by Katie Penryn
To my dismay I’d flinched before I could stop myself when she placed her hand on mine. I quickly covered our three hands with my other one and gave hers a squeeze, hoping she hadn’t noticed my reaction. My heart was still closed to her, but I didn’t want to cause her pain. My coldness was my problem, not hers. I had to work on forgiveness.
“Thanks Gwinny,” I said. “I hope you know how much we value your help now that you’re living with us.”
She gave me a faint smile, withdrew her hand and returned to the sink.
“Oh,” she said as she looked out of the window. “Martine’s here. Right on time for her morning coffee.”
Martine Courier was our postwoman and something of a family friend. She’d proved invaluable on many occasions with her knowledge of local gossip and personalities. In France, postmen have a duty to report if they consider anyone needs assistance. That makes them inquisitive by nature and a useful resource for a private investigator.
She rapped on the front door and bustled into the kitchen taking the seat vacated by Gwinny only a few moments before. It took her a few seconds to throw our mail down on the table and settle her large bulk into the chair.
Gwinny placed a cup of hot coffee before her and signaled to Felix to pass her the box of éclairs.
Martine wriggled to get comfortable, pulled down her tunic and reached for one saying, “I really shouldn’t but I can’t resist.”
She took a bite. “Good. Not as good as Tidot’s were, but not bad.”
On top of the usual Monday morning pile of publicity catalogs lay an A4 manila envelope, an official looking missive. I raised my eyebrows at Felix and he nodded back. Recent history had made me wary of such letters. I waited with impatience for Martine to push the mail towards me, but she carried on munching her éclair quite oblivious of my anxiety. The pastry demolished, she downed her cup of coffee in a couple of mouthfuls. At last she raised her eyes and caught mine.
She gave an embarrassed titter and pushed the pile towards me. “I’m sorry, Penzi. I’m such a gourmande. Forgive me.”
I was no closer to knowing what the envelope said. I could make out my name but that was all. I extracted the sheaf of publicity papers from the bottom and passed them to Gwinny. The letters, half a dozen or so, I handed to Felix to read noticing as I did so that there were two large manila envelopes, not one.
Felix picked up the two envelopes. “The first one’s for you, Penzi, but the other one’s addressed to me. Who could know I’m living here with you? The postmarks are French.”
“Well, open them then,” I said as I reached behind me for a knife with which to slit them open and passed it to him.
I waited with my stomach muscles tightening. Official letters never brought good news. Were the authorities checking up on Felix? He had no legal standing as far as I knew. He had immigrated into France as a cat, not a human being, and we had faked his application for a UK passport.
Felix pulled out the letter and scanned it quickly, the furrow between his eyes deepening as he read down the page. He flipped over to the second without looking up at me. It had to be bad. I dug my nails into my tightly wrapped palms.
He flicked the first page back over the second and stared down at the letter while he gathered his thoughts.
“What is it, Felix? You’re scaring me,” I asked him unable to keep the note of apprehension out of my voice.
At last, he glanced across at me. “It’s from the Ministry.”
“What do they want?”
“It’s about our last case.”
“Are we in trouble? Did we break a law?”
Felix relaxed enough to chuckle. “You know we did, but that’s not it. Let me check the one addressed to me before I tell you anything.”
Martine held her cup out to Gwinny for a refill. In my anxiety I’d forgotten she was still sitting there enjoying her usual break from her postal delivery routine. I wanted to warn Felix not to say anything in front of her. Pas devant les enfants came to mind, but that wouldn’t work because Martine was French, so I gave Felix a hefty kick under the table.
“Ouch!” he said rubbing his shin and glaring at me. “There’s no need for that. I’m taking my time because I want to be sure I understand all this legal French properly.”
Martine was reaching back to take her refill from Gwinny, so I risked a jerk of my head in her direction and put my finger to my mouth to say watch it.
Felix took the hint, rising to his feet and saying, “We need a dictionary for this. Let’s go into the study, Penzi.”
I pushed back my chair and made it to the kitchen door before Felix, tossing off a quick au’voir to Martine over my shoulder on the way out.
As soon as the study door was closed, I turned round to Felix and punched him on the arm. “Stop being such a rotter and tell me what the letters say. I’m getting more and more anxious.”
“Chill, boss. I want to be sure about this before I tell you what they say.”
I hurried across to my father’s chair and sat down. Felix pulled a French-English dictionary down from the bookshelf and spent a few minutes rifling through the pages, giving a slight grunt every time he found the word he wanted and scribbling it down above the typed French.
Satisfied at last that he understood the content of the letters, he put down his pen, shut the dictionary with a thump and shot me a beaming smile.
“You’ll never guess,” he said.
“Of course, I won’t. Tell me what they say. I can’t stand the suspense. Good news or bad?”
“I wouldn’t be smiling if it was bad news, would I?” he said reaching across the desk for my hands and holding them tightly.
He stared deep into my eyes and said, “Mpenzi Munro, you are now officially a millionaire.”
“What?” I gasped. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“The letters are from the Ministry informing us of our share of the reward for solving the case of the oyster farmers. The four of us, Izzy, Garth, you and I, are granted over two million Euros each.”
