by Katie Penryn
A police siren squawked off in the distance and grew louder as it traveled towards the Esplanade. The promise of help pumped new vigor into my arms. I had a few difficult moments catching hold of Penzi when she reached the top and lifting her over the railing because I couldn’t keep the dogs from jumping up, but I managed it. Zig and Zag bumped her with their noses and licked her face as I laid her gently down on the cobbles.
I shrugged off my leather jacket and spread it over Penzi’s shoulders. Next I phoned Jimbo and woke him up, telling him to bring a blanket and some hot sweet tea for us both. I didn’t want to move her until the paramedics had checked her. At best, she was concussed. As Jimbo came out into the street with the blanket three police cars skidded to a halt outside The Union Jack with their sirens ee-oreing away and their lights flashing.
Such excitement in the neighborhood. Lights began to go on in the houses and shops around the bay. Penzi was still unconscious when the ambulance arrived. While the paramedics checked for her vital signs and administered first aid, a police car came down the street towards us stopping abruptly and Dubois jumped out.
“We got the blighter. He’s on his way to the police lock-up as we speak, but what has happened here?” he asked striding over to us.
“I’m not sure, Inspector. We’ll have to wait until Penzi comes round.”
The chief paramedic called out. “That’ll have to be in hospital. We’re taking her in now.”
I told Jimbo to go back to bed and followed Penzi into the back of the ambulance.
“Inspector, Madame Munro doesn’t know you’ve caught the murderer. She’ll be disappointed to have missed all the fun of the arrest. And what about your questioning of him?”
Dubois rubbed his eyes. “I for one am going back to bed for a couple of hours. We’ll caution him tonight and interview him tomorrow. I must say I’m looking forward to finding out why he killed Edna Yardley. It doesn’t make much sense to me unless it was a lovers’ quarrel we know nothing about. If Madame Munro is allowed to leave the hospital tomorrow, you two can come and watch the interrogation from behind the one-way mirror.”
“Great,” I said bumping fists with Dubois and thinking he wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
Chapter 24
I woke up in hospital to find Felix by my bed. I remembered telling him what had happened to me when the paramedics admitted me in the early hours. Felix had given me the good news that Dubois had Keith Gardner in custody.
Felix propped me up with the pillows and passed me a glass of water to sip. “I’d better warn you. The boys think I’m a guy who happened to be passing by your house on a nighttime stroll when the dogs attracted my attention. They’re waiting outside to see you. Shall I let them in?”
“Of course. They must be so worried about me. Do I look all right?” I asked attempting to smooth out my hair with my fingers.
“You like fine for someone who escaped drowning while running away from a murderer. Just relax.”
When Felix opened the door Jimbo bounded in and jumped onto my bed jarring my head and making me see stars for a moment.
“Whoa,” I said before I could stop myself.
“Sorry, Penzi. I wasn’t thinking,” he said, bouncing off onto the floor and jolting the bed so hard my head hit the metal railing.
Sam smiled as he watched me rub the bump. When I removed my hand he came round the bed to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Good to see you’re recovering, Penzi. But you do know how foolish you were to go out on your own so late at night?”
What could I do but sigh? “It never occurred to me that Keith Gardner was the murderer. Dubois had cleared him after all. And Gardner was so polite when I met him on the Esplanade. So thoughtful. And he helped Gwinny move the fridge.”
“A wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Sam.
“Nothing more dangerous. Now when can I get out of here?” I asked.
On cue, the doctor breezed into my room. He cast a glance at my notes before asking me how I was feeling. Of course, I said I was fine even though I still had a slight headache which hadn’t been helped by Jimbo’s exuberance. I was desperate to leave the hospital and find out all the details of what had happened while I’d been out.
He shook his head at me chuckling as he did so. “I don’t believe a word of it, young lady, but you may leave on condition that you come straight back if you begin to feel dizzy again.”
He left taking Sam and Jimbo with him to give me a chance to get dressed.
Felix said, “I have to leave the building for a moment to phone Dubois and tell him the good news. He’ll want to speak to you about last night anyway, but I’ll be back.”
By the time I was ready to leave the three of them were sitting on chairs waiting outside my hospital room.
Felix told me, “Dubois is waiting for us down at the police station. He’s about to start interviewing Keith Gardner, but says he’ll wait until we get there. Do you feel up to it?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
With Sam driving, we made a detour to drop Jimbo off at the house and proceeded to the police station.
Dubois met us in the reception area and led us through to the room where he had arrested my mother for murder.
“I’m sorry if this room has a sad atmosphere for you, Madame Munro. Let’s hope we can sort everything out today and see about advising the prison to let your mother go.”
I nodded my head in thanks and took the seat offered me across the table from him. Sam and Felix sat on either side of me.
Dubois opened the conversation. “Felix, here, has already told me his version of the events last night. I’d like to hear what you remember in case we have a chance of adding a count of attempted murder to the charges against Gardner.”
