by Lucy Hepburn
Dazed, she clambered to her feet and scanned her surroundings more closely. Huge sliding doors lay open to the outside, and had Molly been in a normal state of mind she would have been dazzled by the view across the airport tarmac to the majestic mountain range beyond, which the doors framed perfectly. The fog seemed to have lifted, and it was bitterly cold. She shivered; her teeth chattered. But for now nothing was more important than tracking down the dress.
All the time, she was trying not to let herself dwell on the possibility that the dress may never have made it onto the flight in the first place. It could still be in Paris, or in the hold of some cargo flight to the Congo beside some goats…Caitlin would never, ever forgive her if she ruined her wedding. It would be the last straw.
She began to wander aimlessly across the floor, gazing from left to right, hoping and yet also dreading, that she might catch sight of the dress carrier amidst the seemingly random jumble of stuff. But then she remembered Sasha. He’d said he’d look after the dress, and he’d seemed like a man of his word…hadn’t he? Surely, she had to trust him?
The baggage handler’s head appeared through the hatch.
“You are in the very big trouble, Mademoiselle. You will not find anything here.”
Molly froze. She was unaccustomed to behaving like a criminal. But she had to make sure the dress wasn’t there. She dashed over to him. “Please,” she implored, out of breath, “just give me a minute?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Non.”
The stared each other out for a moment… then Moly broke into a run. She stumbled around the warehouse wildly searching for the dress. It had to be here somewhere! The man clambered through the hatch and chased after her, but luckily she was quicker. Must have been the adrenalin.
Come on! It shouldn’t be too hard to find…that great, big, white, zipped carrier, looking a bit like that crumpled thing over there under those grubby cases of Rioja…
That crumpled thing under those grubby cases of Rioja…
“Nooooo!”
Sidestepping a lunge from the baggage handler, Molly rushed over to the corner of the warehouse. The baggage handler approached her like she was a rabid dog. He was closely followed by a portly security guard, who must have heard the scuffle. He had a drawn baton in one hand and the remains of a sandwich in the other. Handcuffs jangled around his waist, and the visor of his helmet was raised, giving him a cartoonish, yet somehow menacing look.
All of which was lost on Molly. “Wh… what have they done?” she sobbed, ignoring the approaching muscle and pulling the crumpled dress carrier free. “This…this disaster is a bespoke Delametri Chevalier, and it belongs to my sister!”
Hugging the dress carrier close, she turned toward the two men and stared at them. They stared back. None of them knew what to do. The security guard’s sandwich fell to the floor. Molly looked hard at it, her brain moving in slow motion. Cheese. Probably Emmental. Or Gruyère. Unlikely to be cheddar. Not in Switzerland…
“Miss? You go with him now.”
“You see?” Molly was trying to keep calm. “What did I tell you? Here it is! And it’s probably ruined!”
Beside him the security guard, using smooth, slow movements, raised his radio to his mouth and, not taking his eyes off Molly, called softly for assistance.
Molly glanced down, noticed the handgun in its holster on his hip, and all of a sudden the reality of her situation came crashing down upon her. She’d gone crashing into a restricted area of an airport! A flipping airport!
“Please don’t shoot me in the head!” She got down on her knees in an effort to surrender. “I’m sorry, I would like to put my hands up, but I can’t drop the dress.”
The guard simply stared. Probably thought she was a stupid criminal, or an illegal immigrant, or just some mad woman escaped from an institution.
“Look. This,” she held up the dress, “is my property. I just lost the plot a little because I knew it had to be here somewhere because the nice steward—what was his name again…?”
The look on their faces said this was worse than a rabid dog.
“Sasha!—Sasha said he’d look after it, and I’ve got it now, and I’d just like to leave. Okay? Sorry and everything.” She got up slowly and began to walk gingerly toward the door.
“Easy now,” the guard said.
“Easy?” Molly repeated. “Yes. It is easy. I just want to get out of here. Listen, I’ve got my dress, and I’m not going to, you know, complain or anything that you didn’t look after it properly or put it on the conveyor belt like you were supposed to, so, well, if you’ll excuse me…”
“Don’t move!” the guard barked, bracing and pointing the baton at her. “Stay right there!”
“But I have to get to Venice!” It looked like Molly would be going directly to jail instead. Which might be preferable to the wrath of her sister.
Chapter Six
Hours until wedding: 49
Kilometers to wedding: 550
“Are you kidding?”
The baggage handler looked embarrassed as the guard snatched up his radio, shouted again for help, then pointed menacingly at the big red warning signs above the door.
“You are in a restricted area!”
“I had no choice—nobody would help me! You!” Molly looked imploringly at the baggage handler, who seemed to be doing all he could to avoid her eyes. “I mean, you did help me, but before that—you said all the baggage had gone through…”
The guard’s eyes narrowed; his face betraying uneasy realization that he wasn’t dealing with his usual type of felon. Molly watched his gaze flick toward the doors. Then he glared at his radio. He was waiting for a steer from somebody, a protocol to follow, that much was clear. The baggage handler shuffled his feet and looked at his watch.
