Contra-Flow

Like me, you’ve probably spent a lot of time on Britain’s motorways at a brain-numbing 50mph through road works where no-one actually seems to be working. After two lots of 20 miles of that on an almost deserted M1 I found the one place in the country they were actually doing something: they had closed the roads completely around Luton Airport. It wasn’t as if Easy Jet hadn’t told me, they even sent me a text suggesting I allow more time for my trip. More time, to be herded through security, shouted at to keep moving, told to strip, surrounded by Polish and Latvian voices… not a good impression to make on those of my age for whom such things have a very dark precedent.

My ticket had priority boarding, giving me the right to be first in the queue to wait for the party of old duffers to try and lift their strictly restricted cabin bags into the lockers. Cure for more shouting from the guards…

Because of some mix-up, the people who had paid extra to sit by the emergency exits were two rows away and so there was more chaos and upheaval before the captain came over the tannoy to reassure us that we weren’t going to crash and burn but that we ought to pay attention anyway. Pilots must be trained to make announcements as if they are ‘really bored to be lifting this cattle-truck off the ground when I really ought to be in a fighter-jet’ I reckon that they time the mid-flight announcement for when the most people are asleep, waking them with a start to let them know that everything is ok and we are currently at a phenomenal height over a country we’ve never visited and we are about to go over the bay of Biscay – yeah, whatever!

I sound grumpy, but it’s not because they have taken the part of the safety demonstration out where the stewardess demonstrates blowing up the lifejacket, I always loved that, no, it’s the way that I was conned into taking this job by the Office.

‘We have spare ticket for a week in Sicily’ she said

‘You’ll love it’ she said

‘We went last year, the markets are to die for – sorry – no pun intended! Lol - All you have to do is a little job, more of a jobette, really and the rest of the week is your own’

‘OK, send it, I’d like to see where they raced the Targa Florio anyway’

‘The Wahta Floriwhat?’

‘Never mind, just send it’

Which is why I’m here, on a special tour ‘In search of Montalbano’

The TV series of the ‘Inspector Montalbano’ detective books were a hit in Italy before being shown in the UK with subtitles, which doesn’t help their popularity. The group of people that I am struggling to share a plane and yet not be seen with are the kind who don’t mind subtitles at all, in fact they love that it makes them feel part of a more exclusive club: The ‘Don’t listen and can’t lift a suitcase’ club. A lot of them seem to be retired teachers so I guess that it goes with the territory. The problem I have is that I need to be a part of the group without actually appearing on any lists as one of them. I have acted as a coach driver on previous ‘events’ but coach-driving is a bit of a closed shop in Sicily unless you are family if you know what I mean.

With only a weeks prior notice I read and re-read the background on the author, his books and filming locations so that I was expert enough to act as tour guide. One of the secrets of being a good guide is to acknowledge the person in the party who is an obsessive expert and knows more than you – there’s always one – and use their knowledge to enhance the experience of the others without letting the 'Anorak' take over

What I think Melissa will look like today

 

What Melissa actually does look like today

 

 

 

Sicily again

When it rains, as it often does in Yorkshire, England, my back aches and I remember Sicily and the treachery of a woman. I have the twin scars, physical and mental, of the stab in the back and simultaneous shot to the heart, that nearly ended me on the slopes of an ironically erupting Etna so many years ago. We were supposed to be working together but work had strayed over that invisible line into leisure, then pleasure, as I allowed myself to let go of all sense and training, completely, for the first, and almost certainly last, time.

Men are often accused of objectifying women, dividing them into mere body-parts to the exclusion of their higher virtues.  If they knew what I know about really dividing people into their body parts they may not be so quick to judge. In any case Melissa Generossi was infinitely more than any sum of her exquisite parts that you might imagine. Italians, especially in the hot, irritably poor South, often sound like they are arguing. As a Northerner from the shores of the lakes, she had an accent that, when talking her own language was as an angel, laughing, but when speaking English….. she was like a hair-trigger to the testosterzone. I was always pleased to see her and I actually did have a pistol in my pocket (It was a Sig Sauer 9mm automatic but that would have spoiled the alliteration) She worked for some national anti-mafia squad and I was assigned to the case as there were connections with the smart, young, London boys who had filled the gap after the likes of the Krays had imploded and their ‘colleagues’ in the Met had been routed-out. I actually knew some of them from University which in those days was the only kind of facial-recognition available (University, eh? And I’ll bet you thought that we were all estate-boys done good, like the SAS, didn’t you?).

