Kempston Hardwick Mysteries — Box Set, Books 1-3

by Adam Croft

  ‘I can go one better,’ Ellis said, whipping a pair of tickets from his trouser pocket with a flourish. ‘I bought us two tickets yesterday afternoon!’

  The realisation struck Hardwick’s considerable brain at the same time as the piece of tomato-stained Artex hit the back of his throat. After much coughing and spluttering, he had regained his composure enough to exclaim just two words.

  ‘Two? Us?’

  2

  The convenient location of London Whitfold airport for many is about its only saving grace. It is, of course, nowhere near London, but in these glorious days of pile-‘em-high-sell-‘em-cheap budget airlines, anything goes. That is except for the aeroplanes, which rarely go at all and never go on time. Hardwick rued this particular aeronautical idiosyncrasy as he sat silently, sighing inwardly as Ellis Flint popped the sixty-third jelly baby into his mouth.

  Whitfold had been the original home of the budget airline in the UK, and it had been at the forefront of a general race to the bottom ever since. A sense of anger and frustration from the majority of travellers, met only by a sense of completely apathy from the staff and ownership, led many local residents to wonder how this small county’s own international airport had managed to plunge into the depths of the lowest common denominator of public taste.

  Having paid an extortionate amount of money to be dropped off half an hour’s walk from the main airport terminal, Hardwick was already less than impressed with the start to his holiday, having had to wake up earlier than usual for it.

  Hardwick was used to getting up early, being the sort of chap who tended to rise as soon as the sun did, but he was also a creature of habit. The excited wake-up call from Ellis Flint at four o’clock that morning had done nothing to help matters. Tollinghill was barely half an hour from the airport at most, yet Ellis had insisted they leave plenty of time — ‘just in case’. A lack of breakfast and, more importantly, a lack of coffee had meant that Hardwick was feeling rather less tolerant than usual. Now here they were, the sun barely risen, already at the airport three hours ahead of their allotted check-in time.

  ‘Got to make sure we get there nice and early,’ Ellis had said. ‘Always plenty to do at the airport and at least we know we won’t miss our flight.’

  Hardwick wouldn’t have minded missing the flight. A holiday was the last thing he wanted, although now he was stuck inside the soulless confines of London Whitfold airport he had begun to long for tropical climes.

  ‘Might go and grab myself a book,’ Ellis said through a mouthful of jelly babies. Hardwick was sure he saw at least three little jelly arms attempt a bid for freedom before being crushed by their predator’s jaw. ‘Quite fancy one of those murder mystery novels, actually.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother, Ellis. The murder mystery novel died out years ago. These days they’re all a load of tripe written by bored men with nothing better to do with their lives.’

  ‘I thought you liked murder mysteries,’ Ellis said.

  ‘I do. The traditional ones. Only problem is, real-life murders are nothing like the ones in the books. If you read up about real murder cases you’ll find they’re actually pretty boring.’

  ‘Well it’s better than sitting here doing nothing.’

  ‘You’re never doing nothing, Ellis.’

  Flint made a little noise which sounded like a chipmunk walking into a wall. ‘And there’s you always saying you shouldn’t use a double negative!’

  ‘I didn’t. What I meant was, you’re always doing something. Even if you’re just sitting quietly, that’s what you’re doing. Why can people not just sit and mull things over any more? Why must they always be active? Let your brain rest, Ellis. It’s probably exhausted after working out the tip for the taxi driver. If you really must do something, you could at least tell me where we’re going,’ Hardwick said, without having once removed his eyes from his copy of The Times, which was draped across his right leg, which was, in turn, draped over his left leg.

  ‘I told you. Greece.’

  ‘Greece is a big place, Ellis. I hope you’ve at least narrowed it down a bit,’ Hardwick said, trying not to sound too condescending even though his lack of sleep made it even more difficult than usual.

  ‘Well I can’t remember the details, can I? It’s on the island of Friktos. It looked nice from the pictures. I’ve got everything written down here, somewhere,’ Ellis said, rifling through a manilla folder of papers, receipts and jottings. ‘Ah, here we go. The Kollodis Beach Hotel in Kakogoustos. Looks quite nice.’

