by Katie Penryn
I agreed, and so with Felix issuing directions once more I drove off into the French countryside again.
We found the service station easily. It was open at what was now after one in the morning. I parked under the lights and we scoped out the office and the small shop attached. A dowdy middle aged woman sat on a high stool watching TV.
“You go,” I said to Felix. “You’ll get on better with her than I would.”
“You reckon?” he said with a grin as he climbed out of the car.
I watched him stroll across to the office admiring his feline grace and strength. My absentee father had really come up trumps sending Felix to me as a bodyguard. Loyalty, strength and humor all in one package.
He pushed open the door and approached the cashier who looked up with a beaming smile. And I watched him turn on the charm. Within seconds she was eating out of his hand and searching through a box of old tapes checking the dates. When she found the right one she slotted it into a player and their two heads bent to monitor the screen. I was too far away to see the detail myself but they stopped the tape all of a sudden. Felix had found what he wanted. He ordered hot drinks and two packets of something to eat and joined me in the car again.
“Nice woman,” he said. “Very helpful. Edna was clear on the tape as was the car’s number. Now all we have to do is find out who owns the car, track him down and ask him to account for his movements for the rest of that night.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“I have a few talents up my sleeve that you know nothing about. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out. Now get us out of here. I’m dead on my paws.”
“Don’t say things like that,” I said taking my hands off the steering wheel to cross my fingers.
Chapter 18
Felix the cat followed me into the study the next morning. “Lock the door,” he hissed at me.
I did so. “What?”
He morphed into Felix the gorgeous bodyguard so smoothly that one minute he was a cat and the next he was standing next to me eye to eye.
“I was up early working on the next stage of our investigation. I’ve found out who owns that car.”
“How did you do that so early in the day?”
“That’s one of my talents. I’m a qualified hacker — have all the certificates. Sir Archibald paid for me to do the courses on line while I was in Africa. Of course, I’m supposed to be an ethical hacker.”
“What’s the difference between a hacker and an ethical hacker?”
“The former does it for fun or financial gain. I do it to find out the weaknesses in a firm’s IT security. It pays well. I can do it from here while you are waiting to earn money from your brocante. I am self supporting, you know. I can afford to buy my own kibble.”
“Fine, I’m impressed. The car?”
“It belongs to a guy who lives in Bordeaux. If you remember, that’s where Edna’s parents live. We could drive there today and suss out two suspects at once.”
“You have the parents’ address?”
“That was easy. I had their name, so I just Googled them. Shall we go?”
“Sooner the better,” I said unlocking the door.
When I turned back Felix was already in cat mode and slunk out of the room at my heels.
With instructions to Sam to hold the fort and make sure Jimbo had something sensible to eat for lunch we left the house under Audrey’s control.
*
The road to Bordeaux was picturesque, looking out as it did over the Gironde estuary and passing through the world famous vineyards of the northern bank. The only point of misery for me was passing by the prison facility where Gwinny was being held.
I felt my spirits sink but Felix said, “Don’t go getting all depressed on me. We are on the way to having Gwinny freed. You know that. Just concentrate on what we have to do today.”
Our first stop was at the home of Edna Yardley’s parents. Our approach had to be sympathetic. They had lost their daughter to whomever had attacked her in our home. They lived in a middle class suburb of Bordeaux, in a street lined with plane trees. Each house sported its own design, colors and gates. Theirs was halfway down the street with a tidy front garden. It was a tiny house purpose built for a retired couple, I guessed.
This time I suggested that Felix stay in the car and wait for me. A feminine touch was required. I knocked on the door and a face appeared at the window as someone checked me out. A toy dog yapped and scratched at the door. I hoped it wasn’t an ankle biter. The door opened slowly to reveal an old aged pensioner, his shirt hanging out of trousers. He hadn’t shaved or brushed his hair.
“Mr Yardley?” I asked in a soft tone. “May I talk to you for a few moments about your daughter?”
A woman’s voice called from the sitting room. “Who is it, Paul?”
He answered over his shoulder. “It’s a young woman asking about Edna. Shall I let her in?”
“Yes, yes. Maybe she can tell us something.”
He looked me over again and decided to open the door wide enough for me to sidle inside.
He shut the door behind me pushing a little Pomeranian out of the way with his foot. The door shut, he picked the dog up and shambled off in front of me. I followed him into the living room where an old woman lay prostrate on a worn out sofa of green velvet.
“Sit please,” she said to me.
“First of all, let me offer you my sincere condolences for your loss, Mrs Yardley.”
She blinked her swollen eyelids and held out her hand to her husband for support.
“Who are you exactly?” she asked me.
“I’ve come to see you to see if you can help me find out who murdered your daughter.”
“But the police already have the murderer.”
“No, they’ve made a mistake. They have locked my mother up for the crime, but I know she is innocent.”
She harrumphed and when she realized how rude and unsympathetic that sounded she added. “Forgive me. It is difficult to think of anyone else’s troubles at the moment.”
