with the prototype Charles de Gaulle almost ready, Renard faced near-bankruptcy unless the project could swiftly be proved successful. There had been many problems to overcome, the biggest of which had been Claude Lassay, his chief designer, quitting on him in protest against the safety margins being cut by financial necessity. Renard had hired Doctor Villemur, a leading authority on aviation metal stress factors, to get over the immediate testing problems, and now Villemur was telling him that the skin of the Charles de Gaulle was unsafe.

  Renard turned to Le Braz and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘You do not agree with Villemur?’

  Le Braz cleared his throat. He was a fiery young Breton who had been with the project from the beginning and he disliked people who disagreed with his own pet theories.

  ‘Theoretically, Villemur has a point. It is true that carbon-reinforced plastic is heat-absorbent because of its carbon content. However, he must realise that he is pointing out a very elementary factor and one which Professor Lassay and I considered months ago. The only danger is from a lightning strike and, naturally, our design therefore includes current-paths which would harmlessly discharge the lightning over the whole area of the ship instead of concentrating it at the point of impact. There is absolutely no danger of a lightning strike damaging the structure of the Charles de Gaulle.’

  He sat back and glared at Villemur.

  ‘I disagree! I disagree totally!’ Villemur barked. ‘We are working in the dark with carbon-reinforced plastic. I could not continue with this project unless sufficient safety precautions are taken. There are two alternatives — prolonged testing or reconstruction perhaps with a stainless steel skin, still based on the honeycomb sandwich method of construction … ‘

  Renard interrupted.

  ‘Are you seriously suggesting that, because you are apprehensive about possible effects of structural damage caused by a lightning strike on the ship, you want to scrap eighteen months of construction work, not to mention research and design, and start rebuilding the Charles de Gaulle?’

  Villemur shrugged.

  ‘For the safety of the ship, it must be done.’

  Renard bit his lip.

  ‘Doctor Villemur, will you not accept that our design team has been through all these problems and that the ship is near completion, that any drastic alteration, such as you propose, will cost about a third of our budget to date and put us another twelve months behind the Americans?’

  Villemur grimaced.

  ‘I speak as a scientist, not a businessman. Either you want me to take charge of the design with special responsibility for the safety factors of the hull and skin construction, or you do not.’

  Renard’s grey eyes met Villemur’s excitable brown ones and remained locked for several long seconds.

  ‘Le Braz, I will speak to you later,’ he said slowly.

  Le Braz nodded, picked up his papers, shoved them into his briefcase and left.

  Renard continued to gaze thoughtfully at Villemur. Then he sighed.

  ‘Doctor Villemur, are you suggesting that unless I let you do what you want on this project you will offer your resignation?’ There was a coldness in the soft tones of his voice.

  Villemur hesitated. He had not meant it to sound as drastic as that. After all, he had just resigned a lectureship in aircraft design at the Aerospatiale Centre Technique de Suresnes to join Dirigeable-Commercial. Positions were hard to come by and Villemur had too many pressing debts to make decisions lightly. Part of the reason, and a large part, as to why he joined Renard’s company was the reimbursement.

  ‘What I am saying is that I have studied outer shell designs on dirigibles and think I have sufficient knowledge to spot a weakness when I see one. Lack of knowledge of this form of construction has prevented the Americans from pursuing it — they are using fibre-reinforced plastic, entirely non-metallic and much safer, for the skin of their airship. A foam-backed light alloy skin has the advantage that all the shell material is in one surface but … ‘

  Renard stopped him.

  ‘Doctor Villemur, I have told you that I am not a technician, only a businessman. It is as the chairman of this business enterprise that I must function. I have to make commercial decisions here and not scientific ones. So far as I can see, you are proposing the spending of millions of francs, the delay of the project for twelve months which would ensure that the Americans would be first in the field, and for what? Because you do not agree with the design and construction of the airship, a design which a lot of people have worked on, people at least as qualified in the field as you are.’

  Villemur stirred uncomfortably.

  ‘I don’t argue with that. But we are dealing with theory, lack of knowledge and it is my belief that there is a danger … ‘

  ‘You have just put your finger on the problem, Villemur,’ interrupted Renard, letting anger colour his voice. ‘You believe. Your opinion is no better than anyone else’s opinion in this field. I cannot make a commercial decision to do what you ask merely on speculation. Now, Doctor Villemur, I would hate to lose you from the project so soon after joining it, so I suggest you go away for a day and think this matter over quite seriously. Let me know your decision tomorrow.’

  Villemur sat staring for a moment. The tone of dismissal in Renard’s voice was final. Feeling like a naughty schoolboy who had been firmly ticked off by his headmaster, Villemur quietly picked up his papers and left the room. Outside he felt a surge of anger: anger that he had been so summarily dismissed by a man nearly twenty-five years younger than he; anger at being dismissed by someone who did not have the technical ability to appreciate what he was saying. He swore aloud and marched by Renard’s astonished secretary.

  Renard, too, was sitting at his desk seething with anger.

  He did not need any more problems. His project had been beset with them from the start
, mainly because of lack of finances. Almost everything he could scrape together had gone into the airship project, not mentioning his personal assurances to the friends he had persuaded to invest. He had to make it a success — he just had to! He certainly could not afford problems which cost time and money at this stage.

  His secretary, Marie-France, entered.

  ‘The doctor did not sound happy,’ she observed with a smile, placing a tray on his desk with his morning coffee and a copy of Le Monde.

  ‘He’ll get over it,’ muttered Renard.

  ‘There was a telephone call while you were in conference,’ went on the girl. ‘The gentleman was insistent on speaking with you personally so I said that I would ask you to ring back when you were free.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘A Monsieur Brisset. René Brisset.’

  The name meant nothing.

  ‘Never heard of him,’ grunted Renard, sipping his coffee. ‘What does he want?’

  ‘He says he wants a private word with you. I suggest you ring him immediately.’

  Renard stared at his secretary. There seemed to be some hidden meaning in her tone.

  ‘Do you know something that I don’t?’

  ‘I know that René Brisset is an aide to the President.’ Renard’s eyes widened.

  ‘What would an aide of the President of France be doing ringing me?’

  ‘Is that rhetorical,’ asked the girl, ‘or do you think I know?’

  ‘No sarcasm, Marie-France. Get me Brisset on the telephone immediately.’

  The girl pouted in mock anger and went back to her office. A moment later the telephone buzzed.