Stiffed! (Bring Out Your Dead series - Part 5)

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.  Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances, the airline believed they had made a threat to the security of the aircraft and deposited them in Paris, before proceeding on to Alicante. Amber and Lawrence Hamble, two other passenges of the ill-fated flight, have also taken the opportunity to disembark.  Josiah is now hoping that his fiancee, Samantha Knight, who is 'minding the shop' back in the UK, can find an alternative mode of transport for their onward journey:

On seeing his employer returning, Archibald beamed and raised the cup he was holding.

"I do like France, Mr. O.  Brilliant coffee this." He slurped appreciatively.

“I wish that Ms. Knight was as chipper as you evidently are!”  Josiah slumped down beside his employee.

“Not a happy chappie?”  Archibald surmised.

“That would be one way of putting it” Josiah sighed, and then, as his ‘phone was ringing, “Ah, one moment, this is she”

There was a good deal of frowning, nodding and statements like “I see” and “Quite!”, before the call terminated, apparently without any endearments.

"You may not be so chipper when I relate the content of my recent conversations with Ms. Knight, Archibald.  According to her enquiries, there are currently no carriers willing to offer us onward passage to Alicante, or anywhere else for that matter." Josiah sighed and put his head in his hands.

"You mean, we can't fly out of here?"

"That is the nub and the gist of the discussion I have had, Archibald, yes." Josiah’s muffled reply came from the dark recesses of his hands.

“What about them whizzy train things the French have got?  Tijivers or summat, aren’t they?”  Archibald suggested.

“You mean the TGV or Trains à Grande Vitesse?  Yes, you are indeed correct that the French excel with their high-speed rail network.  However, Ms. Knight was also following your train (if you will excuse the pun) of thought and made enquiries in that direction.  Apparently, the embargo that applies to our flying, also applies to the high-speed rail network, for the same security reasons” Josiah had the look of a recently kicked puppy.

"Oh well," Archibald responded, cheerfully, "could be worse, I suppose.  They're nice people, the French.  That bloke over there with the broom, he showed me where to get this coffee.  Couldn't have been more pleasant.  I'm not so sure about them shirty people though"

"Shirty people?  Oh, you mean the Sûreté.  I may have misinformed you there, Archibald.  I'm not sure that the French National Police are still called that, I was rather relying on my schoolboy French, which is somewhat out of date.  I think that we have the intervention of our own local police force, in the shape of Detective Inspector Wood, to thank for the French police not taking a much more punitive approach to our sudden arrival.”  Josiah frowned at Archibald, who focused on his coffee and tried to look innocent, “Nevertheless, we do find ourselves in something of a predicament, although Ms. Knight has been exceptionally resourceful and has managed to find us a mode of transport, albeit not an ideal mode, it has to be said" Josiah blushed a little, with embarrassment.

“What’s that then, Mr. O.?” Archibald asked, gulping the remains of his coffee.

****

"A bus?" Amber yelled.

"Do keep your voice down, dear, people are watching."  Lawrence looked around, agitatedly, "yes, there's a bus apparently.  It will cost us a bit extra, not as much, thankfully, as a high-speed rail ticket, but if you won't fly…"

"How long does it take?" Amber asked, with some suspicion.

****

“Ah, Ms. Knight has kindly sent our tickets via email” Josiah managed a weak smile as he opened up the attachments, and then sighed deeply, “it appears to take 23 hours or so.  Our service leaves tonight”

"23 hours? Strewth!  I think I'll go and get another coffee; do you want one?" Archibald eased himself from his seat.

"Thank you, Archibald, but I think I will decline your kind offer.  I doubt that my digestive system is currently equal to the task"

"Righty-ho, Mr. O." Archibald set off cheerfully, then turned back, "it's funny how they all talk so strange here, isn't it?  I had a job understanding the bloke what served my coffee, at first.  Sure you don’t want a drink or owt?”

Josiah shook his head, folded his arms and slumped back in his seat. ‘23 hours, on a bus!’ Josiah considered the prospect and whimpered slightly.

****

The bus, or Executive Coach to give it its proper title (although quite when an Executive had last travelled in it was open to some question) was parked in the dusty square of a small town high in the Spanish mountains.  Dawn was just beginning to make its presence felt, as the sun struggled to crest the peaks in the distance.  There was a nip in the air and the massed ranks of the bus passengers shivered a little as they queued for their coffee and pastries at the only café open in the little town.

Archibald was sitting on a low wall, happily licking an ice lolly and stretching his cramped legs.  Josiah concluded his earnest conversation with a couple of uniformed men and trudged back to his employee.

“Are you alright then, Mr. O.?”  Archibald enquired

“I have had better times, I must confess Archibald.”  Josiah admitted, gloomily.  “I appear to be covered in feathers, for one thing” He added, brushing ineffectually at his sleeves.

“Ah, that would be the chicken that woman had in a basket, what was sat next to you.” Archibald ventured, “I must admit, I was a bit envious when I saw that.  Nice to have a bit of variety, isn’t it?  I was stuck with that bloke next to me and he hasn’t said a word the whole journey.”

“I think, Archibald, if you reflect for a moment, the reason for his lack of communication may become apparent to you?”

“Well, he never said nothing, not even when I first sat down beside him.”  Archibald responded, indignantly.

Josiah sighed and sat down, heavily, beside his employee. 

“Perhaps we might usefully apply our intellect to this conundrum?”

“Eh?” Archibald responded, between licks at his lollipop.

“I am suggesting, Archibald, that with a little thought we might be able to answer your query.   Tell me, what reasons might you advance for your travelling companion’s total lack of communication?”

“Well…”  Archibald thought hard for a while, “perhaps he was shy?”

“That would be a possibility, Archibald.  However, did he, at any time, make eye contact or acknowledge your presence in any way at all?”

“No, no he didn’t.  In fact, he had his eyes shut for most of the time.”

“Can you, perhaps, advance another possibility?”

“He got on the bus in France,” Archibald replied, excitedly warming to his theme, “and we’re going to Spain.  So, perhaps he don’t speak English…being a continental, like.”

“That would, indeed, be another possibility, although, from my experience, our continental cousins seem to have a mastery of the English language that frequently escapes our native speakers” Josiah looked pointedly at Archibald.  “You said he had his eyes shut for most of the time?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“And why might that be, Archibald?  Could it, perhaps, have something to do with the fact that he was STONE DEAD?”  Josiah’s voice rose to a barely controlled scream at the end of the question.  Breathing deeply and exercising as much control as he could muster, he returned to his theme. “The Spanish Police, with whom I have just been discussing the matter, found the nature of our profession, coupled with your inability to spot a corpse sitting next to you, for some hours, both perplexing and highly amusing.”

“I don’t see how I was supposed to know” Archibald said, sulkily, “You don’t think, just because someone’s not talking to you, ‘Oh, so they’re brown bread then’, do you?”

“Brown bread?  Oh, I see, I take it you are making use of a particular form of argot, viz Cockney Rhyming Slang.  Well, no, I quite agree that silence on the part of a travelling companion should not inevitably presage that person’s demise, but I think, in this case, the person being in full rigor might have afforded a clue to you.”

“Don’t see why I’m always to blame!” Archibald muttered, sulkily.

“Well, perhaps you might like to explain to Ms. Knight, when next she communicates, why we have been yet further delayed, because that is not a conversation to which I am looking forward” Josiah snapped.

He looked at his watch and the slowly rising sun.  With a bit of luck, he consoled himself, it would be a few hours yet before he would have to cross that particular Rubicon.

Now read on in Part 6