Skyship

by John Brosnan

Genres: Humor & Satire; Science Fiction; Space Opera

Synopsis

A giant airship over 2000 feet long, powered by a nuclear reactor. Carrying 400 passengers, as well as cargo, it's the first of a luxury fleet that could revolutionise long-distance travel. The public must be convinced it is safe, but there are powerful groups determined to see the first flight become a spectacular disaster. Michael Colino is hired to thwart sabotage attempts on the maiden voyage...and unless he can avert imminent catastrophe, America's biggest city will become a graveyard.

Release date: July 25, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 333

Sample

The sixth day of November that year was a day many people would never forget for a variety of reasons, but for the crew of a ship called the Ventura it was the day when something utterly inexplicable happened.

The Ventura, an 8,000-ton Panamanian-registered freighter carrying a cargo of frozen Argentinian beef to New York, had been fighting its way through a violent storm for the past ten hours. The ferocity of the gale hadn’t abated but now, at 0720 hours and only fifty-six miles from port, the ship was moving with the storm instead of struggling against it almost head-on as it had been since 2100 hours the previous night.

As far as Captain Pita Charvosky was concerned, the worst was over and he decided to take the opportunity of grabbing some sleep while he could.

Charvosky was fifty-three years old and feeling every year of it ten-fold when he staggered into his cabin. A glance in the mirror confirmed that he looked as bad as he felt. His face was pale with exhaustion and there were deep, dark circles under his eyes. ‘I must be getting old,’ he told the small statuette of the Virgin Mary that stood on a nearby shelf. ‘A few years ago and a night like this wouldn’t have bothered me.’

He decided not to drink any more coffee, in spite of the chill in his bones. He had just sat down heavily on his bunk and was about to pull off his boots when it happened.

It was as if the ship had been struck by a giant hammer. There was a deep, ringing clang and the whole vessel vibrated. Charvosky held his breath, waiting for the sounds of the hull being ripped open or worse, but the Ventura continued at the same speed and without any apparent difficulty. For some reason Charvosky found this even more disturbing.

What had they collided with? he wondered. Had they simply struck another ship a glancing blow or had they run down some smaller craft – a fishing boat, or a yacht perhaps? But what would small boats be doing out in a storm like this? And why hadn’t it been picked up on the radar, whatever it was?

Alarm bells were ringing now and there was a voice calling him over the intercom by the bed. It was Gnaedinger, the first mate. ‘Captain, you better get up to the foredeck right away!’

‘Gnaedinger, what happened? What did we hit?’

‘We didn’t hit anything. Something hit us.’ His voice sounded strange.

Charvosky was in no mood for riddles. ‘What hit us, man?!’ he yelled.

‘Uh, you’d better come see for yourself. It’s – it’s real weird, Captain.’ The intercom went dead.

‘Oh shit,’ Charvosky said to the empty cabin. He headed for the door, snatching up the wet coat he had only just discarded.

The cold hit him like a physical blow when he emerged on the port mid-deck less than a minute later. It was getting light now but visibility was restricted to a radius of about twenty metres due to the sheets of driving rain.

Charvosky hurried towards the foredeck, already blinded by the stinging rain. He had slipped twice on the icy deck before he rounded the corner of the midships house – and then he came to a skidding stop. He blinked, wiped the rain from his eyes and looked again.

It was still there. ‘Well, damn me,’ said Charvosky softly.

Through a crumpled mass of metal, it was still recognizable as a car. It was lying on its back, its wheels in the air, on the forward hatch cover. It was, or had been, a big car and the weight of the engine had stoved in the half-inch steel hatch cover, forming a shallow, crater-like depression. It had obviously fallen a considerable distance.

Charvosky looked up but all he could see was grey clouds. There were already several members of the crew around it, two of whom, Charvosky noted approvingly, were spraying it with foam despite the rain. Slowly he began to walk towards it, still not believing what he was seeing.

‘Now you know why I didn’t want to tell you what it was,’ called a voice from above. It was Gnaedinger. He was coming down the ladder from the port wing of the bridge. Charvosky waited for him to join then they approached the car together.

‘It really is a car,’ said Charvosky wonderingly.

‘Yeah,’ said Gnaedinger. He sniffed the air. ‘No petrol.’

‘Means the tank was empty.’

