by Katie Penryn
“Monsieur,” I began.
“Pierre, please.”
“Pierre. Did you ever notice any aggro between Joseph Marin and any of your other customers?”
“No one could miss the increasing arguments between Joseph and his brother Ben. I had to tell them to take it outside one evening. And now Ben is missing, everyone has decided he’s guilty.”
“What? So quickly?” asked Felix. “They’ve only had two evenings to talk about it.”
Pierre shrugged. “Human nature.”
“Anyone else?” I asked.
“Joseph pulled André Preneur away from his wife one evening on the dance floor. There may be something going on there, but I don’t know for sure.”
He left to fetch our sandwiches. We took them outside to sit in the sun and soak up the fresh sea air now that the mist had cleared.
*
Agnes Tanguy had arrived home by the time we reached her house in one of the better areas of Beaucoup-sur-Mer. We caught her as she was climbing out of her car. We introduced ourselves and she invited us in.
“You’ll have to forgive the mess,” she said. “With all that happened on Sunday, I haven’t spent much time on housework. I’ve been cooking for two families and taking one set of meals round to Bella’s every night. She’s been too distraught to cook for her boys.”
She waved us into the sitting room and we sat down on a sofa facing the armchair she chose.
“Now, what do you want to know? And why are you asking me questions, anyway?” she said.
I indicated Felix with a nod his way and answered her. “We both met your brothers Joseph and Ben about two weeks ago. We toured the oyster farm and I’ve been taking scuba diving lessons with Ben. That’s how we came across Joseph on Sunday morning. We had been booked to go out to sea with them both.”
“Your interest seems to be more than casual. You’re not reporters, are you?”
“Heaven forbid,” I said. “No, I worked with the mayor’s blessing on a couple of cases recently, and Inspector Dubois knows I’m making enquiries of my own. I liked Ben and am worried about where he is and why he’s missing. Did you know people are already saying he’s guilty of murdering Joseph?”
“I’ve had a few pointed remarks made to me at work,” she said.
“Were you aware they weren’t getting on?”
“Of course, but it was all to do with the business. It wasn’t personal. Ben wanted to expand and Joseph didn’t.”
Felix shifted his feet and took up the questioning. “And you agreed with Ben, I take it?”
She nodded. “We haven’t seen any return on my investment in the business for two years now. Someone had to do something.”
“Would you mind telling me where you were on Sunday morning between one and three?” I asked her.
She rose to her feet and stalked to the door with her head held high. “It’s time for you to leave.”
Felix and I had to yield to her request. As we passed through the door Felix asked her again, “Sunday morning, if you please.”
She flounced down the hall to open the front door to shoo us out. At the last minute she conceded and told us she’d been asleep in bed. “With my husband,” she added as she shut the door in our faces.
“I don’t suppose there’s much point interviewing her husband at this stage. He’s only going to back her up,” I said to Felix as we walked down to our car.
“True, but it might help to meet the man and see how he strikes us. I’ll give him a ring now.”
Felix made the call to the hospital, nodding and saying, “Thank you,” before he rang off.
“He’ll see us now in the canteen. He’s a surgeon.”
“I wish we’d known that before we drove into town,” I said switching on the engine and driving out back the way we had come in.
*
As we turned into the hospital entrance, I began to shake. My foot wouldn’t stay on the accelerator.
“Pull over, boss,” Felix said. “Get a grip of yourself. Bad memories?”
I nodded as I steered to the side of the road and stopped the car. Only a couple of weeks before, I had nearly lost my life working on a case at the hospital. If Felix hadn’t been there to save me, I would have plunged several stories to my death.
“Deep breaths,” Felix ordered as he took my hands and rubbed them back to life.
I chilled as the past event washed over me. Fighting evil as a white witch had taken its toll of me, and now here I was again, on the trail of yet another misguided and wicked human being. I hoped against hope we wouldn’t find out that Ben was the killer.
“Feeling better?” Felix asked after a few minutes. “Your color’s back in your cheeks.”
I started the car again and pulled out slowly. “Let’s get this over with and then we can go home.”
*
When we reached the canteen, we paused inside the doorway. We hadn’t met Tanguy before so we had no idea whom to look for. The lunchtime crowd clogged the self-service line and took up all the tables. Felix made his way along the outside of the queue, stopping now and then to ask for Dr Tanguy. His fourth attempt succeeded. A nurse pointed across the room to a man sitting alone against the wall. We pushed our way through the throng to his table.
“Dr Tanguy?” Felix asked.
The man who rose from his seat couldn’t have been more than five foot two. I wondered if his lack of height hampered his work in the operating theater, but decided the idea was frivolous in the circumstances. Perhaps they lowered the operating table, or he stood on a platform. He shook our hands with geniality and invited us to sit at his table.
“I took the liberty of fetching a couple of beers for you,” he said sliding the bottles and glasses towards us. “You probably wouldn’t be served for another hour with that long queue.”
I thanked him. “That was thoughtful.”
“Now, what do you want to know?” he asked, his smile lighting up his eyes.
“It’s about your brother-in-law’s murder,” I began.
