by Katie Penryn
Kiki hadn’t seen his wife since he had tried to murder me at the hospital. He’d made the one brief call to tell her after he’d been taken in for questioning. They’d had no chance to discuss anything to do with either case: Jonny’s murder or my attempted murder. The outcome of this interview was going to depend on how well Dubois could bluff.
Dubois began. “You understand, Monsieur Renard, you have been charged with the attempted murder of Madame Mpenzi Munro?”
Kiki muttered something under his breath.
“Speak up for the record,” Dubois said and repeated his question.
“Yes,” said Kiki.
“Today, I want to question you about your murder of Jonny Sauvage and your wife’s attempted murder of the same man, Jonny S—”
“What,” shouted Kiki. “You leave her out of this. None of this has anything to do with her at all.”
“We have proof that Sauvage was poisoned. We have a specimen of his vomit and the autopsy report which flags unusual organ damage out of keeping with the victim having been smothered.”
“You can’t prove that my wife was involved. Anyone could have poisoned him. He didn’t exactly win and keep friends, you know.”
“We have reason to believe Sauvage stole your song Mon P’tit Oiseau.”
Kiki jerked back in his seat, shocked that we knew his secret.
When he’d recovered, he said, “He did. And he never paid me a centime for it.”
“We have proof that he paid you ten thousand dollars only this week.”
“He told me he’d made the transfer as he was leaving after he came to dinner that night. It was about time.”
“When did you tell your wife about the payment?”
That shook Kiki. I could see him trying to work out what the question meant. In the end, he said, “I told her that night after Jonny had left.”
“How did she react?”
“She burst into tears.”
Dubois leaned forwards and stared Kiki right in the eye. “Because she knew she had just poisoned him?”
“I don’t know about that. She didn’t say anything to me.”
“I don’t believe you. I think she told you and when you heard that Sauvage had been taken ill and was in the hospital in a coma, you decided to kill him in case he ever recovered consciousness and reported the dinner you two had fed him. You were covering up for her.”
Kiki didn’t answer.
“Take your time,” Dubois said.
Kiki still said nothing.
“I must insist on an answer,” Dubois said.
Kiki looked up and for a moment he took courage. He spoke out defiantly, “You haven’t asked me a question.”
Dubois took a deep breath before putting the all important question to Kiki.
“Did you access Johnny Sauvage’s hospital room by climbing through the window from your maintenance cradle? Did you then smother Sauvage by holding something, probably a pillow, over his face until he stopped breathing? Did you do this to stop him talking about your wife’s attempt to murder him?”
“Why would I do all that? My wife had nothing to do with Jonny’s illness.”
“I have to tell you that your wife has confessed to attempting to murder Sauvage by poisoning him.”
Kiki slammed his handcuffs down on the table making it shake. He scraped back his chair and pushed himself to his feet before the policemen at the door had a chance to stop him. He flayed wildly around him swinging the metal cuffs at the men. Dubois flung himself at Kiki’s feet in a rugger tackle and toppled him over onto the floor taking one of the policemen with him. With all three of them on him, Kiki didn’t stand a chance. He was soon crammed back down into his chair with a policeman standing behind him on either side.
I held my breath waiting to see what would happen next.
A long silence ensued broken only by Kiki’s heavy breathing. At last he let out a long breath and burst into tears. No one said a word while he cried himself inside out.
“You have something to tell me?” asked Dubois when Kiki had quietened down.
“I admired Jonny so much. He was so charismatic. A talented guitarist, a great singer. He invited me to play with his band. I hero worshipped him. That’s why it hit me so hard when he stole my song. Finding my god had feet of clay sent me into a depression for years. I drank and caused the death of my own child. But I got my life together again. I have a steady job. Life was looking up and then he turns up again and Marie decides to punish him. I can’t blame her. She saw Jonny as the cause of all our past misfortunes. But the last thing I ever wanted to do was kill him.”
“So why did you?” asked Dubois.
Kiki looked round the room, despair written all over his face.
“I had to. Don’t you see? I had to protect Marie. When she told me what she’d done, and we found out he was only half dead, it was too risky to leave things as they were. I had to silence him forever.”
“And Madame Munro?”
“Same thing. I liked Penzi but I love Marie.”
Dubois closed the interview saying Kiki would have to make a written statement of everything he had admitted.
*
“What a dreadful irony,” I said to Dubois when he came round to find Felix and me.
“Irony?” he asked.
“If Jonny had paid up only one day earlier, Marie may not have tried to murder him. It’s a horrid tale of disloyalty between friends and misguided loyalty between spouses.”
“True. I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Dubois said.
“It’s worse than that,” said Felix. “If they’d owned up that night after Kiki had told Marie about the money and Marie had confessed to poisoning Jonny, Jonny could have been rushed to hospital and his life saved. And two people who love each other wouldn’t be facing life in prison.”
The three of us fell silent. I drank my glass of water while I thought about what Felix had said. Marie and Kiki had turned their backs on a second chance of doing the right thing.
Dubois broke into my reverie. “I have to thank you for your help with the case. We are all lucky that you were an insider, Penzi.”