“The police think my mother is guilty because the crime was committed on our property on Saturday night.”
“Oh Paul,” she said reaching for her husband again. “It’s unbearable. To think we were both in the hospital when she was killed. It’s such a horrible idea. There I was thinking only of myself while someone was killing our lovely daughter.”
I looked at her husband in enquiry.
He squeezed his wife’s hand. “My wife is tormented by the fact that she underwent an operation on the Friday. We knew Edna couldn’t visit on the Saturday, but we expected her to come to the hospital on Sunday, but she never arrived. We waited and waited. My wife was distressed at first but then she grew angry. Now she feels guilty because, of course, our daughter couldn’t come and visit. She was already dead.”
“And you, Mr Yardley? Were you at the hospital with your wife?”
“Yes, I sat in her room and dozed in a chair by her bed. We didn’t know what had happened to Edna until late on Tuesday when the police contacted us.”
“I’m so sorry for you both. Can I do anything to help you?”
“Only this,” said Mrs Yardley. “If as you say the killer is not your mother, please come and tell us everything you find out when you catch the real murderer. We can’t understand why anyone would do this to our daughter.”
“Did you know about the commission she had earned on the sale she negotiated a few weeks before her death?”
“That’s how she earns her living — selling properties.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary?”
“No, why do you ask?”
“Nothing. I must go and leave you in peace. Thank you for talking to me.”
“Don’t forget your promise,” Mrs Yardley called out after me as her husband showed me out.
*
“So?” asked Felix as I got into the car.
“That was horrible. They are flattened. An
old couple. Only child. They couldn’t possibly have done it. First of all, unless they are actors worthy of Oscars, they didn’t know she had earned the whopping commission of millions. Secondly, the mother was a patient in hospital and the father was beside her bed all night. There’s no reason for them to lie. It’s easy enough to check out their alibis. I hadn’t the heart to push them any further.”
“At least they’ll have some money to help in their retirement.”
I switched on the ignition. “No amount of money will make up for their daughter. They loved her to bits. There were photos of her everywhere.”
I pulled out into the road and then it hit me, what my subconscious had picked up while we were talking. I swung the car into the first driveway and turned round.
Felix grabbed hold of the strap to steady himself. “What are you doing?”
“They had a photo on the wall of Edna with the Little Theatre Club. I’m going to ask them if I can borrow it.”
Minutes later I was back in the car clutching the photo. It showed Edna with her ex-boyfriend, Harry Llewellyn, in a line-up backstage.
*
“On to the next one. A Monsieur Victor Zola. He lives on the other side of Bordeaux. We’ll have to take the ring road, so listen closely to my directions or we’ll go wandering off to Timbuktu.”
Zola lived in a modern block of flats each with its own balcony to catch the sun of South Western France. The well-kept condition of the building and the absence of litter in the garden hinted at a clientele of young professionals, still single but with the money to buy a house if they should take the plunge and get married.
Felix came with me for safety this time as we knew nothing about Victor Zola. Felix pushed the button for the security speaker and we were buzzed in.
“We’re in luck. He could have been out as it’s a weekday.” I said as we exited the lift on his floor.
He had the door ajar waiting for our arrival. A tall, friendly man dressed in clean jeans and a T-shirt and barefoot.
“It’s my day off today. I’m a travelling salesman and often work weekends to catch my clients. Now, what can I do for you? You mentioned something about the murder in Beaucoup-sur-mer?”
We walked past him into a tidy living room leading out onto the signature balcony and took a seat when invited.
Felix asked him, “Do you remember giving a lift to a damsel in distress on Saturday night, latish?”
“Yes, of course, I do. She was murdered later that night so I understand from the press.”
“Have the police been to question you?” I put in.
“No, and I haven’t volunteered. No one wants to get tangled up with the gendarmes if they can help it. How did you know I picked her up?”
We explained about the garage.
“Can we ask you what happened after you picked her up?”
“Oh nothing. It was just a courtesy lift. You are aware of the Good Samaritan law in France?”
I shook my head.
“Failure to help someone in danger is punishable by a fine and or imprisonment. This is used most commonly for anyone in trouble by the side of the road. A woman on her own like that at night was obviously in danger, and so that’s what I did. All I did. I took her to the nearest service station so she could buy an emergency can of fuel and was ready to drop her back at her car, but she asked me to take her to the centre of town instead.”
“So you dropped her off in Beaucoup-sur-mer with a can of fuel late at night?”
“It wasn’t that late. It was still light. And, no, she left the can in my car. I still have it.”
“Do you mind telling us where you were between midnight and 2 a.m.?”
“Is that the time of the murder? If so, I’m covered. I was beetling down the freeway to the South, on the A63. Wait a minute….”
He delved into a drawer and pulled out a sheaf of receipts.
“For my expenses. I’ve probably got a toll ticket here for when I stopped off for a drink. Here it is.”
