by Katie Penryn
At three on the dot we loaded the mirror into Camion’s van and he set off for the château. We followed along behind in our hire car with Felix on a leash.
Izzy’s new home, Château Briand, was an architectural surprise. I’d been expecting a renaissance building, like a mini Versailles, but Château Briand had been built centuries before Louis XIV’s reign. It was older even than the walls of Beaucoup-sur-mer. It stood on a wide promontory high above sea level commanding an excellent defensive view out over the Atlantic Ocean. On the inland side the land stretched back a long way to the château’s protective outer wall, allowing space for ornamental gardens, a kitchen garden and lawns that morphed into fields of wild flowers. To complement the natural motte on which the main buildings had been built, a bailey ran all the way round, even on the side facing the sea. We passed through the gate set in the bailey’s walls and drove up to the parking area in front of the dwelling.
Izzy had two of her gardeners standing by to help with the unloading. That done without damaging the mirror, the butler led them off towards the hall.
“Where’s your mother?” asked Izzy. “I was expecting Gwinny.”
I swallowed hard not knowing whether to tell Izzy Gwinny had been arrested. It didn’t look good if we were to build up a clientele for our antiques business.
Izzy took one look at my face. “Whatever is the matter, Penzi?” She took my arm and led us round the side of the main building to a terrace shaded from the sun by grape vines and looking out over a rose garden which led down to a lawn ringed with horse chestnut trees.
“Penzi, we are going to be great friends. I knew it from the moment I first met you. So if you have a problem please tell me what it is.”
She took me by the arm and led me down to a path that ran between beds of floribunda roses. Their perfume wafted over us in denial of all the wickedness in the world. I related the story of Gwinny’s arrest, pointing out how ridiculous it was.
“I’d heard there’d been a murder down in the town but had no idea it was at your house. Poor Gwinny. What are you going to do?”
“We’ve decided that as the police are so certain Gwinny did it and are not looking for anyone else for the crime, we have to find the real murderer ourselves and present Inspector Dubois with the truth.”
We retraced our steps and sat down at a tea table in the shade on the terrace. Jimbo’s eyes widened with delight at the spread — a real afternoon tea with sandwiches, tarts and a chocolate cake.
Izzy busied herself pouring out the tea while she thought over what I’d said.
She put the teapot down and handed round the cups. She filled a saucer with milk for Felix who rubbed himself against her legs, the flirt.
“We’ll have to see if I can help you with your investigation. I’ve been here longer than you and I have contacts.”
“That would be wonderful. We didn’t even know who the victim was until yesterday afternoon. She was killed before we arrived and Gwinny had never seen her alive.”
“Who was she?”
“Edna Yardley.”
Izzy gasped. “Oh, heaven’s. I know her. She was the estate agent who found the château for us. An efficient woman. She was a great help to me in the early days, sorting out services, finding artisans, rustling up decorators. I couldn’t have done without her. She even put together a list of local notables for me to invite to our housewarming party.”
“Do you have any idea why anyone would have wanted to kill her? We can’t think beyond boyfriends and ex’es.”
Sam added, “And her parents.”
I laughed Sam’s comment aside. “I can’t believe her parents would murder her.”
Izzy was silent for a moment and when she spoke she said, “I agree. It doesn’t bear thinking about. But her commission on the sale of the château to us was in the order of several million Euros. She would have been entitled to twelve percent of the sales price less anything she had to pay to the head office. This place cost over forty million.”
Jimbo gasped and I kicked his foot.
Izzy went on, “I know she wasn’t married. If she had no siblings and hadn’t left a will, her parents would inherit. That could be an inducement.”
I shook my head. “I can’t see a father drugging his daughter and pushing her into a fridge, can you?”
“Oh, is that what happened. I didn’t know the details. No. I agree with you.”
“We should still check them out,” said Sam.
The butler appeared on the terrace to tell Izzy that the mirror had been hung if she wanted to check if everything was as she wanted it.
Izzy introduced Johnson to us. “I couldn’t do without him. Johnson was the one who sorted out the contretemps at the party when the mirror was broken. I didn’t see or hear it happen.”
Johnson nodded at us. “It was an unpleasant incident, but Edna Yardley didn’t deserve to be murdered.”
“What do you mean?”
“The doorstopper was thrown at her but she ducked.”
“Do you know who threw it?”
“A gatecrasher, an Englishman. He struggled with the security guards all the way to the gate when they threw him out. He was quite beside himself, yelling that she had betrayed him, cheated him.”
“You’re sure he said cheated and not cheated on?”
“Quite sure. Something about them working on the sale of the château together, but she had kept all the commission and not given him a penny.”
“Did you know anything about a dual agent, Izzy?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “But preliminary screenings of possible properties were carried out by my personal assistant. I could ask him. He would know if there is any substance to the man’s claims and tell me his identity.”
Sam had been listening closely to this conversation. He sat up straight. “I think you’ll agree that this man is suspect number four.”
“Forgive my intrusion, Mrs Tointon, but why are you concerned with the murder?” asked Johnson.
