The Package Included Murder (17 page)

‘Good stuff, have they?' inquired the Hon. Con heartily, endeavouring to sound like one cognoscente having a bit of a chat with another.

‘Not bad. Some of this Abhazian fold art is quite intriguing. Strange echoes of Navaho Indian work, actually. Of course, it's completely
different
in every possible way – materials, design, colours, function – but the
feel
reminded me strongly of some of the Navaho's efforts. Not all of it, mind you.'

‘Quite, quite!' said the Hon. Con, searching in vain amongst the crowd of opera lovers for a life-belt and not finding one. She fell back on her own resources. ‘You should have taken Penny Clough-Cooper along!'

Desmond Withenshaw's whole body stiffened. ‘Oh?' he said carefully.

‘She's keen on art, too.'

‘Really?'

The Hon. Con's sensitive nose twitched and her voice became sharper as she abandoned the joys of social intercourse for the excitements of the chase. ‘Didn't you know?'

‘Is there any reason why I should?'

‘Well, you're a cool one and no mistake!' snorted the Hon. Con, never ceasing to be outraged at the perfidy of man. ‘I thought you and she were on one of these weekend courses together.'

‘Where did you get that idea from?'

‘From Penny Clough-Cooper, of course!'

‘Damn!' Desmond Withenshaw stuck his hands deep in his trouser pockets. ‘Blast! Well, for God's sake,' he added crossly, ‘it's years ago now and we didn't even speak to each other. I knew I'd met her before somewhere because I never forget a face, but it's taken me the best part of a week to remember where it was. Horwill Castle! What a dump! And what a bore those weekend courses were!' He sighed. ‘They paid well, though.'

The Hon. Con squinted thoughtfully across at Desmond Withenshaw. ‘ That's deuced interesting,' she remarked.

‘What is?'

‘Do you realise that this puts you in a special category?

Desmond Withenshaw began to sober up. ‘What does? Look, I wish you'd explain precisely what it is you're getting at.'

The Hon. Con was delighted to oblige. ‘You,' she said, ‘are the only Albatrosser who knew Penny Clough-Cooper back home in the UK. Here,' – she broke off to repel boarders in the shape of Jolly Jim Lewcock who gave her a friendly slap on the rump as he pushed past – ‘what the …?'

‘Sorry to disturb you, love,' – Jim Lewcock moved his overfamiliar hand upwards and placed it on the Hon. Con's shoulder – ‘but I've got to go and see if my one hope of posterity is still in working order!' He gave her a squeeze and disappeared through a door bearing a conventionalised figure of a man on its centre panel.

The Hon. Con drew a deep breath. ‘That fellow,' she announced through bared teeth, ‘is beyond the pale!'

Desmond Withenshaw had his own problems. ‘What do you mean about me being the only one who knew Miss Clough-Cooper back in England? I thought somebody said that the Smiths came from the same town.'

The Hon. Con had forgotten about the Smiths, but even Homer was allowed the odd nod. ‘Hardly the same social class, though,' she pointed out. ‘They'd heard of Penny Clough-Cooper, I don't doubt, but you'd hardly expect her to know them.'

‘She didn't know me, either,' said Desmond Withenshaw impatiently.

The Hon. Con sniffed. ‘That's your story!'

‘And it happens to be the truth. You can ask Miss Clough-Cooper herself. She'll confirm what I say.'

They paced along side by side for a few moments, unsocially silent amidst the mob of eager chatterers. Then the Hon. Con opened her mouth and hit, albeit unintentionally, well below the belt. ‘How about your wife?' she asked.

Desmond Withenshaw took a minute or so off while he hooked his bottom jaw back on its hinges. ‘ My … my wife? What's my wife got to do with it?'

The Hon. Con shrugged a pair of shoulders that wouldn't have looked out of place on a heavyweight boxer. ‘I was just wondering if she knew Penny Clough-Cooper, too.'

‘Why … why should she?'

You didn't need to hit the Hon. Con over the head where clues were concerned. She stared hard at Desmond Withenshaw. ‘ Well, she could have been on this painting weekend with you, couldn't she?'

‘Jesus Christ!' Desmond Withenshaw confirmed some of the Hon. Con's worst fears as he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the shelter of a convenient alcove. ‘Look, what in God's name are you getting at?'

‘Aha!' The Hon. Con pushed Desmond Withenshaw away. ‘That'd be telling, wouldn't it?'

