by Katie Penryn
Felix suggested the French Government would award the Merchants part of the prize money. I hoped so. The temperature was falling and a slight mist was blowing in from far out in the ocean. We retreated to the cabin to keep warm and played cards while we waited for further instructions.
Towards teatime, the Zodiac set off from the Gendarmerie Maritime boat on another trip to us. They had a message from the colonel. The carrier was not expected until the early hours of the morning. The colonel had sent over a crew of three to sail the now confiscated Eva back to Bordeaux. We were to wait on board the Mermaid for the arrival of the Louis XIV so we could brief the contre-amiral, the rear admiral, on our findings.
The officer in charge also had a message for us that Izzy had arrived safely at the hospital outside the walls of Beaucoup-sur-Mer. She was no longer concussed, but they were keeping her in under observation for forty-eight hours to be sure. Garth heaved a sigh of relief. He’d been trying to find out what had happened to Izzy but with the news blackout, the hospitals he’d called had refused to speak to him. The Eva sailed off towards the coast. Time dragged past and it grew dark. The gendarmerie boat dimmed all lights except its riding lights, in keeping with a low profile I assumed. Garth switched our lights on; the last thing we needed was a collision at sea. The kind colonel sent us over dinner and another couple of bottles of wine. Still, we waited. Eventually, we decided to make the best of it and get some sleep. We hadn’t contracted with the Merchants to sleep on board their boat but I was sure they would forgive us in the circumstances. Tired out as we were after a long and eventful day, the three of us fell asleep in minutes cradled by the gentle swell rolling from bow to stern.
*
The Mermaid rocked violently from side to side in the early hours of the morning waking me up with a start. I switched on the bunk head light.
“What the hell?” asked Felix.
“It’s the Louis XIV. She’s on station,” I replied. “Wake up.”
Garth replied, “I’m already awake. Glad that was the carrier and not a storm brewing.”
I’d scrambled to the porthole while the guys were coming to. Outside in the pitch black night about fifty yards away the carrier rode at anchor. Three illuminated football pitches long it blotted out the horizon and lit the sea around for miles.
Felix and Garth crowded in around me to get a first look at the monster. Right on time: 4 a.m.
We didn’t need any prompting. We threw on our warm clothes and hurried onto the deck. I couldn’t believe my eyes. They really had sent an aircraft carrier to protect the wreck of the U-boat.
We were going to look awfully silly if there was no gold.
Felix must have read my mind. “Fingers crossed, boss. I’ll go make us some tea.”
Unable to tear ourselves away from the sight of the mighty ship going about its business so close to us, we stayed leaning over the railing drinking our tea and eating the biscuits Felix had brought us. As night faded and dawn broke away over to the east, a tender left the carrier and made its way over to the Mermaid.
The rear admiral had sent them to fetch us.
“Bring all your belongings with you—not forgetting your camera. You’ll be ferried back to the mainland from the Louis later on today.”
“What about the Mermaid?” asked Felix.
“I’m leaving two men on board until the navigation equipment is fixed,” the officer in charge said. “Then they’ll sail her back to port.”
We hurried below to fetch our stuff, not that we had much apart from Ben’s diving equipment and a change of clothes. We made the choppy ride over to the carrier where another officer greeted us and took us straight down to the officers’ mess for coffee and freshly baked croissants.
Felix whispered to me, “I need a slap-up English breakfast.”
I love French cuisine but I had to agree that I could have done justice to a plate of sausage, egg and bacon with all the frills.
After our snack, the officer took us up to the bridge to meet Rear Admiral Colin who interviewed us at length. We had to tell him the whole story starting from the finding the Joseph’s body on the Princesse and explaining to him how Felix and I had deduced the Nazi gold scenario, leaving out the magic, of course.
“I hope you’re right,” he said at last. “This is an expensive exercise. We need to find gold to make it worth it.”
