Chapter 22

At the beginning of the day, the inquest room felt vast, airless and empty.

Within the space of thirty minutes, there was disarray. Five jurors, a stenographer and a clerk had expanded to include security operatives, backroom staff, police officers and now a new group of unfamiliar faces.

A man with South East Asian features, peroxide-blond hair, thick-framed glasses and unnaturally cobalt-blue eyes caught everyone’s attention. He strode into the centre of the room, lifted his glasses and gave the available space the once-over. ‘Put the tables here,’ he directed with his

finger to a position under the windows. His team moved swiftly, returning from the other room and sliding the tables across the flagstones with a piercing shriek, like fingernails being dragged down a blackboard.

‘Will someone please tell me what is going on?’ Jack asked the police officer in charge. An embroidered badge above his pocket gave his name as Commander Riley. He wore body armour and, like his colleagues, held a semi-automatic rifle in both hands against the lower portion of his chest.

‘We have been escorting a specialist team here to help you,’ he replied.

‘With what? And who told them to come here? I certainly didn’t request them.’

‘The Home Office has given them special dispensation.’

‘But they need clearance, they need to be vetted …’

‘Have no fear, we are no strangers to a crisis,’ interrupted the man with the peroxide hair. ‘And boy, do you have a crisis on your hands. We’ve worked with most of your Government departments over the years.’

‘Then why haven’t I seen you before?’

He eyed Jack up and down. ‘I could ask the same.’

Jack turned to Commander Riley. ‘Get them out of here,’ he growled.

‘You are not in charge of this room, sir. I am and I have clear instructions they are to remain here.’

‘Get me the Home Office on the phone,’ Jack ordered to no one in particular.

Libby and the jurors watched with interest as the latest additions to the room busied themselves unpacking the trolley of electrical equipment and setting up phones, monitors, cables, Wi-Fi routers, keyboards and tablets.

‘Sorry, sir, the line is engaged,’ one of Jack’s assistants said nervously.

‘What, the red line?’

‘Yes, all of the lines.’

‘Jesus!’ he yelled in frustration, then forced himself to sound calmer.

‘Right, anyone who doesn’t need to be in this room, please get out.’ He glared at the two security operatives and his staff who had entered with Commander Riley. To Jack’s irritation, they turned to the Commander and awaited his signal before shuffling out of the door. Riley also nodded to his armed colleagues who also left.

‘I’ll be outside if you require me,’ Commander Riley directed towards the blond-haired man before closing the door behind him. Jack waited until

he heard the electronic beep of the door locking before he turned to confront the new arrivals.

‘Now give me a straight answer – who are you people?’

‘Straight is not a concept I’m overly familiar with,’ the peroxide-haired man replied and gave Jack a wink that briefly amused Libby despite the circumstances. He removed his glasses and wiped them with the sleeve of his jumper. ‘Cadman,’ he continued without looking Jack in the eye.

‘What the hell is a Cadman?’ asked Jack blankly.

‘A Cadman is what you’re going to need for the duration of whatever this is and to translate to you what the world is saying about it.’

‘Why should I give a damn what the world has to say?’

‘Because collectively they are the sixth juror.’

‘Are you kidding me?’

Cadman moved towards the other jurors. ‘I hate to showboat but if I don’t then no one else will. I’m the country’s foremost expert in all things social media. If it’s been on the web and I haven’t seen it, then it’s not worth talking about. My team and I are here to interpret whom the people beyond these four walls are talking about online. Nobody knows more about mass communication than I do. I know my machine learning from my micro-moments; my conversions from my clickbait; my organic reach from my omni-channels and my big data from my business intelligence. I know the words that matter and the words that don’t; I know what will trend because, frequently, I have made them trend; I have created algorithms that will collate the data we require quicker than Tim Berners-Lee can blink. I know this because this is what I do. You asked me what a Cadman was?

You are looking at it. I am Cadman, and you are going to allow me to do the job I have been summoned here to do. Those using social media will be voting alongside you and I am here to search and translate the results of who they want to live and who they want to die.’

‘Why would the rest of the world care?’ Jack asked.

Cadman laughed. ‘Oh, you are such a kidder, aren’t you?’ He turned to the jurors. ‘He is kidding, isn’t he?’ Muriel shook her head. ‘Jack, five minutes after this all blew up, excuse the pun and RIP Victor, it’s been the only thing anyone is talking about. Every country in the world with access to social media is watching you, they’re watching the Passengers, and they’re taking in everything as it happens live. Look.’ He turned his tablet to face Jack. ‘On average there are six thousand tweets sent every second of

every day. That number has doubled today. Facebook has never seen so much traffic since its peak back in two thousand and twenty and this one event is bringing them millions of pounds of revenue every minute. It is pulling the world together.’

Cadman flicked the page of his tablet to project against another wall. It featured news channels from around the world. The USA, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and New Zealand were all running live footage of the events on British roads.

‘Who sent you?’ asked Jack.

‘Now that I can’t answer you. We were booked months ago through the usual Government channels and paid in advance,’ he continued. ‘We were told we’d be informed of what would be required of us on the day. Taxis were sent to our hotel this morning and on our way here I was sent profiles of six of the people trapped in these cars. Then we received an urgent call from Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms A, or COBRA to you and I, urging us to attend – they were taken aback to learn we’d already been booked.’

‘Commander Riley and his team escorted us up here and explained what we’d find behind closed doors.’

If Cadman felt intimidated by Jack’s piercing gaze, he didn’t show it.

He looked to the Passengers’ screens. ‘So get me up to speed. Which one of this lot are you killing off first then?’