The Witch Who Mysteries Box Set

by Katie Penryn

  “I have some iced tea for you,” she said holding up two tall glasses.

  “How kind,” I said thanking her and gulping down the refreshing drink.

  “Are you really blessing the ground?” she asked. “I may be old but I’m not stupid. You know the police have already been all over it looking for clues.”

  “Can you keep a secret?” Felix asked her.

  “Of course.”

  “Monsieur Bonhomie asked us to have a second look in case anything was missed.”

  “He would be anxious. I’ve heard the rumors but I don’t believe them. Tidot is an upstanding citizen, very honest, and that’s unusual nowadays. And his wife’s a sweetie. She helps out at the maternelle at the top of the street, teaching the children to read.”

  We handed the glasses back and continued with the painstaking coverage of the site. We hadn’t found anything helpful. Mind you, I’m not sure what we expected to find. It certainly wasn’t what we did find in the last portion of the grid. My hand was pulled irresistibly towards the gutter. Felix and I searched the gutter and even crouched down to feel along it with our hands but we didn’t find anything.

  Suddenly Felix sidled over to the grating. As I followed him my hands were pulled towards the drain hole, towards the iron grating.

  “Lift it off, Felix. My finger tips are tingling. I’m getting a feeling of precious metal, not just iron.”

  Felix struggled to free the grating from its housing. Years of sludge had cemented it tightly in place. I knelt down beside him to add my strength but it still wouldn’t budge.

  “Oh leave it, Penzi. I’m sure you’re imagining things.”

  I stood up and put my hands on my hips looking down at Felix. “Am I a witch, or aren’t I?”

  “Calm down, Penzi. The heat’s getting to you. Of course, you’re a witch. I’ve never doubted it.”

  “Then believe me when I say there’s something else here. Something precious, gold or silver.”

  Felix got to his feet. “I’ll go and ask the old lady if she has something we can scrape the dirt out with.”

  He came back with a knitting needle and a vegetable knife. With Felix using the knife and me using the needle we soon has the grating loose and Felix tugged it up with a great flourish of dust and nasty caked mud. I leaned over the opening and waved my hands slowly over the dirty water collected on the catchment shelf. Yes, a definite and strong tingle.

  “There’s something down there, Felix. You’ll have to put your hand in and fish it out.”

  “Why me?”

  “You’re the strong one and your arms are longer than mine.”

  “This calls for claws,” he said flicking his leopard’s claws out of their sheaths.

  He crouched down and dredged his claws through the silt below the stinking water. He stopped.

  “Found something?”

  He looked up at me and smiling took his hand out of the water bringing with it a ring, hooked onto one of his claws. Not any old ring but a finger ring.

  I took it off him and wiped it on my T-shirt. My fingers were going mad because the spell was still working. I handed it back to Felix so I could click my fingers to end the spell.

  “It’s not gold or silver,” said Felix.

  “No,” I said taking it back from him. “It’s platinum and often used for wedding rings. I think it’s a wedding ring.”

  “Let me see,” said Felix reaching for it.

  I dropped it into his hand. “Don’t drop it, for heaven’s sake. It might miss the catchment shelf this time.”

  “It’s got an inscription: It says Jerome – then a heart – Beatrice.”

  My heart stopped beating, I swear. “Are you sure? Let me see.”

  Felix was right.

  Jerome for Jerome Tidot. I remember it was written on the wooden board across the top of his shop, — Jerome Tidot : Boulanger et Pâtissier — and Beatrice?

  I scrambled to my feet. “We have to ask the old lady. Come on.”

  We knocked on her door.

  “Would you like another drink?” she asked us.

  “No thank you, madame. We wanted to ask you the name of Monsieur Bonhomie’s sister, her first name.”

  “It’s Beatrice, Beatrice Tidot. Used to be Beatrice Bonhomie. We teased her about being BB.”

  Felix and I looked at each blankly.