That’s the moment I realized I had a stick with which to beat Felix. If they’d taken me with them on their walk along the seabed, I would have used my veni metallice spell on the U-boat’s hull specifying gold. I remembered how my arms had nearly flown out of their sockets when we found that first gold bar in the sandpit. Tons of gold bars hidden away on the U-boat could have left me limbless. There was so much I didn’t know about the strength and duration of the spells I’d been learning.
Our story over, Colin arranged for us to be flown back to Beaucoup-sur-Mer by naval helicopter. Before we left, he cautioned us that information about the discovery of the U-boat and the possibility of its cargo of Nazi gold was protected by law.
That was all very well and practical but it left us with a dilemma.
“How are we to explain our absence, the missing Mermaid and our being dropped on the Esplanade at Beaucoup-sur-Mer by a French naval helicopter, sir?” I asked him.
He replied, “I suggest you mention trouble at sea and your rescue by the Gendarmerie Maritime.”
“Okay,” said Felix. “But is this the last we hear of everything? We’ve put our lives on the line to find the wreck, not to mention identify the murderers of our two friends, Joseph and Ben Marin.”
Colin smiled. “Steady on, young man. We’ll keep you posted about our progress. If and when we do find the gold, we’ll fly you out to watch it coming aboard. And maybe we can have a big party. How’s that?”
Garth held out his hand for a parting handshake. “That’ll do fine, sir.”
Chapter 36
We landed on the Esplanade in time for lunch to find Monsieur Bonhomie and Inspector Dubois waiting for us. As we walked out from under the blades, Dubois rushed forwards and clasped me in his arms.
“Oh, Penzi. I was so worried. Such an extraordinary and dangerous adventure you’ve been on. Are you quite all right?” he asked leaning back to look at my face with an expression of mixed joy and relief.
“Of course, she is,” growled Felix pulling Dubois’s right arm away from me. “She was with me. Leave her alone. She’s exhausted.”
“Now, now, guys,” said Garth winking at me. “All in good time. I suggest we move away so the pilot can get back to his ship.”
So with Felix on one side of me and Dubois on the other, I was almost frog marched to the side of the Esplanade well out of reach of the downdraft.
“What next?” asked Felix as the helicopter disappeared out over the sea on its way back to the Louis.
Garth stepped up to Dubois. “I must visit Mrs Tointon to check on her condition. Any chance you can provide me with transport, Dubois?”
“Bien sûr. There’s a car standing by for you.” He waved over at the end of the Esplanade where a blue gendarmerie vehicle stood waiting, its lights flashing.
“That was thoughtful of you, Xavier,” I said to Dubois.
“Penzi, I’ve received instructions from the highest level to co-operate with you all in any way I can. I must tell you that the contre amiral has sent me a detailed report of everything you told him.”
“So quickly?”
“He understands that apart from my concern for your safety, I have my duty as an inspector of the gendarmerie to prepare the case against the five Nazi conspirators for presentation to Madame Fer-de-Lance.”
We all turned to wave Garth off as the police car drove past us and off to the hospital outside the walls of our little town.
Monsieur Bonhomie who’d been standing to the side, now walked up to our group. “I’ve arranged for lunch at my house. Dubois and I need to discuss this whole affair with you both before we can all
ow you to return to your family.”
On the trip over, I’d phoned home as soon as my phone picked up a signal to let my brothers and my mother know that Felix and I were safe and the navy was delivering us to the Esplanade. When they heard the helicopter landing on the Esplanade, they must have guessed it was us. Sam pulling Jimbo by the hand, with Gwinny in the rear, came running up to us before the mayor had the chance to sweep us away in his car.
I had to tear myself away from all the hugs and kisses, telling my family that Felix and I had to make a report at once on the accident we’d suffered at sea. It was one of those times when being a witch was difficult. More than anything I wanted to relax back into the love of my family after the nasty experience on board the Mermaid, but I had to put the legal pursuit of the evil pirates first.
“I’ll be home soon, I promise,” I said. “Look after your mother.”