‘That’s why it crashed,’ said Gnaedinger, ‘it ran out of petrol.’ He gave a high-pitched laugh devoid of humour. No one else joined in. The men around the car were all looking dazed and shocked.

Charvosky asked them, ‘Anyone see what happened?’

They all looked towards Kildare, who nodded reluctantly. The big Irishman was the ship’s resident troublemaker but right now his usual expression of barely controlled hostility was missing, making him almost unrecognizable.

‘It almost got me, Cap’n!’ he said. ‘I’d been checking the coverings on the forward winch and I’d just gone over to the starboard rail when – crash! I looked around and there it was. Scared the shit out of me. A few seconds earlier and it would have landed right on top of me.’

‘Guess it’s just not our day,’ said Gnaedinger.

‘Okay, knock it off,’ said Charvosky quickly. Then to Kildare, ‘Did you hear anything before it landed? Like maybe a plane?’

Kildare shook his head. ‘Nope – no plane. But I did hear something. A loud splash off to starboard, maybe fifty yards away. That’s why I went to the rail. Thought it might be a whale but I couldn’t see a thing. And when I was looking out there it happened! I could have been killed!’

‘But you weren’t, so count yourself lucky and calm down,’ said Charvosky.

‘A bit of it hit me, Cap’n,’ said Kildare, a touch of his usual belligerence returning to his voice. ‘It hit me right on the leg as I turned round. My knee’s all swelled up. I reckon I can sue the company.’

‘What hit you, Kildare?’

‘This.’ Kildare dug into his coat pocket and produced a piece of shiny metal. Charvosky took it from him and examined it. He found himself looking at a small figurine of a woman. She was bending forward and behind her streamed two wing-like flaps.

‘It’s …’ began Gnaedinger.

‘I know what it is,’ said Charvosky. ‘It’s what they have on the hoods of those fancy British limos – Rolls-Royces.’ He looked at the wreckage again.

‘Well, we know now what make of car it is,’ said Gnaedinger. ‘That’s something.’ He gave his humourless laugh again.

‘You want to see my knee?’ asked Kildare.

Charvosky ignored him. ‘So what’s a Rolls-Royce doing falling out of the sky in the middle of the ocean?’

‘It had to come from an airplane,’ said Montiel, a wiry, middle-aged Puerto Rican. ‘Some rich guy shipping his car to the States by air.’

‘So what’s it doing here?’ asked Gnaedinger.

‘Well, the plane gets into trouble in the storm and they have to dump it,’ suggested Montiel.

‘What, they just opened the door and tossed it out?’ laughed Gnaedinger. ‘Don’t ask me to swallow that.’

‘Maybe the plane broke up,’ said Charvosky, ‘and it fell out. Kildare did hear something else splash down.’

‘You think maybe the wind carried it out here?’ asked another crewman. ‘After a hurricane once in the Philippines I saw a cabin cruiser sitting on top of a two-storey house.’

Gnaedinger kicked at the wreckage with the toe of his boot. ‘You really think this could have been carried by the wind? Christ, we’re over fifty miles off the coast and this thing must weigh about two-and-a-half tons. The wind isn’t that strong, and besides it’s blowing towards the shore.’

‘There’s got to be a logical explanation for this,’ said Charvosky slowly. ‘Gnaedinger, are there any other ships around?’

‘Nothing on the radar. We’re all alone out here.’

They fell silent, all looking at the upturned car and thinking their own thoughts. Charvosky shivered, and not just from the cold. He was a superstitious man and he knew it. Most sorts of emergencies he could handle but this was so goddamned strange.

And then, to add to the feeling of unreality, there was a sudden lull in the wind and the rain lessened to a mere drizzle, though the sea around them remained as turbulent as ever.

It was then that Adams, the tall Jamaican who hardly ever spoke, called softly to Charvosky. ‘Hey, Cap’n, you better come and see this.’ He was at the rear of the car, kneeling down. Charvosky joined him.

‘What is it?’

Adams silently pointed. A dark fluid was trickling out of the narrow gap that had originally been the rear window, and was mingling with the water on the hatch cover. Charvosky dipped his fingers into it and sniffed them. ‘It’s blood,’ he said.

Adams was now on his hands and knees, his cheek pressed against the buckled metal of the hatch cover as he peered into the interior of the car through the slot-like gap.

‘I can see something, Cap’n. There’s someone in there!’