I blinked and blinked again while the import of Felix’s news sank in. No more money problems.
“For real?” I whispered as the breath whooshed out of me.
Felix nodded. “Both of us. We’re set up for life.”
“I can’t believe it. I can make sure Sam and Jimbo get the education and training they want. I’ll be able to take care of Gwinny as she grows older… and help other people. It’s magic.”
I snatched my hands away and leapt to my feet. Throwing my arms in the air I did a victory dance whooping, “Yes, yes. Maaaaaagic.”
The door to the study opened and Gwinny stepped in with Martine peering over her shoulder.
“What’s going on in here? Are you all right?” she asked.
“Never better,” I answered not breaking off from my jig of happiness.
“Well?” she asked.
Felix put his finger to his lips. I didn’t need his warning. There was no way I wanted Martine to know about our exotic windfall. It would be all round the town and we’d be besieged by demands for financial help. And Gwinny shouldn’t know either. But what to say? I had to think of something.
I stopped prancing about.
“Izzy has managed to persuade her friend who works in the Louvre to come and appraise all those paintings in the brocante. He’s coming next month.”
“Your reaction seems a bit over the top, but I suppose it’s progress. It’s time you started earning some money,” Gwinny said as she left the room pushing Martine backwards into the hall.
“Phew!” said Felix stifling a laugh. “We nearly gave the game away there.”
I took my seat again. “We can’t let anyone know. We’ll never have a moment’s peace.”
“I agree with you there. But we have a more serious problem than keeping all this secret.”
“What’s that?” I asked him.
“What are we going to do with the rest of our lives if we don’t need
to earn a living?”
As usual, Felix had put his finger right on the crux of the matter. What indeed?
Chapter 2
Felix and I spent the rest of the morning brainstorming our future careers, our ideas growing more and more fantastic as lunchtime approached. Felix would train to be a trapeze artist saying he would be the only swinging leopard in the world. I would run for parliament and become prime minister. We were both drunk with the idea of being millionaires and never having to worry about money again. When Gwinny knocked on the door to call us to eat, she found two adults worn out with laughing and joking. After lunch, Felix returned to the study to work on his portfolio of clients, who still required him to fulfill his current contracts whatever he might decide to do in the future. In working mode, Felix was an ethical hacker. I lay on my bed and listened to an audio book until it was time to meet Jimbo off his school bus at four o’clock.
On my way down the cobbled street with the seawall on my left I passed my neighbors’ houses all tricked out with tubs of daffodils and tulips, their bright yellow and red blooms giving new life to the drab gray stone of the buildings after the bleak winter.
Our friend Audrey lived next to the school bus stop at the end of the street in the flat above The Union Jack, a shop catering to the more eccentric needs of British ex-pats. I’d first come across Audrey shortly after we arrived in Beaucoup-sur-Mer. We’d crashed into each other on a roundabout. Audrey had been in a state of physical and emotional disarray. She was fleeing from her abusive husband with her two children, Simone and Wilfred. The sight of her had taken away my annoyance and anger. I’d taken her home with me and given her temporary shelter until we could find some way for her to act independently. When The Union Jack fell vacant, I’d arranged with the property owner for Audrey to take over the premises. Felix had helped her set herself up in business. Seven months down the line, the shop was the go-to destination for all Brits looking for their favorite treats.
As I reached the stop, she ran out and took hold of my arm. Her color was high and her breathing rapid.
“Can you spare me five minutes, Penzi?” she asked me.
“Of course. Whatever’s the matter?”
“I’ve received notice that the Tribunal is to hear my request for a restraining order against my husband at long last. Can you come in and go over it all with me after we collect the children?”
She thrust the document into my hands. I looked down at it blankly and turned it over and over. It was double-Dutch to me. She’d forgotten I couldn’t read well enough to cope with a document of that importance or complexity.
I passed it back to her. She mistook my action and her face fell.
“It won’t take you long, Penzi. Please help me. I’m not clever enough to deal with official documents.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” I replied. “Anyway, that’s not it. I need Felix to read these papers to me. Why don’t you come up to our house now with the kids? Close the shop for a couple of hours. Felix and I will do all we can to help you, you know that.”
She threw her arms around me. “Oh, thank you, thank you. Would you meet Wilfred off the bus while I close up the shop?”
She handed Simone to me and dashed back into the shop. The bus pulled up. Jimbo and Wilfred tumbled down the steps with the other children, all shrieking and laughing, glad to be out of school for the day.
Audrey returned from locking up the shop with a file of papers in the crook of one arm and with her other hand holding onto Piffle’s lead. Piffle was Audrey’s cute little dachshund. She kissed Wilfred on both cheeks and handed Piffle off to him. She took Simone back from me, and we set off up the cobbled street to our house, Les Dragons.
Gwinny swept the children and Piffle into the kitchen with her. Audrey and I went into the study to find Felix deep in his work with his ear buds in. So engrossed was he in his work that he didn’t notice us until I tapped him on the shoulder.
“Oh great,” he said jumping up with a beaming smile to greet Audrey and give her the bise on both cheeks. “I need a break. I’ve hit the law of diminishing returns, so I’m not progressing at all.”