“But what’s that got to do with you?” he asked.
I went through our usual explanation adding that he didn’t have to answer our questions but if he did, it might help us solve the case.
“I don’t know what I can tell you. It’s peculiar my wife’s brother Ben has disappeared. People are gossiping, but I don’t want to think the worst of him.”
“We’re aware of the disagreements over business between Joseph and Ben. And your wife told us that you and she weren’t happy with the way the operation was being run.”
He stroked his chin.
“True, but neither of us would go as far as contemplating murder. We’d like to see a return from my wife’s holding in the business, but we’re not exactly paupers. We have two salaries coming in and mine is substantial as you can imagine.”
“Would you mind telling us where you were between the hours of one and three on Sunday morning?”
“That’s presumably when Joseph was killed?”
“That’s correct.”
“I don’t see any harm in telling you that I was at home in bed with my wife Agnes. I’m sure she told you the same thing.”
“Actually, she was reluctant to answer our question.”
“You don’t want to read anything into that. She probably thought your questioning was insensitive.”
I took a couple of mouthfuls of my beer to show willing, then put the glass down and pushed it away. Felix followed my cue and stood up. We thanked Dr Tanguy and walked out of the hospital, not too soon for me.
Felix took my arm down the front steps. “What did you make of that, boss?”
“Smooth. Seemingly co-operative, but….”
“I agree. He came across as gracious and helpful. And he gave them both an alibi, not that an alibi of husband and wife sleeping together amounts to much. However, I struggle to see him reaching up and cutting Joseph’s throat. He’s just too short.”
“We ke
ep him as a possible, Felix. As I said before, Joseph might have been kneeling. Dr Tanguy looked strong enough to me, and he’d know exactly where to slash the knife.”
Chapter 15
At close to four o’clock Felix and I walked up the street to the bus stop outside The Union Jack to meet Jimbo home from school. Audrey was waiting outside the shop for Wilfred with Simone and little Piffle.
“How’s Wilfred doing at school?” I asked her.
“Fine, so far, but it’s early days yet. It helped that Jimbo was on the bus with him.”
“That worked both ways.”
“What’s happening about the Marin murder? You’re not getting involved again, are you, Penzi?”
I shook my head while Felix nodded his. A look of confusion flooded across Audrey’s face, but we were saved from going into details by the school bus which beetled to a stop beside us. The school children piled out laughing and calling out to each other. Jimbo hung back allowing the jostling crowd to push past him. I wondered what was wrong. An air of dejection hung around him. He shuffled forwards between the seats with his shoulders slumped and almost fell out of the bus when he reached the steps.
“Whoa!” said Felix, grabbing hold of his arm and saving him from a nasty graze on his knees. “What’s wrong, young man?”
Jimbo cast a glance around. “Not here,” he said snatching himself away from Felix’s support and catching hold of my arm to tug me away from the childish exuberance around us.
Felix and I exchanged worried looks above his head, but did as Jimbo asked and walked away back up our street without talking to any of the other parents. Jimbo kept silent until we’d shut our front door behind us and sat down at the kitchen table. Gwinny looked enquiringly at me and I shook my head.
She handed Jimbo a glass of milk and pushed a plate of her homemade cookies towards him. He picked up the milk and drained the glass in a couple of gulps. He pushed the cookies away.
“I can’t eat cookies. Not today.”
“Why ever not?” asked Gwinny. “They’re your favorites. I made them especially for you.”
He gave a sob and said, “I just can’t.”
Gwinny mouthed the word bullying at me.
I crouched down beside his chair. “Was it bad at school today?”
In between sobs, he nodded and looked down at his knees.
I tipped his chin up. “Tell us, Jimbo. We’re here for you always. Did someone bully you? Say nasty things, push you about?”
He shook his head.
Felix crouched down on the other side. “Did someone make fun of your French?”
Jimbo shook his head again. “It wasn’t me.”
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
“They all bullied someone else. Marcel Marin, my teacher’s son. He’s in my class?”
I nodded. “Go on.”
“At playtime, they punched and pinched him and called him horrible names. I didn’t understand everything they said, but I did understand the word guillotine. They kept pretending to cut their throats and pointing at Marcel.”
“Did he tell his mother when you returned to class?”
“He couldn’t. Everyone was crowding him to the back of the classroom and anyway, Madame Marin was crying. She was rubbing something off the board.”
Jimbo stopped talking for a moment then he said, “It was all about that man you found dead on the boat, Penzi. He was Marcel’s uncle, and no one knows where Marcel’s dad is.”
I got to my feet and hugged Jimbo hard. “You’re a good boy, Jimbo, to be concerned about someone else being bullied.”
I looked at Felix and he nodded his consent.
“Felix and I are going to visit Madame Marin and Marcel now to see if there is anything we can do to help the situation. Do you want to come with us?”
His face brightened. “Can I take some cookies for him?”
“Of course, you can,” Gwinny said taking a plastic bag out of the drawer and beginning to fill it with cookies.
“Can Zig and Zag come with us?”
Zig and Zag sat up in their dog baskets and perked up their ears.