  ‘Kakogoustos? Very good. Where are we really going?’ Hardwick said with a chuckle, a slight hint of nervousness creeping into his voice.

  ‘I just told you,’ Ellis replied.

  ‘Ellis, hand me those papers.’ Hardwick quickly scanned the text in front of his eyes. ‘Oh God. And we have to spend an entire week here?’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong with it? It’s got a pool and everything,’ Ellis said, pointing to the child-filled blob of blue which dominated the page that he had torn out of the brochure a few days previous.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it has. And a bar which serves a never-ending supply of cold tasteless fizz, a cheap themed “Greek night” and wonderful selection of tattooed bald men.’

  ‘Nonsense. You don’t know until you get there. It looks nice in the photos, look,’ he said, jabbing his finger at the brochure page again.

  ‘Of course it bloody does! They’re not going to advertise it with pictures of men in football shirts smashing glasses over each other’s heads, are they? It’s Kakogoustos, Ellis. Home of the stiletto heel and the all-night rave. They’ve made television documentaries about it, for crying out loud. And not even proper ones, either; ones for BBC Three.’

  ‘Our bit might be all right.’

  ‘Our bit might only have a couple of fights each night,’ Hardwick said, sarcastically,. ‘And maybe we might only tread on a couple of hypodermic needles around the side of the pool.’

  ‘Exactly! See, it isn’t so bad after all. Anyway, it’s a week away and that’s what matters, isn’t it?’

  Hardwick sighed and returned to the safe refuge of his newspaper. ’If you say so, Ellis.’

  3

  The flight to the Greek island of Friktos had been just as Hardwick had expected. The first hour and a half was joylessly elongated by the young child sat behind him, who insisted on kicking the back of his chair incessantly, only stopping when its mother presented it with a tablet computer on which it played games and films at full volume for the rest of the flight, its parents seemingly oblivious to the fact that there were other people on the plane. Hardwick, though, had fortunately packed a selection of earplugs and a rather uncharacteristically high level of patience.

  Hardwick knew a little about the history of Friktos, but the island rarely made the news these days for any positive reason. Nowadays it was the home of the 18-30s holiday, where groups of boozed-up Brits would head for a week full of all-inclusive lager, burgers and the resultant puddles of vomit.

  The newspapers in England (although not, of course, the type of newspapers Hardwick ever read) were always full of stories about groups of young English adults having been beaten up, stabbed or hospitalised on the island after having had too many drinks and too many fights. It was not exactly Hardwick’s idea of a cultural tour of Greece.

  Having forced down a slime-filled breeze block (it had been advertised as a cheese panini) and a glass of something almost resembling red wine, Hardwick was looking forward to his first lungful of fresh air as the plane touched down at Kakagoustos International Airport, known locally as Georgios Antonopoulos Airport after the eighteenth-century revolutionary who had attempted to liberate Friktos from the Ottomans in the 1780s — and had succeeded, for a short time.

  It was this cultural history of the island which Hardwick was most familiar with, having tried to ignore the Friktos horror stories which had permeated the media in recent years. He took some solace in the fact that he knew there were still s
ome important historical sites on the island, which he’d be certain to visit. Perhaps — just perhaps — he could attempt to make this holiday something verging on the bearable.

  As the plane coasted across the tarmac and headed towards the terminal, Hardwick rested his head on the back of his seat and closed his eyes for a few moments. These were likely to be his last few moments of peace.

  Ellis, of course, was one of the first people to shoot out of his seat like a jack-in-the-box the second the pilot engaged the parking brake, one hand fumbling around in the overhead compartment as the other concentrated on switching on his mobile phone. An assortment of small objects rained down on the carriage, followed quickly by an assortment of apologies from Ellis, before he finally found his bag and joined the cramped queue headed in the direction of the door.