She laughed a lot, showing her perfect teeth and then touched your arm and all the other things that I should have recognised that she’d learnt in her the Flirting module of her Body-language course,  (She would have got a ’Distinction’). Instead and quite foolishly I’d allowed myself to think that I really was that attractive…

This not Melissa, but a young Sophia Loren. Melissa is better-looking…

For these and other reasons I was heading off to Luton airport with mixed feelings.

Deadly revolver

There is a large parking space outside the Gigolo marked ‘Hotel Use Only’ and yet it seemed that our concierge friend seemed keen to allow only a select few access. A barely opened window, a swift exchange of something each way between concierge and passenger and that was it. No-one got out or tried to enter the hotel at all. Now I may be somewhat advanced in years and more than a little naïve but I know a drug-deal when I see one. In many countries the Police have all but given up trying to control drug-taking and concentrate instead on catching large shipments at or about the point of entry. Spain is no exception but this amount of ‘traffic’ was blatant so I had a good look around for any others who might be watching the coke-dealing Concierge. Witnesses are an unwanted intrusion in my game and you never know, some ‘ambitious ‘Guardia’ might be looking to make his name by getting in my way. It wasn’t long before I spotted some workmen who were a little out of place as they came in and out of a building with a skip outside further down the street.

The skip never seemed to get any fuller despite their constant tipping and then I realised that the lump of rubbish in the wheelbarrow stayed where it was as they tipped-it, just a handful of dust flew as the front of the barrow hit the skip – clever! A van that seemed impervious to parking restrictions also figured in my observations so it looked very much as though I wasn’t the only watcher. It looks as though I’ll have to work a little cleverer here.

We judge and remember people in many ways, maybe their walk, what they are wearing or something that they are carrying. I have noticed that if you wear brown clothing and carry a broom you are rendered invisible in most situations. Wear black clothing with maybe a tie or scarf in a primary colour people assume you are staff and therefore also invisible. Carry a clipboard and the illusion is complete. Turn that clipboard into a weapon and you’ve cracked it.

Not all clipboards are created equal. Most are plastic or covered paper but a rare few are made of metal. I bought one of those and sharpened one corner with a hand-file and emery-paper to a keen edge that would cut toilet paper, so skin and tissue won’t be an issue.

 

Hotels have cameras facing out, usually, to see who is arriving, so it was important to stay in the zone of the revolving doors, allowing the glass to distort images and also so that I can go out again straight away.

Before long the target reveals himself by making a rare effort to help a customer into their waiting Mercedes.

Once the car has gone I follow him into the revolving door, waiting until I am almost right around and out again before bumping the glass. The door stops – once – twice and he comes back at me, shouting angrily to ‘stay away from the door’, putting his hand in to push me back from the divider. As if to comply I step back, slashing the clipboard into and smartly across his neck and pushing him back out of the doorway at the same time. The door spins, then stops again, with room for me to walk smartly away outside, as he blunders into the next segment of space, fountaining around the rapidly reddening, no longer rotating, scene of his demise.

On the street, all is quiet at first, but then a scream from the hotel doorway lets the ‘builders’ know something is wrong. They  shout into their sleeve-microphones and run towards the building. The doors of the badly -parked van burst open with more men as a black BMW pulls up at the kerb, decides better of it and speeds-off – directly into the path of the now no longer-parked van. Choas and confusion cover me as I round the corner and pick up the accordion again. Slipping the  clip-board into the back, I pull the bellows together and strap the instrument up before slowly resuming my get-away. I deserve a coffee, perhaps in the Thyssen gallery, a very civilised way to spend an afternoon in Madrid.