I recounted the history of the previous evening: how Gardner had suddenly attacked me and tried to throttle me, how I had braved the incoming tide rather than attempt to get round him as he blocked my access to the beach and how he had followed me out, kicked me in the head and left me for dead.
“That’s grounds for an attempted murder charge,” said Dubois stroking his chin while he thought things over. “But it might be difficult to prove with no witnesses.”
“Inspector,” said Felix. “I found her and there’s medical evidence of her injuries.”
“But nothing that couldn’t have happened naturally if Madame Munro had fallen on the rocks. It all helps to build a picture of the murderer, but it won’t stand up in court.”
Time I pointed something out. “He tried to kill me because I know too much – too much about his murder of Edna Yardley. Surely that proves he did kill her?”
“It’s a tricky case,” answered Dubois. “We have the opportunity and the means, but we still don’t have a motive. We will have to make him give that away when we question him. If you’re ready, let me take you along to the interview room we’re using for Keith Gardner. It has the one-way mirror I mentioned.”
*
When Dubois opened the door to the viewers’ room a tall, well-built woman in a tailored business suit came forward to greet us. Impeccably groomed with model perfect make-up and with not a hair out of place in her French twist, she promised efficiency and professionalism above all else.
She swept her sharp brown eyes over us. “Good morning, I’m the Prosecutor in charge of this case. I wanted to thank you personally for putting us on the right track as far as the guilty party is concerned, and to say that I hope you won’t be making a habit of doing the police’s work for them. I will of course be witnessing the interview with you.”
A little taken aback at this double-edged vote of thanks, we shook hands and took the seats indicated.
Inspector Dubois sat on the other side of the mirror waiting for the suspect to be brought in. A couple of times he looked across at the mirror and gave us the thumbs up.
Considering we had found a flaw in his policing he was being generous with his appreciation. So many police officers w
ould have turned nasty.
The door opened and Keith Gardner entered.
Gone was the dapper gent we had known. In his place walked a man whose ceiling had fallen in. The hair of which he was so proud hung drooping about his face in lank strands. His sartorial elegance hadn’t withstood the rigors of his hours in a police cell. His shirt was crumpled and half in half out of his jeans which no longer had the knife edge pleats he usually sported. He lifted his head on the way to the table and stared at the mirror, the malevolence in his eyes piercing right through to strike me in the heart. It was difficult to believe he was the same man who had charmed me the night before on the Esplanade.
At first he refused to answer Dubois’s questions. He sat with his bowed head in his hands jerking to a tune only he could hear.
After a few minutes of this silence Dubois pursed his lips and tapped his fingers on the table. He nodded at the sergeant who passed him a framed photo in response.
“Mr Gardner, you told us most emphatically that you did not know Madame Edna Yardley. Did you or did you not know her?”
Gardner didn’t answer. He just shook his head.
“Speak up for the recording please, Mr Gardner.”
“No,” he answered. It may have been monosyllabic, but Dubois had started him speaking.
Dubois grinned and placed the photo on the table in front of Gardner. “So why are you in this photo with Madame Yardley and her ex-boyfriend?”
Gardner glanced at the photo and then at the floor.
Dubois continued. “This is a photo of the cast of the last production of the Little Theater Club, is it not?”
“Yes,” Gardner muttered.
“So you did know her?”
“Of course, I did. Treacherous bitch.”
“How come?” asked Dubois in a honeyed toned.
“She was faithless, cruel and greedy. And she deserved everything she got. If I hadn’t killed her, someone else would have done. She broke poor Harry Llewellyn’s heart.”
“But you didn’t kill her because of that, did you? What did she do to you?”
“She scoffed at my acting. Me. I who have more talent in my little finger than she had in her whole body. Hah!”
“Go on,” said Dubois leaning back in his chair now he had provoked Gardner into speaking.
“She asked for the lead in the play. She had no experience. When I yielded and gave her the part she stole the limelight from me, me the male lead, every single night we performed.”
“Why did you give her the part if she was so bad?”
Gardner spat on the floor and scraped his chair back a couple of inches. “She promised – promised, mind you – that if she could be the star of the show, she would get me an invitation to Isabella Tointon’s house warming party. She knew how important it was to me. I knew Isabella Tointon had only to meet me to realize that I was perfect for a starring role in her next film.”
He broke off and looked from Dubois to the sergeant and back again. “Have you any idea how difficult it is to know you have talent and not be able to make the right connections?”
Felix raised his eyebrows at me and whispered, “Revenge? I think we have our motive, don’t you?”
“Could he really be that self-obsessed?” I whispered back.
“Looks like it.”
Dubois stared at Gardner for a moment. “I’m sorry I don’t. I have no talent and so it’s difficult for me to imagine the frustration you must have felt. You have my sympathy. To be pushed that far…it must have been torture for you.”
“Certainly was. And she was so greedy. It was so easy to trick her into coming with me to the Munro’s house.”
“That was clever of you,” said Dubois. “It must have taken an acting talent as great as yours to pull off that trick. Exactly how did you manage it?”