He handed it to me and there sure enough the date and time were printed for a tollgate miles south of Bordeaux.
“No way you could have got back to Beaucoup-sur-mer,” said Felix handing it back to him after he’d had a look.
“Sorry to have troubled you,” I said. “But tell me, where exactly did you drop her off?”
“Outside a bar with a painting of a black cat on the window.”
We made our farewells and drove home having drawn another blank.
“Cheer up, “said Felix. “Three down. Only another three to go, and we have that photo although I don’t understand the significance of it at the moment.”
“We need to have a meeting with Dubois to find out what he has done if anything.”
Chapter 19
As we had been up all night, Felix and I slept late. As soon as I was up I phoned the gendarmerie to ask to speak to Inspector Dubois.
When he came on the line he agreed to meet us straight away, if we could get down to the station without delay.
As before, he met us at the Reception desk and shepherded us along to his office this time.
“Yes, what can I do for you?” he asked as he messed about with the papers and files on his desk. “As you can see, I am busy this morning.”
I took all that for the power play it was. Beaucoup-sur-mer was hardly a hot bed of crime.
“As you know, I don’t believe that my mother is guilty of the crime of which she is accused and for which you have locked her up.”
Dubois bridled. “Listen here, Madame Munro—”
Felix bumped with his elbow. “Inspector, Madame Munro is naturally anxious about her mother and is perhaps not choosing the most diplomatic of words.”
“I’m sorry, Inspector,” I said. It was worth eating humble pie if we wanted to know what Dubois had been doing or not doing. “Would you please give us a progress report on your investigation? Are you checking out any other suspects?”
“Madame Munro, your mother has been charged. The Prosecutor is satisfied we have the evidence to prove her guilty. What more do you want?”
Felix took a step forward and gave Dubois one of those as-one-man-to-another looks. “Perhaps you could put Madame Munro’s anxiety to rest, Inspector, if you gave her a brief résumé of what your team has done in this case.”
Dubois wandered over to the window and looked out at his town to give himself time to think. Felix nudged me and mouthed, “Behave.”
Dubois walked back to his desk. “Please take a seat,” he invited as he sat down.
He waited for us to settle and began his report. “We have checked everyone who had access to your house after the delivery of the new fridge and the necessary removal of the old one into the back yard. As far as we have been able to ascertain that is only three people: your mother, the fridge delivery man and the guy who was dropping off your mother’s order from The Union Jack.”
“And?” I asked.
“The fridge delivery man has an alibi and we have verified it. It is sound. The owner of The Union Jack has no alibi, and so we searched his shop and his flat above it for traces of rohypnol. We found nothing.”
“He’d hardly keep the bottle,” I whispered to Felix.
Felix shook his head at me. “Inspector, what about his PC or laptop? Did you check that to see if he had ordered the drug on the internet?”
“I was coming to that. Give me some credit for doing my job properly. We took his laptop in for forensic analysis. There was no record of any purchase of the drug.”
“But Inspector,” I said, “Anyone could gain access to Les Dragons. Most people in Beaucoup-sur-mer leave their key under the mat or a stone near the front door.”
Felix continued my argument. “What about relatives, ex-lovers, disenchanted business colleagues?”
Dubois rolled his eyes. “We have done the necessary. Your mother had access, opportunity and no alibi for the time of the murder. She could have obtained the drug in Brittany and,
moreover, her fingerprints were on the refrigerator in question.”
“Of course, they were. She was there in the kitchen supervising the renovation.”
Dubois stood up and walked towards the office door making it clear that as far as he was concerned the interview was over. “If you come across any information pertinent to the case, you can always contact me here,” he said holding out his hand for a farewell shake.
“Wait a moment, Inspector,” I said drawing back my hand on the point of shaking his. “What if I told you someone had sent me death threats, warning me to back off and stop investigating? Wouldn’t that prove you have the wrong person in custody?”
“I would be interested, yes. What death threats?”
“Someone put a basket of onions on my doorstep.”
“I don’t see the significance of that, Madame Munro. Now, if you please. I’m a busy man.”
“What about Ce n’est pas tes oignons, Inspector?”
He chuckled. “Much more likely that a friendly neighbor wanted to leave you a welcoming present.”
Felix burst out, “With a garrotte lying on top of the onions?”
Dubois blinked before laughing again. “Just some kid playing a prank on you. Now, please…,” he said indicating the doorway.
As we reached the halfway point down the corridor Dubois called after us, “There’s something you should know.”
“Yes?” Felix and I said together turning back as Dubois walked to meet us.
“Madame Munro’s trial has been brought forward to next Monday. The Prosecutor wants the case settled before the Tribunal breaks up for the August holidays.”
“You can’t be serious? How’s her advocate supposed to prepare her case by then?”
“What’s to prepare? She’s guilty and as soon as you accept it the better for both you and your mother.”
He spun on his heels and walked back towards his office.
“Dubois…Inspector, are you satisfied with the case against Madame Munro?” Felix called after him.