The Package Included Murder (7 page)

‘Good for you, mate!' The Lewcock brothers were delighted with this spirited display of sturdy independence in the face of foreign tyranny. ‘ You tell the bossy little bastard where he bloody well gets off!' Jim Lewcock, going beserk on national solidarity, produced his own packet of duty-free and both brothers lit up with a flourish.

Oleg's face darkened. He didn't say anything at the time but he had his own methods of dealing with obstreperous tourists. He made a start by allowing this bunch a bare ten minutes before dragging them off on their conducted tour of the town. He turned a magnificently deaf ear to all protests and could hardly wait to hear what they would say when they got back and found that they'd missed lunch.

All Western tourists in the Soviet Union enjoy, willy-nilly, the luxury of a private bathroom and, as soon as she had dumped the suitcases on the bed, the Hon. Con duly set off to have a quick cat lick and inspect the plumbing. ‘Oh, lord,' she groaned, emerging at a hand canter, ‘another wonky ball-cock! And watch your feet when you go in, Bones! There's something jolly unpleasant leaking all over the floor.'

Miss Jones blenched.

‘I'll try and fix it when we get back,' promised the Hon. Con, plying her silver-backed, military hairbrushes. ‘Meantime,' – she appealed to Miss Jones's fastidiously retreating back – ‘try not to make it any worse, eh?'

Tashkent, it soon emerged, was a town excessively addicted to earthquakes and it had virtually been rebuilt after the last one. Oleg, from his perch at the front of the bus, spoke of little else. The earthquakes were, after all, extremely useful. They forestalled any criticism of Tashkent as a tourist attraction and they provided eloquent sermons in stones for those who wished to illustrate the fraternal compassion of Soviet man.

‘All these new blocks of workers' flats,' said Oleg, waving a limp hand, ‘ were built for the people of Tashkent by the various towns and cities of the Soviet Union. These various towns and cities provided everything – builders, materials, transport. It was a gesture of friendship.' His tone implied that this was a sentiment that he didn't expect his listeners either to appreciate or to understand. ‘On your left are three blocks built by the city of Leningrad. On your right, two blocks built by the city of Novgorod. Straight ahead, four blocks …'

It was Mrs Frossell who eventually, and through clenched teeth, gave expression to a sentiment which others, less articulate, shared. ‘If,' she told her nearest neighbours, ‘I have to look at any more of these
hideous
buildings, I shall scream! And' – she turned furiously on her son – ‘don't you dare ‘‘ oh, mother'' me, Roger! I'm tired, I'm hot, I'm bored and I'm hungry! And if this' – she indicated the dusty scene outside the bus window – ‘if this is a sample of the brave new world we're all supposed to be heading for, you can keep it!'

Oleg's amplified voice rode rough-shod over Mrs Frossell's tetchy whine. ‘You will now descend from our bus and go to look at Tashkent's famous football stadium, of which you have all heard. It has been the scene of countless international football matches.'

‘My God!' swore Desmond Withenshaw, speaking from the heart. He didn't offer any further protest, though, and eventually followed the rest of the party as they trailed slowly and reluctantly out of the bus.

It had gone two o'clock when their ordeal came to an end and they were allowed to abandon their sight-seeing and set off back to the hotel. The Hon. Con's stomach wasn't the only one that was protesting loudly. ‘I could eat a horse!' she confided hungrily to Miss Jones – and then realised that she might have said the wrong thing. She changed the subject quickly. ‘ What's on the programme for this afternoon, Bones?'

‘It's free, dear. We've been left to our own devices. I was thinking that it might be a good idea if we had a little nap after lunch.'

‘A little nap?' queried the Hon. Con, who though siestas weakened you.

‘We did have a very early start, dear, and we want to be fresh for the opera this evening.'

‘The opera?' The Hon. Con's face expressed the horror of the tone deaf. ‘Not again, surely?'

‘Musorgsky's ‘‘ Khovanshchina'',' said Miss Jones, justifiably proud at having cleared that particular linguistic hurdle. Not that she was given much time to bask in the glory. Hardly had she finished speaking when the air was torn asunder by the most awful, ear-splitting roar. The driver reacted quickly and dragged on his hand-brake. The Albatrossers, regrettably behaving like a flock of panic stricken chickens, clutched each other, grabbed frantically at their belongings and shrieked at the tops of their voices.

