The Package Included Murder

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• Joyce Porter
  
• To Barbara Hamilton-Smith with much affection.
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  

Joyce Porter was born in Marple, Cheshire, and educated at King's College, London. In 1949 she joined the Women's Royal Air Force, and, on the strength of an intensive course in Russian, qualified for confidential work in intelligence. When she left the service in 1963 she had completed three detective novels.

Porter is best known for her series of novels featuring Detective Inspector Wilfred Dover. Dover One appeared in 1964, followed by nine more in a highly successful series. Porter also created the reluctant spy Eddie Brown, and the “Hon. Con”, the aristocratic gentlewoman-detective Constance Ethel Morrison Burke.

‘Somebody is trying to murder me!'

Penelope Clough-Cooper mopped at her eyes with the edge of the sheet and risked a tearful glance at the circle of faces surrounding her bed. There wasn't much comfort there. The faces expressed dismay, horror, fear, curiosity, annoyance, disbelief – but she searched in vain for even a flicker of sympathy. When the English are on holiday (especially on a package tour for which they have paid in advance) the last thing they wish to encounter is trouble. And there is no getting away from it – the attempted murder of one of their number spelt trouble all right.

It was young Roger Frossell who found his tongue first. A long-haired, spotty-faced, eighteen-year-old man of the world and misogynist, his reaction was predictable. ‘Bloody women!'

‘Oh, Roger, dear, I do wish you wouldn't use that word!' His mother, standing next to him, softened the rebuke with an indulgent smile.

Ella Beamish made her observation without fear or favour and, as usual, she spoke for herself and her husband. ‘The girl's delirious!'

Mr and Mrs Smith were still, even at that ungodly hour in the morning, chewing away like a couple of contented cows. They wrapped their arms tighter round each other and giggled. This, for the Smiths, was about par for the course.

It was left to the Lewcock brothers to come up with something more practical. Jim Lewcock, the elder of the two, shifted his weight unhappily from one bare foot to the other and thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his shabby raincoat. ‘Well, I suppose we'd better get 'em to send for the police, eh?'

‘Judas Priest, Jim!' mumbled his brother. ‘You taken leave of your senses or something? Send for the bloody cops?' He appealed direct to Miss Clough-Cooper. ‘ You just had a bit of a nightmare, didn't you love?'

Penelope Clough-Cooper's chin rose, damp but defiant. ‘No, Mr Lewcock, I did not! I have never had a nightmare in my life. I know exactly what happened. I woke up and sensed that there was somebody else in the room. I was therefore quite wide-awake when I felt a hand pull the pillow from under my head. I began to scream and then the pillow came pressing down on my face, covering my face and mouth. I couldn't breathe!' Penelope Clough-Cooper's voice broke as the distressing memories came flooding back.

And it is at this point that that well-known personality, the Honourable Constance Morrison-Burke, steps forward with an easy grace into her rightful place in the centre of our story. The Hon. Con, as she is known to admirers (and detractors) throughout the civilised world, was strikingly arrayed in a scarlet silk dressing gown liberally embellished with black frogging. She was much the most memorable figure in that rather plebian hotel bedroom and now attracted every eye as she cleared her throat, loudly and awkwardly. Damn it all, if there was one thing the Hon. Con couldn't stand it was seeing a woman cry! She bent forward and gave Miss Clough-Cooper a rough sort of thump on the shoulder. ‘Pecker up, old fish!' she advised in a gruff voice.

By the Hon. Con's side and slightly behind her stood her alter ego and maid-of-all work, Miss Jones. Miss Jones had been dead against this package holiday idea from the very start but, as the Hon. Con was naturally footing the bill for both of them, her opposition had had to be more subtle than effective. Miss Jones was a passionate advocate of Budleigh Salterton and nothing that had happened since the Hon. Con had first received those horrible travel brochures had tempted her to change her mind. Quite apart from the fact that anybody contemplating a holiday in the Soviet Union must, ipso facto, be courting disaster, there were other disturbing omens which Miss Jones had been over-quick to point out. The holiday firm, for example, whose sheer cheapness had seduced the Hon. Con's bargain-loving heart, was called Albatross Travel (Glencoe) Ltd and, as Miss Jones would keep saying, if that didn't send cold shivers down your spine, nothing would. The final straw, though, had been reached in Moscow when Miss Jones had first discovered that there were exactly thirteen of them in their group. There had been quite a dust-up about this and the Hon. Con had been reduced to telling Miss Jones quite bluntly that she reckoned such silly, superstitious fears came jolly ill from the daughter of a Church of England clergyman. Since then, Miss Jones had kept her lips huffily sealed.