  ‘Ellis, there’s really no need to rush. They have to let everyone off the plane anyway, so why not sit down and wait?’ Hardwick said, pulling the well-worn earplugs from the recesses of his ears.

  ‘Don’t want to miss a minute of our holiday, do we?’ Ellis said, barely noticing Hardwick’s raised eyebrow. ‘Besides, we’ll need to get our cases once we get inside. Be good to get them and go.’

  ‘It’s Greece, Ellis. Everything will take ages anyway,’ Hardwick replied, resigned to having to join Ellis in the queue lest he manage to lose him before they'd even got into the airport.

  The warm, humid air hit the back of his throat as Hardwick lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the mid-afternoon sun which reflected off the glass facade of the airport terminal. He was thankful that Ellis had convinced him to at least wear a light-coloured suit jacket, if he must wear one at all, and even momentarily considered removing it as the beads of sweat began to form on his forehead.

  The sun beat down on them as they walked across the tarmac from the plane to the arrivals entrance, throngs of holidaymakers habitually fumbling around in their bags and pockets for their passports.

  On entering the terminal there was a corridor, which meant, of course, that everyone came to an immediate stop and then began to walk at the pace of a dying snail. Hardwick, who was not one for having his pace or activities dictated by others, began to tut in the most English of manners. Ellis was oblivious, humming Zorba the Greek to himself as he shuffled his way up the corridor, passport in his clutches.

  Having made their way through the arrivals hall and reclaimed their baggage, Hardwick realised it was a day to be thankful for small mercies, as Flint informed him that he had organised a private taxi to the resort as opposed to having opted for the free coach transfer. Being carted around numerous faceless resorts in a tin can full of people he neither knew nor cared for was not Hardwick’s idea of fun. Besides which, theirs was bound to be the last drop-off on the list — it always was.

  4

  The Kollodis Beach Hotel seemed, from the outside at least, to be a fairly pleasant place. Deep-coloured bougainvillaea covered the stone arch-way which led to the main entrance, the white walls of the two-storey building reflecting the warmth of the sun. Hardwick noted the immense din made by the crickets in the dense undergrowth across the road as he hoiked his suitcase up the single step from the pavement to the hotel. If it wasn’t for the pulsating dance music he could hear in the background, he could have convinced himself he was on one of the slightly more respectable Greek islands.

  From here he could see the pool, and he quickly realised that he had been quite right in his assumptions about the place. Groups of people toasted themselves under the sun as the dance music pounded across the complex, the only saving grace seeming to be that, thanks to it being term-time, there seemed to be no young children around.

  Although he’d had very little sleep and he didn’t really want to be here, Hardwick looked around and tried to focus on the positives. The flowers were very nice, if a little wilted in the heat. The crickets were clearly having a lovely time, too, so it can’t have been that bad.

  There was a mountain in the distance which certainly improved the view, and he focused on this as he reminded himself that he’d make sure he got to see some of the few remaining historical sites on Friktos before the week was out. A week. Just a week, then he’d be back home in the Old Rectory. Smiling for the first time that day, he followed Ellis into the entrance to the hotel, watching him struggle to pull his suitcase inside as Ellis’s digital watch beeped to indicate that it was three o’clock in the afternoon.

  ‘What on earth have you got in there?’ Hardwick asked him when they got into the reception area.

  ‘All sorts. Always better to bring too much than have to go without, eh? And there’s nothing worse than having stuff rattle around in your suitcase, so much safer to bring as much as you can.’

  The woman on the reception desk seemed to be less than enthusiastic about her job, despite it being air-conditioned. The air conditioning, though, was negated by the amount of hot air coming from the woman who was stood talking to — or, rather, at — the receptionist at that moment.

  ‘We specifically asked for a sea view!’ the woman barked, banging her fist on the reception desk.

  ‘Madam, we do not offer a sea view. We have instead given you a pool view,’ the receptionist offered in her very best English.

  ‘Well I don’t bloody well want a pool view, do I? Why on earth would I want to sit and watch a load of people splashing about in a pool?’

