The Witch Who Mysteries Box Set

by Katie Penryn

  Gwinny’s face fell in astonishment. “What is ro…ro… I’ve never hear of it.”

  Sam chose that moment to say. “It’s the date rape drug, isn’t it? But the victim wasn’t raped, was she?”

  Dubois shook his head. “No, she wasn’t, but rohypnol can be used to cause muscle relaxation. She wouldn’t have been able to move or struggle. She died from carbon dioxide poisoning when the air ran out.”

  So that’s how the murderer maneuvered the victim into the fridge. She had been unable to react.

  “But why arrest Madame Munro?” I asked leaning on the table for support. This was all too surreal for me. “She wouldn’t have had the strength to carry out such a deed.”

  Dubois looked down his long nose again. “She was here, in and out. We checked up on her. Her fingerprints are on the fridge. She’s been living with a group of weirdos in Brittany. They use all kinds of sensation enhancing drugs so the local police say. LSD, Ecstasy, you name it. Why not rohypnol?”

  “Are you saying she brought it down here with her? I thought it was only available on prescription. Have you ever been prescribed, Gwinny?” I asked her.

  Of course, she said no.

  Dubois shifted from one foot to the other. “Anyone can buy it on the internet. Anyone.”

  “But what’s her motive supposed to be for killing a woman she didn’t know?”

  “We don’t need a motive at this juncture. Her motive will become apparent as we carry out our investigations. The Prosecutor has authorized this arrest and so I insist you let me get on with it.”

  “Penzi,” Gwinny bleated. “Help me. I know nothing about this. I am completely innocent.”

  I went round to her and coaxed her out of her chair. I didn’t want the two policemen manhandling her out of her seat. Better if she submitted to the arrest with dignity.

  “Gwinny, you have to go along with them for now. Rest assured I will do everything in my power to make sure you are released.”

  As the policemen cuffed my mother I warned Dubois, “You are making a big mistake. This is a travesty of justice. Not only are you making an innocent woman suffer, you are allowing the real criminal to escape.”

  Dubois snorted his derision at my protests. “May I remind you that you are not in your own country? We do things differently here.”

  He followed the sad trio of Gwinny and the two policemen out into the street. They pushed Gwinny into the back of the van, slammed the doors shut, executed a fast K turn and drove off down the street, siren blaring like a mad donkey in pain, closely followed by Dubois.

  *

  We stood on the pavement watching them out of sight, down the road, around the corner, along the Esplanade and off into the inner town. When the street fell silent again, we stared at each other in disbelief. We didn’t know Gwinny well, but no one thought she was capable of murder, or did they?

  “You don’t think she did it, do you?” I asked Sam and Jimbo just to be sure they agreed with my assessment of her character.

  “Hell, no” said Sam.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” was Jimbo’s answer.

  I ushered my brothers back into the house. The neighbors had begun to take an interest in the goings-on down our end of the street. We’d only been there a day. What would they think of us?

  I rounded up hot tea and sugar for shock.

  I waited for it to work before I asked them, “What the hell are we going to do? We have to do something. We can’t leave our mother locked up for nothing.”

  Sam put his mug down and sighed. “It seems hopeless. The police are so sure they have the right person.”

  “Will they guillotine her?” asked Jimbo bursting into tears.

  “Of course not,” I assured him running round the table to hug him. “They don’t execute people for murder in France. Not since 1981. And they haven’t used the guillotine since the 70’s. That was before any of us were born.”

  “But she faces life imprisonment, doesn’t she?” said Sam.

  Jimbo raised his head “It’s not fair. I’ve only had a mum for two days. All my life I’ve wanted a mum and just when I find her the police take her away.”

  His eyes filled with tears again. “Penzi, I want to go home. I don’t like France.”

  I hugged Jimbo while I answered Sam. “Yes, it’ll be prison for life if they find Gwinny guilty. I don’t know where to begin to help her. I’ll have to brush up on French law.”

