by Ruby Loren
“I hope it works out for you,” I told her, still wondering over our strange conversation.
She nodded at me and then disappeared back towards the crowd, probably wanting to avoid being seen talking for too long, just in case. I wondered what it must be like to live in fear all the time and hoped I would never find out.
I wandered back towards the party.
This time I almost made it.
My eyes caught a flash of movement as something dark and tawny darted across the edge of the square.
Surely not, I thought as my eyes followed the movement. Unfortunately, my initial suspicion was proved correct.
“Alcide will have to see sense now,” I muttered, before stalking off to find the primate keeper to let him know that the squirrel monkeys had escaped the zoo and come to join in the party in the village.
“Hey, where have you been?” Lowell asked when I appeared by his side, still searching for Alcide. He slid a hand around my waist and when I looked up, I thought his eyes looked warmed by the alcohol and something else, too.
I wished I was able to relax and enjoy the evening, but so far it hadn’t exactly been uneventful.
“I’ve got to find Alcide. The squirrel monkeys have somehow got over the security fences and are now in the village,” I quickly told him when he looked a little put out that I’d mentioned Alcide. It was bad, but I felt a little glow inside that Lowell cared enough to be jealous.
“So, where have you been?” he repeated, as we forged our way through the throng, both searching.
“I’ll tell you later,” I promised him, with what I hoped was a significant look. There were eyes and ears everywhere in the village and I didn’t want to spill any secrets.
We located Luna and Alcide next to Justin and Adele, watching the live band, which consisted of an acoustic guitarist, a trumpet player, and a double bassist.
“The squirrel monkeys are loose in the village,” I told Alcide, quite primly if truth be told.
“Bless them, they wanted to join the party,” he said, flashing Luna a grin.
My triumphant mood faded a little.
He saw my expression and inclined his head. “I’m just messing with you. We should probably do something about it in a minute or two.”
I was about to correct his use of ‘we’ when a loud screeching broke out. A woman ran screaming from the buffet table, while a monkey threw grapes at her retreating figure.
I looked back at Alcide.
“Okay, I guess I should go and do something now,” he said, reluctantly slipping away from Luna.
I wondered what he had in mind to make the monkeys follow him back up to the zoo. They had all the food they ever wanted down here and I had a sneaking suspicion that they rather enjoyed preying on people, too.
I turned away with a grim smile. For once, it wasn’t my problem. I’d already given my advice and it hadn’t been taken.
Alcide didn’t return, but the five of us who remained had a great time dancing to the band. It felt like no time had passed at all when the band wished everyone good night and the village mayor took to the stage. He thanked everyone for coming and made a joke about the uninvited, furry guests. Then he wished us all goodnight and safe journeys home (ha ha!). I found I was able to understand almost all of this and wondered if my French was improving.
“Luna, have you seen Alcide?” I asked, walking faster to catch her when we started to make our joint pilgrimage home.
When I spoke, she looked up and I just saw the last few traces of distress on her face before they disappeared. I wondered what had upset her.
“No, I think he's still chasing the monkeys.” She quickly smiled at me. “We had a great date up until then, and someone really does need to catch them.”
I knew she was trying to reassure me that I'd done the right thing, but I could still hear the disappointment in her voice.
I opened my mouth to let her know I could see how much Alcide liked her, but when I looked up, she was on the ground with a man on top of her.
“Luna!” I said, getting down on my knees and reaching for her arm.
“I’m okay,” she said after a few moments, looking at me with frightened eyes.
Something red and sticky dripped onto the cobblestones.
“You're bleeding!” I said, but she shook her head.
“I don’t think it’s mine. Can you help me up?”
I turned my attention to the man on top of her for the first time and realised it was Enzo Argent. His eyes were wide, but even as I tried to see what was wrong, he’d pushed himself up off Luna and onto his feet. He staggered backwards and Detective Prideaux was miraculously there to catch him.
“Call an ambulance!” I shouted, faintly realising what had happened.
“I’ll go! There’s a phone in the village hall,” Nathan said, rushing away from the group that had quickly gathered.
While I pulled Luna off the road and checked her over, the detective barked out orders.
“Girard, go and radio the station,” he told the long suffering detective, who hurried off towards the row of parked cars.
I looked across the street in time to see the second agent, Ms Borel, get out of a car. Had she been spying on us all night? I had no idea what she might be looking for, but perhaps she had seen something after all.
I left Luna with Adele and Justin, who’d both turned around as soon as they realised their friend might be hurt.
“Did you see what happened?” I asked Ms Borel, even as Enzo was hissing through his teeth while Sage applied pressure to the wound. The paragliding instructor evidently had a wealth of first aid training and was used to being cool in a crisis.
“Right - nobody leaves!” Detective Prideaux yelled, the most animated I’d seen him yet.
Everyone froze in place.
“I’ve called the ambulance. They should be here in two minutes,” Nathan announced, reappearing at the front of the crowd.
Enzo complained loudly about the agony he was in, which I took to mean that he wasn’t in mortal danger.
