by Katie Penryn
I knocked, and we went in when someone called out, Entrez!
The man I recognized from the award ceremony did not get up from his desk. He merely gestured at us to take seats in front of him. He made no apology for keeping us waiting and did not offer us anything to drink. So that was the way it was going to be. He returned to tapping away at his keyboard, writing whatever document was so important he couldn’t give us five minutes of his undivided attention. The thought of little men having a Napoleon complex crossed my mind.
At last he clicked his screen off and turned his billiard ball head towards us with a smile on his face that barely reached half way up his cheeks, let alone his beady eyes.
“Alors?” he asked. “The mayor has told me you have questions for me in relation to the death of Madame Hélène de Portemorency, though what I can tell you I do not know. Can you please be brief as I am needed in the distillery?”
I shifted about on the uncomfortable chair wondering where to start. It is never easy to conduct a hostile interview and de Gonzelles exuded hostility from his bald head down to his little feet.
“Well?” he prompted. “I haven’t got all day.”
“We wondered if you had any information you could give us that would help in the unraveling of the mystery of Madame de Portemorency’s death—” I began only to have him interrupt me.
“Yes, yes. That much is obvious. But what have I got to do with anything?” he snapped.
“We’d be grateful if you could fill us in on the health of the de Portemorency distillery… in confidence, of course.”
He glowered at me and pushed his glasses up his nose before answering. I waited without speaking again.
At last he decided he’d left a significant enough pause to reply.
“The business was a shambles. Without his wife, de Portemorency would be in the poorhouse by now. How he’s going to survive without her, I don’t know.”
Felix broke in. “He can always find a new finance director. It shouldn’t be too difficult. And it’s Jean-Claude himself who is the magic taster, isn’t it? Isn’t it his talent that won his distillery the Gold Medal this year?”
De Gonzelles harrumphed loudly then tittered, “Some win. Undue influence on the BNC, if you ask me. I’ve had many tasters say our entry was the best and should have won. Still, with all that’s going on at de Portemorency’s we’re sure to win the Gold Medal next year.”
Felix took a sharp intake of breath before saying, “You don’t sound too sympathetic, Monsieur de Gonzelles.”
De Gonzelles laughed outright this time. “Why should anyone expect sympathy from me? Don’t you know what de Portemorency did to me all those years ago?”
Ah, some ancient scandal coming to light?
I intervened. “Monsieur, we’re newcomers to the area. We know nothing of the past history of the players in this tragedy.”
That made him bridle. He stiffened his spine and squinted at me through his thick lenses as if I were a nasty insect that needed squashing.
“I’m not sure I like being called a player, Madame Munro. But to put you out of your misery and let you in on the secret… which is no secret to anyone in our business…. Many years ago my parents arranged a marriage between me and de Portemorency’s grandmother, Chantal. This was before our business was launched on the stock exchange, you understand. Our marriage would have brought the valuable de Portemorency vineyards under the umbrella of the de Gonzelles family business.”
“Why didn’t the marriage go ahead?” I asked expecting to be slapped down again but to my surprise he answered me.
“Chantal ran off with Jean-Claude’s grandfather, a nobody. He changed his name to de Portemorency, and the rest is history as they say.”
I was surprised to see a tear forming in de Gonzelles’s left eye. He had to remove his glasses to give his eye a surreptitious wipe.
I dropped my voice to a more soothing tone and asked him, “You cared for her, this Chantal? It wasn’t just a business deal?”
He stared off over my head for a few moments lost in the past. Then he shook himself and blinked rapidly bringing his eyes back into focus.
“I was mad about her.” He shrugged. “So, now you know. If anyone has it in for de Portemorency, I do. A double whammy if you like. I admit I fantasize about getting my own back when I lie awake in the dark hours of the morning, but when I return to reality, I would never hurt Chantal’s descendants. I would never deprive those young children of their mother.”
“Have you ever been on a tour of the tunnels and basements of the de Portemorency château?” Felix asked getting back to the business of our meeting.
De Gonzelles switched his head from left to right like an owl and stared at Felix. “You think I put the traps there? I wouldn’t need to steal the ones from the de Portemorency château. We have some lurking around in our cellars, too, you know.”
Time to go. I wondered if Felix had picked up on that point. I thanked de Gonzelles for his help and asked him to let us know if he remembered anything that could be useful to us.
As he shook my hand he said, “You understand what I let slip is confidential, yes?”
“Of course,” I replied and Felix nodded.
On the way back to the Château de Portemorency to collect Jimbo, Felix asked me, “You spotted the clue about the traps?”
“Yes, de Gonzelles doesn’t appear to know that the trap that killed Hélène had the de Portemorency crest on it.”
“We should bear that in mind, but he’s a wily old fox and could have been misleading us.”
*
We had to tear Jimbo away from his friends. With many promises of return visits we piled into the car and drove out of the château. A couple of hundred yards along the road I pulled over.
“What now?” asked Felix.
“Please call Catrine and ask her for advice on where we can take these vine cuttings. She’ll probably recommend somewhere in Cognac. We don’t want to drive all the way home and have to come back on Monday.”
