Chapter 1: Welcome home 2
The trip had been a total disaster. Barret sat in his seat, squeezed between the portly German on the aisle and the talkative grandmother and wondered what obscure crime he might have committed in a previous life to deserve this.3
He had not wanted to make the trip at all. There had seemed little point, right from the beginning, in chasing off for a meeting in Istanbul on the off chance of gaining a new client. It was bad luck from the start that the telephone enquiry had come in at 7:30 am, before the secretaries were in, and even worse luck that his boss, who was responsible for new business, had fielded the call.4
When he protested that the company would not normally pay for a ticket to Turkey without something more tangible than a telephone call and a faxed street address, it had swiftly become a matter of principle. The only effect of his protests about the cost was that he had ended up flying economy and every possible disaster had overtaken him on the way. Held up in traffic, he had been forced to use the short term car park which would never get through on expenses.5
"I understand the problems with the roadworks, Tony, but you really have to allow sufficient time to get to the airport without a last minute panic. You know the rules as well as I do. Everyone except board members uses the Long Term parking."6
His bag lost on the way out, a flea pit of a hotel, and then his worst fears confirmed in the meeting. What had convinced Franklin that this might be a business opportunity was completely beyond him. The project plans were vague. A number of sites had been mentioned as possibilities for the proposed development but when he pressed his contact - an individual in his early thirties who would have seemed more at home in a gangster movie - it became clear that not even the most basic feasibility checks had been done.7
The Turkish share of the funding was uncertain - half a dozen banks mentioned, no hard evidence of interest from any of them - and each person he had met seemed more evasive than the last about definite plans or timescales. All in all, a complete waste of three days and when, at last, his luggage had been delivered to his hotel and the car had carried him to the airport, this hellish flight had been the final straw.8
To begin with, he was at the airport ridiculously early so that check-in had not opened and, although he was a silver card holder, he could not get into the lounge until he had checked in. So he found himself guarding a baggage trolley in the main hall of the airport. Then, when at last the flight opened, the check in clerk seemed to take an evil delight in the interrogation about the contents of his checked baggage.9
"Did you pack your bag yourself?"10
"Has the bag been out of your possession at any time?"11
"Any electrical or electronic equipment in the bag?"12
That was a bit rich, he thought, considering that he had not had access to the bag for most of his stay in Turkey; and that it had only been returned thanks to some nifty string pulling on the part of his hosts.13
When, at last, he had arrived upstairs in the executive lounge and stood looking through the tinted glass windows at the apron and runway, it had dawned on him that there was no Air France plane in sight. There was nothing on the board but, when he asked at the desk, he was casually informed that the aircraft had been held up in Paris by a go-slow and he could expect at least a two hour delay. Which duly turned out to be nearly three.14
"What about my connection in Paris?" he fumed at the unconcerned clerk.15
"I am very sorry sir, you will need to contact the transfer desk when you reach Paris. We have no information here in Istanbul. We are only the handling agents for Air France in this lounge."16
At last the flight was called and he found himself in a middle seat. This was ridiculous as he had been among the very first to check in but, in dealing with the checking in of his baggage he had forgotten to check his seat allocation and (with the cancellation of an earlier flight) the plane was now so full that there wasn't a vacant aisle seat to be seen.17
It was in Paris that he had been informed that there might still be a problem with his bags. He had, of course, missed the connection so that he had now to change terminals and no one was sure where his baggage might be. In fact, the ground staff had explicitly asked him to describe his bag - which he had thought highly unusual and unprofessional - but, after another two hour wait he was again on an aeroplane, again sitting in a middle seat with his shoulders hunched over to avoid contact with his neighbours and again watching the stewardesses in Club class handing out hot towels while he sat in the back imagining the letter he would write to the airline in the morning.18
"Cabin crew, Ten minutes to landing." At least he was in the short term car park, so he would not have to wait for the shuttle out to the perimeter parking.19
Off the plane and through immigration, he found the baggage conveyor and waited as the luggage from his flight began to emerge from the shute. Atypically, for this trip, it began to come out almost as he walked into the hall, so he grabbed a trolley and waited. It wasn't in the first pallet load, or the second and he watched as the crowd around the conveyor picked up their bags and left until he was the only person remaining as one last holdall went round and round on the carousel.20
"Damn!" he cursed, as he walked over to the baggage enquiries desk. A customs officer stood chatting to the girl on duty.21
"Excuse me," he interrupted "I have just come in from Paris and my bag doesn't seem to have arrived on the conveyor."22
The girl looked at him. "Ah yes." she checked a telex on her desk. "Would you be Mr Barrett?"23
"I'm Barrett, Yes." he replied.24
"Ah. Mr Barrett, this is Mr Turpin from customs. If you go along with him, he will be able to help you."25
"Surely it's the airline's responsibility to find my baggage." he protested.26
"If you'll just come with me," said the customs man, "I'm sure we can sort this all out."27
"Oh, very well." and he followed the officer round the corner and into a small closed room where another officer waited and, to his surprise, his bag lay on a table.28
"Is this your bag?" asked the customs officer.29
"Yes, it is."30
"Would you care to declare any of the contents?"31
"No. There's nothing in there to declare. The only things I bought in Turkey were a couple of shirts, socks and underpants because my bag was lost on the way out."32
"You're sure that is all you bought?"33
"Of course. Now, if you'll excuse me." he walked over to pick up the bag, but the customs man blocked his way.34
"I'm sorry, Mr Barrett, but I think that you will have to answer some quite serious questions about the contents of that bag before you can be permitted to leave."35
36Well. What do you think?37
What might be in the bag? How did it get there?38
Is there a connection with the mysterious contact in Turkey?39
Is Mr Franklin, Tony's boss involved?40
Is Tony himself as innocent as he would like us to think?41
Send me a chapter and let me add it to the story. We need some extra characters, I think, rather than too much clarification of the mystery at this point. Why don't you have a go?42
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