‘Jesus Christ,’ whispered Charvosky, quickly crossing himself. Then he said, in a louder voice, ‘Any chance that they’re still …?’

‘No way, Cap’n. They must be mashed flat. Can’t see much but I can see their hair – long hair, blonde …’ There was a pause and then he said, ‘It’s a woman, Cap’n.’

You shouldn’t suddenly feel cold when you’re lying on a beach under a cloudless sky on a very hot day, so when Michael Colino did feel cold he opened his eyes to find out why. And as he did so he suddenly found himself staring straight into the sun. The cause of the shade had already moved.

Dazzled, Colino waited for the explosions of light behind his eyelids to fade before he made another attempt. Then, shading his eyes with one hand he squinted up into the sky and this time saw what had momentarily blotted out the sun. It was a Goodyear blimp drifting slowly along the shoreline, the name of a new science-fiction epic emblazoned on its side.

Colino smiled, amused by the incongruity of the scene. It seemed wildly anachronistic – that flying relic from a bygone age being used to promote the latest space-age fantasy. (Later, when Colino remembered this incident, he realized it could be interpreted as an omen, though he didn’t really believe in such things).

He sat up and contemplated the lapping water, wondering if he should have another swim before lunch. He felt uncomfortable. The art of spontaneous relaxation was something he had never mastered, especially on crowded beaches.

He glanced round at the log-jam of prone bodies all about him and wondered if they were all really so relaxed as they appeared to be, or were some like him – lying there pretending to be oblivious to everything but actually feeling tense, bored and faintly ridiculous?

His gaze fell incuriously upon a nearby girl who had just turned over on her back and was clutching her unfastened bikini top to her breasts with one hand. Now there was someone else who didn’t seem to be enjoying herself. Judging by the grim, downward line of her mouth, getting a tan wasn’t a source of pleasure but more like a job of work. Perhaps it was a job for her – she did have the face and body of a model. But then so did a lot of girls on this beach.

It was while he was continuing his appraisal of her charms that she happened to look in his direction. She frowned when she saw him watching her, adjusted her bikini top so that it covered at least an extra square millimetre of flesh and then turned her head away in an unmistakable gesture of annoyance.

Colino sighed and glanced at his watch. Quarter to twelve. Too early for the first drink of the day? No, dammit, it was supposed to be his holiday so he would enjoy it in his own way.

He stood up, picked up his towel and made his way over the hot sand towards the hotel, manoeuvring through an obstacle-course of bodies that ranged from near perfection to the final stages of decay.

Unnoticed by him, several of the bodies were appraising his body as he passed. They saw a slim but well-muscled man in his mid-thirties with vaguely Italian good looks. He wasn’t tall – only five foot nine – but he moved with an easy grace that many women, and a few men, found very attractive.

After washing the sand off his feet under one of the patio showers, Colino caught the elevator up to the sixth floor. The corridor seemed dark after the brightness outside and his eyes still hadn’t adjusted by the time he entered his suite. If anything the sitting room was even darker than the corridor, then he saw that the curtains had been drawn. That immediately struck him as odd, as he was certain he hadn’t drawn them before he left. Perhaps the maid …? No, the suite had been serviced just after breakfast.

He shut the door quietly and began to walk towards the windows. He was halfway there when he noticed the shadowy figure sitting in the armchair next to the drinks cabinet.

Colino froze.

‘Hi, young fellah. I was wondering how long I was going to have to wait.’ The voice was deep, with a distinct Texan twang.

Colino’s mind raced furiously. Who was he? A burglar? A mugger? He briefly considered turning and making a dash for the door but then decided to wait and see what happened next. If his visitor was a mugger he was a damn peculiar one. But then everyone seemed a little peculiar in Florida.

‘Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?’ asked Colino, his body tensed.

‘My name is Jay-Jay Ballard. You can call me Jay.’

The figure rose up out of the chair, and kept on rising. Jay-Jay Ballard, whoever he was, was big. At least six foot five, Colino decided. Perhaps making a break for the door hadn’t been such a bad idea.

The big man reached out and turned on the reading lamp beside the chair, giving Colino his first clear view of him. Ballard was in his mid-fifties, had a florid, weather-beaten complexion, a shock of red hair that looked as if it might be a wig but probably wasn’t, wide shoulders and a large stomach that protruded over his Western-style belt.

