The Package Included Murder Read Free

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?
    The hotel director resolutely put these quibbles right out of his mind and reached for the telephone. Provided he could raise the night operator, they were home and dry!

Chapter Two
    â€˜What happens, huh?’ Ludmilla Stepanovna who, in spite of a certain florid charm, looked as though she could spit nails, was a great one for asking questions. She was notably less able, though, when it came to listening to the answers but she recognised that this was no time to change one’s spots. She made a quick head count. Thirteen! That meant – slava borgu! – that nobody had escaped. She looked round the room. No signs of drinking or gambling. They must be having a protest meeting. Of all the cheek! The sooner Ludmilla Stepanovna put a stop to that kind of subversive nonsense, the better!
    Now, what was all this they were babbling about? Nightmare? Nightmare? What in the name of all the Supreme Soviet was a nightmare? Ludmilla Stepanovna scowled. Even the best linguists have their off days and for the moment she couldn’t for the life of her remember what a nightmare was. Not that she was going to let a little thing like that throw her.
    â€˜To your beds!’ she barked and then, recollecting that she was addressing her country’s honoured and paying guests, added in a slightly modified tone, ‘ Tomorrow is a hard day.’
    The windows stopped rattling.
    â€˜Er – yes,’ said Desmond Withenshaw, avoiding everybody’s eye. ‘Well, I don’t think there’s anything else we can do here, is there?’ He pushed his wife ahead of him. ‘Well,’ – he smiled ingratiatingly at Ludmilla Stepanovna – ‘ spakoyni nochi!’
    If he had addressed her in Swahili she couldn’t have displayed less comprehension, and Desmond Withenshaw took his departure in an embarrassed silence. The other Albatrossers didn’t linger. They trooped out of Penelope Clough-Cooper’s bedroom and tried to look as though the word ‘police’ had never quivered on anybody’s lip. Only the Hon. Con stood her ground.
    Ludmilla