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  Contents

  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

  The Package Included Murder

  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.

  To Barbara Hamilton-Smith

  with much affection.

  Chapter One

  ‘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 co
mpany. 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 …’

  The Hon. Con blew her nose in a loud resounding clarion call. It was one way of putting a stop to Lewcock Senior’s disgusting innuendoes. She had already pigeon-holed both the Lewcock brothers as a couple of foul-mouthed oafs as soon as she’d laid eyes on them, but she had another reason for butting in and putting a spoke in Jim Lewcock’s wheel. The Hon. Con’s finely chiselled nostrils had caught an intriguing whiff of mystery in Penelope Clough-Cooper’s remarks – a whiff that other, less sensitive noses might have missed.

  Ella Beamish shivered. ‘ I’m getting quite cold,’ she complained. ‘Norman, go and get my white cardigan, will you? It’s in the blue suitcase. Norman!’

  ‘Just a minute, dear!’ Norman Beamish was looking at the Hon. Con. ‘Were you going to say something, Miss Morrison-Burke?’

  ‘Have got a couple of questions I’d like answering,’ admitted the Hon. Con with a quasi-embarrassed laugh. She could behave quite tolerantly towards the male sex if only they showed a bit of respect. She turned to the young woman on the bed. ‘You believe that an attempt was made to murder you tonight, eh?’

  ‘I know an attempt was made to murder me!’ snapped Penelope Clough-Cooper. ‘ How many more times? Look,’ – she held up the murder weapon – ‘this is the very pillow he tried to smother me with. If I hadn’t all but screamed the …’

  ‘And you suspect that this somebody – let’s call him Mr X – is not a Russian?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Hon. Con narrowed her eyes shrewdly. ‘Because this is not the first attempt that’s been made on your life, eh?’

  Penelope Clough-Cooper’s face suddenly crumpled. ‘They’ve tried to kill me twice before!’ she wailed, her voice cutting through the murmurs of consternation that arose round her bed. ‘That’s how I known it must be one of us.’

  All hell broke loose. Those who weren’t heatedly disputing the logic of Miss Clough-Cooper’s deduction were loudly objecting to having the finger of suspicion pointed at them. One or two even found time and breath to label Miss Clough-Cooper a stupid bitch of a trouble-maker who should go and get her head examined. Such were the passions aroused that the honeymooning Smiths actually stopped mauling each other for a full thirty seconds.

  The Hon. Con was experiencing difficulty in making herself heard. ‘Hey, steady on, chaps!’ she bawled in a voice that was probably audible in Outer Mongolia. ‘Quiet, please! Oh, come on, you rotters, put a sock in it!’

  Her appeals eventually produced the desired effect and gradually the howls toned down into sullen mutterings.

  Mrs Beamish was still very bitter. ‘I do think the least she could do is apologise,’ she said angrily before transferring her wrath to her husband. ‘And, if you were anything of a man, Norman, you’d see to it that she did! Most husbands would be ashamed to stand idly by while their wives were being insulted.’

  Norman Beamish was too sensible to answer back, and allowed Desmond Withenshaw to take the centre of the stage again. ‘ I’m afraid this changes the whole complexion of the problem,’ he announced loudly, ‘ and I, personally, don’t go much on our chances if we ourselves are going to be the object of the Soviet police’s investigations. They will almost certainly insist on detaining us all until they have discovered the guilty party, and God only knows how long that might take. We could be held on suspicion for months. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but my time happens to be extremely valuable. I work to a very tight schedule and I’ve got commitments back in England that I simply can’t afford to miss. The last thing I can contemplate is sitting locked up in some godforsaken prison while some Russian bobby decides which one of us to pin the crime on.’

  Desmond Withenshaw’s mode of expression might have verged on the pompous but his sentiments found an echo in many hearts. It seemed that everybody had pressing engagements back home in England and it was imperative that their sojourn in the Soviet Union should not last one second longer than the prescribed fourteen fabulous days. This consensus of opinion emerged with quite remarkable clarity and speed. Hard luck on Penelope Clough-Cooper and all that sort of thing but nobody – but, nobody! – had any intention of tangling with the Russian police on her behalf. No, thank you very much! If somebody was trying to murder Miss Clough-Cooper, Miss Clough-Cooper was just going to have to grin and bear it.

  A gleam came into the Hon. Con’s eyes. She leaned forward to give the disconsolate looking Miss Clough-Cooper another encouraging pat. Miss Clough-Cooper, taken by surprise no doubt, jerked her arm away as though she had been stung but the Hon. Con didn’t appear to notice. ‘You’re in luck, m’dear,’ she said with a grin. ‘It just so happens that I am not inexperienced when it comes to the successful investigation of murders. You ask old Bones, here! She’ll tell you how many times the police have come round, hammering at my door and begging me to …’

  We shall never know to what extent the Hon. Con was prepared to imperil her immortal soul (to say n
othing of Miss Jones’s) because it was at this precise moment that the hotel floor maid chose to fulfil Desmond Withenshaw’s predictions.

  The floor maid had been fast asleep, curled up on an old chaiselongue behind a screen, when Penelope Clough-Cooper’s blood-curdling screams had rent the night air of Alma Ata. The poor woman had exploded into wakefulness with all her worst fears about foreign tourists confirmed. As she fought her way out of the sheet in which she had been enfolded, she heard doors opening and voices raised in querulous complaint. Before she could get free she’d seen one of those accursed capitalist blood-suckers actually standing over her and shouting. She didn’t know what he was saying and she didn’t much care. She could recognise danger when she saw it. The man went away and the floor maid realised that the hotel corridor had emptied. It would appear that they had found the room of the screamer and entered it. Gradually the screams died down into heavy sobs.

  The floor maid seized her chance and made her get-away. There was only one thing to do with an emergency like this, and that was shove it onto somebody else’s shoulders as soon as possible. The Siberian prison camp, the floor maid reminded herself grimly as she headed for the stairs, was never nearer than when you’d got your quota of bedrooms full of double-crossing, double-dealing enemy agents from the accursed West.

  Unfortunately, this was an attitude of mind that others shared and none of the hotel’s administrative staff (including the statutory KGB man) seemed at all willing to help out and there was much metaphorical washing of hands and passing on of the baby. Eventually the hotel director’s wife came up with the solution. ‘Why don’t you let Ludmilla Stepanovna deal with it?’ she had asked and the entire Kazakhstan Hotel collective had sagged with relief. Of course! Why hadn’t they thought of Ludmilla Stepanovna before? Who better than the Intourist guide herself to deal with these bloody foreigners? They were all so delighted with the hotel director’s wife’s brilliant idea that they overlooked the fact that it was half past one in the morning and that Ludmilla Stepanovna lived right on the other side of the town. With the best will in the world, Ludmilla Stepanovna couldn’t get to the hotel in under three-quarters of an hour – and who said Ludmilla Stepanovna would have the best will in the world, anyhow?