The Purple Bag

[rix_scaedu]

This is my response to Day 20 of http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/'s 30 Days of Flash Fiction, the list for which can be found at http://aldersprig.livejournal.com/221684.html?view=1245940#t1245940

After the lock cutting incident in Singapore the purple bag followed Carla Lombardi through three more sets of Customs inspections without fuss. The attempts to steal the bag had ceased with the arrest of the man with the fake Scottish accent and the tartan jacket. When Carla returned home the bag was unpacked and the letter in the airmail envelope was scooped up with the accumulation of postcards and other holiday ephemera to sit in a drawer for six months.

It was only when Carla was packing to move flats that she found it. Its presence puzzled her but, as it only needed an ordinary stamp, she bought one and posted the letter.

Finally, as the desperate man in Madrid had intended, his information reached his superiors unintercepted and intact. Some interesting things happened but you had to read the Spanish and Portuguese newspapers to find out about them, the English language press was salivating over phone tapping scandals and a celebrity wedding at the time. There was a blogger who posted some fascinating photos, if you knew who you were looking at, but didn’t know what he had – his post was complaining about his neighbours’ late night parties. And that matter was resolved.

The purple bag went on other trips with Carla Lombardi and although they were just as exciting in their way, particularly her honeymoon, none of them was ever as dangerous to the purple bag as that first one.