The mayor ushered Felix and me into his car and we took off for his house on the side opposite the bay from Les Dragons, with Dubois following along behind in his official vehicle. It was fortunate there were few spectators, Sunday being the day when the French hold their big family lunch.
*
From the questions put to us over a lunch from which Bonhomie’s children had been excluded, it was clear that the rear admiral’s report had been comprehensive. He had involved Monsieur Bonhomie because in France the mayor has to be informed of the discovery of treasure, and the possibility of Nazi gold qualified as that. Dubois was not only the most senior inspector in the Beaucoup-sur-Mer gendarmerie, but he had a direct interest in the case because he was responsible for finding the murderers of Joseph and Ben Marin.
“This is a difficult case, Penzi,” he said over the coffee. “We’ve already detained the Spaniard for questioning. One of the murdering pirates is missing overboard as I understand it?”
Felix nodded. “It was unfortunate that he fell backwards into the sea when I tackled him. I couldn’t waste time saving him because Penzi needed my help with Mrs Tointon and with freeing her bodyguard.”
“The loss of a human life is always a grave concern,” said Dubois. “We must do the paperwork even so.”
“Felix didn’t mean to knock him overboard,” I said. “And it was self defense. The man was waiting to ambush Felix as he came up the ladder. He didn’t know Felix was already on board.”
Dubois grunted. “As I said, paperwork. But we’ll leave it at that. My concern is we have enough evidence to prosecute the other three men for piracy and assault and the Spaniard for aiding and abetting, but there isn’t enough to charge them with the murders of Joseph and Benjamin Marin. It’s all too circumstantial.”
“Maybe the DNA evidence you picked up on the Princesse will prove they were on board,” I suggested.
“Even if we can prove they were on board, it doesn’t prove they were there to murder Joseph. They could have visited at any time.”
“What about the chain hanging from the U-boat? Felix took photos of it. When it’s detached, can’t it be linked to the injury on Ben’s ankle and the piece of chain I received in the post? And the diatom test? Won’t that match the water around the submarine?”
Dubois shook his head. “It’s much too vague. We can’t prove the pirates ever found the U-boat. We may be able to prove Ben was drowned there, but we can’t prove the Argentineans did it. It’s all conjecture.”
Felix who’d been listening to this exchange with narrowing eyes broke in, “So they get away with it after all?”
Dubois’s shoulders slumped. He sank down in his chair sighing heavily. “Unless we can find something directly linking them to either of the murders, and that seems unlikely. Motive isn’t enough. Any murder trial with what we have would be long and costly. You can be sure their sponsors back in Argentina will not bilk at paying for an expensive defense.”
I held my coffee cup out for a refill scarcely looking at Madame Bonhomie as she poured it. I drank a few sips and put my cup down. This was not the result Felix and I had anticipated as we’d worked our way through the clues and the interviews, not to mention our escape from death by a hair’s breadth. I abstractedly selected an almond petit four and nibbled it while my mind churned over all that had happened. My sense of justice would not let the Nazis get away with piracy when the sentence for murder would be so much more severe. We couldn’t even prove attempted murder of our group because we had prevented the pirates from reaching that point.
“Dubois,” I said as I swallowed the last crumbs, “it’s all up to you. You must get a confession. With four guilty men involved, you could work on them one by one and try to get one of them to give the others away. Try the Spaniard first. He may not be so loyal to the group’s objectives.”
“From what I’ve heard so far, these men are dedicated Nazis. I can’t see them giving each other up.”
I reached out and touched his hand. “Dubois, you can do it. I know you can.”
He straightened his spine and put his hand over mine. “You really think I can?”
“Dubois, you have to. It’s your duty. You are a skilled interrogator. I’m relying on you to nail these killers.”
Chapter 37
Dubois called us into the gendarmerie early the next morning. The Coast Guard vessel had returned to port late on Sunday afternoon bringing with it the remaining three Argentineans. After the boat docked, they’d been delivered to Dubois’s station where they’d been locked up awaiting questioning.