‘I wondered if that blasted Clough-Cooper woman had put two and two together!' snarled Desmond Withenshaw. ‘ Oh, damn her eyes! If Zoë ever gets wind of this, she'll have my guts for garters.'

‘Gets wind of what?'

Desmond Withenshaw released his hold on the Hon. Con. ‘As if you didn't know!' he observed reproachfully. ‘ Women! They're always so bloody jealous!'

Nobody could say that intuition was the Hon. Con's strong point but, occasionally, she could make imaginative leaps which astonished even her. ‘This painting weekend,' she said, drawing a bow at a venture. ‘Were you there with somebody who wasn't your wife, eh?'

‘Women always place so much bloody emphasis on
bed
!' complained Desmond Withenshaw, looking noble and aggrieved. ‘As if it really mattered. I mean, Helena never presented the slightest threat to my marriage. She understood it. I understood it. Why the bloody hell shouldn't Zoë understand it, too?'

‘I dunno,' said the Hon. Con. ‘Suppose you tell me.'

Desmond Withenshaw slumped back against the wall. ‘Well, Emma Jane might be one reason, I suppose.'

The Hon. Con had been out of her depth for some time, but she battled bravely on. ‘Emma Jane? Who's Emma Jane? Another of your paramours?'

‘She's our youngest kid,' explained Desmond Withenshaw crossly. ‘God, what a sordid mind you've got! Zoë was having her that weekend. I'd have never got away with young Helena otherwise.'

The Hon. Con was predictably horrified. ‘Do you mean that you took another woman off for a dirty weekend while your poor wife was having a baby? You rotten swine!'

Her voice was loud and Desmond Withenshaw looked round nervously. ‘ Please,' he implored, ‘do keep your voice down! People are staring at us.' He went on to forfeit what little respect he still had in the Hon. Con's eyes. ‘You just wouldn't understand the deep, powerful passions that drive a man. It's something I simply can't explain. We're made differently, you see. Men are …'

‘And what are you two up to, may one ask?' Zoë Withenshaw's voice came across to them – polite, amused and very, very cutting. She had been circulating through the corridors with their Russian Intourist guide and had, in the course of one circumambulation, noticed her husband and the Hon. Con with their heads together. The next time round and she had no hesitation about abandoning her companion and coming over to break it up. She linked her arm possessively into Desmond Withenshaw's.

The Hon. Con went red. ‘Just chatting,' she mumbled, quite out of her depth at being accused, however indirectly, of husband-snatching. ‘About the – er – case.'

‘The case?' Zoë Withenshaw raised well-shaped, disbelieving eyebrows. ‘Oh – you mean Miss Clough-Cooper and her never-ending saga. Well, and what' – she let the Hon. Con have it straight between the eyes – ‘has a happily married man and the devoted father of three got to do with these highly ineffectual and quite improbable attacks on our heroine?'

‘We can't afford to leave any stone unturned,' said the Hon. Con defensively.

‘I still don't see how my Des can help you. He hasn't spoken more than half a dozen words to the woman in his entire life, have you, lover-boy?'

‘He may have noticed something,' explained the Hon. Con. ‘Artists are supposed to be jolly observant, aren't they?'

‘Not half as observant as artists' wives, Miss Morrison-Burke!' Zoë Withenshaw tugged gently and irresistibly at her husband. ‘And you don't want to believe all these old myths, you know. They do say artists are highly sexed but – take old Des here!' She sank soft fingers of pure steel into the arm under her hand. ‘He's got about as much temperament as an elderly sheep. Haven't you, darling?'

Unhappily the Hon. Con watched the Withenshaws as they joined and were absorbed into the throng. What was all that about? Had Mrs Withenshaw been so intent on demonstrating that her husband had nothing to do with the murder attempts that she had overlooked her own claims to consideration. Suppose she'd found out about Desmond Withenshaw's little escapade at the painting school? Would she have …? The Hon. Con shook her head. No, in that case it was Desmond Withenshaw she would have clobbered – and a blooming good thing, too. On the other hand, Desmond Withenshaw might have been trying to shut Penny Clough-Cooper's mouth before she …

‘It's nearly time for the fourth act to begin, dear.'

The Hon. Con found Miss Jones by her side. ‘Is it?'

‘It might be a good idea to take our seats now, dear. Before the rush starts.'

‘Good thinking, Bones!' The Hon. Con nodded. Act Four, eh? Well, with any luck, it might be the last. She was about to check with Miss Jones when another thought struck her. ‘Where's Penny Clough-Cooper?'

