Tourists Are for Trapping

by Marian Babson

  “Here we are, folks.” The professor gave the effect of introducing me with a fanfare. “We’re all set now. Here’s Douggie to take care of us.” I wondered again if he was the professor—or possibly some professional compere from American radio or television.

  Eleven expressionless faces turned toward me. Eleven pairs of eyes stared blankly, almost with hostility, before the smooth practiced expressions of welcome slid over their faces.

  “How do you do” … “Pleased to meet you” … “Hi” … the greetings mingled indistinguishably.

  “Douggie, this is”—he waved a hand toward each of the group in turn—“Paula, Donna, Billie Mae, Winnie, Hortense, Horace, Sandra, John, Marie, Ben, Tony, and”—he beamed at me—“I’m Tris.”

  The bleak foreboding that had brushed against me when Neil pinned the courier’s badge on me now settled down over me like a damp fog. It was going to be one of those days. Not a surname amongst them. I might have known it. Of course, they’d sort themselves out as the day wore on, but that wasn’t much help at the moment. At least one thing was clear: I was right about the professor. There couldn’t be two people named Tristan in Tour 79.

  They began standing up, drawing their coats around them in restless, expectant movements. They threw anxious little sidelong glances at me, waiting for me to take the lead. If only I could figure out what to do with them, I would. I mentally damned Neil thoroughly. Chat them up, he’d said. For an hour or so, until we get there.

  In the first place, with the exception of Professor Tablor, they didn’t seem to be the chatting kind. Apart from that, there was something vaguely wrong. My subconscious was giving out desperate signals, nearly swamped by the more immediate problem occupying the forefront of my brain. Like, what can I do with these characters for a whole hour, maybe more?

  Somewhere amongst them, a stomach rumbled, and I had a sudden brainwave. “Have you eaten?” I asked. “Have you had yourselves a real, proper English breakfast yet?”

  Several faces brightened hopefully, and I realised I was onto a good wicket. It’s that five-hour time difference. Travel, say what you like, is tiring, anyway. So they adjust fairly rapidly—or think they do—to going to bed earlier, and the brightness of the day wakes them—or rather, reconciles them to the hour they’re getting up. But that time clock in their middle can’t be stilled so easily—it insists they’re not hungry when a heavy meal is put in front of them, and it wakes them in the small hours to tell them they’re starving. It doesn’t take everyone the same way, of course. But in a group this size, you’re bound to find someone ready to eat at any time.

  “We had just a Continental breakfast at the airport,” Professor Tablor said. “And that was hours ago—we left so early. I guess we could just about manage to force down some nourishment along about now, eh, folks?”

  “Folks” murmured agreement, showing more animation than I had yet seen. I began moving them toward the hotel dining room: it was the easiest and nearest eating place.

  I stood in the doorway and automatically counted heads as they filed past me into the dining room and sorted themselves out into three companionable little parties of four. I looked at them, and a warning bell rang again. I checked the list on my clipboard, then went over to Professor Tablor’s table. He seemed to be spokesman for the group, whether self-appointed or nominated by mutual consent, I didn’t know.

  “Aren’t we missing someone?” I asked him. “According to my information”—I brandished the clipboard—“there should be another lady on this tour.”

  They looked at me blankly for a moment, and I had the sudden dread that I had put my foot in it. All four feet, in fact. Or someone at Neil’s office had. Was it possible that the name of the dead woman had not been crossed off my list?

  “Oh, you must mean Angie Hunt.” It could only be one of the schoolteachers who spoke. A thin, not unpretty woman, with a strained look and a Midwestern twang in her voice. The taut faces of the others relaxed, the spectre at the feast dissolved. “It’s all right. Angie has relatives here. She’s gone to visit them.”

  “That’s right,” Tristan Tablor confirmed. “She has cousins in Edinburgh. She thought she’d like to spend this extra week with them, while the rest of us explore London, then join us again for the British Isles leg of the tour, as originally planned. As soon as we got into town, she went straight to King’s Cross Station to catch the train. I put her into the taxi myself.”

