He felt his mind dissolving into the wintry air, merging with the whirl of the wind

T he paramedic rooted through a kit bag on the floor and pulled out a scalpel. “We can’t treat you with these things on,” he said, slicing the plastic at Finn’s wrists and ankles. “Don’t run off.” Finn pictured Maddie in the darkness, stumbling through the grass towards the sea.

“Jesus.” It was a woman’s voice coming from behind the paramedic. “I know.” The paramedic put the scalpel back in the bag and took out a torch, shone it in Finn’s eyes.

“Has anyone declared a major incident yet?” the woman said. “Don’t think so,” the paramedic replied. “I’ll do it now.”

The paramedic pushed Finn’s eyelids up and examined him. “Signs of concussion.”

“I feel sick.”

“Don’t be sick, I just got this uniform cleaned.” “I might pass out.”

The paramedic looked at him. “Just don’t die. I hate it when folk die.”

He unfolded a silver blanket from the bag and draped it over Finn. “We’ll look at your chest and hand in a bit, probably just broken bones. You’ll need to rest, with the concussion. Someone will be with you in a minute to take you to the ambulance.”

He stepped towards Oil Guy, saw the restraints on his hands and feet. He turned to Finn. “A friend of yours?”

“No,” Finn said.

He looked round. The woman’s voice belonged to a young, short police officer in a puffy winter jacket. She was at the torn edge of the fuselage talking on the phone, a look on her face that said this was the worst situation she’d ever seen.

A matronly paramedic was tending to one of the oil workers on the floor. She pulled up an eyelid and shook her head. “No pulse, suspected broken neck.” She moved to the other guy, who was face down on the floor, and tried to turn his body but he wouldn’t budge.

She checked underneath him then jerked upright. She lifted his T-shirt to reveal a jagged metal spike sticking through the skin at the base of his spine. It was the frame of a seat. It had gone right through him.

The paramedic lowered the T-shirt and felt the man’s neck, then caught the police officer”s attention.

Finn felt the cabin swim and closed his eyes. The paramedic with the beard spoke to his colleague. “What have you got, Eilidh?”

“Two dead.”

“This guy’s unconscious but in a bad way. Let’s move him first, then broken bones over there.”

Finn tried to add it up. Him and Maddie, the four oil workers, the Yorkshire couple. Eight passengers. The stewardess, pilot and co-pilot meant 11 in total. Two dead on the floor. The couple in the front row were surely dead too, crushed by the engine.

The co-pilot and stewardess still looked alive at the front. He hadn’t seen the pilot. Wait, where was the fourth oil worker? And Maddie.

Every time he breathed his rib cage screamed at him. He breathed out the right side of his mouth, as if that would make a difference. His hand throbbed. He opened his eyes and Oil Guy was being lifted away on a stretcher. The police officer came over and knelt down next to him.

“Can you walk?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s try.”

She put a hand under his arm and he tried to push out of the seat, but the pressure on his right hand sent pain shuddering through him. “Take it easy,” she said. “The medical guys better deal with you, that’s their job.”

“Sure.”

“What’s your name?”

“Finn.”

“OK, Finn, I’m Detective Inspector Linklater. Morna. What can you tell me about what happened?”

Finn looked at her. A few years older than him, tight ponytail and broad nose, small mouth and Orkney accent. Local girl done good.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“We got a call from the airport saying there was an incident on the flight and it was turning back.” She lifted the cut restraints from the cabin floor. “I just saw Magnus cutting these off you and the other guy. Want to explain?”

“I feel dizzy,” Finn said. “I need painkillers.” “Aye, you’ll get painkillers.”

“I’m going to be sick.”

Linklater stepped back as Finn vomited on the floor. He closed his eyes and heard voices. The two paramedics were back. “Can you hear me?” Magnus said.

Finn nodded and breathed out, all he could manage. “Can you walk?” Eilidh said, “or do you need the stretcher?”

He felt his mind dissolving into the wintry air, merging with the whirl of the wind, the sound of the sea, the earth spinning. “Stretcher,” he said, then he passed out.

He felt himself getting bumped into the ambulance. He tried to sit up but the ribs on his left side screamed. To his right was Oil Guy on a stretcher, attached to a heart monitor and oxygen mask, cuts to his scalp and face. Finn looked out the open ambulance door and saw a body covered in a sheet on the airstrip a hundred feet from the wreckage. The fourth oil worker.

A smirr of rain came swirling into the ambulance, adding a wet sheen to the blanket on his lap and the instruments lined along the side.

The last time he’d seen a dead body was when he found his mum. He’d slept late, been out for a few drinks at the DCA with some students from the year above. He was surprised that Sally hadn’t woken him with her banging around in the flat like she usually did when he was hungover.

Not that she disapproved particularly, she was partial to a few glasses of wine most nights, but she didn’t make allowances for him in that state either, and usually she could be relied on to vacuum outside his door around 10 or 11, or clatter dishes and pans into cupboards and drawers from the dishwasher.

So he was surprised when he surfaced at noon and the flat was silent. Maybe she’d gone to the shops. It was a Sunday and she wasn’t working. He got up and wandered through to the small kitchen, stuck the kettle on.

He noticed it was cold, no residual heat from being on earlier in the morning. The sun was low in the sky, a sharp, cloudless winter day, sunlight glinting off the Tay out the window, sandbanks splitting the surface at low tide, the rail bridge curving over to Fife in the distance.

More on Monday.