The Package Included Murder (23 page)

His brother was moving stiffly towards a row of wooden, fold-flat chairs.

‘You all right, Tone?' Jim Lewcock asked anxiously.

Tony Lewcock managed one of those long suffering smiles as he lowered himself awkwardly onto the nearest chair. ‘Me bloody back's playing us up a bit,' he allowed grimly. ‘Ooh,'– he sank back – ‘but it's giving me jip!'

Though nobody else, of course, was suffering as much real pain as Tony Lewcock was, the other Albatrossers had their grievances. Most of them could be traced back to the long wait they'd had at the airport in Moscow. This was a pity because the day had begun quite well. True there had been that dreadfully early start from Sochi, but it had been a lovely morning and they were going
home
. Only those who have themselves undergone a holiday in the Soviet Union will appreciate to the full the joy which comes flooding in when the end is in sight. Indeed, the Albatrossers were almost happy as they boarded their plane, weighed down with all their purchases that were too bulky or too fragile to pack in their suitcases. Miss Jones even accepted the alien presence of Miss Clough-Cooper on the seat between her and the Hon. Con with a comparatively resigned heart.

What did it matter, really? It was only a matter of hours now before she and dear Constance would be back in Acacia Avenue … alone.

They landed at Vnukovo airport bang on time and, even then, their luck still held. Their bus was waiting for them and they were soon speeding round Moscow to the International Airport from where they were to take off for home.

Everybody checked their watches and agreed that they were going to be in good time. ‘If there's one thing I can't stand,' they told each other comfortably, ‘it's being rushed.'

Another of the ubiquitous Intourist guides was waiting for them at the departure terminal and, almost as though the Soviet State couldn't wait to get rid of them, they were fed into a conveyor belt of extraordinary efficiency. The Hon. Con and Miss Jones cravenly kept as far away from young Roger Frossell as they could. If the Goddess of Luck wasn't on their side, this was where her displeasure was going to show. The boy, the Hon. Con noted miserably, was looking suspiciously fat and she was certain that even the stupidest Customs official would spot instantly that the young fool had got half that blasted manuscript strapped round his middle at the front and half round the back. ‘He looks like a pregnant penguin!' she had hissed at Miss Jones and got a look of pained reproach in return. They shuffled forward in the queue.

Tickets!

Bang, bang!

Passports!

Bang, bang!

Baggage clearance!

‘I hope you have enjoyed your visit to the Soviet Union. Goodbye and have a good journey!'

The Albatrossers were furious. They deposited themselves in one corner of the departure lounge and grumbled.

‘They were a bit slap dash, weren't they?' demanded Mr Beamish indignantly. ‘We haven't been searched or anything. Damn it all, they didn't even go through our luggage. Well,' – he pulled his cigarettes out – ‘ if that's their idea of a security check, it damned well isn't mine!'

‘I thought this was supposed to be a bloody police state?' Jim Lewcock chipped in, thoroughly incensed. ‘Blimey, we got ten times more of a going over when we left bloody England!'

‘It's just that they don't give two hoots.'

Everybody turned to stare at young Roger Frossell who was now grinning like a jackass with relief. He had been unable to carry out his original plan of hiding the manuscript in his mother's suitcase and the strain of smuggling the thing through Russian Customs himself had been all but over-whelming.

Desmond Withenshaw glared down his nose at the lad. ‘ What are you talking about?'

‘Simply that they don't care about hijackers or bombs or what-have-you,' explained Roger Frossell, always willing to instruct his elders in the facts of life. ‘Not where we're concerned. We're flying on a British charter aircraft, you see, and there won't be a single Russian national on it – will there? So, the Kremlin couldn't care less what happens to it or to us. If we'd been flying on one of Aeroflot's planes, they'd have gone over us with a fine tooth-comb, don't you worry!'

‘Oh, charming!' Zoë Withenshaw pulled a wry face but she wasn't really either interested or worried. She turned to her husband. ‘Have I time to go to the ladies', Des?'

Mr Withenshaw laughed. ‘Good heavens, yes! We've time to have lunch, if it comes to that.'

The Hon. Con reacted swiftly to this thoughtless suggestion. ‘They'll give us lunch on the plane, won't they?'

Somebody muttered that they supposed so, but Mrs Withenshaw's question had had an inspirational effect and there was a bustle as coats and handbags were gathered up. Jim Lewcock led the deputation to the gentlemen's cloakroom.