“I arranged to meet her at the Black Cat. She was late. Some trouble with her car. But I waited. I’d told her I knew of a large important house that was about to be put on the market. I said I knew the owner and would put in a good word for her. Not content with the millions she had made from the sale of the château to Isabella Tointon and her husband, she was only too keen to come along with me and have a look.”
“And she believed you. You must have been convincing.”
“Oh, I was, Inspector. It was a great performance. She loved the house. Said she had a buyer in mind. That didn’t surprise me. The house had only just been renovated. Artisans’ vans and trucks delivering furniture and white goods had been whizzing past my shop on the way up the crescent for weeks.”
“So you slipped her a Mickey Finn to celebrate?”
“It was so easy. It was a hot night, and so I mixed some long drinks with vodka and blue Curacao, topped up with fizzy water. I went to the Black Cat with the miniatures in my pocket and bought a bottle of water at the bar before we left.”
“Thirst quenching. Was that all?”
Gardner gave Dubois a sly look. “Do you think I’m daft?”
“Of course not. I think you’re very talented.”
Gardner smirked. “I used Curacao because rohypnol doesn’t show up in a blue drink.”
“So you gave her a drink made of vodka, blue Curacao, soda water and—?”
“Rohypnol. Knocked her out. Shut her up. She was putty in my hands. I could have done anything with her.”
“But you’re a gentleman so you didn’t. What did you do?”
“I dragged her out into the garden and shut her in that hideous old fridge. That’s the last time she’ll ever cheat me in a deal.”
Dubois sat back and smiled. Then he looked across and gave us the thumbs-up.
The Prosecutor turned to us and said that the reconstruction of the crime would take place within the next couple of days. She would phone us to arrange a time.
“What? Actually in our house and garden?” I asked her.
“Yes. That is the way we do things in France.”
So that’s why the fridge was still there.
“Time to leave,” said Sam. “We’ve got what we came for.”
Felix pulled my chair out for me. “Foolish man. He might have got away with everything even now if he hadn’t owned up to what he did. He couldn’t resist telling Dubois how clever he is.”
“Remind me never to drink a blue drink with a stranger,” I said as we walked down the corridor and out of that horrible place.
We were on the point of getting into our car when Dubois caught up with us.
“You are not to worry about your mother, Madame Munro. She will be freed immediately. You may go and collect her from the prison now.”
*
We drove straight to the prison not wanting Gwinny to spend one minute more than she had to as a prisoner of the state pending trial for murder. While we waited for her release to be processed I phoned home to tell Jimbo his mum was on her way back to Les Dragons. His cries of joy nearly broke my eardrums.
Gwinny herself couldn’t stop crying. It was the relief and the shock, she said. I cradled her against me on the back seat all the way home. I was glad we had succeeded in freeing her, but I couldn’t help noticing that once again I was playing the maternal role.
Chapter 25
“We should throw a party,” Sam suggested at breakfast after a couple of days with no crises and no tension. “A party to thank everyone who was involved in solving the mystery and freeing Gwinny from prison. We can afford it now, can’t we, Penzi?”
Jimbo jumped in to second the idea. “Please, please. It would be so much fun and we need some fun after all the stress. Mum most of all.”
Gwinny patted his arm. “Thank you, Jimbo. But I don’t want to cause more trouble. It would be a lot of work and Penzi’s tired.”
“What about everyone else,” I asked running my eyes over the strange family I had accumulated since we arrived in Beaucoup-sur-mer.
Audrey smiled back at me so I guessed that was a yes. Her children clapped their hands.
A
nd Felix?
He blinked at me and jumped up onto my lap. Purring and kneading my thighs he gave me a sideways wink. Cheeky. He knew I couldn’t scold him in front of the family.
“So, next Saturday? What do you think?”
Everyone except Gwinny agreed.
Gwinny’s comment was that I should employ a specialist firm to organize the party and the catering.
“You must look after yourself, Penzi. Why don’t you phone Isabella and ask her to recommend someone.”
I laughed. “Anyone who works for Izzy will be right at the top end. They won’t want to be involved with a street party for the likes of us.”
“Street party?” everyone chorused.
“Yes. We’ll get the mayor on board. Ask him to authorize us to close off our end of the street. Set up tables out there on the cobbles. Have lights all along the sea.”
“And a band,” said Sam. “With a wooden dance floor. I’ll ask around. It’s short notice at this time of the year, but we might find someone who’ll come along here after their paid gig elsewhere.”
Gwinny reached behind her for a notepad and pen. “Penzi is not to do anything except phone Isabella for suggestions. Sam will see to the music. Audrey and I will write out the list of guests. Jimbo can design an invitation. We’ll ask Martine to deliver them on her postal round because she knows where everyone lives. That will save us having to find out. So off with you all. Get busy.”
As everyone left the table to carry out their tasks, I gave my mother a hug. “That was impressive, Gwinny. Thank you.”