The Witch Who Mysteries Box Set 2

by Katie Penryn

  “Hurry Felix, push up to the front. Hélène can’t cope. All these dignitaries and competitors here and the power’s gone off. She’s had enough to deal with today without this.”

  Felix pushed and shoved up to the front row towing me along in his wake. There he crouched down in front of Hélène.

  “Where’s the fusebox, Hélène? Is it in the kitchen as usual?”

  She looked up at him as if he was a messenger of the gods. “You’re going to sort it out?”

  Felix nodded and said, “Of course. That’s if it’s not a general power cut.”

  She laid a hand on his arm thanking him for being so kind.

  “Can’t have a ceremony like this collapsing for want of a few kilojoules, can we now?” he said joshing her and bringing a faint smile to her face.

  As Felix dove through the crowd to the door out into the hallway, I told the Chairman of the BNC that everything was under control and we’d have the problem fixed in a jiffy. I hurried out of the room after Felix. The Chairman had climbed onto a chair and was asking everyone to sit down and wait quietly while the power was switched on again.

  *

  The catering staff were milling around in the kitchen when I reached Felix, who was standing in front of the fusebox with an anxious Madame Brune peering over his shoulder and clucking away at him in French.

  “Ah, Penzi,” he said as he caught sight of me. “What do we know about French fuseboxes?”

  “Not a lot,” I answered, “but this one looks new, like the one at home. I do know that if the power’s gone off because of a general power cut, the main relay switch will not have clicked.”

  “This one?” he asked putting his fingers on the large fuse at the top of the main fuse board.

  “Yes, yes,” said Madame Brune. “That one. But should it be up or down? I can’t remember.”

  She turned round to the room of staff. “Where’s the head chef?” she asked.

  “He’s gone outside for a smoke,” someone said. “I’ll fetch him.”

  A minute later he was there beside Felix, a tall tidy man complete with chef’s hat and white coat.

  “You’d think no one’s ever seen a power cut before, wouldn’t you?” he said waving his hand at his seemingly idle staff, who by now were sitting splayed out around the kitchen table waving their phones around for light.

  “Let me see,” he said elbowing Felix out of the way. “We have frequent power cuts in the summer… because of the electrical storms, you understand?”

  We both murmured a yes. He clambered up onto the chair proffered by one of his underlings and holding his phone for light, checked out the main relay.

  “It’s not a power cut because the main relay has clicked off into the down position. That’s the safety mechanism working. If it was a break in the mains power supply, the switch would not have moved and would still be up.”

  “So, it’s a problem here? With the installation at the château?” asked Felix although it was obvious he knew the answer to his question as he was already trying to peer round the chef to see which fuse had tripped.

  The chef moved his light down checking all the fuses. Right at the bottom on a row of its own he found the culprit. The switch had sprung down.

  “Ah, voilà. It’s this one. It’s marked Cellars,” he said. He flicked up the main switch and then flicked up the one for the Cellars only to have both flick down again at once. He tried again with same result.

  “The problem is obviously in the cellars,” he said.

  Madame Brune tutted loudly behind us. “We can’t do anything about that now. That fuse is always tripping. I’ve warned Monsieur de Portemorency he needs to have the electricity overhauled down there, but he always makes excuses about time and money.”

  “Shouldn’t we check it out?” asked the chef.

  “We’ve a reception room full of important people and speeches to finish,” she said, “and, anyway, I don’t have the key. Monsieur keeps it and he’s just gone off to hospital.”

  “We’ll have to leave that fuse out of action then,” the chef said and flicked the main fuse back on.

  Like magic, we had light.

  The chef clapped his hands, “Back to work, everyone,” he said to his workers who got to their feet with a communal groan. To Madame Brune he said, “You’d better get the boss to have that circuit checked. You could have a fire down there if something’s shorting.”

  Madame Brune gave him a French moue and shrugged her shoulders.

  I tugged at Felix’s arm. “Come along, we must get back.”

  The crowd in the reception area were still putting away their phones and retaking their seats when we re-entered the room.