The Hon. Con spotted that Penny Clough-Cooper was preparing to make a move. ‘You going somewhere?' she asked eagerly.

Miss Clough-Cooper swallowed down her first, thoughtless response and strove to speak calmly. ‘Only to the ladies' and' – she was something of an optimist – ‘ I don't need an escort!'

The Hon. Con was already on her feet. ‘No trouble, old fruit!' she trumpeted cheerfully. ‘It's what I'm here for! Bones, hold the fort for a couple of secs, will you?'

Miss Jones was busy looking at the inordinate number of snapshots Mrs Beamish just happened to have brought with her. She barely had time to acknowledge the Hon. Con's request when yet another photograph was pressed into her hands.

‘And that's Daddy!' said Mrs Beamish proudly.

Miss Jones examined the thin, sour-faced man who scowled bleakly at the camera. ‘ Very striking looking!'

Mrs Beamish dealt another snap. ‘And this is our house! Actually,'– she tittered coyly – ‘I was born there. Norman did want us to get a place of our own when we got married but, as I said, what for? There was plenty of room for us all at ‘High Tor' and, in any case, I certainly wasn't going to leave Daddy all on his own.' She sighed happily. ‘Isn't it a lovely house?'

Miss Jones, who had a natural affinity for stockbroker tudor, agreed that it was.

Gradually the afternoon wore on. The Albatrossers ate, slept, wandered around, quarrelled and waited for the call that never came. All around, other voyagers took off for Helsinki and New York and Paris and Nairobi, and one flight even left for London but the Albatrossers couldn't get on it.

‘We have only ourselves to blame,' declared Mrs Beamish and, if the sentiment displayed true Christian resignation, the voice it was uttered in certainly didn't. ‘One reads about charter flights and package holidays every time one opens one's Daily Telegraph. I'm only surprised that we haven't been completely abandoned long before this.' She glared at her husband as though it was all his fault.

‘I'll go and try to find out when we're due to take off,' said Mr Beamish with resignation. They had already made enquiries several times before but anything was better than staying there and getting reproachful looks from his wife.

‘Oh, save your energy!' Desmond Withenshaw came across to join them. ‘Eight hours!'

The Hon. Con had been cleaning her ear out with the tip of her little finger. She paused. ‘You can't mean we've got another eight hours to wait?' she said with an uncertain laugh.

‘'Fraid so. There's been some sort of hold up at the other end, so they say, and our plane's supposed to be still on the tarmac in England.'

‘Jesus Christ!' said Roger Frossell. ‘Eight hours? What in God's name are we going to do for eight hours?' With the well-known prodigality of youth he had already exhausted all the sources of entertainment in the departure lounge.

Jim Lewcock had an answer to Roger Frossell's question. ‘ We're going to get on one of them bloody airport buses, boyo,' he said, ‘and high-tail it back to town. God knows there's nothing much to do in that Moscow dump, but it's better than here. Come on, Tone!'

‘You're wasting your time, Mr Lewcock!' Desmond Withenshaw's mock-Oxford accent didn't make it sound any better. ‘I've already enquired about that and it's just not on.'

‘Not on?' The Hon. Con pushed herself into the centre of the group, anxious to show that her hand was still firmly clamped on the tiller.

Desmond Withenshaw backed off. ‘We've already gone through Customs and Passport Control, you see.'

Jim Lewcock threw his hands up angrily. ‘So, we can go back through ' em, can't we? Or are you trying to tell us that there's some bloody law against it?'

‘It's our visas.' Mr Withenshaw remembered, a little too late, the traditional treatment meted out to bearers of bad news. ‘Our visas are only valid for one entry and one exit, so …'

‘Bloody red tape!' For once, this objectionable adjective soiled the lips not of Jim Lewcock but of the Hon. Con. Even one of her impeccable breeding and upbringing could endure only so much.

Tony Lewcock turned away. ‘Got a fag, Jim?' he asked wearily.

His brother fished out a crumpled packet.

Tony Lewcock shook his head. ‘Bloody hell, haven't you got an English one?'

‘No, I bloody well haven't!' Jim Lewcock's temper flared. ‘Have you? It's a bloody Russian one or nothing – and it has been for bloody days.'