  “Penzi, there’s only one thing for it,” said Sam. “You’ll have to find the real murderer. They’ll have to let Gwinny go free then.”

  “Why me?”

  “You’re the clever one.”

  Jimbo stopped his tears. “You could always use magic, Penzi. Please.”

  “Don’t push me. You know how I feel about that. Anyway, I don’t know any magic so I couldn’t use it even if I wanted to.”

  Jimbo fetched my phone off the kitchen counter and handed it to me. “Phone up the police station and ask when you can see her. That would be something at least.”

  Sam and Jimbo watched me closely while I made the call.

  “In a couple of days, but someone will ring to confirm,” I told them switching off my phone.

  Sam pushed his chair back and got up from the table. “We can’t afford to waste any time, if we are to find the murderer before Gwinny is locked up for good. What’s the first step?”

  “Find out about the victim,” said Jimbo and I together.

  “Come along, then. We’ll wander round the town and see what we can find out.”

  “Okay,” I said getting up. “We’ll take the dogs with us. People are always happy to talk when there are cute dogs to pet.”

  “I wouldn’t call Zig and Zag cute, Penzi.”

  “We’ll tie ribbons round their necks.”

  And so off we went to town with Zig wearing a wide pink satin ribbon and Zag sporting one of blue. He didn’t look too happy about it.

  Chapter 10

  The first place we called in was The Union Jack because the shop faced the end of our street and we knew the owner was English. I was expecting him to be welcoming of potential new English customers looking for their Marmite or Bath Oliver fix. Before I even had time to say hello he shooed us out of the shop saying, “No dogs allowed in the shop.”

  He pointed to a railing outside. “You’ll have to tie them up there.”

  I don’t think he meant to be unpleasant for he explained it was the health regulations. “Anyway,” he said. “My dachshund would be terrified of your huge dogs.”

  What dachshund? I peered over the top of the glass counter and a little black face with drooping long ears looked back at me from a cushion on top of the counter.

  Jimbo giggled and kicked the foot of the counter with his foot. The dachshund woofed and wagged its tail. So the dog was friendly even if its owner wasn’t.

  He must have realized he had to make up for his earlier surliness for he was suddenly all smiles, asking us what we were looking for. Coming round the counter again he pointed to all the English delicacies that expatriates long for: Weetabix, Rose’s Lime Marmalade, Pickled Walnuts and Treacle Toffee to name a few.

  I held out my hand and introduced myself. “I’m Mpenzi Munro and these are my two brothers, Sam and Jimbo. We moved into Les Dragons on Monday.”

  “Oh, wow!” he said as he shook my hand. “The murder house. The local grapevine can’t talk about anything else. I’m Keith Gardner by the way.”

  “Did you know Edna Yardley?”

  “No, never met her. I guess she was English from her name.”

  “So, she never came into your shop?”

  “No, not once.”

  Sam had walked over to the wall. A phalanx of framed photos hung there. I moved across to join him. They showed Gardner in all guises: Shylock, Othello and Captain Hook amongst many others.

  “Are these all you?” I asked him.

  He hurried up to us. “Oh yes. The Little Theater Club perfor
mances. I suppose you could say I’m the leading light. Never miss a show. It’s only amateur dramatics, but it’s great fun and one never knows where it can lead, does one?”

  He stepped back preening, running his hand over his chin length locks.

  “What do you think of these photos?” he asked pointing to a couple of studio portraits on the wall behind the counter. “Do they do me justice?”

  Sam and I gave them a polite once-over while Jimbo giggled behind us.

  “Left or right profile do you think?” Gardner asked posing first one way and then the other.

  “Either,” said Sam. “They’re equally fl— er…good.”

  Trying to keep a straight face, I asked again, “So you can’t tell us anything about Ms Yardley?”

  “Sorry. I suggest you ask at the baker’s round the corner. “Always a hive of gossip. Everyone needs his daily bread.”

