Row 7, seat A.
The most dangerous seat in the aeroplane if the results of crash tests in the New Mexico desert were to be believed. The seat with a one hundred per cent chance of death in a frontal collision.
And it wasn’t like an aeroplane was ever going to fly backwards into a mountain.
It was a window seat on top of that.
Which significantly raised the threat of skin cancer.
Mats, nearly at seat 7A, knew how stupid it was be thinking about such a statistic right now, and in the middle of night besides; but those facts about flight risks that he’d researched over the last few weeks were like some tune he couldn’t get out of his head. They buzzed around his brain and there was nothing he could do to turn them off.
Aeroplane windows barely absorb UV rays, and as the plane’s altitude rises any protection from the atmosphere decreases, which is why pilots are twice as likely to get skin cancer as the rest of the population.
Some said a long-distance flight was worse than twenty minutes in a tanning bed. Mats currently felt as if he’d already been tanning for several hours unprotected. Feverish, overheated, dehydrated, and he was nauseous as if from sunstroke.
All symptoms of fear and stress. Manifestations of his despair about having no idea what to do to avoid this catastrophe.
Once he reached his destination, he looked around.
Three quarters of the seats were occupied down here in business class, and all the passengers were sleeping. The lights had been dimmed to only the safety lighting, and the shades were pulled down. The symbols for the restrooms were illuminated green, the toilets unoccupied. No one stood in the aisles stretching their legs. No one to observe him as he halted at seat 7A and looked down on that red-haired woman he’d offered his seat to.
I’m all alone, thought Mats. More alone than ever before in my life.
The uneven rows of business class had what they called 1-2-1 seating – a window seat, two middle seats, and another window seat on the other side.
7A was thus a single seat, which was the good news, since Mats wouldn’t have to climb over neighbouring passengers to make contact with Salina Piehl.
The bad news was, she was a mother and sleeping like all of them were, as soundly as her baby slumbering peacefully on her stomach. Only that little hairless head was poking out of the blanket, its tiny little eyes firmly shut. It kept twitching involuntarily and sucking on a pink pacifier.
To be able to rest so easily, Salina had lowered the seat into a flat bed.
Mats knelt down in the aisle alongside them and raised the overhanging blanket a little to see under the reclined seat.
It was as dark as he’d feared, meaning he wasn’t able to tell where the life vest was.
He also feared that he wouldn’t even be able to get at it unless the seat was in the upright position required in an emergency situation.
Then again, what if such an emergency caught you sleeping?
No, that wasn’t possible. Even then a person had to be able to reach the life vest, so Mats tried again, this time using his phone as a flashlight. Again with no success.
The phone’s weak light only let him see dropped newspapers, a straw and other travel garbage. Nowhere did he see a pocket or a pouch that might hold a life vest.
‘Can I help you?’
Mats banged his head on the outside armrest as he shot up, alarmed by the familiar and uncivil voice above him.
Valentino!
The idiot was just what he needed now. The captain had asked him to keep away from Kaja as well as to avoid causing any more ‘incidents’. And now here he lay at the feet of that very flight attendant he’d accused of nothing less than assaulting him a few hours ago.
‘No, no, it’s all fine,’ Mats whispered, pulling himself up. The flight attendant seemed unable to decide whether to view him with amusement, derision or disapproval, which was why he did all three in that exact order.
‘Looking for something?’
‘Uh, yes. This was my seat originally.’
‘So?’
Mats was trying not to wake the mother and child, but the snotty flight attendant was speaking at normal volume.
‘I think I lost something here.’
‘What might that be?’
Mats switched into confrontation mode, still whispering. ‘I don’t believe that it concerns you.’
‘And I don’t believe that you were ever sitting here.’
‘That may be, but…’
… a madman did call me to say that he’s placed a weapon down here. And if you don’t clear out at once, you’ll be the first person I try it out on.
‘Is there a problem?’
The seat reading light came on next to him, and Mats was looking into Salina’s tired eyes. She kept blinking with concern.