I pulled up a chair for Audrey, and I sat in my father’s old armchair.
I held out my hand to Audrey for the documents and passed them to Felix.
“Audrey needs our help. She’s been called to the Tribunal and wants us to go over the documents with her.”
Felix scanned the print quickly and looked back up. “It’s not complicated. You have to present yourself to the Tribunal on Friday such-and-such a date and at such-and-such a time.”
Audrey took the paper back from Felix and returned it to her purse.
“I gathered that much. What should I take with me, Penzi?”
“We’ll compile a file together with your reasons for asking for the order, together with the doctor’s report from the day I found you and brought you home. Do you have any other evidence of assault?”
“No. I never reported him before. He always promised he would change, and I believed him until that last time.”
I reached out to reassure her with a pat of my hand. “I’m sure we have enough, please don’t worry.”
I turned to Felix and asked him to fetch us a pot of tea and some of Gwinny’s excellent cookies.
It didn’t take long for me to organize Audrey’s case with Felix’s help. We had time to play a game of catch in the garden with the children before dusk fell.
Gwinny had made an early supper for the three children. When Simone came into the kitchen in answer to Gwinny’s call, she made straight for Zig’s dog basket. Our two new kittens whom we’d named Slinky and Floss were curled up against Zig, who’d adopted them when we’d brought them home from the harbor during our last case. Before long Simone was curled up with them. I looked around for Piffle thinking he might be possessive of Simone but he was happy having boy time with Wilfred.
Gwinny tutted. “It’s time Zig had puppies of her own, Penzi.”
“I’ve been thinking that. I’ll have to ask around to find a suitable mate for her. She’ll be coming on heat soon. Do you know of anyone, Audrey?”
Audrey shook her head. At that moment the phone rang in the hall. Jimbo dashed off to answer it. He came running back in with the phone.
“Penzi, it’s Monsieur Bonhomie on the line. He wants to speak to you.”
Monsieur Bonhomie was our mayor. Felix and I had an up-and-down relationship with him. We’d helped him by solving a series of murders the previous year, but he could be prickly if he thought he was being sidelined.
“Thanks, I’ll take it,” I said reaching for the phone.
“Bonsoir, Monsieur le Maire. It’s a bit late for you to be calling. Are you all right? No crisis?”
“Not at all. I’ve been trying to reach you all day on your cell phone. In desperation, I’m trying your land line.”
I apologized for having my phone off all day. Felix and I had been preoccupied with the news of our magnificent windfall.
“So, monsieur, what can I do for you?”
“I’d like you to come into my office. I have something important to discuss with you. Can you make it tomorrow?”
I glanced at Felix, “Tomorrow? The mayor’s office?”
Felix shook his head. He reminded me we’d planned to do some work in the brocante.
I returned to the mayor. “We can manage Wednesday, monsieur. Will that do?”
“Non, let’s make it Thursday. Ten o’clock. I look forward to it, young lady.”
I swished the call off.
“It’s shaping up for another busy week,” I said slotting my phone away in my pocket.
Audrey stood and thanked us for our help. She gathered up Simone, Wilfred and Piffle, and left.
Felix stretched his legs out and leaned back to unkink his spine after sitting at his laptop all afternoon.
“Peace at last,” he said.
Jimbo had been watching Audrey and her kids wa
lk off down the road. He turned round and said, “I don’t think so. That dove is here again. It’s sitting on the sea wall looking at me.”
Felix and I scrambled to our feet and rushed over to see. Jimbo was right. It was the same dove. Even from that distance its note-carrier was obvious on its leg. It was hopping up and down and coo-cooing raucously, calling out for attention.
I hurried out of the front door, down the steps and across to the wall.
“Did you want me?” I asked him.
He bobbed his head and bent his beak down to tap a letter affixed to his leg. “It’s another invitation from the High Council, Ms Mpenzi.”
Felix snorted behind me. “Invitation? More like a summons.”
“That, too,” said the dove. “It never does to take anything the Chief Witch says lightly. She’s strict with us messengers, too.”
“Hold still,” said Felix to the dove. “I can’t get hold of the letter if you keep hopping up and down like that.”
The dove settled, looked at me and cooed, more melodiously this time. “I get excited when I see Mpenzi Munro. She’s clocked up so many wins against evil in such a short time. The witches on the High Council are running a sweepstake on the year’s most effective witch. My bet’s on Mpenzi here.”
I stroked the pretty mauve feathers on his chest and he puffed up with importance.
“Thanks for that,” I said, “but evil seems to have been scared off in Beaucoup-sur-Mer. I don’t anticipate having to face any more challenges. Last summer and autumn brought an uncharacteristic batch of murders. Our little town has recovered its customary tranquility. Everyone’s behaving again.”
Felix pried the latest missive from the High Council out of the tiny satchel strapped to the dove’s leg. “What now?” he said as he opened it up.
“Well?” I asked leaning over his shoulder and trying to read.
“You are summoned—”
“Invited,” interrupted the dove.
“Summoned,” Felix continued, “to the High Council of the Guild of White Witches for your mid-year assessment.”