Six Pack of Sleuths: Comedy Mysteries

by Barbara Silkstone

  She hugged me tight, her long, almost black hair sweeping over my shoulder. She could read my mind. We were so close that she knew how anxious I was feeling about the wedding and the move here. Yes, what I needed to do tomorrow was just relax with my friends and look forward to a glorious day. Especially the cocktail part.

  Everyone milled out, and I turned to Kalem in the now silent room. Slowly, he traced my cheek with one finger, sending a shockwave of pulses shooting in all directions.

  He leaned forward, brushing my ear with his lips.

  Oooh, goosebump alert!

  ‘So, do you fancy some chocolate?’ He dropped his voice to a whisper.

  Well, if the tingling sensation down below was anything to go on, then HELL, YEAH!

  I yanked the burka over my head, revealing some new Victoria’s Secret red, lacy underwear, which, according to the description, were the number one bestseller in their Minx range. Grrrrrrr, baby. Here I come!

  I quickly fumbled with the buttons on his pert-arse-hugging jeans and pulled his black T-shirt over his head.

  ‘Stay right there.’ Kalem gave me a sexy, lopsided grin and strode to his hand luggage, rummaging around with purpose. ‘No!’ His eyelids flew open. ‘The chocolate body paint has leaked out of the tub. The inside of my rucksack is covered with brown goo. I bet that customs guy didn’t put the lid back on properly.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘That bloody Dick Head! Ruining my Minx moment!’ I huffed.

  Kalem’s eyes suddenly lit up. ‘OK, plan B.’ He held a finger in the air, then hurried towards my suitcase. ‘I planted a tub of tutti fruiti body paint at the bottom of your suitcase without you noticing. Kind of an extra wedding pressie for you.’

  ‘Oh, goody.’ I sashayed to the bed, beckoning him towards me. ‘You’ve been a very bad boy. You haven’t been getting your five fruit and veg a day.’ I winked at him and struck a pose on the bed. Think coy with a hint of raunchy, and you’d get the picture. ‘I’ll give you some tutti fruiti, and you can give me some veg,’ I drawled, giggling.

  Kalem’s brown eyes darted between me and the suitcase, as he fumbled impatiently to get the key in the lock.

  ‘You need to have a complete body exam by Nurse Fruity.’ I slowly undid my bra, getting into my minxy role-play.

  Kalem roughly tried to thrust the key into the lock. ‘I can’t get it in!’

  ‘Nurse Fruity wants you to get it in!’ I cried, swinging my bra around, à la sexy stripper.

  With a final shove, the lock popped open.

  Kalem opened the case and all the blood drained from his face. ‘What the…’ He stared at the inside of the case and gulped.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I frowned.

  ‘This isn’t your case.’

  I shot off the bed. ‘It has to be. It looks exactly the same,’ I wailed, clipping my bra back on and pulling out men’s trousers, toiletries, and shoes from the half-empty case. ‘No, no, no!’ I kind of freaked at that point and words came out in an explosion. ‘Shit. Where’s my wedding dress. Fuck. What am I going to do? Bollocks. Whose case is this? Double fuck. My perfect wedding will be ruined.’

  Kalem stood there, thinking. ‘It must’ve happened when you got jumped by the dog.’

  I tried to engage my rational-thinking brain from my freaking-out brain, so I could picture the events that had happened in my head like an action replay. I’d been standing next to Ferret Face. We both grabbed our suitcases at around the same time. The dog jumped me and I fell on the floor on top of Ferret Face. The dog stole my sandwiches and ran off. Ferret Face and I dusted ourselves off. We both grabbed our cases and walked to the exit. Ferret Face tried to say something. Kalem and I were stopped by the customs man. Ferret Face scurried away. Ferret Face followed us. Ferret Face got stuck behind the car park barrier.

  ‘Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!’ I flopped my head forward, tugging at my roots.

  ‘Maybe that guy took your case back to the airport when he realized he had the wrong one.’ Kalem stroked my hair. ‘I’ll give them a ring and see if it’s there.’

  I sat on the edge of the bed in slow motion and stared at a pair of tartan Speedos in the case until my eyes watered.

