Holiday with Violence

Ellis Peters

Description

A quartet of traveling students stumbles into a deadly conspiracy

When the door opens, Signor Galassi flinches, fearing that someone has come to relieve him of the precious cargo he’s transporting back from France. But it’s only four harmless students on their way to an Italian vacation. Phyllida, Mab, Peter, and Punch have come from England in search of adventure—but they’ll find far more than they bargained for.
 
After crossing into Italy, the young travelers bid Galassi goodbye. But just as Phyllida is stepping off the train, she realizes she left her raincoat behind. Returning to the cabin, she finds Galassi limp on his seat, his skull fractured. Discovering who attacked the old man will draw these four friends into a deadly plot that could mean the end of their vacation, their friendships—even their lives. 
 

Sujets

• Mystery
• Italy
• Crime fiction
• Jewel Robbery

Informations

• Publié par: Open Road Media
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781480443877
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Holiday with Violence
Ellis Peters

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
CHAPTER ONE
INTERESTING JOURNEY OF THE FIRST-CLASS PASSENGER TO TURIN
(1)
The train came round the curve of the line just as the long, wavering fingers of the morning reached out from behind the eastern rocks. A reflected light flowed hesitantly over the upper edges of the great ridge which climbed, somewhere to the south, into the spear-guarded bowl of the Aiguilles d Arves; and the blue of the highest faces of rock flushed suddenly into iris, into rose, into liquid gold, one distant peak grasped firmly in the palm of the Midas-hand, and turned into a chrysolite, a coruscation of flame.
Peter, who had stumbled down the road to this early departure more asleep than awake, now became entirely and enthusiastically wakeful, and when he should have been scouting along the train for a vacant spot in the corridor, clawed out his camera and turned his back squarely on Italy in favour of the dawn on the Grande Chible. The other three, with rucksacks already hoisted on one shoulder, were snuffling along the track like hounds, even before the train had slowed. It looked worse than they had expected. Rows and rows of people standing in the corridors, heads nodding out like large, pale, heavy flowers in window-boxes, every doorway, as it opened, bulging and heaving softly with released humanity; but from all this convulsion of escape only one or two people descended.
We ll have to shove in anywhere, said Punch recklessly, and selected what he considered the least congested doorway, and heartily shoved. A babel of excited and inimical French broke over his head, but he was getting used to that; likewise, he no longer expected anyone to budge so much as an inch to let him in. They stood four-square, and one shoved. In this operation, and more particularly in hauling the girls aboard after him, a full-size ex-Commando rucksack was the best ally in the world. Where it passed painfully, Phyllida s slenderness could easily slither after, and Mab was only pocket size, and could practically wriggle in under the elbows of the enemy.
Punch hauled himself between the two plump women who stood in his way, and found a little more breathing space than he had expected. Ample for the four of them. He reached back for Phyllida s brown wrist, and pulled her up after him, and then leaned out for Mab; but she hung back at the last moment to look for Peter. She was always the one who did that, and it always infuriated the other two, who could never get ahead from one place to another fast enough to suit them, and resented having their progress checked by the brake of Peter s incalculable mental aberrations. Punch craned out from the doorway to look where Mab was looking, and there was the irresponsible child, straddling a luggage-trolley far up the long platform, with his camera glued to his eye, and far more interested in the jewelled mountain-tops than in the train to Turin.
Mab shouted, but she was not equipped for shouting against the formidable opposition of a French railway station, and her voice did not reach Peter. He completed his picture, turned his film, appeared to be considering more shots.
Come on! bellowed Punch, observing with misgivings a purposeful human tide which was sliding along the crowded train still questing for space, and washing every moment nearer to their coach.
He heard you, said Mab, rather reluctantly suffering herself to be drawn aboard. He waved!
Well, you get in, at any rate. He can take his chance.
He ll be all right, said Phyllida peacefully. He always is. Never knew anybody fall on his feet like Peter does, considering he never looks where he s going. She heaved a relaxing sigh, and eased her rucksack carefully down from her shoulder, smiling in brilliant but wordless apology upon a large Frenchwoman in a white hat, whose ample hip thrust back against the passing pressure viciously. Well, anyhow, we re in!
Peter arrived on the run, too late by some thirty seconds to find even a toehold beside them. The tide, thinning as it came, had lipped at their doorway just ahead of him, and all they saw of him was a sudden eruption of bright blond hair and an unabashed grin, visible momentarily beyond the heaving shoulders of an entire French family. He gestured forward, shouted something which was lost in the general din, and padded on up the line.