  To show us how much he had thawed he gave Jimbo a packet of gobstoppers.

  With that, we thanked him and left him to his thespian glory. I was glad we’d cut short our visit as I found Zig and Zag worrying a dead crow up and down the pavement as far as their leashes would stretch.

  *

  It was the same story at all the shops along the Esplanade. We had to tie the dogs up and there was no helpful gossip either. No one knew more than we did. We had trouble carrying all the holiday junk we had to buy along the way. People on the Esplanade stopped to pat the dogs, but they were all holiday makers and not au fait with the goings-on behind the tourist scene.

  We were on our way to the baker’s when the church clock struck twelve. As if someone had pulled a switch all the shops took in their pavement wares and closed up, leaving only the bars and restaurants open.

  I laughed at Sam and Jimbo’s dismay. “That’s French culture for you. Remember the truck driver on the way down here? Everything stops for lunch from twelve until two. Only the hypermarkets on the edge of town will stay open.”

  There seemed no point in walking home so we chose a restaurant with tables out on the pavement and a conspicuous notice saying Water for our friends the dogs.

  It was pleasant to sit outside at a table shaded against the noonday sun by a capacious umbrella and chill out French style. Everything was so different from England. The pavements were spotless: no vomit, no beer stains, no dog poo.

  If it hadn’t been for the problem of Gwinny’s arrest, I could have relaxed and enjoyed the ambience but try as I might a little doubt at the back of mind niggled away. Would we be able to save Gwinny? I know she hadn’t been a perfect mother. To be honest she hadn’t been a mother at all except biologically speaking. But she didn’t deserve to be locked up for a crime she didn’t commit. And who else was going to do anything to save her? She hadn’t said anything about her life in Brittany, but she didn’t seem anxious to return there so I guessed there was no special someone in her life any longer.

  It was clear everything would have to be put on hold until she was released.

  *

  As soon as the clock struck two we set off on the scrounge for more gossip. The baker was putting up his shutters as we arrived at his shop. We dallied for a few minutes salivating over the delectable pastries and gâteaux in the window.

  “Buy something,” urged Jimbo tugging at my arm.

  The shop had filled up while we were deciding what to buy. All the better.

  We tied up poor Zig and Zag and entered the cool air conditioned interior.

  The baker was chatting to a substantial French lady who was formally dressed in suit and heels in spite of the heat, definitely not a holiday maker.

  I edged closer to eavesdrop.

  “Dreadful. Dreadful,” she was saying. “And on the crescent. The last house you say, Monsieur Brioche?”

  “Yes, Madame. The house belonging to that English family, the Munros.”

  “There’s been nothing in the paper.”

  “No, the police are keeping it quiet. She was an Englishwoman, you know, the victim. Her name was Edna Yardley.”

  “How did the police find out who she was? I heard they couldn’t identify her.”

  “Her boyfriend had been away for a few days and when he returned it was obvious that she hadn’t been home since last week. He found rotting food on the kitchen counter. She’d taken some steak out of the freezer to thaw and it was off. The cat has chewed it and the poor thing was drinking the water out of the fish tank.”

  “She could have been off with another man you know what young people are like nowadays.”

  “No, he said she wasn’t flighty. Anyway, the police called him down to the station and, yes, it was his girlfriend.”

  “Can we have some service here? I have to get back to work,” called out a laborer from the end of the queue.

  We hung back until the post lunch crowd had been served.

  Monsieur Brioche replenished the stock in the window and asked us, “Yes?”

  I went through the introductions thinking that as we would probably be spending the rest of our lives in Beaucoup-sur-mer he should know who we were.

  “Ah, Sir Archibald’s children.”

  “You knew my dad?” asked Jimbo.

  “Yes, we used to go fishing together. Maybe I’ll take you some day, young man.”

  “Yes, please, monsieur,” Jimbo said.

  I bought a lemon tart for supper and some macaroons for Jimbo.