  “Oh, you’re too English. Is that all?”

  “Yes,” we said in unison.

  Felix sighed. “I’ve got a nasty feeling about all this.”

  “You must be thinking the same as me.”

  “Of course, Tidot could have lost his wedding ring at any time but….”

  “Don’t let’s go jumping to any conclusions. We’ll have to see the mayor and ask him. But first we must finish searching the rest of the site.”

  “Chances are we won’t find anything else.”

  “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly, Felix.”

  “Don’t be so preachy.”

  “Now who’s letting the heat get to them?”

  “Penzi, you’ll have to cast the spell again.”

  “Oh no, it’s so tiring. It’s boiling hot, I’ve got a headache, and it really takes it out of me.”

  “You can do it.”

  I closed my eyes and summoned up the necessary mental strength to concentrate on the symbols and to voice the Latinate words of veni metallice.

  Only a patch in the footprint of the bakery remained. I was pulled towards a gap in the adjoining wall, the wall still standing. The force was a hundred times stronger than the force that pulled me towards the ring. The gap was filled with debris so the police had missed it.

  “There’s something in this large crack, Felix. Can you brush off the rubble and see?”

  He followed my suggestion and reached his hand inside. “There’s definitely something here but it feels like plastic.”

  “Pull it out.”

  He gave a tug and out came a weird article. It was of mixed materials, part plastic and part what I took for steel. The one hinged on the other. The edges of the plastic were sharp as if torn apart by the blast. Just shards still hanging on a metal hinge.

  Felix turned it around in his hands. “Do you really think this has anything to do with the explosion?”

  “Let me see.” I twisted it this way and that trying to get a feel for what it was. “Felix, there’s a serial number on the side of the hinge.”

  I worked the join a couple of times. A jolt of realization stabbed through my belly. “Oh no. It’s not a hinge. It’s a joint.”

  “Here, let me see.”

  Felix copied my actions. “You’re right. It’s some kind of ball and socket.”

  “Felix, it’s a knee joint. An artificial one.”

  “So? Why are you looking so doom stricken?”

  “Don’t you remember? Tidot was invalided out of the French Foreign Legion. He walked stiffly, didn’t he? Perhaps he was wounded in the knee.”

  “There’s only one way to find out. We see the mayor right away. Give him a ring now to find out if he’s still in his office or at home.”

  “He’ll be lying down after a long Sunday lunch.”

  “Not today, he won’t.”

  The mayor answered straight away and said he was at home for a break from the chaos. He asked me what had alarmed me. I thought I had kept my voice neutral, but obviously not.

  “I’ll tell you when I get there, monsieur.”

  I didn’t want him jumping to the wrong conclusions.

  I clicked my fingers to terminate the metal spell and waved goodbye to the old lady.

  Felix and I ran as fast as we could down the street in spite of the heat. The mayor and his sister needed to know our suspicions as soon as possible.

  Chapter 13

  Monsieur Bonhomie was sitting out under the shade at the front of his house looking over the bay towards Les Dragons when we arrived. Alone. His wife had been watching for us out of the w
indow for she brought over a jug of lemonade as soon as we arrived.

  The mayor waited for us to drink a glass down before he asked us what brought us there in such a hurry.

  “First of all, monsieur, may I ask you what your sister’s name is?”

  “Beatrice,” he said.

  “Do you know if your brother-in-law ever lost his wedding ring?”

  He thought for a moment before saying that he couldn’t be sure. He would have to ask his sister and he reached for his phone.

  “No please, monsieur. A moment please,” Felix said waving the phone away.

  “You’re frightening me,” the mayor said. “What has happened?”

  “I know this is an odd question but could you tell us why Monsieur Tidot was released from the Foreign Legion?”

  “His knee was shot out in a fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Why?”

  There was nothing for it but to let him in on our fears. The ring alone could have been lost, but the artificial knee joint?

