"I'd rather we didn't talk about this now, Colin."

"Well, you started it."

Justin sucked on his lower lip like a petulant schoolboy and then began to line up the miniature bottles in opposing forces. "I suppose all the trolley dollies are worried they might be out of work," he mused.

A crackle over the Tannoy heralded an announcement. "This is your captain speaking. We anticipate arrival in Gatwick on schedule in twenty minutes. There may be a slight delay on the-" There was a sudden pause, a muffled voice in the background, and then the Tannoy snapped off.

Fallow looked up suspiciously. "Now what's going on?"

"Will you calm down? Just because you're afraid of the worst happening doesn't mean it's going to."

"And just because you're not afraid doesn't mean it isn't." Fallow shifted in his seat uncomfortably, then glanced up and down the aisle.

What he saw baffled him at first. It was as if a ripple was moving down the plane towards him. The faces of the passengers looking out of the starboard side were changing, the blank expressions of people watching nothing in particular shedding one after the other as if choreographed. In that first fleeting instant of confusion, Fallow tried to read those countenances: was it shock, dismay, wonder? Was it horror?

And then he abruptly thought he should be searching for the source of whatever emotion it was, but before he had time to look, the plane banked wildly and dropped; his stomach was left behind and for one moment he thought he was going to vomit. But then the fear took over and it was as if his body were locked in stasis as he gripped the armrests until his knuckles were white. He forced his head into his lap. Screams filled the air, but they were distant, as though coming at him through water, and then he was obliquely aware he was screaming himself.