She tipped her head towards me. “My friend’s mother has been arrested on suspicion of the murder and she’s hoping to find the real murderer and clear her mother.”
“We have a large local staff here at the château. I’ll ask them to see what they can find out. They’ll be only too pleased to cock a snook at that Dubois with his Northern superiority,” said Johnson as he bowed and left the terrace.
Felix jumped up onto Izzy’s lap.
She stroked him. “Cheeky cat, isn’t he?”
“He killed 197 rats last night,” said Jimbo.
“Mighty warrior,” she said chucking him under his chin.
It was time for us to take our leave. The driver had long since left after being given a couple of glasses of wine in the kitchens.
*
I was exhausted by nine o’clock that evening. With Jimbo in bed, Sam out making friends of his own age and the dogs walked, I was on my way to an early night when my phone rang. It was the Social Worker at the Police Station.
“Just to let you know you may visit Madame Munro tomorrow morning any time after nine.”
I thanked her for letting me know and asked how Gwinny was doing.
“As you would expect, she’s miserable, verging on depression. Why don’t you bring her a basket of goodies to cheer her up? Some chocolate and the latest magazines. There’s nothing much to read here in the police station and the cells are basic.”
Her comments saddened me. I tucked my phone away in my pocket and was on my way out of the kitchen when Felix sashayed over to me and wound himself round my legs. I picked him up and put him back on his lofty cushion, but as soon as I turned my back he jumped down again and circled me meowing in that baritone of his.
Jimbo was asleep and I was on my own in the house. I needed someone to talk to, someone with whom to sort out my thoughts. Why not the cat? I tucked him under my arm and made my way up the old oak stairs to my bedroom. I dropped him on the floor inside the door. He made
a beeline for my bed. Tired as I was, I knew I wouldn’t sleep if I couldn’t relax and shake off the day’s worries. A long cool shower was called for. I stripped off leaving my clothes where they fell. Giving a vote of thanks to Gwinny for the new en suite bathroom, I slid the glass door to the shower open, switched on the water and dived in.
I closed my eyes and gave myself up to the healing properties of the water. For the first minute or two I let it pour all over me washing away the stickiness of the hot summer’s day, holding my concerns at bay while I let my mind go blank.
Something touched my leg bringing me slowly back to consciousness. Something soft and velvety. I looked down and there sitting right next to me with the water cascading all over him was Felix. His handsome peridot eyes caught mine and held them. His gaze infused me with empowerment. I was no longer alone. He was there for me. That little cat. It was extraordinary. I was to fear nothing because he was my protector his eyes said.
With a swish of his tail he leapt out of the shower and shook himself off. Cats don’t like water so legend has it. Had he braved his least favorite element to cheer me up?
I switched off the water, wrapped myself in my new fluffy bath towel, courtesy of Gwinny’s thoughtfulness and attention to detail, and tip toed back into my bedroom leaving wet footmarks on the polished oak boards. Felix was curled up on my bed watching my progress. His eyes stayed fixed on me as I dried off and threw on the giant T-shirt I sleep in.
I climbed into bed and the worry came back. We weren’t making much progress with our investigation. The identity of the murderer was still a mystery. Our suspect list had grown, but I wasn’t sure what to do next.
As I drifted off to sleep with Felix tucked up against me, a rogue thought crossed my mind. Couldn’t I use magic?
Chapter 13
After taking the dogs and Felix for a quick walk along the sea path first thing, I propped a note against the kettle explaining to the boys where I would be for the rest of the morning. The postman’s yellow van drew up opposite our house as I picked up my bag and phone. We hadn’t met our postman yet and I wanted to introduce myself. I flung the front door open my eyes on the van and tripped over something on the doorstep.
I had kicked over a basket of onions. They rolled across the road coming to a stop in the dips between the cobbles. Our postman was a postwoman.
She tossed our mail back onto her car seat and stooped to pick up the onions near her. I was doing the same from my end. We met in the middle of the road.
“Good morning,” she said, her chubby face all smiles. When she stood up again she was almost as wide as she was tall but her whole body shook with merriment at my plight.
I introduced myself and her reply was that she knew who I was. She was the postwoman after all.
She held out her hand. “Call me Martine, Martine Courrier.”
I put the last few onions back in their basket. “Sorry about this mess. I have no idea where they came from.”
“You didn’t order them?”
I shook my head.
“Or have a friend with a vegetable garden?”
“Not yet. We haven’t been here long enough.”
She walked over to the basket and examined it. “Maybe there’s a note.” She bent down to pick up a piece of wire – a coil of wire with wooden handles slotted through the ends. It must have fallen off the top of the basket. “This doesn’t look good.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“It’s a message, perhaps a warning. In France we say, Ce n’est pas tes oignons — It’s not your onions — when someone’s being too nosy.”
“Oh, like mind your own business?”
“Exactly. Have you upset someone? Asked too many questions?”
“I’ve been trying to find out who murdered the woman in our garden. If someone is warning me off it confirms the police are holding the wrong person in custody for the crime — my mother.”
“I heard about that, and I’m sorry. Anything I can do to help, you just let me know. A postwoman sees a lot of what’s going on.”