Felix put the call through. Catrine said that the lab she worked for was multi-functional and they handled most of the work for the BNC, and the local grape growers and distillers. Felix asked her if they could handle a sensitive case and keep it secret. She was intrigued, he said, and if we called in at her home now, she’d advise us.
I drove straight to her house on the outskirts of the city of Cognac. Fortunately, she had a son the same age as Jimbo so we were able to send them off to play or chill, or whatever kids their age do. I didn’t want Jimbo listening in to our discussion.
Felix showed her the vine cuttings and explained they could be a vital clue in the discovery of what had happened to Hélène, but that it was top secret. We hadn’t even told Jean-Claude what we’d found or that we wanted them analyzed for phylloxera and other bugs.
“Don’t worry. It’s not my specialty but I have a colleague I can trust absolutely. I won’t tell him who the work is for. We’ll call you Client X and you can pay cash. We’ve carried out several tests for the new bug this year. The region is under notice to report any incidence. But phylloxera hasn’t been seen around here for decades.”
“How long will it take for the results?” I asked.
“Two tests: phylloxera and phytoplasma. Not long. I’ll stress it’s a priority if you don’t mind paying premium rates for the work to be pushed up the waiting list?”
“Not at all. Do you best and your quickest.”
Once more we disrupted poor Jimbo’s social interaction and dragged him off to the car.
“Penzi, it’s no fun going out with you if you pull me away just when I’m making friends,” he complained as Felix gave him an encouraging push into the back seat.
“Sorry, kiddo. But it’s been a busy day and Gwinny will be waiting for us with supper.”
That’s when I remembered the bag of urine-soaked mud sitting in the trunk of the car.
“Won’t be a moment,” I said rushing round t
o the back to fetch it. I waved the bag at Felix and hurried back into the house where I explained to Catrine that we needed a DNA test on what we thought was urine.
“Okay,” she answered with raised eyebrows. “Dare I ask?”
“It’s to do with the case and could be crucial, and so please keep it quiet and don’t lose it. How much will it cost and how long will it take?”
“You don’t have to worry about cost,” she answered. “For Hélène, I’ll see it’s done for free and quickly. I’ll give you a ring when the results for both tests are ready.”
I thanked her, said goodbye again and dashed back to the car where Jimbo and Felix were waiting impatiently. We hurried away home. As a supermarket flashed past, I remembered my commission for Gwinny. Artichokes. I turned off the road hoping they’d have some. My luck was in and they were reduced because it was so late on a Saturday afternoon. On the way to the cash desk I snatched up a tin of stuffed vine leaves, one of her favorites.
Chapter 22
After such a busy week, Felix and I had a family day on the Sunday. We packed a picnic and took off up the coast to find a quiet cove. Sam and Emmanuelle came with us. Gwinny had been touched that I’d bought her favorite stuffed vine leaves for her. It made me ashamed that such a little thing could give her so much pleasure and I determined to show her more affection. Ten months after we’d all found each other again was surely time enough for me to come to terms with my wounded inner child?
We enjoyed our day out at the beach. It hadn’t been warm enough to swim, too early in the year for the Atlantic Ocean, but we’d paddled, caught crabs and hunted about in the rock pools at low tide. Jimbo had filled a jam jar with tiny shrimplike creatures which he insisted on taking home with us. I warned him they would die but he wouldn’t listen. On the Monday morning he at last saw reason and tipped them over the sea wall into the bay at Beaucoup-sur-Mer.
*
Felix and I had an unpleasant task ahead of us the next day. We had to interview Gilbert Clancy, the man who’d pestered Hélène with love letters. We’d left him till last because we’d hoped we’d turn up something indicating the killer before we got to the bottom of our list of suspects. It was wrong of me to prejudge him. However, everything we’d heard about him had put me off him and if I could have got out of the interview, I would have done so.
We’d been told he was an estate agent in Cognac. Felix had called him up for an interview, and he’d said his office was closed for viewings on Mondays although he usually worked in the office on his files and the preparation of publicity. He’d offered to receive us in his office at four o’clock for tea and discussion.
We left Jimbo at home with Gwinny and sped away back to Cognac again on the Monday afternoon.
With many of the smaller shops in the city center being closed on Monday, we found it easy to slot our car into a space a street away from Clancy’s office which occupied prime real estate in the modern pedestrianized city center. A sign declaring Clancy’s Number One Agency straddled the front door. Clancy was obviously more successful than either of us had imagined; being a creep hadn’t harmed his business opportunities.
We tried the door which was locked. Felix knocked but still no answer. We were ten minutes early. Felix pulled out his phone and rang through. Clancy answered and came hurrying to the door with his phone still held to his ear. He opened the door bowing his head in abject apology for keeping us waiting.
“So sorry,” he said. “I was dictating a bit of catching up with my headphones on. He leaned towards me as Felix stepped aside for me to precede him. Before I could duck away Clancy had his hand draped loosely around my waist ostensibly shepherding me into the shop, but it gave me the willies. My reaction to him didn’t improve when we all halted inside the door for the obligatory handshakes. Talk about unpleasant. Think wet fish with the emphasis both on the wet and the fish bit. Yuck! It was all I could do not to wipe my hand on my jeans when he eventually released it.