  “Do you want me to keep some croissants for you in the morning? You could send this young man down to fetch them for breakfast.”

  “That would be great. But I wanted to ask you about the murder. About the victim. Do you know anything about her?”

  “I did know her. Her boyfriend, Robert Ulry, comes in every day to buy my bread when he’s here. He’s French, you know. I shudder to think I knew about the murder, but didn’t know it was his girlfriend. She was an estate agent working out of a local English firm. She took care of the higher priced properties.”

  “Have you any idea what she would have been doing in our house on Saturday evening?”

  “Absolutely none. You aren’t putting the house on the market, are you?”

  I shook my head.

  *

  We crossed the road to the butcher’s, the dogs’ idea of heaven. They sniffed the air and pointed their noses, straining at their leashes to reach the enticing smells. It was cruel to tie them up outside with all that meat only inches away behind glass. They whined at me as I stepped up to the threshold.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get you some…bones.”

  They perked up at that and lolled their tongues in a doggy grin. Bones was an important word in their canine vocabulary, along with Walk. It was hard to know which was number one.

  It didn’t take long for the clientele to thin out. Once again, I made the introductions. When I held out my hand for the butcher, he surprised me by taking hold of it gently and lifting it up to drop a courtesy kiss.

  “Enchanted, Madame Munro. Georges Faux-Filet at your service. I may expect you to be a frequent customer, yes?”

  I smiled at him charmed by his French manners. “On one condition, monsieur.”

  “Please call me Georges.”

  “You have to supply me with giant bones for my dogs.”

  He chuckled and picked up a couple of scraps of meat. Before I could ask him not to, he stepped out onto the pavement and offered them to Zig and Zag who I’m ashamed to say paid tribute to their lupine ancestry by swallowing the gifts in a flash.

  “Nice doggies,” Georges said and came back into his shop wiping his bloody hands off on his apron. I hoped he was going to wash them before he served us.

  Fortunately, he did and as he dried them, he observed, “The murderer wouldn’t have chosen your house if you’d already moved in with those dogs of yours.”

  I seized the chance to pump him for information. “What can you tell us about the victim? Our mother has been arrested for the murder and we have to do something to find the real
murderer.”

  “Nice lady, Madame Munro. She was a regular customer while she was renovating your house. Anything I can do to help you just ask.”

  Sam stepped up to the counter. “We know who the victim was. We know she had a French boyfriend. We know he reported her missing. That’s the sum total of our knowledge. Can you add anything? Can you think of anyone else who could have done it?”

  Faux-Filet fiddled about with his knives and choppers, his eyes swiveling off to the side while he dredged through his memory.

  “They say check the family first. Parents, boyfriend, work colleagues.”

  “Do you know her parents?”

  “Not well. They live in the big city, Bordeaux. They visit her sometimes and her mother has been to my shop. You could look them up in the online directory. Now, what would you like today? I have some good faux-filet. I always have good faux-filet. I feel I have to live up to my name.”

  He broke into guffaws of laughter. It was infectious. Soon we were all laughing along with him.

  So, I bought faux-filet for supper.

  “And for your beautiful German shepherds….” He picked up a shin bone and sawed it in half. “You could try the newsagents just up the road a bit. They might know something.”

  *

  We were in luck because the first newsagent’s we came to was also a tobacconist. When I told the owner, Monsieur LaPresse, we were on the hunt for information about the victim he told us we were in luck.

  “You see, in France, only registered tobacconists can sell readymade cigarettes and the makings for roll-ups. We still have many smokers in France even though the number has fallen by about fifty percent since the new laws were introduced. If smokers live round here, they have to come into my shop for their smokes.”

  Sam and Jimbo exchanged significant looks. I was pretty sure Sam smoked on the quiet.

  “So what can you tell us?”

  “The boyfriend’s ex has never gotten over their break-up. She’s a smoker and comes in here for her makings. Nanette Oriol is her name. She’s also French. A nursery school teacher at the maternelle at the top of this street.”