He was dressed in expensive-looking denims and white cowboy boots, and with a hand that looked big enough to cover a bowling ball he was clutching a white stetson. He stepped towards Colino and held out the other hand.

‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Colino. I’m sure we’re gonna get along just fine.’

Colino hesitated for a moment then took the offered hand. He watched in mild alarm as his own hand disappeared within the other’s grasp, and for a couple of seconds he knew what it must feel like when an underwater swimmer gets his hand caught in a giant clam. Ballard was not only very big but very strong.

‘We may get along fine,’ said Colino, ‘but first I want to know what you’re doing here in my room.’

Ballard chuckled. ‘I guess you think I may be some kind of thief. To tell the truth, son, I have gone through your stuff pretty damn thoroughly while I was waiting but I couldn’t find anything of value. So where’d you leave your valuables? In the hotel safe?’

The big man suddenly turned his back on Colino and went to the window. He pulled the curtains aside with a dramatic flourish and said, ‘Good. Shows you’re careful. I like that.’

Blinking in the bright sunlight Colino said, ‘I’m pleased to hear it. Now will you tell me what you want?’

Ballard smiled. ‘I like to know as much as I can about my prospective employees. I already know a lot about you but there’s nothing like meeting a man in the flesh, so to speak, to make the final assessment.’

Colino was thrown off balance again. ‘Prospective employee?’

‘You’re thirty-five years old, your father was Italian, your mother French. You were born and raised in Brooklyn. When you were eighteen you were drafted into the army and you later spent a year in Vietnam. When you got out of the army you married Susan Ivormey, a girl you’d known since high school. The marriage was a failure and only lasted eighteen months, but during that time you had a daughter named Tania. Your ex-wife married an advertising executive and moved to Los Angeles. You haven’t seen her or your daughter, who is thirteen now, for ten years. You never remarried. You live alone in New York and visit your widowed mother at least once a week, usually on Thursdays. You’re highly neurotic and suffer frequent bouts of manic depression …’

Colino was stunned. ‘What the hell …?’

‘… And you’re one of the best goddamned security experts in the country. You have a talent for detecting the weak spots in any security system, which makes you an invaluable asset to Purlink Incorporated, the security consultancy company you work for. It’s probably your paranoia that makes you so good at your job – or at least that’s the theory put forward by the psychologist who compiled the personality profile on you for Purlink.’

‘You’ve seen my personal file? How?’ Colino couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

‘Your boss, Carl Linkheart, showed it to me. He also told me where I’d find you, that you were down here at Madeira Beach having a holiday at the company’s expense, and on his orders. Seems you never take a holiday unless you’re forced to. A real workaholic, just like me.’

He came and took hold of Colino by the arm and began to guide him towards the door. ‘Come on, hurry up and change. I’ve booked us a table at the best French restaurant in St Petersburg – your file also said that French food was your favourite kind.’

Colino pulled his arm free of Ballard’s grip and said, ‘I don’t care if you’ve booked a table at the best French restaurant in Paris, I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what this is all about.’

Ballard regarded him with a slightly hurt expression then went to the window and pointed to the Goodyear blimp that could still be seen in the distance. ‘Know what that is?’ he asked.

‘It’s a blimp,’ said Colino, wondering what the hell this had to do with anything.

‘It’s an airship,’ said Ballard. ‘A non-rigid, but an airship just the same. They became known as blimps because years ago some Limey army officer went up to one, tapped it with his hand and said it made a “blimp” sound. That’s the Limeys for you.’

Colino helped himself to a tumbler of Jack Daniels and took a large swallow. Carl was going to have to do a lot of explaining when he got back to New York.

‘You know,’ Ballard continued, ‘there’s a theory that the dinosaurs didn’t become extinct but simply evolved into birds, so in a sense the dinosaurs are with us even today …’

From blimps to dinosaurs to birds in one breath. He was, Colino decided, giving a whole new meaning to the word ‘eccentric’.

‘You’re probably wondering what that’ – Ballard pointed to the blimp again – ‘has to do with dinosaurs and evolution. Well, what you’re looking at up there is a direct descendant of a Zeppelin. A blood relative, in fact.’

‘I am? Well, it still looks like the Goodyear blimp to me.’