“Was he stabbed?” I asked Detective Girard, who was helping her other colleagues present to round up everyone who’d been in the vicinity. The boulangerie owner’s daughter then appeared, making a dreadful fuss over Enzo, which he bore with all the grace of someone who is severely regretting picking the youngest and silliest woman he could find to make his exes feel jealous. I suddenly wondered why he’d been so close behind Luna without his date. Had he been about to make another pass at her?
It wasn’t long before reinforcements arrived. Enzo was led into the ambulance and driven away, while the police searched the rest of us for the missing knife.
They didn’t find it.
It was as if the knife had disappeared into thin air. The police took statements from everyone and we were allowed to make our way home, the party mood well and truly faded.
“You’ll be okay?” Adele said to Luna, who nodded gratefully. Alcide had abandoned the monkeys and come running as soon as the news about Luna’s fall had reached him.
“I’ll look after her,” he promised and we all wished one another goodnight.
“If I didn't know better, I’d say he set the whole situation up, just so he would have an excuse for not getting the monkeys back home,” I said to Lowell when we were back over the threshold of our own home. “You saw Ms Borel, didn’t you?” I added, suddenly concerned that Lowell had been awfully quiet.
He nodded. “Yes. Flannigan’s been integrating himself with the community while she’s been observing from the outside. It’s a standard technique.”
I raised my eyebrows at the description of Flannigan as ‘integrating with the community’. In my opinion, he wouldn’t win any medals for the job he was doing.
“Hey, you know those phone calls…” I began and quickly filled him in on what Ambre had told me.
“I thought there probably was someone hiding here,” Lowell acknowledged when I’d shared the truth with him
. He rubbed his dark stubble for a moment. “Why attack Enzo Argent? He surely wasn’t privy to any knowledge."
“Constantine can’t have known either, if Ambre’s telling the truth,” I added, also thinking. "These attacks… they’re not for information. They seem motivated by pure hate. What if the person responsible just likes hurting people?” I hypothesised.
Lowell shrugged. "Why come out of the woodwork now? Something must have changed. There has to be a catalyst.”
“I hope it's nothing to do with us,” I said, acknowledging the fact that, to my knowledge, everything had been just fine in the little village before we’d arrived. Since then, there’d been murder and stabbings galore!
There was also Lowell’s history with Pascal Devereux to consider. Was this the work of a ghost from the past?
“It’s probably not anything to do with us. You said you thought it was targeted at Adele, right?” Lowell commented, although I wasn't sure how seriously he was taking it.
“Yes, but Enzo doesn't really fit in with that.” Then I thought about it. “She did mention he’d been hounding her about Constantine’s bag, trying to get her to confess to the crime.”
“Hey!” I said, suddenly having another thought. “Nathan said that Enzo had taken paragliding lessons at the same time as him.”
“So we can add another potential murder suspect to the list of almost everyone in the village who knows how to paraglide. Anyway, I thought it was a different sort of parachuting that they were good at?” he said.
“Yeah, BASE jumping. I suppose you’re right.” I shook my head. “I’m just not seeing it right now.”
Lowell walked over to the cupboard and pulled out a bottle of brandy. I grabbed some milk and heated it on the stove, before pouring it onto some hot chocolate powder. After a moment's thought, I added a dab of brandy.
“You just said that Nathan knows how to paraglide, too,” Lowell said, playing devil’s advocate, but it sparked a memory of something in my mind.
“Nathan mentioned he likes Adele. He also ran off to call the ambulance, so could have hidden the knife,” I said, a feeling of dread setting in.
Was Nathan the coldblooded killer? I could see his motivation for the recent attacks, but the elaborate dispatch of Pascal Devereux still seemed a mystery to me. Also, if he and Enzo were both still taking lessons, it was more than likely that they weren’t responsible for Pascal’s plummet. Even now, I could still see the artful way the jumper had controlled the parachute and drifted away from the zoo to make their escape after the deed was done. There was, however, one person close to Nathan who definitely would have had the skill to do all of that…
“Maybe there’s more than one thing going on here,” I mused, taking a sip of my pleasantly spiked hot chocolate.
"All right, Nancy Drew. I'm sure the police are looking for the knife right now,” Lowell assured me with a wry smile. “We'll know tomorrow morning if they find it.”
I nodded, unsure what to hope for. If the police did uncover the blade hidden in the village hall, that would be it for Nathan. Despite the evidence pointing his way, I didn’t want to believe that he could be responsible for all of the horrible happenings. I'd assumed he had a harmless crush on Adele, but had I deliberately ignored the warning signs?
8
Living in Fear
You got the monkeys back,” I said by way of greeting to Alcide.
We were both on our way to the weekly meeting of zookeepers. I was looking forward to telling Monsieur Quebec that I was practically finished with my review, but also saddened by the prospect of saying goodbye to the idyllic lifestyle and the new friends I’d made.
“Once the food from the party had been cleaned up, they were back at the gates asking to be let in. They know which side their bread is buttered,” he told me.