  Despite the complaining woman being somewhere around her late twenties, she seemed to carry an air of pretension which even Hardwick found impressive.

  ‘Madam, we are not near the sea. It is not possible to have a sea view from here. I’m sorry, but this is all we have,’ said the receptionist, trying her very best to look apologetic whilst quite clearly not giving a toss. After a few more huffs and puffs, the woman, who Hardwick had overheard checking in as Jennifer Alexander, went to join her embarrassed partner and friends who had been waiting sheepishly with their suitcases in the corner of the reception area, trying desperately to look as if they were engrossed in the holiday company’s ring-bound guide to the local area.

  Hardwick and Flint stepped forward. ‘Your reservation paper, please?’ the receptionist said, for the umpteenth time that day, jabbing her computer keyboard as she tapped their names into the system. ‘OK, I have here just one room, yes?’

  ‘Yes, please. A twin room.’ Flint replied, before turning to Hardwick. ‘It was much cheaper that way. Two rooms would’ve cost a bomb.’

  ‘Ah. You see, we have here a double room,’ the receptionist said, pointing at her computer.

  ‘Oh. Right. Well, is it possible to separate the bed at all?’ Ellis asked, sensing that Hardwick was already starting to bubble over the edge of his comfort zone. ‘Or is there perhaps a sofa in the apartment? We’re just friends, you see. We don’t really want to be sharing a bed.’

  ‘Please, sir,’ the receptionist said. ‘We are very open-minded in Greece. We practically invented it.’

  ‘Invented what?’ Ellis began to ask, but the woman had already lifted his bulging suitcase with one hand and began to lug it down the pathway towards their apartment.

  4

  The apartment was very spacious and very Greek. The cold terracotta-tiled floor was pure bliss compared to the heat outside, and Ellis quickly kicked off his shoes and began to make steamy footprints on the tiles as he thudded around the apartment inspecting every inch of it.

  ‘Look, Kempston! They’ve got a kettle!’ he said, with the excitement of a school boy.

  ‘You’ve got a kettle at home, Ellis. It’s not exactly the cutting edge of technology.’

  ‘No, but you don’t expect to see one when you’re on holiday, do you? I told you we’d like this place. It’s the little things, isn’t it? Makes all the difference,’ he said, before gawping in awe at the fifteen-year-old television.

  ‘Ellis, it’s Greece, not Mordor. They do make tea and coffee here as well, you know. I bet it’s probably better coffee than you make, too,’ H
ardwick said, sitting down on the sofa.

  ‘To be fair, they are known for their coffee. I suppose that’s why it’s called Greek coffee,’ Ellis said philosophically. ‘Probably not as sweet as I make it, though.’

  ‘Less tomatoey too, I should imagine,’ Hardwick murmured, plunging his hands into the cushions on the sofa. ‘This sofa’s pretty comfortable, actually. Shouldn’t hurt your bad back at all,’ he added, before getting up, grabbing his bag and marching towards the bedroom before Ellis could say another word.

  5

  Hardwick had convinced Ellis that it would be far better to go out to dinner early (thereby preceding the hordes of tourists) before heading back to the pool bar for a couple of nightcaps. After all, they had been up ridiculously early that morning and could then make the most of the following days. Ellis, fortunately, agreed.

  They’d headed into town around six-thirty that evening and were back at the hotel bar by just gone eight. The restaurant had been a fairly pleasant affair: a traditional Greek taverna which Hardwick had found by heading off the beaten track, feeling very pleased with himself as they enjoyed a carafe of wine and calamari followed by a Greek salad. He’d go for the moussaka one evening when they’d come out to eat later, when it would be a little less warm and humid.

  The walk back from the restaurant to the apartment complex took them down a winding hillside road and onto the main strip of Kakagoustos, although thankfully only for a couple of minutes before they veered off to the north in the direction of their apartment complex and away from the centre of the town. Even now, at barely eight o’clock in the evening, they could hear the music thump-thumping from the town, the laser lights beginning to cast their symbols and messages into the night sky and onto the face of the mountain behind the town.