  ‘Helen, say something.’

  ‘Nothing is going to ruin my perfect wedding. Nothing is going to ruin my perfect wedding,’ I squeaked out my mantra.

  ‘It will be OK in the end. Your case is probably already in lost luggage waiting for you.’ He snatched up the phone by the bed, his forefinger jabbing at the buttons. He fired out rapid Turkish to the receptionist. ‘She’s putting me through to the airport.’ He grabbed hold of my hand, giving it a quick squeeze.

  More rapid Turkish and a few heated hand gestures.

  ‘What did they say?’ I said before he’d even replaced the receiver.

  ‘The lost luggage department is closed for the night. I have to ring back in the morning.’

  I lifted my head, tears bouncing down my cheeks. I needed my wedding dress to have my perfect wedding. Not only because it was the absolutely perfect dress, but because it had my nan’s lucky gold heart charm stitched inside the hem. It had been in the family a long time – passed down from her grandmother to her, she’d pressed it in my hand and made me promise to have it with me on my wedding day to let me know she would be thinking of me from up in that old retirement home in the sky. It was the something old I needed for my wedding day. Maybe it was stupid superstitious nonsense, but if I didn’t get the dress and the charm back, I knew, I just knew, that our marriage would be cursed with bad luck.

  I had to get that dress back if it was the last thing I did.

  Chapter 4

  I tossed and turned that night, bouncing around on the bed like a Li-lo lost at sea.

  I barely slept, and when I did, I had really freaky dreams. At one point, I was walking up the aisle dressed in a woolly sheep suit, complete with hooves and everything. And I had a diamante tiara resting between my furry ears. I couldn’t quite get the hooves to fit in my strappy cream high heels, so they kept falling off. All the guests were trying to shout something to me, but I couldn’t work out what they were saying. Their mouths opened and closed in slow motion, like goldfish. Anyway, when I got to the altar, Kalem wasn’t there. The groom turned around to face me, and it was a giant ferret.

  When the Mediterranean sunlight filtered through the curtains at 5.30 the next morning I woke up in a cold sweat with a feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

  I lay in bed, on top of the gold satin sheets with my head resting on Kalem’s chest, still staring at the bloody suitcase, my mind going over and over what happened at the airport.

  Because now I had a really horrible feeling.

  ‘You can’t ring the airport.’ My voice came out a hoarse crackle.

  ‘What? Why not?’ Kalem opened a sleepy eye and looked at me like I’d completely lost any marbles that I actually had left in the first place.

  ‘Because Ferret Face knew I had his case.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Yes, he knew I had it. That’s why he tried to chase after us, but I just didn’t realize that’s what he was doing at the time. Don’t you remember? When the customs guy stopped us, he ran away. Then later, when we were driving out of the airport, Ferret Face was following us. I think he wanted to find out where we were going so he could get his case back without drawing attention to it. And also, when I picked up that case, it felt like the same weight as mine, and I packed enough clothes and toiletries to stock a small department store. But the weird thing is that it looks like there’s hardly anything inside it.’

  And then I had two horrific thoughts: 1) This was going to ruin my perfect wedding; and 2) Apart from some very unflattering tartan Speedos, what the hell was in that case?

  I slid from the bed and towered over the suitcase. It looked fairly normal and suitcaseyish.

  I sat on the floor and pulled out the contents until everything was lying around me. Black trainers – slightly scuffed. Thre
e pairs of black trousers. A selection of Speedos in tartan, purple, white – does anyone actually wear white Speedos? What about when they got wet? It didn’t bear thinking about. A black baseball cap. Five pairs of new, black boxer shorts, still in their packets – at least I didn’t have to finger any used ones. A weird, black thing that looked like some sort of money belt, but wasn’t. It had a soft pad in the centre, with an adjustable strap either side. A small toiletry bag, containing shaving gel, a razor, a pair of scissors, deodorant, and a toothbrush. Six black T-shirts. And that was it.

  So why was it really heavy?

  Kalem swung his legs over the bed and sat up as I picked through everything again, inspecting them for hidden items. The inside of the baseball cap had a zip in it. I undid it and looked inside.