  “That’s right,” the schoolteacher said, a bit defensively. “We thought it would be the best thing for her.”

  “Yes,” Tristan Tablor sighed. “We didn’t even try to persuade her to stay with us. We thought she’d be better off with her own people, under the circumstances. She was pretty upset. After all, she shared a room on the tour with Carrie … but she’d gone off by herself on a twenty-four-hour side trip that day. I suppose she thought, if she’d been there, she might have done something … helped … or it might not have happened at all. Nonsense, of course. Che sarà, sarà, as they said in Italy when Ben dropped his camera from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.” (But his face didn’t match the attempted lightness of his tone.) “Nobody could have stopped or changed what was going to happen. But Angie took it pretty hard, just the same.”

  “I see.” I wished I’d never brought the subject up. The two women at the table and the dark, swarthy man looked bitterly uncomfortable. We were getting side glances from the other tables, too, as though the others sensed that the conversation had taken a forbidden turning. I put on a bright, false smile for their benefit.

  “Well, now”—I raised my voice as a waiter sauntered within range—“shall we order now? A real Olde Englishe breakfast. Bacon and eggs? Porridge? Kippers?” With relief I watched them reach for the menus and begin to debate the choices.

  “Aren’t you going to join us?” Professor Tablor asked. “I’m sure there’s room for another chair at this table, if we all just move a little—” The others began hitching their chairs closer, making room for me.

  “No, no, thank you,” I said quickly. “That is, I’d love to. But I have a telephone call to make first. I’ll join you as soon as I can. You go ahead and order. Don’t wait for me.”

  I had a quiet cigarette in a deserted corner of the lobby and bribed a waiter to bring me a cup of coffee. Just to make an honest English gentleman of myself, I even stepped into the converted eighteenth-century sedan chair, which served as a telephone booth these days, and having bumped my head before getting the range of the ceiling, tried ringing the office. There was no answer. Gerry must still be out, and it was too early for Penny to have arrived to take up her secretarial duties. If only Pandora could be trained to answer the phone and take messages …

  I had another cigarette and tried to persuade myself that no one would notice if I didn’t appear for another half-hour. I didn’t succeed, but I had an idea for relieving some of the strain. I went over to the newsstand and bought a well-assorted dozen morning newspapers, then returned to the dining room.

  “Here we are,” I said merrily, feeling like a Butlin redcoat of the early period, “your morning paper.” I dealt them out, with fine impartiality, but made sure that no table got a duplicate. “You can’t have a genuine English breakfast without a genuine English morning paper to read over it.”

  They caught at the papers thankfully, whether because they were starved for English-language news, or because they were prepared to enjoy the novelty— any novelty. Or perhaps—I tried to brush the thought away—because it saved them any further need to try to make conversation amongst themselves. From what I’d seen, as I came in, they’d been making heavy weather of it. Those who were trying at all, that is.

  As they read, they cast curious glances at their neighbours’ choices. It was one of those mornings when no major news was breaking, so each paper had opted for headlines featuring its own favourite trivia. It was enough to make any reader, let alone an unsuspecting tourist, wonder whether these papers we
re published in the same city.

  I glanced over a shoulder at an inside page myself for a moment, my eye lighting on a critic’s review of a night-club performer. The critic opined that the singer was showing signs of maturity in his hoarseness—which was one of the least-actionable ways of insinuating “whiskey voice” that I had seen in a long time. Other than that, the paper looked fairly dull. The tourists, however, were lapping up the newsprint, even though the finer points of what they were reading were bound to escape them. If you’re not born endowed with native cunning, it can take years to realise that “a man is helping the police with their enquiries” means “we think we’ve got the bleeder, boys.” Or that “foul play is not suspected” is likely to indicate accident or suicide.

  I decided not to enlighten them; they were doing fine by themselves now, reading out choice snippets of quaintness to each other. Those newspapers had certainly broken the ice. Leaving me with just one question. In a group that had been together for three solid weeks, why was there any ice that still needed breaking?