‘Ah, but it’s really a Zeppelin in all but name. You see, back in 1923 the company founded by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin himself, Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, came to an agreement with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company and formed the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation to build airships in America. And they’ve been doing so ever since, but of course they dropped the Zeppelin part of the name during World War II, for obvious reasons. However that doesn’t change the fact that the Goodyear blimp is a Zeppelin.’

Colino sighed and said, ‘Look, don’t let this bored expression fool you. Learning that the Goodyear blimp is actually a small Zeppelin is probably the most meaningful thing that’s happened to me in months but why are you telling me all this?’

‘Because airships are going to be playing a very important part in your life and it’s time you started learning something of their history.’

‘Important part in my life? How come?’

‘Son, what would you say if I told you I was building an atomic-powered, jet-propelled airship that’s over a third of a mile long?’

‘I’d tell you the name of my analyst.’

Ballard laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Well, it’s true boy! I am building such an airship. It’s called the Phoenix. A few months and it will be all ready to go. Maiden flight will be to London and then back across the Atlantic to New York. And you, son, are going to make sure it gets there and back in one piece!’

Carl Linkheart, managing director of Purlink Inc., always wore the relentless smile of a Born Again Christian, but this impression of spiritual zeal was a deceptive one. Linkheart had faith only in himself. He considered himself to be a totally self-made man and took great pride in his creation.

From a humble beginning fifteen years ago as a security guard in a luxury apartment block on Central Park West, he now ran one of the most successful and prestigious security companies in the country.

The Purlink Incorporated offices spread across an entire upper floor of one of the newer and more expensive office buildings on Park Avenue near Grand Central Station, and they reeked of money. The large reception area was an ostentatious configuration of thick white carpets, chrome, burnished-steel wall panels and mirrors. It resembled a set from some bizarre Hollywood fantasy but was actually intended to suggest the interior of a bank vault. ‘Gives the clients an unconscious sense of security,’ Linkheart was fond of claiming.

If Purlink (‘The sound a mink glove full of cream makes when dropped,’ is how an employee once described the name) reeked of money, then Linkheart himself reeked of power. It was no delusion on his part. Over the years, as the company had expanded, he had gained the confidence of many of the most powerful and influential people in the country. And now he himself was firmly plugged into the hidden circuitry of power that lies just beneath the surface of the nation and which has little to do with the visible machinery of government.

As usual, Colino was aware of the mixture of total confidence and vitality that Linkheart exuded as he sat facing him across his football-field-sized desk. He was admiring Linkheart’s expensively gleaming capped teeth while listening to him say, for the third time in less than five minutes, that Colino was looking fit and suntanned and that the holiday, though cut short, had obviously done him a lot of good.

However Colino knew that of the two it was Linkheart who looked the fitter, despite his extra ten years and the fact that he never seemed to take exercise. In Linkheart’s case, mused Colino, not for the first time, good health and boundless energy seemed to be automatic side-benefits of money and power. Along with an even sun-tan.

‘Mike, I’m sorry for springing Ballard on you that way,’ Linkheart said, ‘but I had to humour him. He’s worth a lot of money to Purlink.’

‘And to me personally. He’s offered me an extra fee of fifty thousand dollars, on top of what he’ll be paying the company.’

Linkheart smiled. ‘I know.’

‘You don’t mind?’

‘Why should I? I’m happy for you. Just as long as you don’t take the money and set up a rival operation.’ The white teeth flashed to show that he was only joking. Colino knew he wasn’t.

‘Carl, I wouldn’t know how to run a business of my own even if I wanted to, which I don’t. I’m happy to remain right where I am so you’ve got no worry on that score.’

‘I know I haven’t, Mike. I trust you and that’s what this business is all about – trust.’

Colino tried to look suitably touched while he thought, I trust you too, Carl, but I’d never turn my back on you. He said, ‘You think Ballard is on to a winner with this airship scheme of his?’

‘The inside word is that he could be. Hell, if you said to me ten or even five years ago that airships were going to make a comeback I’d have laughed you out the door, but the oil situation has changed everything. A lot of people are suddenly getting very interested in airships.’

‘There’s been talk about them for years.’

‘Talk, yeah, but little else. Oh, various companies, as well as the navy, air-force and even NASA, have put money into feasibility studies but that’s all. No one was investing real money in airships.’

‘Except for Ballard.’