  The Chairman thanked Felix with a nod. As we walked past the front row, Felix whispered to Hélène that it had been the fuse for the cellars, not a general power cut.

  She sighed. “We must get that seen to. Thanks Felix.”

  Once the room had settled and all whispering and shuffling had ceased, the Minister took his place at the podium again and picked up his notes.

  “Let’s start from third place again, shall we?”

  His remark was greeted with much clapping of hands and a few catcalls of Encore, encore.

  “As we’ve heard, third place in the line-up for this year’s Médaille d’Or goes to Société Gambon with the runner-up being the Société de Gonzelles.”

  As the suspense for these two awards had been broken earlier, the second announcement was met with polite applause and then silence while everyone waited to hear who had won the top prize which would be worth a fortune in export orders.

  The Minister took a deep breath and gathered up the attention of the room.

  “We have a worthy winner of the prestigious award of the Gold Medal this year: the House of… de Portemorency!”

  The room rose to its feet, clapping vigorously. Cries of Bravo rang out. It took awhile for Hélène to step forwards and accept the medal from the minister. As she turned around to face us all, she gave way to the buildup of emotion she’d been holding back for the past couple of hours and burst into tears. Within seconds well-wishers and friends surrounded her and coaxed her to sit while someone fetched a glass of cognac and a glass of water. The rest of the crowd milled about discussing the winners. On my way across the room to find Izzy, I passed de Gonzelles and overheard him say to his companion, “There you go. Told you. One has to be blond and beautiful to win the gold.”

  I marked him down as a miserable git but on second thoughts changed that to sore loser. When I told Felix about it later he laughed and said de Gonzelles was both in his estimation. As the ceremony wound down, the crowd gradually dispersed out into the car park to find their luxurious transport and leave.

  I met Izzy pushing her way through the remnants of the crowd with the man who I’d guessed was her husband as I recognized him from his films. She introduced him. She’d been right to call him a surprise. Sometimes film actors in real life are pale reflections of their screen presentations, but this man was even more impressive live. I looked up at his six foot three and met a pair of kind eyes of the deepest cornflower blue. Their color together with his luxuriant black hair and a cleft chin spoke of his Irish ancestry. Brent McGill was one helluva man. He’d been in the top ten at the box office for years and had managed to stay there as he aged from ingénu to interesting older man. Lucky Izzy.

  We shook hands all round and disengaged ourselves from the throng crowding around the exit. Felix and I would stay behind to make arrangements for a later visit to gather research for my article. We fell to discussing Jean-Claude’s accident.

  Garth shook his head. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Modern power mowers have a built in safety mechanism. When pressure is lifted from the seat as when the mower topples over and the driver falls out, there’s a cut-off switch which stops the blade from turning.”

  Felix added, “From what I was told, the mower turned over twice: once when it fell on top of
Jean-Claude and then again when it turned over again and fell off him. If it hadn’t made that second twist it would have cut his leg off.”

  All that hadn’t occurred to me. I knew little about lawn mowers, never having used one and certainly not a sit-on machine. I made a note to ask Hélène about it later.

  The car park had thinned out by now. Izzy, Brent and Garth said their goodbyes and made their way out to their vehicles with pledges of phone calls in the days to follow.

  *

  When the last of the guests and the organizers had left, we approached Hélène and asked her if she would like us to leave.

  “No, please don’t. I want to visit Jean-Claude in the hospital to give him some love and make sure he’s being looked after, but I feel too shaky to drive myself. I wonder if you would take me?”

  “Of course.” I said. “What about the children?”

  “Would you mind asking Madame Brune to stay with them until I get back? She can give them supper and put them to bed. I need to freshen myself up before I see Jean-Claude. I don’t want him to notice how distressed I am. He’ll only worry.”

  “And clearing up all this?” asked Felix waving his hand over the room full of chairs and occasional tables laden with dirty glasses and the remains of the trays of canapés.

  “The caterers will return to clear up tomorrow. Just let it be for now,” Hélène replied.

  I decided to leave Jimbo with Hélène’s children as we would be bringing her home again after her visit to the hospital and could pick him up then.