  Anyway, they were looking slightly happier now. Except, that is, for the ones who had ordered bacon. I should have remembered to warn them. Americans are accustomed to bacon sliced to paper thinness, “peeled,” and crisped just this side of charring. To them, our thick slices, with the rind still on, warmed nearly to translucency in a frying pan, looked like slabs of uncooked unfamiliar meat.

  They obviously felt rather like their fellow American who, when served with a blood-rare steak, remarked, “Hell, I’ve seen cows hurt worse than this get up and walk away.” Maybe they didn’t exactly expect the bacon to walk away, but it looked as though it might still have a few protesting “Oinks” left in it if they were rash enough to stab it with a fork. A grim certainty of trichinosis lurked in the dark corners of their minds.

  I consoled myself with the thought that they had seemed to enjoy the eggs and had had enough sustenance to last them through until lunch. At which time, I must remember to warn them against the worst pitfalls of the menu. None of them looked hardy enough to face a trifle—at least, not the first day in England.

  Meanwhile, I avoided the limpid, accusing eyes and glanced around the dining room. Which meant I was the first to spot the gleam of the silver lark on the collar of the slim girl in the doorway. Across the room, I could see the deep blue of her eyes, the pale porcelain of her skin, and the black Celtic drift of hair.

  I rubbed my sleeve quickly over the silver of my own badge. This was a colleague to be proud of—and to claim as swiftly as possible. I started across the room toward her.

  But Neil appeared in the doorway behind her. The possessiveness of his hand sliding along her arm told its story and made me remember the special quality in his voice when he mentioned “Kate.”

  Ah, well, I sighed, and continued walking toward them, you can’t win ’em all.

  “… not one bloody word—” Neil broke off abruptly as I came up to them. “Here’s Doug.” A bright, unlikely smile lit his face. “I’ve told you about Doug. Doug, this is Kate. She usually works in the office, but she’s stepping in as courier for this tour.”

  “Wonderful.” I held out a hand to her. “Welcome aboard.” With my other hand, I palmed my own badge and slipped it into my pocket. “Come over and I’ll introduce you. Unless”—I glanced at Neil—“you want to do the honours.”

  “No, no, you go ahead.” Still smiling improbably, Neil began backing away. “I have to get back to the office. I’m expecting an important telephone call. From Zurich. Any minute.”

  The gentleman was protesting too much. I raised an eyebrow at him, but he was immune to such subtleties. “You take care of Kate, Doug,” he said, trustingly consigning her to me. “Fill her in on the details. I have to dash off now. I’ll catch you up later—somewhere along the way. Jim is outside with the minibus—I’ve given him the route—I’ll catch you up. After I’ve got that call through.”

  He beamed that bright, unbelievable smile at us again and backed through the doorway, leaving us grimacing uncertainly at each other.

  “How do you do,” she said, extending a tentative hand in my direction. “I’m Kathryn Lamb—of Larkin’s Luxury Tours.” (Just in case I had had any doubts about it.)

  “How do you do.” I took her hand, equally formal. “I’m Douglas Perkins, of Perkins and Tate (Public Relations) Limited.”

  That much established, we stood staring at each other in a friendly but impersonal manner. Something had to give, and it seemed to be up to me. “Would you like to meet the tour?” I suggested.

  “Yes, please.” I noted that she had a clipboard and sheaf of papers similar to mine. It might be instructive, sometime, to compare notes and make sure that they were the same.

  “This way then.” She seemed to draw upon inner reserves as we crossed the dining room, so that she was erect and confident as we approached the set of tables belonging to Tour 79.

  Professor Tablor, as might have been expected, was. the first to leap to his feet as we approached them.“We are honored! Honored, indeed, ma’am,” he exclaimed, groping for Kate’s hand. “Why, when we said goodbye to our pretty little Miss Margie in Zurich, we never thought we’d have such luck again. It certainly pays to travel with Larkin’s Luxury Tours.” His eyes rested greedily on her silver badge, and the territory surrounding it. “And your name is—?”

  “Kate—Kathryn Lamb,” she supplied, before I could say anything.