  ‘What’s this?’ I probed my finger in and pulled out a piece of soft, lightweight black cotton material. Then my jaw dropped as I unravelled it. ‘It’s a balaclava! Why would someone need a balaclava in ninety degree heat?’

  Kalem fiddled with the money belt thingy. ‘This is a shoulder pad.’

  ‘Weird looking shoulder pad. It doesn’t look anything like the ones they used to have in the Eighties.’

  ‘No, it’s not a shoulder pad for clothes. It’s a shoulder pad to use when you’re shooting a gun.’ Kalem tried it on, fixing it over his shoulder and strapping it around his chest to show me.

  There could be only one reason why someone wanted a shoulder pad for a gun. They were intending to shoot something. Or someone.

  We stared at each other, wide-eyed.

  Kalem picked up the now empty case. ‘It’s still heavy. There must be some kind of secret compartment in it.’ He set it down on the floor and knelt down, feeling along the sides and the bottom of the case.

  I sat forward and peered over his shoulder. Then I heard a click, and the bottom of the suitcase unclipped from a section underneath it.

  Kalem threw the false bottom panel to the side to reveal what was hidden there.

  A sheet of what looked like some sort of carbon paper hid whatever was below it.

  ‘What’s that for?’ I asked as Kalem lifted off the paper.

  ‘Probably so the X-ray machine at the airport couldn’t detect what was hidden inside it.’

  And that’s when I knew we were really in trouble.

  We stared at wads and wads of cash, packed into tight bundles.

  I pulled one out and examined it. ‘They’re all one hundred dollar notes. What the hell is going on?’ I pulled out more bundles until they were all on the floor around us. ‘And what’s this?’ I reached into the case. Under the wads was a large, folded up piece of paper covered in scribbly writing.

  I unfolded it and spread it across the floor, the paper crackling in my fingertips. Folded inside was a bigger piece of paper with lots of writing and diagrams on it.

  Kalem examined the bigger piece while I tried to decipher the writing on the other one.

  ‘This is a building engineer’s floor plan of the Plaza Hotel,’ Kalem said.

  ‘Well this is an itinerary of events that will happen on the day of the official opening of the hotel on Friday.’ I turned it over and read the back. ‘It’s also got details of the Cleopatra sculpture and directions to an art dealer across the border in South Cyprus.’ I sat back on my heels and fanned at my flushed face, feeling light headed.

  Kalem reached into the case again and pulled out the only remaining item. A black and white picture of Ibrahim Kaya.

  ‘How much money is here? Count them,’ I said, flicking through the wads.

  We did. All five hundred thousand dollars of them.

  We looked at each other. Kalem’s face mirrored my own panic.

  My brain was having a hard time trying to take it all in. This couldn’t be real. It had to be a joke. Maybe Ayshe and Charlie were trying to play a pre-wedding trick on us. Instead of filling our bed with Cornflakes or whatever, they’d planted fake money in my suitcase and replaced all my clothes and my wedding dress with men’s clothes. I bet they were having a good old laugh in their rooms right about now. But hang on…they weren’t with us at the airport. They couldn’t have known I would accidentally pick up Ferret Face’s case. OK, so if it wasn’t a joke, maybe I was dehydrated and starting to have a heat stroke induced delirium. Yes, that was it. Or maybe I had a serious illness. Maybe I was feverish and hallucinating. That would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?

  I wiped a bead of sweat from my upper lip and stared at the contents of the case, hoping they’d vanish into thin air. Nope, they were still there. I wasn’t hallucinating.

  We fell silent for a few minutes, trying to absorb the extent of the situation. Based on everything we’d found, a horrifying conclusion was floating around in my head. A shoulder pad for a gun; the money; the floor plans, and the details of the sculpture and art dealer. It could only add up to one thing.

  ‘It looks like Ferret Face is going to steal the sculpture on the opening night. But why is there a picture of Ibrahim Kaya?’ I asked the question, but I didn’t really want to hear the answer. I could already guess why.