I considered renewing my argument that the zoo should figure out a way to keep the monkeys in their intended habitat - both for their safety and the public’s - but half of me agreed with Alcide. The small, furry devils were happy with their freedom. If the lax French laws meant that the zoo could get away with letting the monkeys roam, perhaps they should be allowed to carry on.
“Is Luna okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, she's fine. She was a bit shaken by someone getting stabbed right behind her. Although, after she’d had a few drinks to calm her nerves, she said she was just surprised it had taken someone so long to stab Enzo.” He raised an eyebrow at me.
I figured Alcide would know as much as anyone about Luna’s past relationship. That was the way things worked in the village. “I wouldn't blame his ex-wife if she was the one who did it,” I confided.
“She wasn't anywhere nearby, apparently. From what I gather, she’d stayed back to talk with her neighbours when Detective Prideaux was near the action. I guess their date didn't go that well,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Luckily for her,” I agreed, thinking that she would definitely have been suspect number one if she had been in the vicinity.
We reached the restaurant and climbed the stairs at the back of the building to go into the large room above. It was a place that seemed to be perpetually stuffy and had the same smell as a school classroom.
Luna and Adele were already in there, along with a slew of other familiar faces. I felt another pang when I realised I’d be saying goodbye so soon.
“Hi,” I said, moving to sit next to Adele, so Alcide could have the spot by Luna.
“Justin’s home with the puppies today. Jolie’s having a bit of trouble nursing them all and has a bit of a snuffle coming on. They’ve already grown so much! I can’t believe it,” Adele whispered, while Monsieur Quebec walked to the front of the room and paused to shuffle a few papers.
“Has the father been round to inspect his brood?” I quipped, remembering that the suspected father’s owner would not be in favour of the rather unusual union.
Adele smiled. “No, but I have it on good authority that someone told her that the puppies look just like miniature versions of her dog. You won’t believe it, but she's actually coming round to see about getting one! Wonders never cease. I just hope she’s not going to charge us for the stud.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t dare,” I said, thinking of the wayward behaviour of dogs.
“If she does want one, I’ll give it to her for nothing, of course,” Adele said, willing to acknowledge that much. “I think her boy is already getting on. That’s the problem with big breeds like Great Danes, they have such tragic life expectancies. Hopefully crossing one with a Labrador will make for a more hardy dog. I think that’s why she’s so interested. It’s nice when people finally convert to looking beyond breeding.”
“I hope many more people get to thinking that way,” I said, reminded of the many health problems that a lot of overbred dogs faced. Even Adele’s Dogue De Bordeaux had breathing problems. I knew they'd got him from a rescue centre, but it was surely time that others woke up and stopped breeding such negative traits, merely to create a desirable appearance.
Zoos faced the same problem. I was always horrified by the tales of white tigers in captivity. They’d long been bred for their looks, as any effort at conservation would be far more concerned by the animals’ health. The gene pool was so small that many of their young died and others had grown up with serious deformities caused by so much inbreeding.
Monsieur Quebec finished shuffling his papers and we all lapsed into a near silence. He cleared his throat and looked around the room. Suddenly, I sensed that what he was about to say wasn't going to be pleasant. Hesitation hung over the usually forthcoming manager.
“I’m very sorry to announce that Constantine Duval passed away in hospital last night,” he said.
The silence in the room now seemed cavernous. I felt as though someone should stand up and say something about her - share a fond memory perhaps - but I knew full well that there was no one here who had anything good to say. It didn't seem fair that someone who’d died so t
ragically didn’t have anything to recommend her memory, but that was the way Constantine had chosen to live her life.
I spared a thought to think about her ageing mother and wondered who would care for her now Constantine was gone. I hoped that in the wake of her death, people would find out about the more caring side of her nature and perhaps understand more about why she’d behaved the way she had. Somehow, I doubted few would spend long on thoughts of Constantine.
Monsieur Quebec pressed on with the notices and that was all Constantine became - a small announcement at the start of the weekly meeting.
I hung back at the end to discuss a time with Monsieur Quebec where I’d present my review of the zoo and talk about ways to move L’airelle forward. When the moment came for me to walk out of the room, I found it wasn’t as empty as I’d thought. Mr Flannigan was waiting in a chair at the back of the room and I could tell he wanted to speak to me.
“It’s tragic about Constantine, isn’t it?” I said, figuring that speaking about something sad was the only way I’d manage to remain polite with this odious man.
“Yes, it’s a shame,” he allowed. “I wanted you to know that we’ve moved Mr and Mrs Chanterelle.”
“Ambre?” I asked, and he nodded.
“It seemed like the best thing to do. We've already spent too long in this backwater village. If you can’t be certain of the truth, it’s best to take every precaution."
I inclined my head to show agreement but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Ambre Chanterelle. She had told me that she liked her life in L’airelle and now she’d have to start all over again, someplace new. All because a man who’d known the truth had died.
“Did the police ever find out exactly how Pascal died?” I asked.
Mr Flannigan shrugged his shoulders. “Not really. The impact damaged the cadaver a lot. They think it might have been suffocation or strangulation, but it could just have easily been blunt force trauma to the head. It’s complicated," he said, as if that settled it.