  For a moment I thought he was going to faint, but he rallied. It was hot out there in the garden. Felix held a glass of lemonade to the mayor’s lips and he took a few sips.

  “I must ring for Dubois immediately, you’ll wait?”

  “Of course,” Felix said. “But I suggest you ask your sister if she has heard from her husband — without alarming her. We don’t want to do that until we know for sure Tidot was in the bakery when it blew up.”

  The mayor shuddered. “It is terrible to hear your thoughts put into words.”

  He made the call shaking his head as he listened to her reply. He asked for the name of the hotel where the conference was being held. Then he phoned the hotel saying he didn’t care what was going on he wanted to speak to the organizer immediately on police business.

  It was obvious from his questions and replies that Tidot had never arrived for the conference. The mystery now was why not?

  While we waited for Dubois to arrive we passed the possibilities backwards and forwards between us.

  “One thing’s for sure,” said Felix. “Unless this was a suicide bid — and you said, monsieur, Tidot had no money worries and was happy in his marriage – it wasn’t an insurance fraud.”

  I nodded. “No, it was murder. Again.”

  The mayor blanched under his hot face. “Another murder in my peaceful Beaucoup-sur-mer. And so close to home.”

  A car door slammed and Dubois came striding across the lawn.

  “Yes, Monsieur le Maire. What is the problem? Everything is under control. The forensic experts will begin their work on the debris tomorrow.”

  “Sit down, Dubois. Things are much worse than we thought.”

  Dubois cast a glance our way and did his French pout thing. “No doubt if these two are here.”

  “Dubois, I want no professional jealousy about this. Let’s keep it sweet and efficient.”

  Dubois gave us the barest of nods.

  Monsieur Bonhomie turned to me. “Madame Munro, perhaps you would explain your misgivings to Inspector Dubois.”

  I handed over first the ring and then the knee joint explaining where we had found them and what we thought they meant.

  Dubois frowned. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying Tidot was in the bakery when it blew up. That he is dead. Possibly murdered.”

  “That’s right,” said Felix.

  “Dubois,” said the mayor. “The sooner you get started on this the better. This is my brother-in-law we’re talking about.”

  “It is a pity you handled the items,” said Dubois, more in an effort to save face than as a severe rebuke.

  “There wouldn’t have been any fingerprints on the joint, Dubois,” said Felix.

  “No, but there will be DNA. We’ll need that to prove that Tidot is deceased.”

  “It’ll still be there. And the forensics team will now need to be instructed to look for human remains in the all the rubble they collected.”

  “Agreed,” said Dubois. He stood up ready to leave. “I must go and speak to Madame Tidot, your sister.”

  Felix caught hold of his arm to halt him. Dubois shrugged Felix off. “Don’t you know it’s an offense to lay a hand on a police officer?”

  “Calm down Dubois,” said the mayor.

  Felix apologized and said, “I don’t think you should inform Madame Tidot of her husband’s presumed death. It is only presumed, not definite.”

  The mayor nodded in agreement with Felix. “Yes, yes. Wait until I say you can inform her. I will myself visit her now with Madame Munro to see if we can gain some enlightenment on the points Madame Munro has raised.”

  Dubois harrumphed. “Madame Fer-de-Lance is not going to be happy about this interference in police business.”

  The mayor banged his fist on the table. “Dubois, this is my family and I have the authority here. The mayor is king in his town, don’t forget.”

  Dubois turned on his heels and set off against the lawn back to his car, his back rigid with indignation.

  Felix called out after him, “You might want to know there’s a car in the garage behind the shop that used to be – we took down the registration number. Do you want it? If it is Tidot’s, it raises more questions. If his car is there, there’s even more likelihood he was in the shop when it blew up.”

  “So what’s the number?” asked Dubois taking out his notebook and pen.

  Felix gave it to him and the mayor gasped and slumped back in his chair.

  “Dubois?” I called out in turn. “You could trace Tidot’s medical records and see if the serial number on that joint is recorded as being fitted to his leg.”