‘Right. Way back in ’72 he approached the federal government with his proposal to develop and build an atomic powered airship. He wanted a fifty-fifty deal with them and they turned him down. So he went back to his place in Arizona and started work on it all by himself, though he did get some financial support from a few business buddies.’

‘I remember reading something about it but that was years ago. I’d presumed the whole thing had been a crank operation that quietly folded.’

‘So did a lot of people. Now they realize he’s got a headstart in what is probably going to be a vitally important industry. Headstart, hell – he’s got a virtual monopoly. He holds the patents on all kinds of specialised equipment, including a nuclear propulsion system that’s been especially developed for airships.’

‘So he could be right when he says there are a lot of people who are feeling pretty resentful towards him?’

Linkheart nodded. ‘Yes. When he says he’s got a big bunch of enemies you’d better believe him. You’re going to have to stay on your toes. I also hear he’s a hard man to work for. Try not to get on the wrong side of him.’

‘He seemed okay. A mite over the top but harmless.’

‘Well, don’t let that routine of his fool you. He’s got a reputation for being tough and ruthless.’ He pushed a thick file across the desk towards Colino. ‘Read this before you leave for Arizona. It tells you everything you want to know about him, and more.’

Colino picked up the folder and started to skim through the pages. ‘You’re not kidding. But I guess it’s fair. After all, he’s read my file.’

Linkheart gave his Jimmy Carter smile and shrugged.

‘You think you’re going to be able to spare me over the next few months?’ asked Colino. ‘I had a solid schedule lined up.’

‘You’ll be missed, of course, but let me worry about that. Ballard and his airship is now your top priority. Forget everything else. Now, do you want any kind of back-up down there? Like troops?’

‘No. From what Ballard told me he’s got a whole army of his own. But I think I could do with a good electronics man.’

‘I’m ahead of you there. I’ve already assigned you the best we’ve got. He arrives at the end of the week.’

Colino was puzzled. ‘Who is he?’

‘Peter Else.’

‘Peter? But he’s running your whole LA operation these days.’

‘He was. But he’s like you. Doesn’t like too much responsibility or being tied down behind a desk. He stuck it for a few months and was doing a damn good job but then he asked to be put back on to field work. In fact he particularly asked for this assignment when he heard about it. I presume it’s okay with you?’

‘Yes, of course! It will be great working with Peter again.’

‘Good. Then it’s all settled.’ He leaned back in his chair, looking like a satisfied cat.

After leaving Purlink, he caught a cab straight home to his apartment on York Avenue. He lived on the twentieth floor of a thirty-storey apartment building on the East Side which gave him an impressive view of the East River. The apartment itself was spacious but sparsely furnished and there was little in it to reflect the personality of its owner, apart from the big collection of books on chess, word games, mathematical puzzles and cryptography.

The remainder of the book shelf was taken up by technical books’ on electronics, languages and cooking. There were a number of biographies scattered among them but very few novels.

There was an expensive-looking stereo sitting in one corner of the room but there weren’t many records in the rack beside it. Anyone browsing through the small collection would have found that they were all classical, with the exception of two Bob Dylan LPs. These, however, weren’t Colino’s but had been left behind by an old girlfriend of his some years before. He’d never played them.

Much better stocked was the bar which he made for as soon as he entered. After a stiff drink he called his mother – a task he never attempted sober. He tried to explain to her what he was doing back from Florida a week early and why he was going to Arizona but eventually gave up and promised to visit her the following day to explain more fully.

After that setback he was in urgent need of another drink, then he sat down with Ballard’s file on his lap and began to read.

Jay-Jay Ballard, he learned, was the son of a Texas oilman. In 1942 the younger Ballard joined the air-force and was sent to the Williams Air Force base, just outside Phoenix, to learn how to fly. After the war he returned to Arizona and, backed by his father’s money, invested in the state’s then flourishing aircraft industry. He started his own aircraft company in 1948, the Ballard Aircraft Company, and by 1953 was a multi-millionaire in his own right, having already repaid his father’s original investment.

During his air-force training in Arizona he’d fallen in love with a local Phoenix girl called Felicity Mann. She was eighteen years old and a student nurse when he first met her. They married directly after the war but at first were unable to have children. They persisted, however, and after a series of miscarriages she gave birth to a daughter in the late ’50s. The following year there was an accident