Dubois escorted us through to his office.
“I interviewed the Spaniard last night. We aren’t going to get anywhere with him. The conspirators didn’t involve him in their secret work. We’ve checked him out and what he says appears to be true at this stage. He was their maintenance man and procuring agent—general dogsbody, if you will.”
“You’ll have to split the three Argentineans. Do you know who’s in charge?” I asked.
“They’ve been kept separate, of course, but the man you knocked out, Penzi, appears to be the boss, because the other two refused to say anything until they’d talked to him, and I wasn’t going to allow that. His name’s Raul Montigo Braun.”
“Well then, go for Braun. Tell him the other two have been spilling the beans. See if you can rile him. You’re good at that, Xavier.”
“Are you going to watch?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I answered as Madame Fer-de-Lance popped her head around the door.
For once she was smiling. I supposed the promise of gold did that to everyone.
“Come with me,” she said.
She settled us in the room with the two-way mirror and took a seat beside us. We watched through the glass as two gendarmes brought Montigo Braun into the interview room next door.
I flinched at the memory of him standing over Izzy with his gun pointed at her head as she lay unconscious on the deck of the Mermaid. In spite of the orange prison suit and the handcuffs, his bearing was that of a conqueror, a member of the master race. With his back rigid and his head held high, he refused Dubois’s instruction to take a seat. It took two officers to manhandle him into a chair where he sat up straight and glared at Dubois.
Without proof that the man was a modern day Nazi who had murdered Joseph and Ben Marin, Dubois had charged him with piracy and with the assault on Izzy. Dubois had only our deductions to go on and our reports of what had been said to us on board the two boats. However, as we’d discussed, the only way to get him for the murder of the Marin brothers was to manipulate him into confessing. So far, he’d refused to answer any questions. Montigo Braun was keeping stumm. His only contribution to the interview was to ask for the Argentinean ambassador.
When Dubois told him his colleagues were singing their hearts out, Montigo Braun smiled with tight lips and looked down his long nose at the inspector. Faced with such an impassive and uncooperative suspect, Dubois had to admit defeat and have Montigo Braun escorted back to his cell.
Madame Fer-de-Lance left saying she had
a meeting. We met up with Dubois in the canteen for a cup of horrible police coffee.
Dubois drained his in one mouthful, force of habit I guessed. Mine, I sipped and abandoned.
“What next, Xavier?” I asked him.
He sighed and picked up my cup and drained that, too.
Felix pushed his cup over to Dubois. “Here, take mine. But all the caffeine in the world is not going to help you get through to these three men. Their actions and beliefs may be evil, but they have a strict code of honor.”
Dubois sighed again and shook his head. “It may take months but I am determined to prove these men guilty of murder, if only to pay them back for what they did to Penzi… and you others, of course.”
“Xavier,” I said, “maybe you’re rushing things. You have them locked up for piracy. If you can’t get them to talk, you’ll have to do things the long way: prove they were on the Princesse, prove they sent the chain to me, prove the chain ties in with Ben’s injuries and the chain still hanging from U-boat 9999, and prove they were shadowing the Princesse.”
“Yes,” Felix agreed. “You’ll have the diatom report and access to GPS tracking of their movements.”
Dubois banged his fist down on the table making the china jump into the air. “You’re good friends, you two, and you’re right. I’m so angry I want a quick result, but if it takes months then it has to take months.” He gave us a weak smile. “But I’m not giving up on getting one of Montigo Braun’s underlings to give them all away. Come, let’s go back. I’ll have the next one brought in.”
The second man, the one who’d been left on board the Eva, gave his name and citizenship when asked–Heinrich Weber.
I nudged Felix. “He didn’t see what the other two did to Izzy.”
Felix scowled. “No, but he must have been complicit in the murders of Joseph and Ben even if he didn’t wield the knife or tie Ben up.”
We turned our attention back to the interview room where Dubois was asking Weber for the purpose of his visit to the coastal waters of France.