Such Christian restraint didn't stop Miss Jones thinking, though, or from keeping her eyes and ears open for more disasters. She noted the Hon. Con's kindly gesture now and pursed her lips. Instinctively distrusting the Clough-Cooper girl (if you could call a woman of at least thirty a girl), Miss Jones could only hope that dear Constance wasn't going to let herself get involved. Miss Jones just couldn't help recalling all those other occasions when …

Desmond Withenshaw took the floor. Even art teachers tend to like the sound of their own voices and Desmond Withenshaw was no exception, ‘Frankly, I think we ought to make up our minds what we're going to do. And pretty damned quick!'

‘What's the bloody hurry?' Tony, the younger Lewcock brother, had been reacting badly to Desmond Withenshaw ever since they had first come in contact with each other on the aircraft which had swept them through the Iron Curtain. It was a matter of chalk and cheese, except that neither of these commodities could strike the sparks off each other that the two men achieved without the slightest effort.

Desmond Withenshaw's lip curled. ‘ Simply that time's running out, old chap!' He spoke in the kind of voice that he probably used when addressing educationally subnormal children. ‘The dezhurnaya po ploshschadke heard Miss Clough-Cooper's screams just as clearly as we did and you can bet your boots that she's shot off to report what's happened to her superiors. As far as I'm concerned, the only surprise so far is that they haven't descended on us in force already.'

A ripple of annoyance passed through the assembled company. Dezhurnaya po ploshschadke, indeed! Desmond Withenshaw spoke a few words of Russian and this feeble achievement had not, in the three short days they had been together, endeared him to his fellow travellers. Why the blazes couldn't he say ‘ floor maid' like everybody else?

The scrape of Norman Beamish's match as he lit yet another cigarette stoked more fires of irritation. The chap smoked like a blessed chimney!

Desmond Withenshaw grasped hold of the helm once more. ‘We've simply got to make up our minds about what we're going to do,' he said again, scowling at the vacant faces that were turned towards him and sighing impatiently. ‘Look, if Miss Clough-Cooper persists with this story about somebody trying to kill her, the matter will have to be reported to the Russian police.' He paused to allow this unpalatable fact to sink in. ‘Well, is that what you want?'

‘Why not?' inquired his wife through a huge yawn. ‘If there's some maniac loose in the town, the sooner he's caught and sent to Siberia or whatever the better.'

Mrs Frossell clutched at her son for support. ‘But they'll be
communist
policemen, won't they?'

Roger Frossell pulled away. ‘For Christ's sake, mother,' he said wearily, ‘what's that got to do with it? They'll be the criminal police, not the KGB.'

‘And I'll lay odds that won't make much bloody difference,' growled Jim Lewcock. ‘Me, I'm not keen on getting mixed up with Red cops of any sort.'

There were approving murmurs for this point of view and it was left to Zoë Withenshaw, stifling her yawns and shaking herself into wakefulness, to take a less selfish line. ‘Oh, come on!' she said. ‘We can't just ignore the fact that somebody's tried to kill Miss Clough-Cooper. You can't hush a thing like that.'

‘Why not?' demanded a voice deliberately made anonymous.

Zoë Withenshaw shrugged her shoulders. ‘Personally, I think it's our public duty to report what's happened to the appropriate authorities. I mean, suppose he tries again or attacks someone else? I don't want a murder on my conscience, even if you do.'

‘Hear, hear!' approved Norman Beamish loudly, and then fell silent under his wife's basilisk glare.

The Hon. Con ranged herself staunchly on Mr Beamish's side. ‘Think Mrs Withenshaw's got something there!' she boomed. ‘After all, we are representatives of England in a foreign country and we shouldn't shirk our duty just because we've got to deal with a bunch of lousy commies. Besides, if we let this alien brute get away with it, there's no telling how many defenceless women he won't desecrate with his lascivious hands.'

Penelope Clough-Cooper wriggled impatiently. ‘I don't know why you're all assuming that the man who attacked me is a Russian,' she said crossly. ‘ I never said he was.'

‘Well, I hope you're not suggesting it was one of us, love!' Jim Lewcock chuckled patronisingly. ‘I know our Tone here's an oversexed young devil, but he's got his hands full with this new Intourist guide they've given us. Well, you've seen her, haven't you? Talk about …'