Chapter 34: The People from Meadowood

Chapter 34: The People from Meadowood

Elliott Freemantle could not understand it. A large number of people from the Meadowood meeting had followed him to the airport, and were at the moment making a great deal of noise in the main hall of the terminal. Television cameras had arrived, but there were no policemen! Elliott wanted the police to arrive. Then there would be trouble - and a big story for the press.

All the time he was talking to the television reporters, he was waiting for the police to arrive.

‘Why are you here?’ a reporter asked him.

‘Because this airport is full of thieves and liars.’

‘That’s strong talk. Will you explain exactly what you mean by it?’

‘Certainly. The peace, the rest and the good health of these people are being stolen from them by this airport. Nobody cares how much they suffer. Only this evening the airport manager told them that the noise will get worse, not better! He didn’t care.’

‘What are you going to do about this?’

‘We’re going to take the airport to court - to the highest court in the land, if necessary. We shall begin by asking for some runways - if not the whole airport - to be closed at night. I care about these people! I shall fight for them, and I shall win!’

The crowd was growing bigger all the time, Elliott noticed, and people were growing angrier too. When he had finished speaking, a man shouted: ‘Let’s show the airport how loud a noise can be!’ and a great shout rose from the throats of the crowd. If the police came now, the press would certainly write about the meeting.

What Elliott Freemantle did not know was that every policeman in the airport was looking for Inez Guerrero. Even after she had been found, Ordway, the police chief, was busy talking to her in Mel’s office. When he had finished, he and Mel left the office together.

Immediately they saw Elliott Freemantle surrounded by a crowd of people and cameras.

‘That lawyer again!’ Ordway said. ‘I’ll soon get rid of him!’

‘Be careful,’ Mel said. ‘He wants attention from the press. We don’t want to help him.’

As Ordway went to speak to the lawyer, Mel saw Tomlinson, the young reporter he had met earlier that evening. He asked him what Elliott had been saying, and when he found out his face darkened with anger.

‘Freemantle!’ he shouted, ‘I’m interested in what you’ve been saying this evening. Do these people know that it’s all lies?’

Everyone was silent. They turned to look at Mel.

‘Don’t listen to him!’ Elliott shouted.

‘I think that the press should hear what I have to say,’ Mel said. ‘I’m the airport manager. Mr Freemantle has told you that I don’t care how much these people are suffering. Now I’d like to answer that criticism.’

‘He’ll tell you more lies!’

‘You be quiet!’ Ned Ordway told Elliott. ‘You’ve spoken already. Now listen!’

Mel spoke for the second time that evening about how they tried to reduce noise at the airport, and how the storm had made it necessary to use the runway nearest to Meadowood. Again he said that planes were becoming bigger and noisier all the time.

‘I do care about your problem,’ he went on, ‘but I must remind you of something. You won’t like listening to this, but it’s true.’

Twelve years ago, the land where their houses now stood had been empty. Building companies had been told not to use it for houses, but some of them had been too interested in money to take any notice of the warnings. They had built houses and sold them to people without telling them that the noise from planes would be getting worse and worse. These builders, and not the airport, were to blame for the present problem.

Nobody spoke. Mel felt very sorry for the people who had bought houses in Meadowood. They were just ordinary people, and he wished that he could help them.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘there are some lawyers who are making a lot of money for themselves out of people with the same problem as you have. They’re cheating you.’

‘That isn’t true! He’s lying!’ Elliott shouted, but the crowd seemed to want to listen to Mel.

He told them that they had very little chance of winning their case against the airport. People had won, it was true, but those cases had been very different. He told them about some other cases which had failed.

Now the anger of the crowd turned against Elliott Freemantle.

‘How can we get our money back?’ they began to ask. ‘We were fools to sign anything too quickly.’

‘Write to Mr Freemantle immediately,’ Mel told them. ‘Tell him that you’ve changed your mind. I don’t think that you’ll hear from him again.’

Elliott knew it was the end. He never went on fighting when he knew that he had no chance of winning. Ah well, he would soon find some more fools in another town, he was sure.

As the Meadowood people went sadly and quietly home, a woman came up to Mel.

‘Thank you for talking to us and for telling us the truth,’ she said, ‘but I still don’t know what I can tell my children when they can’t sleep because of the noise.’

Mel knew that there was nothing he could say to her. That was the saddest thing about the whole affair.

As he was wondering what to say, Tanya handed him a piece of paper. From it he learned of the explosion on board the Golden Argosy. The plane would have to land at Lincoln International on runway three zero. And runway three zero was still blocked.