The driver switched off his engine and the roar subsided. He muttered something to Oleg and clambered out of his seat.

Oleg, visibly shaken by the row his passengers were kicking up and forgetting all about his microphone in the heat of the moment, tried to restore order. ‘ Comrades!' he screamed. ‘Comrades,
please
! There is no danger. Only some minor mechanical failure which our chauffeur will rectify immediately.'

Tony Lewcock was the first to recover his savoir faire. ‘It's only the bloody silencer that's gone for a Burton,' he said. ‘All you need is a bit of bloody string.' He turned to his brother. ‘ Come on, Jim, let's go and give the poor bugger a hand.'

The Lewcocks scrambled out and the remaining tourists gradually settled down into a despondent apathy. Outside the traffic, mostly bottle-green trucks, swirled noisily round them and the tropical midday heat built up with surprising speed. The Albatrossers wound the windows down and the dust came swirling in. Oleg took a swift look and calculated by the number and variety of tools that had been laid out in the road that they were going to be stuck there for at least the next half hour. It was clearly up to him to take his charges' minds off their predicament. He smiled all round and, being a KGB agent of many years standing, naturally thought of interrogation as being the best way of passing the time. The Beamishes were nearest to hand and looking sufficiently apprehensive.

‘In which town do you reside in Great Britain?'

‘Eh? Oh, – er – Carding.' Mr Beamish provided the answer after a preliminary glance at his wife. ‘That's a town in …'

‘I know precisely where Carding is located!' Oleg interrupted rudely. ‘ In fact, I know all about Carding. It is a town with a population of approximately thirty thousand inhabitants, is it not?'

‘More or less,' agreed Mr Beamish sullenly.

‘Carding is noted for industries connected with light engineering and the manufacture of agricultural products.'

‘That's right,' muttered Mr Beamish. ‘And the Mayor's Christian name is Harry!'

Oleg's chin jerked up. ‘I beg your pardon?'

Mr Beamish shook his head. ‘Nothing.'

Oleg though about it for a minute or two and then graciously decided to let it go. He turned to Mrs Beamish. ‘You have a profession?'

‘I certainly do not! I am a housewife, a married woman.'

Oleg feigned astonishment. ‘ You spend the whole of your time looking after
him
?' The nod aimed in Mr Beamish's direction was not flattering.

Mrs Beamish's jaw, always a little on the firm side, set in a hard line. ‘I do a great deal of unpaid, charitable work,' she said stiffly. ‘I also have my father to look after. He lives with us.'

Oleg was very understanding. ‘ The housing problem in England is very acute,' he informed the rest of the bus and then grinned nastily. ‘Your father, Mrs Beamish, is of course an extremely
old
man.'

‘He's nothing of the sort! He's extraordinarily active and fit.' Mrs Beamish drew herself up so as to deliver her broadside with more effect. ‘Believe me, my father puts in a day's work that is harder and longer than that of many a man half his age.' The implication was so obvious that her glance at her cringing spouse was almost superfluous. ‘ I do assure you, my dear Mr … er … Oleg, that we would be in Queer Street if it weren't for my father.'

Oleg was a little puzzled as to why homosexuality had been introduced into the conversation but it didn't lessen his interest. The Albatrossers, too, were taking it all in with flapping ears and there was tacit agreement that this was the best entertainment the Soviet Union had so far provided.

‘What is your honoured father's profession?' asked Oleg silkily.

‘He is the senior partner in Lindsay-Smith, Fowler, Collins & Beamish.' Mrs Beamish forestalled the question that was hovering on Oleg's lips. ‘Lindsay-Smith, Fowler, Collins & Beamish are estate agents. I think I can say without fear of contradiction that, under my father's guidance, they have become the leading firm of estate agents, not only for Carding but for all the surrounding district.'

Somewhat surprisingly, Oleg picked up a point which had escaped most of Mrs Beamish's eagerly eavesdropping compatriots. ‘Beamish?' he repeated. ‘One of these – er – estate agents is named Beamish?'

Mrs Beamish nodded and Mr Beamish gazed miserably out of the window. ‘My husband,' explained Mrs Beamish without enthusiasm. ‘Daddy gave him a junior partnership as a wedding present. Just as well, in my opinion,' she added, quite unforgivably. ‘I simply can't imagine how we would ever have made ends meet if we'd had to rely on Norman's unaided efforts.'