  Dubois stamped his foot. “Madame Munro, I’ll have you know I had already thought of that. You are not the only one with a brain here.”

  And with that he stalked off again.

  The mayor sighed. “You could have handled that more diplomatically. It doesn’t pay to rile the police. I need them working their hearts out over this situation.”

  “Monsieur, I do apologize,” I said. “We didn’t mean to be disrespectful. He’s just not the easiest man to co-operate with. It’s his pride.”

  The mayor stood up and gestured towards the parking area. “We had better visit my sister. It will be several days before the forensic results are received. I don’t want her kept in the dark if her husband was killed in the explosion. Let’s check the evidence we have with her.”

  As we walked around to the back of the house, I asked the mayor if his sister had any children.

  “No,” he replied. “For the first time in my life I am glad of that.”

  *

  Beatrice Tidot came to the door her face white and strained. Although her hair was as dark as her brother’s the likeness ended there for Beatrice was slim. She said the mayor’s phone calls and the rumors that her husband was involved in an insurance scam had disturbed her.

  “Please tell me what’s going on,” she said as she ushered us into the cool interior of her house.

  “It’s best you take a seat, my dear,” said the mayor kissing her on both cheeks and leading her to an armchair. “Do you have a friend who can come and sit with you. If not I could ask my wife.”

  Madame Tidot looked from her brother to us. “What has happened? Why are these people here?”

  I nudged Felix. “See if you can find the kitchen and bring a glass of water for Madame Tidot.”

  “Shall I call a friend?” the mayor asked again.

  She shook her head from side to side as if to fend off whatever she feared was coming next. “Sophie, Sophie Desert, she lives next door.” She pointed to the house on the right.

  “I’ll fetch her,” I said hurrying out of the room.

  When Sophie and I returned the room was silent. The only movement was Beatrice sipping the water Felix had given her. Sophie pulled up a stool and sat down next to Beatrice. Felix took the glass away from her. She thanked him and cast her eyes down at her lap and didn’t move again.

 
“We should sit down, too,” I whispered to the mayor. “It’s less threatening.”

  As soon as we were all seated, I stared at Beatrice until she was forced to look up. I caught her eye and gave her what I hoped was a sympathetic smile.

  “We need to ask you a few questions, Madame Tidot.”

  “Please, call me Beatrice.”

  “It’s about your husband. I understand you haven’t been able to contact him by phone.”

  “That’s right. He won’t even know that his shop has gone. It will be such a shock when he comes home.”

  “Beatrice, what can you tell us about your husband’s wedding ring?” I asked her.

  She looked startled. “His ring. It’s like mine. Look,” she said, taking hers off and passing it to me.

  Platinum with the engraving Jerome heart Beatrice.

  I handed it back to her. “It’s pretty. Did Jerome ever lose his?”

  “No, never.”

  She looked at her brother. “Why are you asking me this?”

  He leaned across and took her hand in his. “My dear, we have to. Can you tell us what car your husband drives?”

  “A dark green Peugeot 5o5.”

  “Registration number?”

  She gave us the number and it matched, as we knew it would.

  I left it there. There would be time enough for her to find out about the knee joint we’d found. She didn’t need to know about such a grisly detail at that point.

  “Please, tell me why you are asking me these questions? Something has happened to Jerome?”

  The mayor tightened his grip on her hand. “My dear, we are very much afraid that Jerome was in the flat above his bakery when the explosion occurred last night.”

  She snatched her hand away. “He couldn’t have been. He was going straight to the conference when he shut up his shop.”

  “His car’s still in the garage, Beatrice,” the mayor said.

  “Maybe he went to Bordeaux with Brioche. Doubled up. Saving diesel. They do that sometimes.”

  It was a reasonable supposition given her ignorance of our findings.

  The mayor glanced at me. I took out my phone and keyed Brioche’s name into enquiries and dialled the number that came up.