“Where’s Madame Fer-de-Lance, Dubois?” asked Felix.
Dubois chuckled. “She’s missed all the action this time. She’s at a conference in Paris.”
Felix pulled my chair out and put his arm around me. He guided me out of the door and out of the gendarmerie.
“Enough, boss,” he said. “This must be the last time you do this. Let’s get you home to the family.”
*
Felix insisted I have a siesta after lunch saying I looked worn out. I was too tired to argue with him. The cool of my bedroom soon soothed me into a deep sleep from which I didn’t wake until Felix knocked on my door in the late afternoon.
He’d brought me a cup of tea which he placed on my bedside table before sitting on the end of my bed, the spot where he had camped for the last few nights to keep the bogeyman of a witchdoctor away from me.
“We need to make a list of loose ends, boss. You know how I hate them.”
“Do you want me to get up or can we do it here?”
“Drink your tea. Here’s fine.”
He reached over for the notepad and pen I keep by my bed. He squinted at my scribbled notes and laughed.
“If you’re trying to get even with me for being able to read, you’ve succeeded. These notes are illegible.”
I snatched the pad away from him and ripped off the top few pages.
“They’re meant to be. They’re private,” I said handing the pad back to him.
“Right,” said Felix. “Assuming Dubois has the evidence, he needs to charge Marie and Kiki, what do we have to do to fulfill our obligations to Jonny Sauvage’s ghost?”
“Obviously, we have to see Joliette, Zach and Petey off to the States as soon as Dubois gives permission for them to leave.”
“Secondly, you have to decide what to do about Francine and the money Jonny se
nt her. Should she be allowed to keep it or not?”
“I’m working on that. I’ll tell you when I’ve come to a decision.”
“If that completes the Jonny Sauvage case, the most important item on our agenda should be a visit to the High Council of the Guild of White Witches to ask about your protection. I suggest that as you’ve had a good rest, we should go tonight.”
“Agreed,” I said. Felix couldn’t sleep on the end of my bed forever.
“And from Monday onwards we can work on getting The Union Jack ready for Audrey. Once she’s moved in, we can have an opening party to cheer us all up after the turmoil of the last few days.”
“That’s an excellent idea. Now get yourself up while I assemble the items we need to take to the guild tonight.”
Chapter 38
By eleven o’clock that night the family had all gone up to bed and Felix and I were ready to leave to summon the High Council. We had our basket with a frond of laurel leaves, a bottle of cognac, and the silver cup we now kept in the study ready for such emergencies. Felix had prized yet another diamond from the frame in the brocante. That’s when he pulled his surprise on me.
“I thought it would be fun to find another dolmen. There are so many of them around here. I did a search and I came across one set on the top of the hill next door to Izzy’s château.”
Izzy was a friend of mine, a world famous movie star, who had helped us with cleaning out the brocante. We hadn’t seen her for a while and I wondered if she was away filming.
“Do we have time to get there?” I asked remembering the helter-skelter journey the first time we summoned the High Council.
“If we leave now.”
I looked at the three dogs curled up snuggly in their baskets.
“Who’s coming with me to visit the High Council of the Guild of White Witches?” I asked them because we needed a natural creature along with us to make the summons work.
“Not me,” said Zig burrowing her face in her blanket. “It’s much too spooky. I thought I’d die of fright last time I went.”
Zag jumped right out of his bed. “It’s kind of my duty to go with you, isn’t it?”
“No, no,” said little Piffle standing on his hind legs to reach me. “I want to go. I won’t have the chance once I go to live with Audrey. Please let me.”
Zag pushed him and poor Piffle fell over. “You’re not strong enough. Penzi needs me.”
“Actually, Zag. It’s not a question of strength. All that’s needed is a natural animal to symbolize life on earth. If Piffle really wants to come with us, he should.”
“That’s settled then,” said Felix picking the little dog up while I took over the basket.
I gave Zag a petting and told him I was depending on him to watch the household for me while we were away. With his dignity restored, he followed us to the door. We left him on guard in the hallway and drove away into the night.
Our journey took us through the town, out through the city walls and up the north coast road. Over to our left the moon shone down on a tranquil ocean, a summer lull before the Atlantic storms of winter. The hill Felix had mentioned lay beyond the promontory on which Izzy’s château stood. One side of the hill had fallen away into the sea.
“This looks dangerous,” I said to Felix as I parked the car at the bottom of the inland slope of the hill.
“We’ll take it slowly. You carry Piffle. His little legs will take forever to get him up such a slope. I’ll take the basket.”
Fortunately, it was a mild night. A balmy ozone laden breeze blew around us as we tackled the steep flight of rough hewn steps carved into the limestone of the hill. The moon shone so brightly, its beams glancing off the gentle waves, we didn’t need to switch on our flashlights.
The dolmen wasn’t visible until we reached the top of the steps and stepped onto a small circular manmade platform forming the crest of the hill. As soon as our feet touched the platform, the breeze died and the moonbeams dimmed. We put down our burdens and switched on our flashlights. Piffle cowered up against my leg, his little body shaken with tremors. Down below us the waves had stopped rolling into shore. Absolute silence as time stood still.