Then Molly could almost see a light bulb going on above his head as he pulled what looked like a rule book from one of his many pockets, flicked it open, ran his finger down the page, and read in halting English: “Miss. Have you taken any illegal substances today?”
“What?” Molly was thunderstruck.
Peering over his notebook, the guard repeated the question adding, “Drugs?”
Her shock gave way to fury. “There’s nothing I’d like more than to discover that this was all some sort of wacky baccy trip! But no. I am not on drugs. Now, please can I go?”
“No.”
The baggage handler gave Molly a defeated shrug, muttered something to the guard, and began to walk away, but the guard barked at him to stay put.
Then he turned back to Molly and pointed his baton at Caitlin’s dress.
“What is this?” he asked.
“It’s my sister’s wedding dress.”
“Is it, really?”
“Of course it is!” What else could be contained in a giant white zipped wedding dress carrier?
The answer, as it crept into her brain, chilled her.
“Now just one minute—there is nothing dodgy in here!” she cried. “This is a couture Delametri Chevalier designer wedding dress!”
The uncomprehending silence which followed Molly’s revelation was suffocating.
The guard’s face was a perfect blank. Molly’s name-dropping had been completely wasted.
“Open it, please.”
“What, here?” Molly surveyed the grimy surroundings of the baggage warehouse with its dirty floor and oily packing crates. She recalled Pascal’s reaction when she’d asked to see the dress back at Charles de Gaulle. “I can’t, it’ll be ruined—if it isn’t ruined already!”
She clutched the dress tightly to her.
The guard was thinking hard. “Designer dress, you say?”
Molly nodded and tried another name-drop. “A Delametri Chevalier.”
Again, straight over his head.
“Lots of room, great big skirt, yes? Many folds, many pockets…”
“I don’t know,” Molly admitted. �
��I haven’t actually seen it yet, but I have to say that the trend is for sleeker, column shapes this season. Pockets are a bit 2012…” then she tailed off as she realized what he was on about.
“You think I’ve stashed stuff in it, don’t you?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Listen, there is nothing hidden in this package, apart from several thousand euros’ worth of haute couture!”
“Show me.”
“No!”
“Then we confiscate the dress.”
“You can’t…”
“And cut it up.”
Despite her anxiety, Molly barked with laughter. Then she looked at the man more closely. He appeared to be absolutely serious. “You can’t do that.”
He raised an eyebrow, as though he knew he’d finally got to her.
“Cut up a Chevalier! It’d be like…slashing the Mona Lisa!”
Thunderstruck, Molly found herself imagining the phone call which she would have to make to Caitlin: “So sorry, Cait, but I’m afraid I lost the plot a bit at the airport, jumped security, struggled with a guard, got mistaken for a drug smuggler…usual sort of thing. Anyway, I’m afraid they shredded your frock…”
“Please don’t do that,” she said in a small voice. “You can look at it if you want but can we go somewhere clean?”
The guard didn’t seem to think much of Molly’s criticism of his workplace.
“It’s just that it’s not mine,” Molly whimpered on, “and I don’t want it wrecked.”
“You are carrying a package for someone else?” asked the security guard sternly.
Oh no! That was one of the ten commandments of flying, and she’d broken it.
“No well yes. It’s my…my sister’s.”
“And did you pack it?”
“Well…no, actually, it came straight from the designer.” Molly’s heart sank further as she realized she had wrong-footed herself.
“You did not pack your own bags?”
She stared at a crack in the floor in front of her. She couldn’t blame him. These people were employed by the airport precisely to weed out people like her!
“So the item is registered to your sister?”
“Registered?”
“She paid for it?”
“Actually, probably not—not yet anyway.”
“So it is not paid for?”
Molly threw her hands up in despair. “This is all coming out wrong…”
“The police will be very interested in you, Mademoiselle. I think you are handling stolen goods.”
Molly couldn’t believe her ears. “This is a nightmare!”
The guard had whipped a phone from one of the top pockets of his uniform and, keeping his eyes on Molly the whole time, stabbed at the buttons with his thumb.
“Francesco Marino paid for it, or maybe it was some assistant of his but…what?”
The guard lifted his thumb from the keys and held it there, a curious symbol of approval that seemed, to Molly, to be entirely inappropriate. His mouth had dropped open.
“Francesco Marino?” the guard repeated.
“Ye…es,” Molly faltered as both his and the baggage handler’s faces lit up in recognition.
“It’s his wedding gift to her,” Molly went on, unsure where the line of enquiry was taking them. But something in the atmosphere had altered, that was for sure. “Well, part of his wedding gift to her. She said something about a summer retreat in the Maldives…”
“From Venice? The Francesco Marino? The businessman?”
Molly nodded.
Caitlin had told her, slightly embarrassed, that Francesco was well-known in much of Europe. But Molly, who had never heard of him before, hadn’t paid much attention. Fame had never impressed her before, but it was starting to now; the mere mention of Francesco’s name seemed to have altered the rules of the game entirely.
“Why did you not say?” the guard seemed exasperated by her slowness. “Come! Come with me; let us complete this out here.”