Mab was upset. After all, he was the youngest of the party, and it seemed unkind to let him pile in somewhere on his own. She wriggled arduously towards the doorway.
I ll go with him, and keep him company. She meant it sincerely, as she always meant everything she said, but it was quite beyond her power to carry it out, for a strong current was running against her, and the doorway was occupied by two square French sons hoisting their enormous mother aboard.
Like hell you will! said Punch, holding her back by the arm. Don t be such an ass! Once you got out of here you d never get in again. You stay where you are.
But Peter-! And he doesn t even speak French!
He doesn t need to, said Phyllida, without a trace of sisterly anxiety. I keep telling you - the luck always sticks to him like jam. Anyhow, when we stop at Modane there ll probably be a long wait, and we shall find him all right then.
It was reasonable to suppose that Phyllida knew her brother s capabilities, after observing them for seventeen years; but Mab was still uneasy. However, it was too late to do anything about it, for she felt the train already beginning to move again. The doors slammed. The station buildings, fawn and cement-grey as if for protective colouring among the bewildering planes of fawn and grey rocks which rose beyond, slipped slowly by, and dwindled into a single railing. The steel-blue roofs, the hard cream walls, the garden fences heavy with vines, the tall, slender, Italianate church tower, all the precarious Alpine artery of St. Michel-de-Maurienne narrowed and slid away behind.
Now all they could see from the window was a gaunt and stony river valley coiling alongside the track, its small flow of ice-blue mountain water strangled among piled rocks; and beyond it, the great, gaunt, sterile shelves of mountain climbing one beyond another out of sight, lightening from blue to paler blue in the distance, until they reached the direct transmuting sunlight, and became golden. Bonily beautiful, the Alps of Savoy folded themselves into the Alps of the frontier, straining towards Italy and the sun.
It grew warm very quickly in the crowded corridor, and everyone began to shed garments, stuffing the discarded wind-jackets and pullovers under the straps of rucksacks, since there was no elbow-room for packing and unpacking. Periodically, brave and impervious people made an infinitely slow way down the corridor to the end of the coach, stepping over children and luggage, undulating in and out of open doors, squeezing past fat women and emerging beyond them with almost audible pops. Inside the compartments French and Italian family parties had already begun to pack up the portable homes they had brought with them from Paris, the rolls of rugs, the little pillows, the baby s small string hammock for slinging between the luggage racks, the baskets of food and bottles of cider and wine. Mab could just see into the first carriage. The people there looked as if they had lived in it for three weeks rather than merely overnight, and had brought with them everything except the four-poster.
By the time they reached Modane the sun was well up, the sky brilliantly blue, and no cloud in sight. They drew rather suddenly alongside a very long white platform, heavily built over with official-looking sheds and offices, and already extremely populous. Small vociferous men in uniform dashed along the platform shouting unintelligibly, and as soon as the train stopped, every door was flung open, and hundreds of people began to pour out and add themselves to the hundreds already darting uneasily about on the concrete.
Going to be an empty train, said Phyllida, flattening herself into a doorway to let the whole population of the corridor flow by her. But her optimism was followed by a shadow of doubt. These people can t all live on the border. Punch, we don t have to change, do we? You said-
Not until Turin, said Punch very firmly. Besides, the people in the compartments aren t budging. But there s something fishy going on, all the same. Can you tell what he s shouting?
They all listened, but the peculiar shorthand of railway stations was too difficult for them to decipher, in French or in Italian. Punch leaned out of the window, and clutched at a passing porter; and having listened arduously and with a scowl of intense concentration, offered rather damp thanks, and turned glumly to hoist his rucksack.
Come on, we ve got to get out.
What, we have got to change, after all?
No, we have to find places in this train again afterwards - if there are any by then, he said dubiously. It s the Customs and passport control examination. All those who haven t got seats on the train have to clear the corridor, and go through the Customs sheds on the platform. The lucky devils with seats stay right where they are, and the blokes come to them.
Disgustedly but hastily they picked up their rucksacks and jumped down, to race along the platform and join the crowd already circling about the sheds. Phyllida, thrusting her wind-jacket under the straps, had almost dislodged the rolled-up fawn raincoat already buckled there, and when she began to run it uncoiled itself, and tried to trip her up. She tugged it clear, and continued to race after the others with the coat draped over her shoulder.
I bet Peter s right up in front of the queue, she cried as she ran.
But Peter was