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THE JOURNAL OF ELLIOT CRIPPLESBY

  Waiting in that airport must have been the longest few hours of my life. It was tortuous and every time I heard the bing-bong of an announcement being made I listened with dread, certain that this one would be the security alert sounding our death knoll and sealing our fate. It never came though and so after an interminably long time we continued on to the next stage in proceedings: Customs.

  Now I am no stranger to airports, having been lucky enough to have travelled to many far flung destinations in my time and I have found that wherever I have been, at whatever time in my life – even as a small child – there must be something about me that the customs officials from around the world just don’t like.

  I can remember lugging my favourite stuffed toy around with me everywhere I went as an ankle-biter – we were inseparable, Palladium and I. It’s funny; I have no memory at all of why or how he ever got the name Palladium. What I do remember is that, having been opened up so many times by the uncaring knives of the Excise men, he eventually looked like some kind of Frankenstein’s Teddy. Of course the more he got stitched back up the more convinced the next set of customs officers were that he was stuffed full of rubies, or drugs or some other type of contraband - but there was only ever sawdust and not much of that thanks to them!

  As the years passed by my Mum wanted me to get rid of him because he was scaring all the other kids - friends that used to come round to play - but I would have none of it. The neighbour’s dog got him in the end and while I accepted the loss quite well, finding enough forgiveness to continue sharing my jam sandwiches with him as I had always done, I was never entirely satisfied with the story of how Palladium had got into their garden in the first place…

  As I was saying though, Customs. You cannot help but feel guilty, even though you have done nothing wrong which of course I hadn’t, but the fact that twenty yards behind me Geeza was carrying about half a kilo of highly dubious herbal products didn’t help me in the slightest. I was on tenterhooks.

  By the time we stepped off the plane in Genoa I had completely forgotten about being frustrated at the time we had lost and was, instead, a hopeless bag of nerves. Somebody somewhere must surely be watching over us however because we succeeded somehow in getting through the customs completely unscathed at both ends of the flight.

  I checked to see if there were any connecting flights from Genoa to Nice, but there were none within the timescale we were looking at, so within an hour of touching down on Italian soil I had managed to hire a car – pretty quick, but the plane was not full and we hardly had any luggage between us. There was a disturbingly large surcharge to pay on the car because we were making a one way journey, to use their terminology, and would probably be leaving the car in France, but that couldn’t be helped so I signed the papers and we were back on the case! Before I knew it we were making our way along the autostrade towards the mountainous roads that would lead us to France and then onwards to the tiny headland of Cap Ferrat where Ollie’s villa was located.

  Here’s a thing that struck me as peculiar – everybody I spoke to from the stewardess on the plane to the woman at the car hire desk was convinced I was an American. Even the man at Passport Control! He sat there with his dark glasses and strong smelling gum, chewing with his mouth open as obnoxiously as possible and looked at my EU passport with ‘British citizen’ clearly printed on it – and yet he continually asking me about life in America!

  “So which State are you from? Is this your first time in Europe?”

  “No, actually I’m English,” I kept my replies simple.

  Further examination of my documents ensued and then “Si, si, but you were originally from America, no?”

  “No.” My nerves being strung out as they were, I was fast losing patience with the man and was about to suggest he remove his sunglasses as perhaps they were unsuitable for the lighting in this part of the building. However, just as I was about to – and thank god I didn’t, because there can be nobody more petty and vindictive than a customs officer scorned – he caught sight of a pair of pretty, young twenty-somethings with backpacks and blond plaits, so he hurried me through with a final “Have a nice day,” in his finest Californian and tried to attract them over to his short queue.

  None of that is at all relevant, but what an introduction to Italy!

  With all that behind us though we began the road up into the mountains where there was not a lot of traffic so we were able to make good time. Although resigned in our hearts to the fact that we were already going to be too late, what else could we do? We still had no idea what the Professor’s next move would be, but if the trail had not grown too cold - Geeza had already demonstrated his ability to pick up a scent better than a bloodhound with a grudge - then there was still a possibility, no matter how small, that we might catch up with him yet.

  The journey took us along treacherous, but beautiful winding roads, before we made the descent into coastal France, passing to the North of Monte Carlo and the Principality of Monaco. Tired as we both were, having taken it in turns to drive across the Alps where one mistake would have proved very costly indeed, it was inevitable that we made a few wrong turnings in and around the Cape itself. Driving hurriedly whilst beset by fatigue, your nerves in tatters, in a place where you do not understand the street signs is a far from pleasant experience and is not something I wish to repeat in a hurry.

  As Geeza eventually swung the car into the driveway of Ollie Donald’s house the signs were not good. Lit up by our headlights was a police car already standing in the driveway, with evidence of others having been there until only recently - tyre marks in the bushes, polystyrene cups littered about the place, numerous lights on up and down the boulevard and several of the neighbourhood dogs barking into the night.

  It was as we had suspected - we were too late.

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