Oleg's close-set eyes sparkled. ‘Is that indeed so?'

‘My husband,' confided Mrs Beamish, leaning towards the Intourist guide and speaking in a slightly lowered voice, ‘is by nature a play-boy. I am always telling him that it's one thing to have the tastes and habits of a lounge lizard or a member of the jet-set, and quite another to have the income to maintain such a state.' Mrs Beamish bared a fine set of predatory teeth – just to show that she was having her little joke. ‘Over a hundred pounds last month for a new set of golf clubs and nothing at all wrong with his old ones, as far as either Daddy or I could see. Do you know what Daddy calls him? The Lothario of the Links! Don't you think that's simply marvellous? The Gay Lothario of the Golf Links!'

‘For God's sake, Ella!' Norman Beamish's anguished protest had the virtue of, at least, interrupting his wife's shrill discourse and making her realise that she was embarrassing others besides her natural whipping boy. She stared round the bus. Some of her audience were registering emotions even stronger than embarrassment. Desmond Withenshaw and young Roger Frossell looked frankly disgusted.

‘What an evil-minded old cow!' said Roger, making sure his comment was just loud enough to be heard.

Desmond Withenshaw offered an even coarser comparison and the Smiths sniggered in muted and mutal delight.

Oleg stepped in smoothly again before the situation got out of hand. ‘The English,' he announced, ‘are a very sporting race. They play many games – football, tennis, hockey, rowing,' – he smiled as he reached the piece de resistance – ‘
cricket
.'

Desmond Withenshaw threw himself back irritably in his seat. ‘Don't you think it's about time you stopped trotting out all these tired old clichés about the English?' he drawled. ‘That one about us being a nation of sportsmen is about on a par with fog-bound London and little boys sweeping chimneys.'

This criticism caught Oleg unawares and for a couple of seconds he stared in open-mouthed silence. He soon recovered, though. Miss Clough-Cooper didn't look the sort to answer back. ‘And you, miss, do you play sport? Are you, perhaps, a player of golf?'

Miss Penelope Clough-Cooper's hand flew, somewhat dramatically to her throat. ‘I beg your pardon?' she whispered.

Oleg raised a pair of moth-eaten eyebrows. ‘I am asking if you play the game of golf, miss.'

‘Golf?' Miss Clough-Cooper was shooting distraught glances all round her like a hunted animal. Even the Hon. Con, unlikely to err on the over-critical side where Penny Clough-Cooper was concerned, reckoned she was coming it a bit strong. ‘No, I don't play golf! I never have!
Never
! Why should you think I'm a golfer? Who suggested that …'

There is no knowing how far the hysteria would have mounted but luckily it wasn't given the chance. The driver's door opened and a motley collection of tools in a canvas bag were slung onto the floor of the bus. A hot and sweating driver followed them and, somewhat incongruously, gave Oleg the thumbs up sign. The Lewcock brothers, equally sticky and dirty, swung abroad and the bus set off through the busy streets back to the Tashkent Hotel. Oleg, assisted by the driver and Fate, had timed it beautifully and the dining room doors were slammed shut right in the faces of the ravenous Albatrossers.

Tashkent, it will be seen, wasn't proving much of a success and things didn't improve as the afternoon wore on. Some of the party, including Miss Jones, retired to bed and awoke in time for an early dinner feeling cross and muzzy. Others, headed by that well-known student of human nature, the Hon. Con, plodded dejectedly round the town observing the passing scene and even, at one low point, actually paying to go into a museum of Uzbek art so as to get out of the sun.

An evening at the opera did nothing to raise anybody's spirits and, as far as the Hon. Con was concerned, it merely provided a fittingly crummy end to an extraordinarily crummy day. Sleep, she soon found, was completely out of the question, thanks to all that caterwauling coming from the stage and the orchestra pit. The Hon. Con sat in the box, in which all the Albatrossers had been penned, and stared miserably at the gesticulating and squawking figures on the stage. Was it for this that she'd put a skirt on and drenched herself in Old Spice after-shave? For a brief and craven instant she though wistfully of how nice it would have been in that hotel at Budleigh Salterton, cosily watching the telly with old Bones.