Ocean Drive (Bring Out Your Dead series - Part 19)

Continued from Episode 18 - Watching The Detectives

The story so far (you can read from the start at 'Board Stiff!'):  Josiah and Archibald, our two Undertakers, are on a mission to Spain to collect the mortal remains of Sir Lewisham Carnock.  Although they now have their man (after quite a few distractions along the way) getting him back to the U.K. will involve a journey across Spain and a ferry from Santander.  Thankfully, they have Chantelle Lace to help them, although her motives are not entirely innocent.  Less happily, they have drawn the attention of Detectives Wood and Stone, who are convinced that no-one's motives are remotely innocent!  Now read on:

From their vantage point, in a side street just around the corner from the bar, Detectives Wood and Stone could, with a little difficulty, observe Josiah, Archibald and Chantelle at their table.  D.I. Wood, however, was engaged in an apparently heated telephone discussion as he paced up and down the pavement, cigarette in hand, whilst D.S. Stone peered through a miniature pair of binoculars hastily purchased from a beachwear store.  The car door swung open and D.I. Wood hurled himself back into the driving seat.

"Well, that's pissed on their strawberries!"  He said with some satisfaction.

"What?  Whose strawberries?"  D.S. Stone took a welcome break from the binoculars.

"The cop shop in Alicante.  Wouldn't have it that their boy wasn't manning the post, oh no!  Had to 'phone him, then try the radio, nothing doing, of course.  So, they're sending a bloke over with a key."

"What do you think has happened to him?"

"Well, there's two possibilities.  Either Frankie's done for him…"

"Would he do that?"

"No, it's not really his thing, to be honest, or Two, he's made it worthwhile for the local plod to do one"

"Bribed him, you mean? What with?"

"Well," D.I. Wood drew heavily on a cigarette, filling the small car with smoke, "We never found the proceeds of his last job, and that was a tidy sum.  He'd have had more than enough to tempt Senor Sunshine to take a sudden holiday, I reckon."

D.S. Stone resumed his observation with the cheap, plastic binoculars.  He definitely didn't think that the bright pink, heavily eye-lashed unicorns sporting all over them, really suited this sort of work.

"Looks like they're on the move, sir." He observed, "The tall dense one is getting into a sports car with Miss Lace"

"Miss Lace!" D.I. Wood mimicked scornfully, "don't give her airs and graces, she was plain Doreen Filbert before she came out here.  Right Stoney, the boss says, in the absence of Frankie, I've got to stick to her like a used condom"

"He never did!"

"Course he didn't, don't be so wet, but I knew what he meant.  So, Sonny Jim, you wait here ‘til that bloke from Alicante gets here with the key, and make damn sure you go over that place with a fine-tooth comb.  I'm not expecting to find Frankie sitting under a shelf somewhere but see if you can find anything that points to him being there at all…"

"Where are you going?"  D.S. Stone asked as he reluctantly stepped out of the car.

"Me? I'm following Doreen and Lurch there.  See you soon!"  The car hurtled to the junction and then smoothly joined the traffic, two cars behind Chantelle Lace's Mazda.

D.S. Stone watched the scene glumly and attempted to hide the pink binoculars in his jacket pocket, not entirely successfully.

******

"So…Archibald is it then?"

"Hmm?" Archibald had been taking in the coastal scenery, as best he could as the Mazda accelerated smoothly but insistently along the coast road. "What's that, Miss Lace?"

"I was saying" Chantelle shouted over the noise of wind and road, "what should I call you?"

"Oh, well, Mr. Oakshott calls me Archibald"

"I know he does.  Seems a bit formal though.  What do your friends call you?"

"Ah, well, I don't really have many…friends, I mean"

"Really? Why not?"

"Well, it's the job you see.  People think it's weird, dealing with dead people and that, all the time" Archibald said, glumly.

"Ha!  I'll bet they wouldn't say that if you were a famous detective"

"No, I'll bet they wouldn't" Archibald mused on this concept for a while, "Detective Inspector Thurble.  I reckon that sounds pretty good"  He grinned.

"I do too.  You couldn't be much worse than those two back at the bar.  How did you say you knew them?" Chantelle asked, innocently.

"Oh, well, they were on our flight out you see.  I'd been telling Mr. O., what me mam said about being an undertaker"

"What was that, then?"

"Well, she said there were two things you could be sure of in this world and that was death and taxis, only I'm not sure I've got that right, now I think about it"

"So, that's why you became an undertaker?  Because your mum wanted you to do it?"

"Yeah, I suppose so.  Plus, I wasn't much good at owt else"

"I don't understand how the defective detectives come in to this?"

"Oh, yeah, well I was telling Mr. O all about what me mam said, and I went back to listening to my music, on the headphones, like.  Then I realised Mr. O. was saying something to me, but I couldn't hear him, so I asked him to speak up, and he shouted 'WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE'.  That was just as the engines went a bit quiet."

"Ok" Chantelle responded, dubiously, "then what?"

"Well, it all went a bit bear-shaped.  It went really quiet for a bit, then lights and bells were going off all over the shop.  Next thing, Mr. O and me were asked to go and sit where the crew go, you know, back where the toilets are?  Then those detectives came to ask us some questions"

"Because Mr. Oakshott had said 'we're all going to die'?"

"Well, yelled it really.” Archibald nodded, noticing that Chantelle appeared to be stifling a giggle, “Yeah, they seemed to think we were terrorists.  Well, not the detectives, not really.  They thought it was just funny.  But, by then, the pilot had turned the plane round and landed at Paris."

Chantelle was desperately trying to contain the laughter welling up inside her.  Eventually, she gave up the unequal struggle and pulled the car in to the side of the road.

There’s something rather beguiling about watching anyone, and particularly a beautiful woman, abandon themselves to laughter.  Chantelle threw her head back, spluttered a little and then exploded into uproarious guffaws.  Every time the laughter seemed to have subsided, and she thought she had control of herself, it welled up in a procession of snorts and giggles and broke out once more.  Eventually, breathing heavily, wiping her eyes and exhausted by the effort, she subsided.   Archibald looked on with some concern.

"Oh, my god!" Chantelle exclaimed as she dabbed at her eyes and set about attempting to repair her make-up, "I've heard some stories in my time, but that just takes the cake."

"They were pretty good, really.  The detectives, that is.  Much better than them French shirty blokes.  Of course, they knew me and Mr. O. before that"

"Really?  How was that?"

"Well, I…" Archibald, for once, decided that discretion was the better part of valour, "I'll tell you about it some other time."

Neither of them noticed the car that slipped past, with an embarrassed D.I. Wood trying to shrink into his seat so as not to be conspicuous.  'If there's one thing you don't want to do, when tailing a suspect,' he reflected, 'it's to overtake the car concerned.'

******

Those enjoying a drink in the shade of the canopy at the front of the Hotel Ribera Playa, would have noticed a small car which didn't so much park in front of the hotel as ingratiate itself onto the pavement.  The car had a depressed look.  So had the occupants.

"Never again!"  Lawrence's forehead was pressed against the steering wheel and both of his hands were clamped tightly to it, in the recommended 'ten to two' position.

"I thought you did really well, sweetheart" Amber lied, encouragingly, "and look, here we are at the hotel."

"Thank god for that!  I don't think I could take much more"

"Now then, you're getting yourself in a state again.  We're here now.  Let's just get our things and find our room"

"Yes, you're right.  But, Amber…"

"Yes, darling?"

"There's just one thing."

"What's that, Lawrence?"

"I can't prise my hands off this steering wheel!"

Now read Part 20