  “Miss Katie,” Professor Tablor said appreciatively, sliding an arm around her shoulders. “We just know you’re going to take as good care of us here in England as our precious little Miss Margie did on the Continent.”

  (We all accepted the spirit of that remark and ignored the fact that a member of the tour had died, despite Miss Margie’s good care.)

  “Are we ready to leave?” Kate asked crisply. “The bus is waiting outside for the City of London Tour.”

  Chapter 3

  As they sorted themselves into seats in the minibus, the people of Tour 79 began to assume personalities. Kate stood by the door and ticked them off on her list as they boarded. I looked over her shoulder, matching the names to the passengers.

  Paula Drayton and Donna Bately were mother and daughter, with a restless, disturbing aura about them that made me uneasy. Paula was an improbably glossy blonde, a divorcée—and not for the first time, judging from the fact that her daughter bore a different surname. They chose the front seat behind the driver.

  The opposite front seat was immediately bagged by a gangling male adolescent—a situation accepted with obvious lack of enthusiasm by his mother. Mrs. Hortense Rogers, widow, and her son, Horace—that made two more Kate ticked off and I matched to the names on my list. The glamorous Mrs. Drayton and the small, slightly dumpy Mrs. Rogers smiled at each other across the aisle with patently false friendliness, and each mother made certain her teenager was firmly tucked into the window seat. That was fine. A Romeo-and-Juliet situation must have been all that Tour 79 lacked. No wonder so many were looking so worn.

  The schoolteacher who had accounted for the missing tourist slid into the seat behind Donna. Her companion followed her, sitting behind Paula. That checked out Billie Mae Morgan and Winnie Holman.

  “We’ll have to do something about them,” Kate murmured to me. “They weren’t supposed to come to England at all. They’re scheduled to fly back to the States at the end of the week. They were supposed to be in Paris this week.”

  We both looked at the schoolteachers, but they were settled into their seats with blank, expressionless faces. It was impossible to tell whether they resented the change in plans. Just in case, I’d get in a bit of extra PR work there.

  The elderly couple introduced as John and Sandra took the-seat behind the Rogerses’. They ticked off as Mr. and Mrs. Peters, the only married couple on the list. Obviously retired, and looking as though they wondered whether a European tour had really been the good idea it had seemed when they planned it. I wondered whe
ther a few pictures in the hometown paper would convince them. Next time, they’d See America First.

  The remaining woman, Mrs. Marie Manzetti, Professor Tablor, and the two men—Ben Varley and Tony Christopher—all chose window seats alone.

  The professor smiled at Kate as she boarded the bus and stretched out one arm invitingly along the back of his seat. Kate smiled back benignly and settled herself into the little alcove made by the steps, beside the driver.

  I walked down the aisle, smiling at everyone, and took the backseat, where I had room to spread out my camera gear. Also, I could keep watch over everyone from that vantage point and perhaps, spot the most potentially discontented. For a start, I spotted the professor waggling his fingers coyly at Kate. I decided it would be interesting to know what they called him on campus.

  Kathryn Lamb picked up her hand mike and switched it on. Her voice echoed with metallic, faintly robotlike tones from the public address system. “Good morning, Tour Seventy-nine, and welcome to London. We’ll begin our tour with the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the changing of the Guard—”

  “Do you really need that thing, Miss Katie?” The voice cut across hers. “You’ve got such a pretty little voice. I’m sure it’s strong enough to reach us all without the aid of that abomination.”

  “We’ll try.” She switched the mike off. “Can everyone hear me?” Murmurs of assent reached her and she replaced the mike in its holder.

  The driver slipped the clutch into gear and the minibus moved smoothly into the line of traffic. “On your left, as we turn this next corner, you’ll see …”

  While Tour 79 lingered over morning coffee, I shared a peaceful cigarette at the kerbstone with Jim Davis, the little Cockney driver. At least, it was peaceful until Kathryn Lamb slipped away from the tour to join us. She accepted a cigarette from Jim and they exchanged a long look, then broke into the kind of cryptic shop talk designed to make my blood run cold.