For a moment Molly thought the guard was going to embrace her as he advanced toward her, arms outstretched. But instead he took her gently by the arm and began to lead her back to the main terminal area.
But then he stopped and shot her a suspicious look, which was almost comical—straight out of slapstick crime dramas.
“What?” Molly asked.
“You can prove that you know Signor Marino?” he asked darkly.
“I could get him on the phone?”
Molly knew, the moment she said it, that this was the worst idea in the world.
“No wait, I couldn’t!” Francesco mustn’t learn of this, she realized. It would be too humiliating. And Caitlin would kill her.
“Scrub that—Pascal can prove it…” she cast around the building and spotted Pascal, engrossed in animated conversation with two other guards. “Him, over there! He works for Delametri…the designer of the dress. He’ll have the purchase documentation in his luggage.”
The guard groaned. “The crazy Frenchman?”
“The very one, yes!”
Just then Molly became aware of another person in the room. She turned and was startled to see Simon standing by the wall, his rucksack on the ground at his feet.
“Oh,” Molly exclaimed. “Hello!”
He gave her a tiny salute and a smile.
The security door opened, and Pascal and the guards tumbled back out. Pascal was practically jumping up and down trying to get some point across, as the guards did their best to restrain him as discreetly as possible.
“I guess that explains why your backup didn’t show,” Molly whispered sympathetically to the guard. “Too busy with Pascal.”
The guard rolled his eyes.
“Sorry, by the way. About all the…stuff back there.”
He looked at her.
She grimaced. “I sort of panicked.”
“Criminals usually panic.”
Molly acknowledged the point. “Well, brides’ sisters do, too.”
He had to laugh at that. “A moment, please.”
As the guard left her to wade into the commotion surrounding Pascal, Simon walked over to her.
“You okay?” he asked.
“How long have you got?” Molly rolled her eyes. “I’ve just had to throw myself through the luggage hatch to retrieve the dress—they swore blind it wasn’t… Wait: why aren’t you halfway to Venice?”
Simon shrugged. “I didn’t think I should abandon him,” he nodded over to Pascal, “and you were so busy getting the dress.”
He stuck around to look after Pascal. Wow. “Oh, that was kind of—”
“I NEED TO GET TO BOLOGNA!”
Pascal’s shouts made everyone in the terminal building stop what they were doing and stare.
“Pascal!” Molly called, though he didn’t seem to hear.
“YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND! I HAVE AN URGENT ENGAGEMENT IN BOLOGNA!”
“Bologna?” Simon hissed. “Thought you two were off to Venice?”
“He’s lost the plot,” Molly replied. “His voice is all slurred…” she remembered the plane and the pills she watched him knock back and the brandy. “Did you see how many pills he took on the plane?”
“Aha!” said the security guard, frowning at Molly again. “So you did have drugs on you.”
Molly was too exhausted to care. “No… Just something herbal…” She saw her savior in the distance. “There’s Sasha, ask him!”
In a flurry of ostentatious airline officialdom, Sasha bustled up to them all, arms outstretched, as though he was about to perform some sort of benediction.
“Gentlemen! Leave these poor weary travelers alone!”
“He is under suspicion,” another guard barked back.
“He is terrified!” Sasha said. “Pascal, monsieur, my friend, what have they done to you?”
“Please leave us to do our jobs.” The guard moved toward Sasha
, but Sasha, with his gym-pumped torso, towered menacingly over him.
“I will do no such thing! Gentlemen, this man is afraid of flying. It is clear that he has suffered a reaction to his medication. Now you will surely have been trained to know that this can do terrible, terrible things to a person. Let him go immediately.”
The senior guard looked at Sasha and raised an eyebrow. Then he turned to his colleagues; they shared a single, decisive look.
Finally, he turned his attention back to Pascal. “Monsieur, you are under arrest.”
Molly watched in horror as a pair of handcuffs was slapped onto Pascal’s wrists.
“No!” Molly cried.
“This is not how we do things in Moscow! You have not heard the last of this!” Sasha flounced off, giving the guards a disgusted glare as he did so.
“GET MY PHONE!” A wild-eyed Pascal was jerking his head toward his blazer pocket. Molly darted in and whipped Pascal’s mobile before the guards could stop her.
“My lawyer,” Pascal called to Molly, “his number is there.” Then to the guards he growled. “This is an outrage! The House of Chevalier will never forgive the people of Switzerland for this outrage! There will be sanctions!”
And with that, he was gone, pulled struggling back into the bowels of the airport by all three guards.
Molly and Simon were left alone. Molly, clutching the dress, pondered what had just happened.
“At one point they wanted to rip the dress to shreds to search for narcotics,” she muttered. “But it seems that the dress and I are no longer of interest to the Swiss authorities thanks to Pascal losing his marbles.”
Simon gave her a sidelong look.
“What an absolutely bonkers way to behave,” she said.
“This from the woman who has just dived head first through the luggage hatch,” said Simon, eyebrow raised. “You two suit each other.”
“Fair point.” She laughed, despite herself.
“You okay?”
Molly nodded. “Thank you for staying around.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Simon replied.
They were both staring straight ahead.
“Has he ever flipped out like that before?” asked Simon.