“Why?”
“Because they’re good at comforting people. They always make me feel better when I’m sad.”
“Okay, we’ll take them, but they must stay in the car until we’ve asked Madame Marin if it’s all right for them to play with you two boys in the garden.”
Ben and Désirée Marin lived in a modern bungalow outside the ancient town walls. Although a new build, it had graceful lines with a covered verandah running all the way round the house. I drove through the open gates and up the short drive to the graveled area at the front. I was astonished to see Désirée on a stepladder on the front verandah scrubbing the wall for all she was worth.
When she heard our car, she turned around on the ladder and looked down at it in horror. She scrambled down and raced into the house slamming the front door behind her.
“She’s scared,” Felix said as he buzzed the back windows down to give the dogs some air while we sought permission for them to enter the house and garden.
“Hardly surprising,” I said, “after what Jimbo told us.”
We climbed the steps up to the verandah with Jimbo trailing along behind. Up close it was obvious what she’d been working on when we arrived. Someone had spray painted the front wall of the house. Even with half the letters scrubbed off the French word for murderer was apparent. What possessed ordinarily good citizens to come to Désirée’s house and daub Meutrier on the wall? No wonder she’d dashed inside to get away from unexpected callers.
Felix knocked on the door, but she didn’t answer. Jimbo had edged his way along the verandah and was peering through one of the windows.
“Come away, Jimbo. Don’t be rude.”
“But I can see Marcel. He’s hiding on the floor with his mother.”
“Felix, look up her number and call her please,” I asked him passing him my cell phone.
The call rang and went to voice mail.
I changed my mind about Jimbo’s behavior.
“Knock on the window, Jimbo, and stay there so they can see it’s only you.”
Jimbo rapped his knuckles on the glass and waved. I pressed redial and this time Désirée answered.
I told her we’d called to check she and Marcel were all right.
“Thank you,” she said. “Hold on a minute and I’ll let you in.”
I sent Jimbo down the drive to close the gates while we waited. I didn’t want Zig and Zag wandering off.
The first time I’d met Désirée Marin her name had struck me as apt: Désirée meaning the desired one. I’d been impressed by her beauty and grace. The woman who opened the door was barely recognizable. Tangles of hair hung around her pale face. The blood had drained out of her lips and cheeks and she was shivering.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t stop shaking. I’ve lived in this town all my life and I’ve never known such spite. No one is sparing a thought for how anxious I must be because no one’s heard from Ben since Saturday. They’ve all jumped to conclusions and decided he’s guilty of fratricide.”
I gently guided her down the hall to the kitchen where I coaxed her into a chair. I set about putting on a pot of coffee.
“How’s Marcel? Jimbo told us his classmates have been bullying him.”
She nodded. “I don’t know how we’re going to get through this. I don’t believe for a moment that my gentle, kind husband killed Joseph.”
I jerked my head at Felix to check on the two boys. He peeped into the sitting room and came back to say they were talking quietly together.
I set cups and sugar cubes on the table. “Désirée, I’ve brought my two dogs with me because Jimbo said they would cheer up Marcel. May I let them out of the car into the garden?”
“Of course,” she said. “I have a cat, but she’ll get out of their way. Please don’t let the dogs in the house though.”
Felix left to de
al with the dogs and the boys. By the time he returned I’d poured the coffee for the three of us.
“Do you mind if we ask you some questions?” I asked her. “Felix and I are helping Inspector Dubois.”
She cupped her hands around her coffee and nodded.
Stirring mine I said, “We know the two brothers have been having disagreements over the business.”
“But it’s only business,” she said quickly. “It’s nothing serious enough to cause one of them to murder the other.”
“Perhaps they had a fight,” Felix said. “They’ve been thrown out of the pub down at the docks for fighting.”
She touched her knuckles to her lips. “Oh dear. No one told me.”
“Can you tell us what Ben said to you when he phoned you on Saturday afternoon?”
“How do you know about that?” she asked. “The police told me his phone was missing.”
“That’s true,” said Felix, “but the call is in the records.”
“I keep phoning hoping he’ll answer,” she said. “The last call I had from him was the one on Saturday at about 2 p.m. It was to say they were ready to sail.”
“So they hadn’t sailed at that point?”
“No, and I didn’t get another call.”
“So you don’t know for sure that Ben sailed with Joseph?”
She shook her head.
“Do you have any idea where Ben could be? Does he have a special place he goes to when he wants to be alone? Does he have a girlfriend?”
“I’m sure he doesn’t have a girlfriend. I would know; I’m his wife.”
Felix and I looked at each other but didn’t say anything. We’d heard that one before.
She continued, “I have no idea where he is. It’s driving me crazy. And he doesn’t have any bolt hole that I’m aware of.”
I pointed to the shed at the bottom of the garden. “And that?”
“Oh yes, that’s Ben’s. No one else is allowed in there.”
“Can Felix have a look?”
Désirée nodded but said, “It’s locked and I don’t have the key.”
Felix caught my eye. “I’ll have a wander, anyway, and I’ll join the boys in the garden. Give you two some private time.”