I didn’t dare look at Felix.
Clancy ushered us into the back office spouting off as we went, “How kind of you to let me know you were coming and to fit in with my schedule. It’s not often I meet with such thoughtfulness.”
He pulled out a large white handkerchief and flicked it several times across one of the chairs in front of his desk.
“Sit, please, Madame Munro. I wouldn’t want you to dirty your… designer jeans… they must be designer they fit you so perfectly.”
He turned to Felix. “And you so tall and strong, sir. Will this chair be adequate for you?” he asked pointing to my chair’s twin.
Once again I kept my eyes away from Felix. If our eyes met, I was sure one of us would burst out laughing. How could this vapid guy have imagined he had a chance with the gorgeous, smart Hélène de Portemorency?
“Tea, coffee, a soda?” he asked slithering over to a bar unit in the corner of his office.
I chose soda not wanting to have to spend more time in his office than necessary. I didn’t want to wait for the kettle to boil. Felix followed my lead.
Clancy handed the drinks around and took up his seat behind his desk. He wrung his hands together and straightened his tie. “Now, what can I do for you good people? You said it was to do with Madame de Portemorency’s unfortunate demise. Is that not so?”
I drained half my glass while I thought about how to tackle this man. He appeared so sycophantic on the surface, but we knew he was capable of great deviousness. Hadn’t he been writing love letters to Hélène behind her husband’s back? I didn’t expect to trust a word he said, but I had to start somewhere if only to watch his act.
“Monsieur Clancy, we’re interviewing everyone we can find who knew Hélène de Portemorency, especially her friends.”
“Oh,” he said stroking his hands down his arms. “I wouldn’t say I was a friend. Not nowadays anyway. True, we knew each other years ago at university.”
“We heard you went out together.”
He pursed his overfull lips and gave a slight nod. “True again. But only the one date, you know. She wasn’t my type at all. Not a bit of it.”
“Oh?” I asked unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“You’ve heard something to the contrary?” he asked quickly.
This exchange had been too much for Felix. He reached into his pocket, pulled out one of Clancy’s letters and tossed it onto the desk aiming it to land on the blotter in front of the man.
“How do you explain this then?” he asked.
Clancy shrank back as from a snake and turned his head away closing his eyes. When we didn’t move or say anything, he peeped through half raised lids at the letter as if to check it was what he thought: one of his.
He snapped around, thumped his hands on his desk and sprang to his feet. “This is an outrage. An absolute outrage. How dare you? That is my private correspondence to Hélène. It’s none of your business.”
“So you admit you’ve been writing to Hélène on a regular basis?” Felix continued.
Clancy slunk his gangling frame up and down his office, casting quick glances at the letter lying on his desk as if he expected it to dematerialize and save him from having to answer our questions.
“Monsieur Clancy?” I prompted him. “You don’t deny that you’ve sent Hélène de Portemorency a stream of letters over the past few months?”
He halted his pacing and sat down again.
“So what if I have? There’s no law against it. They weren’t anonymous, nor were they threatening or abusive. I wrote to tell her how much I loved her and how I was looking forward to the day we could be together.”
“But she never answered you, did she?” I said.
He shook my question off saying, “Of course, she did.”
“You can show us her replies?” I asked.
He pursed his lips again and ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t keep them.”
“What? You didn’t hold them dear and re-read them?”
He didn’t answer because he couldn’t.
Felix took over the questioning. “Monsieur Clancy, we have to tell you that it’s clear from the context of your letters, the many we’ve read, that you never received an answer from her.”
He sighed with exasperation. “You’re correct, of course. How could she write to me with that brute of a husband of hers watching her every move?”
“You think she welcomed your letters?”
He tossed his head at me. “She kept them, didn’t she? Or you wouldn’t have them. And she didn’t show them to her husband. He would have said something to me if she had. It was our little secret, you know.”
“How long would you have gone on writing to her without a reply from her if she hadn’t been killed?” I asked him.
“Forever. I’d always loved her. When she was forced to stop dating me when we were at university, I thought it best to let things drop. But then, I met her by chance in the street one day and she made it clear to me she was unhappy with her husband and I had a chance.”
Felix raised his brows at me.
“Are you sure you didn’t get weary of waiting for her? Decide to punish her? Deprive Jean-Claude of her love because you feared she wasn’t returning yours?” Felix asked.
Clancy sprang to his feet. He was around the desk and at Felix before we had time to realize what was happening. He grabbed Felix by the collar and hauled him up out of his chair and kicked it out from under him. Caught off guard, Felix lost his balance and crashed into the desk taking Clancy with him. They slid off onto the floor in a tangled mess of arms and legs. I wasn’t worried Felix would come to any harm. I was afraid he might do Clancy real damage, and we didn’t need a complication like that.
Quick as a flash, I ran through my repertoire of spells. I found one that would do. I concentrated, spoke the words of the spell and Clancy froze in situ.