The Ferry Godmother? (Bring Out Your Dead series - Part 17)

Continued from Episode 16 - 'Keeping A Lid On It'

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.  Josiah has learned that he cannot fly the remains back, much to his chagrin.  Chantelle has discovered that the body in the coffin is most certainly not Sir Lewisham but that of Frankie Knight, her 'sugar daddy' (who should have been in police custody and was due to be transferred back to the UK by Detectives Wood and Stone) and Archibald has found that the lid on the coffin won't screw shut properly.  Hope you've got all that, because we'll be asking questions later

 

Josiah was in a state of deep gloom.  He prided himself on being resourceful and inventive.  Indeed, this whole trip had been, in his estimation, a series of challenges which he had successfully overcome.  However, this latest setback had left him bereft of a solution.  To his horror, he realised that he would have to contemplate the distinctly unsavoury prospect of telling Lady Carnock that he was unable to bring her husband's body home from Spain in time for the interment.  Just the mere thought of having that conversation filled him with dread.  He was dragged from his contemplation by the sight of Archibald Thurble hurrying out of the Chapel of Rest.

“It’s all secure, Mr. O.” He grinned, “well, it’s as secure as I can get it, any road.  I ran into a bit of a mess”

"Mess?  You don’t mean the…?  She hasn't collapsed in there or anything, has she?"  Josiah's misgivings about leaving Chantelle with the body rushed to the fore.

"Who?" Archibald asked, puzzled.

"The young lady, Sir Lewisham's masseuse."

"Oh no.  She's all right.  She'd got her head laid on his chest when I went in."

"Had she indeed?"  Josiah was surprised, but everyone reacted to grief in different ways and, from the sound of it, she and Sir Lewisham had been, well, rather close.

"It's just something she used to do for him when he were alive" Archibald explained.  Josiah quietly thanked whichever gods were watching over him that she had restricted her activities to laying her head on his chest.

"So, what's the ‘mess?"

"Oh, well, it's them screws.  They don't seem to go in like they should."

"Really?” Josiah raised an eyebrow and thought for a moment, “Well, it is a Spanish coffin, perhaps they have different methods to our own.  Their ways are not our ways, Archibald.  You’ve been able to attach the lid, though?"

"Oh yeah, I think so.  It's just that it won't be all that…firm, you know?  Funnily enough, Miss Lace said the same as what you did.  She reckoned it might be to do with us having to go through Customs with it"

"She might well have a point” Josiah nodded, “I think we can rest assured that Sir Lewisham is not going anywhere in a hurry.  We will just have to manage, Archibald, as best we can.  For my part, I need to contact his relict"

"His what?"

"His widow, Lady Carnock" Josiah explained, "to tell her the bad news."

"Well, she knows he's dead," Archibald said, thoughtfully, "it was her what sent us out here in the first place"

"I mean that I need to tell her that we are unable to bring his remains home in time for the service, and probably for the foreseeable future"

Their conversation came to a grinding halt as they both observed the voluptuous figure of Chantelle Lace sashaying toward them.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Oakshott, for allowing me to spend a few moments with the deceased.  I'm most grateful."  She beamed at Joshua, which had an unsettling effect on his equilibrium, "If I can repay your kindness in any way…?"

Josiah was acutely aware that he could think of any number of ways, and found himself blushing deeply.  Archibald, for his part, had almost reached a catatonic state.

"Think nothing of it, dear lady" Josiah said, recovering his composure a little, "I regret that, short of being able to spirit Sir Lewisham's remains magically to the U.K., there is nothing you can do to help"

"Oh, what's the problem?"

"For reasons which would take too long, and be far too tedious, to relate, we find ourselves currently unable to fly the body home, as we had originally intended.  I am, therefore, at something of a loss as to what to do."  Josiah recounted, mournfully.

"That is a bit of a bind."  Chantelle agreed, "Have you thought about the ferry?"

"Ferry?"

"We've got ferries at the bottom of our garden" Archibald commented from somewhere, mentally, very far away.

"Archibald!" Josiah snapped, "Which ferry would this be, young lady?"

"I was thinking of the Santander to Portsmouth crossing.  It's quite a drive from here but it could be one solution?"  She smiled, brightly.

Josiah reacted as if he had just had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.

"That could be an answer."  He agreed, excitedly, "Time is not on our side, but it would be better than nothing.  How long would it take, to get to Santander from here?"

"Well, if we had a good run, maybe 8 or 9 hours or so?"  Chantelle mused, "Then the crossing is roughly 31 hours, give or take.  If we drove overnight, we could be there in time for tomorrow afternoon’s sailing.  Failing that, we would have to wait until Sunday"

"We?" Josiah asked, bemused.

"Sorry to be so presumptuous" Chantelle fluttered her eyelashes and blushed, prettily, "It's just that I've been planning to go back to England for some time.  I hate flying and I would really appreciate the opportunity of travelling with company, that is if you think you could make room for me?"  She linked arms with the two Undertakers and propelled them toward the adjacent hotel bar, "I think we could have quite an interesting journey, don't you?"  She grinned, broadly.

******

“Pretty little place” D.S. Stone remarked as their car hurtled along the coastal road into the heart of Castilliano de la Ribera, “Well, from what I can see of it that is, do we have to go this fast?”

“Got to make an entrance, Stoney” D.I. Wood answered, with a grin, “Want to show the local plod we mean business, now, don’t we?  Ah, there’s the lock-up”

To D.S. Stone’s chagrin, the car hurtled over to the other side of the road and made a high-speed u-turn, complete with screeching brakes and squeals of protest from the tyres, leaving the car at the kerbside, facing in the opposite direction.

“Right, I’ll go and get Frankie-boy, you park yourself in the back so that you can make sure he minds his Ps and Qs on the way to the airport.”

D.I. Wood bounded out of the car, much to the consternation of the oncoming traffic.  D.S. Stone reflected that he wouldn’t have been at all surprised if his boss had completed a Starsky & Hutch-type roll over the car bonnet.  He eased himself out of the passenger seat and stretched his weary legs.  Having spent the entire night in the car, he was glad to be out of the vehicle, no matter how briefly.  Behind, he could hear D.I. Wood furiously banging on the door of the Police Post but it was the scene to his left that caught his attention.

“Would you believe it, there’s no-one there!”  D.I. Wood shouted as he pounded back to the car.

“What do you make of this, sir?”  D.S. Stone nodded toward a table at the front of a hotel a few yards away.

“Make of what?” D.I. Wood snapped, irritably, as he fumbled for a cigarette.

“The party over there”

D.I. Wood followed his colleague’s gaze and saw, for the first time, a couple of familiar faces and one with which he would definitely like to get familiar.  At this point, Chantelle noticed the two men staring at her and beamed encouragingly in their direction.  D.S. Stone blushed deeply whilst D.I. Wood leered.

Now read Part 18