Mr Beamish, caught with his packet of Rothman's king-size in his hand, hadn't really much choice.

The Lewcock brothers didn't need asking twice.

Jim Lewcock was suspicious. ‘ How come you've got your bloody duty frees left? You smoke three times as much as we do.'

Mr Beamish put the packet away in his pocket before it was snatched out of his hand. ‘My wife's ration.'

‘Oh. Oh well, I suppose that's one argument in favour of bloody matrimony.'

In the end the Albatrossers were called upon to sit it out in that accursed departure lounge for a mere seven hours before, against all the odds, they were finally called out to board their plane. By this time, Miss Jones wasn't the only one who fancied she saw the hand of Fate in all these delays. She voiced her fears to the Hon. Con who was already pretty irritable.

‘Oh, don't be so wet, Bones! Of course we shan't crash! Why on earth should we? And' – she swung round threateningly on her chum – ‘ if you start again on albatrosses being birds of ill omen and us being thirteen, I'll … I'll …'

Miss Jones bowed her head. ‘ I shan't say another word, dear,' she promised stiffly. ‘Just don't say I didn't warn you, that's all.'

The Hon. Con bared her teeth and then, seeing the funny side, gave Miss Clough-Cooper, who was just ahead of her in the queue to board the plane, a conspiratorial thump between the shoulder blades. ‘Talk about seeing bogeymen under the bed! Old Bones is a proper dismal Desmond, isn't she?'

Miss Clough-Cooper didn't, as they say, vouchsafe an answer but the Hon. Con took it all in good part, determined to allow nothing to mar the pleasure of going home.

The flight was uneventful and even Miss Jones began to cheer up now that the end was in sight. They landed without incident, much to everybody's surprise and relief, and the Hon. Con leaned pleasurably across Miss Clough-Cooper to peer out of the window.

‘Golly gosh, wouldn't you know it!' she chuckled. ‘We're back in England, all rightie. It's raining.'

Other passengers had noticed the weather and there was a general outburst of murmuring as everybody scrabbled through their hand-luggage in search of transparent rain hoods and telescopic umbrellas. One lady (not an Albatrosser) even produced a pair of little plastic bootees which she proceeded to button on over her shoes.

The Hon. Con released the seat belt from across her tum. ‘That's a jolly nice mac you've got there,' she said smarmily to Penny Clough-Cooper as they taxied along the runway. ‘ Dashed pretty colour, if you ask me.'

Miss Clough-Cooper smoothed the folded, dark green raincoat which she had placed in readiness across her knees. The plane swung clumsily round an invisible corner. ‘It's a perfectly ordinary raincoat,' said Miss Clough-Cooper, trying to maintain a facade, at least, of common politeness.

‘It certainly is!' Miss Jones, having seen the chance to be catty, took it. ‘Everybody's wearing them. Mrs Beamish has one just like it. The same colour and everything. I remember seeing it in Moscow.'

‘Really?' said Miss Clough-Cooper faintly.

The plane came to a stop and, at long last, the Albatrossers were back in their homeland. They trooped almost gratefully into the Customs Hall and, with the exception of Jim Lewcock, equally gratefully out of it.

But, that had been an hour ago.

Where, they asked each other bitterly, was that bloody transport?

‘Of course,' said Mrs Frossell, ‘we have arrived at a somewhat unseasonable hour.'

Several voices hastened to inform her that that was no excuse.

Roger Frossell, cock-a-hoop with the success at his first smuggling venture, volunteered to go outside and see if he could find the coach that was supposed to be waiting for them. It was one way of getting away from his mother. Surrounded by their suitcases, everybody else settled down with an ill grace to wait.

‘Blimey,' shuddered young Mrs Smith, ‘ it ain't half nippy in here!' She pulled her thin, fun-fur coat up round her ears.

Her equally young husband leered automatically. ‘I'll soon warm you up when we get home, love!'

‘And, if he won't, I will! I'm only waiting to be asked!' You couldn't keep Jim Lewcock down for long. Unfortunately, excitement tended to go straight to his bladder and he pulled himself to his feet, blithely announcing to everybody that he was off to pass a pint. As had happened in Moscow, this gave everybody else ideas and there was a mass movement in the direction of the ablutions block, an interesting if not historic edifice which had remained structurally unaltered since those halcyon days of 1940 when we stood alone and …