‘Do you want to have your seat back?’ she said.
Mats turned to Valentino. ‘Great. Now look what you’ve done.’ He knelt down to Salina. ‘No, no. I’m sorry. I was hoping not to disturb you.’
He gave Valentino a scathing look, but he only grinned as he moved on and left Mats with the mess.
‘Damn it, now we’ve woken the baby.’
The baby girl had spat out her pacifier and was stretching out across her mother’s chest like a cat just waking from her nap. Mats unavoidably thought of Nele, who as a baby had always slept like an angel but then, after a short period of waking up, frequently lapsed into screaming for minutes on end. He hoped this baby was different from Nele in that regard, even though Salina had said it suffered from colic. For now it just chuckled.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he added.
‘No problem,’ Salina said, her facial expression saying the opposite.
She pressed a button on her armrest and the seat rose to its upright position. As it did, she pressed her baby to her chest and gently rocked it back and forth.
‘Suza needs to be fed anyway.’
She unbuttoned the breast pocket of her blouse, and Mats glanced away in respect. His eyes landed on a little sign directly under the monitor in the backrest of the seat before her.
LIFE VEST.
‘Excuse me, may I?’
Now that the seat wasn’t down, Mats could open the compartment below the monitor no problem.
‘Everything all right?’ Salina asked in amazement when he pulled out a red-and-yellow life preserver and loosened the tape keeping it in a little packet.
‘Yeah, yeah. I think I dropped something inside this compartment earlier,’ Mats lied, and as he spoke he saw a little object no bigger than a lighter come loose from the vest.
He stuffed the life vest back in, closed the compartment and felt around the floor for the missing object.
‘Dental floss?’ Salina asked in more amazement right when he saw what he’d picked up off the floor.
It was. A sky-blue, see-through plastic case with the inscription: Super Floss.
‘Yes. It wasn’t very polite of me to disturb you for this.’
He hastily stuffed the case in his pocket and felt as if his trousers were being pulled down by a weight of ten pounds or more.
Dental floss? What perverse genius.
He could just imagine what the tear-proof material wound up in the inconspicuous dispenser was really made of. Razor-sharp plastic fibre that could be used to garrotte a person yet didn’t attract the attention of any security check. Who’d ever been forced to clean the gaps between their teeth while airport security watched?
‘Please excuse me,’ Mats told Salina when leaving, glad that the baby still had not cried. ‘I don’t want to disturb you any longer.’
Just kill you possibly.
Salina pointed at the baggage compartment about her seat. ‘Could you please get me my diaper bag?’ she asked, and Mats did her the favour, of course.
When pulling it down, he noticed a silver metal case right next to her linen bag that was stuffed full of diapers, wet wipes and oilcloth. A thought was forming in his head, just a loose idea.
‘That a camera in there?’ he asked – more excitedly than he’d meant.
‘Yes.’
‘Looks professional.’
‘Well, I did say I’m a photographer.’ She fished out a new pacifier from the outside pocket.
‘Is it digital?’
The idea was now taking concrete form.
‘Yes. But I have analogue models too. You ever want to come by my studio some time and check them out?’
Mats shook his head.
‘No, I mean, yes, I’d love to. I only wanted to know if this digital camera…’ He pointed at the metal case up in the compartment. ‘Does it have a slow motion function?’
Salina looked at him just as confused as when he’d first offered her his seat.
‘It does,’ she said hesitantly, and Mats nearly clapped with excitement.
‘Do you think I could borrow it?’
‘Now?’ She laughed as if expecting to hear the punchline of the joke.
‘Yes, now. I really need it.’
Mats wasn’t counting on Salina’s curt response.
‘No,’ she said, stroking her baby’s head.
‘No?’
His pulse raced like a sports car passing an autobahn sign for no speed limit.
‘My camera is sacred to me,’ she explained to him. ‘But I’ll make you a proposal. You tell me what you have planned, and I’ll help you with it. Okay?’