  ‘I think he’s going to assassinate Ibrahim Kaya at the same time.’ Kalem’s eyebrows rose half an inch. ‘Trying to kill someone is bad enough, but stealing the sculpture as well!’

  ‘I told you it had a curse. And now it’s cursed us.’ I exhaled a slow breath. ‘OK, we’ll just take it all to the police and let them deal with it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I gave him a vigorous nod. ‘And then we have to get them to find my suitcase and, more importantly, my wedding dress.’ I sighed. ‘But I love my wedding dress! What if I never see it again?’

  ‘You will. Don’t worry. The police will find your case and get your wedding dress back.’ He kissed my eyelids, his lips brushing gently against that soft spot – yes, right there – that made my insides turn squishy.

  Ooh, hello! No, I couldn’t be thinking about sex at a time like this. After we’d sorted this mess out today, then I could think about it. Quite a lot.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘We’ll just take everything to the police, and they can sort it out. That’s their job. And as long as we never bump into Ferret Face again, we’ll be OK.’ I paused, having a sudden mental brain shriek. ‘Although…it’s a pretty small island. What if we do bump into him somewhere?’

  ‘Well, you’ll be OK. You were wearing a Burka, so he doesn’t even know what you look like. But he’d probably recognize me again.’

  I gripped Kalem’s hand. ‘You won’t be able to leave the house for years! You’ll have to hibernate.’ I pondered this. ‘Or we could just move back to the UK. You know, not even live here like we planned.’ This option was becoming more and more appealing to me at that very second.

  My mental list of bad things about moving here was rapidly increasing:

  1) Crazy extended family.

  2) Involved in assassination and art heist. (Note to self: could possibly end up killed ourselves by psychopathic killers.)

  3) We were now cursed by Queen Cleopatra.

  I thought the bad things were seriously outweighing the good at this point.

  Kalem thought about this for a while. ‘No, hang on a minute. We can’t take it to the police.’

  ‘What do you mean? Why not?’ I whined, struggling to digest what he was saying. I didn’t want to get caught up in this. Well, I wouldn’t mind keeping the money. I was only human after all, but no…I definitely didn’t want to get caught up in anything that involved blowing people’s brains out or stealing a priceless and annoyingly cursed sculpture. ‘Of course we have to.’

  ‘This is obviously a professional job. You don’t travel with five hundred grand in your suitcase, unless you’re trying to launder money.’

  Well, yes, I got his point. You could hardly just pop into the bank and pay it in or transfer it electronically if you were into criminal dealings. They asked all sorts of questions these days. I could just imagine it…

 
Bank Manager: Where did you get this five hundred thousand dollars from, Miss Grey?

  Me: Er…I sold my house.

  Bank Manager: Really? You don’t own a house. (Narrowing his eyes at me)

  Me: Well, my friend sold her house and gave me the money.

  Bank Manager: Hmm. Why did she do that?

  Me: Because… (Thinking of some distraction quickly)

  Bank Manager: Are you money laundering?

  Me: Oh, look at that plane up there with no wings. (Pointing to sky outside the window and running away)

  ‘If someone wants to assassinate the country’s most famous businessman and steal a five million pound sculpture, then they’re probably going to need a bit of help,’ Kalem said. ‘You don’t know who’s involved in it all. North Cyprus has a small population, and therefore a small police force. It’s possible that a bad apple in the police force could be involved in all of this somehow. If we pick the wrong apple, we could be in trouble.’

  I tried to swallow, but my throat felt like I had a porcupine lodged in it. I silently debated this. ‘So, you’re saying that we need to go higher up than the police?’

  Kalem nodded. ‘I’d prefer to go straight to the top. I think we need to go to the President, just to be on the safe side. Now we know about this, it involves our safety as well.’ He leaped out of bed. ‘Although I doubt if we can just barge into his office. I’ll ring and try to get an appointment or something.’ He reached for the phone.

  Kalem was passed from one government department to another and left hanging in a telephonic abyss for what seemed like an hour. When he finally got through to the President’s Office, I’d paced up and down the room at high speed enough to wear a groove in the floor.

  ‘We’ve got an appointment to see the President’s Secretary at two o’clock this afternoon.’