Miss Jones's perfectly straight back straightened. ‘She's as safe as houses, dear. I've been keeping an eye on her in strict accordance with your very explicit instructions. She's been walking round during the interval with the Beamishes and the Frossells. It's quite extraordinary' – only someone with perfect pitch would have picked up the malice in Miss Jones's tone – ‘how she managed to get a man on either side of her, leaving the other two ladies to walk behind.'

Somewhat surprisingly, the Albatrossers were unanimous in their opinion that Lake Ritsa was worth it. Worth, that is, the hurried breakfast, the early start from Sukhumi and the long, dusty drive. The party sat on the veranda of the hotel, sipping a most welcome cup of coffee and gazing out across the lake to the snow-capped mountains which loomed over them on all sides.

Mrs Beamish wasn't seduced by all this beauty into forgetting our Western values and way of life. ‘ Of course, it's the
contrast
that makes it all look so much better,' she pointed out to her husband and anybody else who couldn't shut out the sound of her voice. ‘I mean, there are a dozen places – in the Tyrol, for example – which are ten times as pretty as this, but one just doesn't notice them.'

‘It's so quiet here,' sighed Miss Jones, a great lover of nature.

‘No blooming Russians!' said the Hon. Con with a grunt.

Desmond Withenshaw had been trying out his Russian on the manageress of the hotel. Luckily she spoke quite good English so the interview wasn't entirely wasted. ‘ The Russian tourists never get up here before lunch-time. Late rising is a national characteristic, so I'm told. The hotel directoress was saying just now that, in her opinion, they miss the best part of the day.'

It was left to Mrs Frossell to kill this highly promising line of conversation stone dead. ‘ It's quite nice coffee, isn't it?' she asked brightly and of nobody in particular. Her son buried his burning face in his hands.

Jim Lewcock, who'd been away from the table for a few minutes, came back and considerately checked his zip before resuming his place at the table. ‘I wonder why the hell they didn't fix up for us to stay a couple of days here?' he queried. ‘It's a bloody sight better than some of the dumps they've been shoving us in.' Young Mrs Smith was sitting next to him and he gave her a friendly squeeze on the knee. ‘What do you think, love?'

Young Mrs Smith glanced across at her husband from under heavily mascaraed eye-lashes and giggled. ‘Ooh, I dunno!' she tittered, squirming estatically. ‘All these places look much of a muchness to me.'

Neither of the Lewcock brothers was likely to let a remark like that pass without adding their own lascivious gloss to it and this inspired young Mr Smith to some saucy repartee of his own. To the casual onlooker, the Albatrossers' table was positively sparkling with bonhomie and wit as it stood in the middle of a huge and otherwise totally deserted dining room.

It must have been some five minutes later that the Hon. Con, with some relief, gave Miss Jones a nudge. ‘ Come on, Bones!' she growled. ‘The boats are here!'

‘The boats?' Miss Jones, not one of your Nelson breed, sighed. ‘Oh, yes.'

The Albatrossers were to be taken on a short pleasure trip over the smooth and sparkling waters of the lake. It was going to cost them an extra couple of roubles each but the whole scene up there in the mountains looked so inviting that not even the Hon. Con had jibbed at the additional outlay of hard cash.

Norman Beamish did the decent and assisted the ladies down the crumbling steps to the little jetty.

‘Oh, isn't it exciting?' cooed Miss Jones bravely and waved a tentative hand. ‘So picturesque!' Reluctantly, she let go of Mr Beamish's arm. ‘I wonder if anyone ever goes bathing here?'

The Hon. Con was right behind. Spurning Mr Beamish's aid, she was firmly escorting a rather boot-faced Miss Clough-Cooper down those same rickety steps. ‘Use the old loaf, Bones?' she advised boisterously, keeping a watchful eye on Miss Clough-Cooper's slender and descending ankles. ‘The guide told us back in Sukhumi. It's too dashed cold up here in the mountains. And too dangerous because it's so deep. You dive in there, old girl, and you wouldn't surface again – ever!'

With some difficulty, the Albatrossers sorted themselves out into two roughly equal groups – one for each of the couple of small, shallow-draught, sun-bleached motor boats which were waiting for them. When she came to think about it afterwards, the Hon. Con couldn't quite recall how it was that she and Penny Clough-Cooper got separated and finished up in different boats. However, this was a minor disappointment and, in any case, didn't affect the other members of the party. Soon everybody was thoroughly relaxed. They lounged around happily, talking away and trailing their fingers in the surprisingly chilly water.