“Do you think they know we’re here?” I whispered to Felix.
“Someone or something does,” he answered. “Stay close. Don’t forget dolmens are magic portals between this world and the next at the least, and possibly between this one and parallel worlds.”
Piffle gave a little whine. “I shouldn’t have come,” he said.
I tucked my fleece into my jeans and picked him up. I stowed him inside under my arm and pulled the zip halfway up, leaving a space for him to watch the magic.
Felix had already laid the laurel branch on the dolmen’s flat table top. He placed the silver goblet inside the laurel beside the diamond and filled it up with cognac, the water of life.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
I nodded and Felix touched a match to the sides of the goblet to warm the cognac then tipped it over onto the surface. The fumes ignited in a flash of blue flame. Piffle ducked his head back in fright.
Felix took my hand. We walked three times round the dolmen in a clockwise direction taking care not to walk to close to the crumbling edge of the platform. Far below us, the waves still stood at attention.
I zipped up my jacket and closed my eyes as we reached the end of the third circle. The expected flash was so bright it pierced my eyelids and left me night-blind when I opened my eyes again. As my vision slowly cleared the seven witches of the High Council of the Guild of White Witches came into view, hovering in a semicircle above and around us with their backs to the sea. Down below the waves resumed their crashing on the shore, and an owl screeched behind us.
The chief witch spoke. “Mpenzi Munro, we have been expecting a call from you for several days now. Our intelligence gatherers have told us that your aura of protection is weakening. Even now we can see it flickering.”
“Your Ladyship, I’ve been busy solving a crime. I had to bring the guilty parties to justice. My own safety came low down the list of my priorities.”
“My child, a dead witch is no good to anyone. Remember that. How can you serve the forces of good if you can’t protect yourself from evil?”
“Your Ladyship, it’s taking me time to adjust my energy levels to all that is required of me.”
“Your Ladyship,” Felix interrupted. “I fear I have brought an additional source of danger here to Mpenzi.”
The chief witch tutted loudly and shook her head. “We’ve told you before not to interject, young man.”
“But your Ladyship, the wicked witchdoctor of the Wazini has tracked me from his haunts in the Middle Congo to Beaucoup-sur-mer. He is intent on harming Mpenzi to even his score with her father, Sir Archibald.”
“Yes. Yes. We know all about that. That’s why we’ve been worried. This witchdoctor is a member of a tribe of Leopardmen, we understand?”
“That’s so, your Ladyship.”
“Mpenzi, we are making further enquiries about this matter. It would appear that the witchdoctor is using a disspell to neutralize the semper tuens protection. His magic is powerful black magic. We are researching the matter. Isn’t that so, Madam Secretary?” she said to the poor witch on her right, who’d been scribbling away in her notebook.
“That’s so,” the secretary said.
The situation didn’t sound hopeful to me. If the High Council didn’t know what I could do to protect myself, what was I to do?
The chief witch continued. “For the time being, we advise you to repeat the Level 4 semper tuens spell every week.”
“Yes, your Ladyship.”
“And, Mpenzi Munro, you haven’t been sending in your weekly progress reports.”
“What reports are those? No one’s told me I have to send in a report.”
“All apprentice witches are required to submit a weekly report detailing the spells they’ve learned, if any, and telling us what actio
ns they have taken to help in the battle against evil. If you don’t have the requisite number of hours clocked up, you will not be able to move up to Level 2.”
“How do I make the reports, your Ladyship?”
The chief witch turned to her secretary again. “Give Mpenzi our email address, please.”
The secretary took a card out of her pocket and handed it down to me.
The chief witch wrapped her robes around her. “Mpenzi Munro, if you have nothing more to say, I’d like to get out of here. I’m getting vertigo hanging about above this sheer drop down into the sea.”
“Nothing more, your Ladyship,” I said curtsying.
Felix bowed.
“Look after that cute little dog,” she said, and they all disappeared in another blinding flash.
Felix picked up the silver goblet and returned it to the basket.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” I said. “They don’t seem to know what to do about the witchdoctor.”
“Boss, we’re caught in the age old fight between good and evil. We have to give them time to find a solution. Every time the good people find a way of protecting themselves, the bad people find a way of getting through that protection and so it goes on.”
The moon had risen higher in the sky which was just as well as the way down the hill was steep and treacherous. We reached the bottom of the hill without losing our footing with me holding onto Piffle through my jacket.
“Look,” I said grabbing hold of Felix with my free hand.
Over to our right headlights were bouncing along the road towards us.
“Who could be out here at this time of night?” Felix asked hurrying me towards the car.
The vehicle dipped its lights and drew up alongside us and Garth climbed out followed by Izzy of all people.
“My goodness, Penzi. I didn’t know it was you until we were right up close. What on earth are you doing out here at this time of night?”
I looked at Felix and he looked at me and shrugged. We couldn’t tell her. It was against the rules, and she wouldn’t believe us, anyway.
At that moment Piffle whined and stuck his head out of my jacket.