“Maybe I can tell Dubois about this and he will start searching for the right culprit.”
Martine shook her head. “I can’t see him changing his mind over a basket of onions, can you?”
“No, not really. What’s this,” I asked holding up the coil of wire she had thrown back on top of the onions.
“Let it alone. It will only disturb you. I shouldn’t have drawn attention to it.”
She fetched the mail from the van, handed it to me and continued on her round.
I pushed the basket of onions into the hall, shut the front door and hurried over to the car. I had to make a stop for chocolate and reading material for Gwinny, and I didn’t want her to be waiting for me.
Police stations are our bastions against crime, but when one is on the wrong side of the walls they are scary places. In spite of the pots of bright red geraniums outside the front door, the interior was bleak. I was ushered down a gloomy corridor to a small visitors’ room at the end. A scarred table stood in the middle with two wooden utility chairs on either side. The only light was a bare bulb in the corner of the room. The tiny window was barred and dirty. The waste paper basket overflowed with polystyrene cups, crumpled tissues and cigarette butts in spite of the no smoking law. A video camera up in the far corner followed my movements like a wolf spider lying in wait.
“Please take a seat, madame. I will fetch the prisoner,” said my blue uniformed escort.
I did as I was told, not used to seeing a policeman carry a gun.
Five minutes later Gwinny straggled through the doorway and shambled over to the seat across from me. I noticed the chains first, hands and feet. I had expected her to look forlorn but the sight of her in an orange jumpsuit several sizes too small for her, with her long blond hair bedraggled and unkempt, walloped me in the solar plexus. This was my mother however she had treated us as children. She was my flesh and blood. And she was innocent.
“Forty minutes,” the guard called out and withdrew clanging the door behind him.
Neither of us spoke. I couldn’t. I was too shocked at the evidence of Gwinny’s poor morale as she slumped down in her chair.
At last she raised her head and looked at me steadily for a few moments.
My heart responded. “Gwinny, I hate to see you like this.”
“It’s as if I’ve been snatched by an alien spacecraft and dumped down in another civilization. I cannot cope.”
“We’re doing our best to uncover the real murderer so that Inspector Dubois will have to free you, but it’s not easy.”
“You’re really doing your utmost for me although I was such a terrible mother to your all?”
“I’ve forgiven you, Gwinny,” I said, and as I said it I realized I had.
I don’t know when the spirit of forgiveness had come upon me, but I was glad it had. My soul felt the lighter for it. Setting Gwinny free would take all my energy. I couldn’t afford to waste it in indulging in grievances over past wrongs.
She reached her hand across the table to me.
The guard yelled through the grating in the door, “No touching!”
She snatched her hand back jangling the chains.
“That’s noble of you, Penzi. Kind.”
“It’s not noble or kind. It’s the right thing to do. I should have tried to understand and forgive you years ago, but once I had built you up as an unfeeling monster I couldn’t. I nourished my hurt instead to fill the hole you left in my life.”
“That being the case,” she said with a weak smile. “How about coming to terms with being a witch?”
“That may be a step too far. I’m too rational.”
I didn’t admit that I had thought about using magic as I fell asleep the night before.
“If you acknowledged your witchiness, you would have magic tools at your disposal. They would add an extra dimension to your talents and help you to get me out of here.”
�
��That may be true, but there’s a stubborn streak in me that insists that I have to do things properly, the way other human beings do. I mustn’t cheat. Can you understand that, Gwinny?”
“Penzi, from where I’m sitting, I think you’re being a little selfish.”
I bit back the retort that rose unbidden in my mind. Pot calling the kettle black?
Gwinny was still talking. “If magic can help you, you should use it. The police charged me formally this morning. As soon as this visit is over, they are transferring me to a long-term prison facility. I wonder if I will ever get out. Couldn’t you accept being a witch and only use magic if there is absolutely no other way to proceed?”
My mother was pressurizing me again like she had when I was a child and couldn’t read her Book of Spells. This time the odor of emotional blackmail hung in the air. My knee jerk reaction was to resist, but I was no longer a child. I could choose how to react. Couldn’t I weigh up the value of her argument like an adult?
I left the table and went over to the window. I stalled while I rubbed a patch clean with my hand and looked out at the world outside. Was it stubbornness, false pride in my own ability or lack of faith? I came to the realization that it was a mixture of all three with a dash of vengeance. I had to be bigger than that. Moreover, what harm could it do to have an extra string to my bow?
“Right,” I said taking my seat again. “What do I do?”
Gwinny smiled. “The first step is to acknowledge that you are a witch. Get rid of the denial you’ve been carrying around with you all your life.”
“Give me a few seconds, Gwinny.”
I closed my eyes and thought of my secret place, the place I go to when I need solace and peace of mind. I let the turmoil in my mind seep away until only my essence remained showing me the truth. I could no longer avoid my destiny.
“So, Mpenzi Munro—”
My eyes flicked open. Gwinny’s earnest face came back into focus.
“Mpenzi Munro, are you a witch?”
I sprang to my feet and crossed my arms over my chest. This was a solemn moment and not something to be done sitting down.