  On the way we arranged for Felix and me to visit the de Portemorency distillery and bottling unit on the banks of the River Charente the following week, on condition that Jean-Claude would have recovered enough to receive us and take us around.

  Felix broached the subject of the maintenance of the mower, suggesting to Hélène she get someone in to look at it and to check the safety mechanism.

  Like me, Hélène hadn’t realized the blade should have stopped turning. She said she’d have the mower delivered to the agent the next day.

  *

  When we arrived at the hospital, we found that the surgeon had been able to save Jean-Claude’s foot. “The dorsalis pedis artery was cut,” he said, “but I have repaired it. It will still be touch and go for a few days, but we’ll keep him in until we’re sure it is knitting back together and there’s no sign of infection.”

  As visiting was for family only, Felix and I waited outside while Hélène visited with Jean-Claude.

  When she rejoined us, she told us she’d asked Jean-Claude about the mower. He’d said it was the gardener’s responsibility to maintain the machine, and he was as surprised as anyone at the accident.

  I didn’t say anything more about it until we’d dropped Hélène back at the château and Felix was carrying a sleepy Jimbo out to our car.

  “I have a nasty presentiment about all this,” I said to Felix. “My skin prickled as we entered the front door.”

  “You’re tired,” said Felix, and laid Jimbo on the back seat.

  As we drove through the mighty gates between the centuries old stone towers, a sudden flurry of black flew up from the roadside and smacked into the windscreen rendering the road ahead invisible. I threw on the brakes and swerved to the side of the road. Feather like cracks ran across the glass. I leapt out of the car but Felix beat me to it.

  “Look,” he said holding up the smashed carcass of a large bird. “It’s a buzzard and it’s quite dead.”

  My stomach turned over.

  “It’s a bad omen, Felix. A warning.”

  “Rubbish,” he said. “Look.” He kicked aside a heap of fur above the ditch. “It was feeding on road kill and we startled it. Nothing to worry about. It’s just a coincidence that we happened past at that moment.”

  “There’s no such thing as coincidence, you know that. And how do you explain the misgivings I’ve had all day?”

  He threw the dead bird into the ditch and took my arm to steer me back to the car.

  “You’re being fanciful because you’re tired and we had an unpleasant experience.”

  I stamped my foot, exasperated at Felix for belittling my discomfort. I was a witch, wasn’t I? I could smell evil in the wind even if Felix couldn’t.

  Chapter 8

  For the next few days we waited for news of Jean-Claude, worried that he might lose his foot to gangrene, but the news continued to be of gradual improvement. We filled in the time until I could undertake my assignment to write the article on the de Portemorency distillery by working on the inventory of the items in the brocante. I attended the Tribunal with Audrey to give her moral and legal support. In spite of the intimidating setting, the hearing went well and Audrey was awarded the restraining order she’d sought against her abusive husband.

  The first week in May rolled around. Jean-Claude called me to say he was fit enough to show me around his business, but warned he might have to do part of the tour in his wheelchair. We made a date for the following Friday during school hours and agreed we would have lunch together afterwards at their château in the country.

  *

  When we reached Cognac, we drove through the city and crossed over the River Charente to the far side where many of the distilleries were situated. I turned north, following the directions Felix read out from the de Portemorency brochure. Five minutes later, we came to the entrance. We couldn’t miss it. Metal letters three feet tall affixed to the surrounding wall declared the de Portemorency brand name. I drove through the gates into a wide courtyard and pulled up in front of a flight of steps. Jean-Claude was in his wheelchair waiting for us at the top, his face pale and strained. I guessed he was in pain, but I was wrong. As we reached him he checked his watch and scanned the approach road. He shook his head.

  “Hélène should be here by now. It’s not like her to be late. I’ll give her a call.”

  He wheeled himself a few feet to the side and put the call through, but it was obvious Hélène wasn’t picking up. He glanced at us and said, “Not to worry. I’ll call Madame Brune.”

  The call was short. He turned back to us shaking his head again. “She hasn’t seen Hélène since she went out riding this morning. She’s not back yet.”

  He put his phone back in his pocket, a frown creasing his forehead.

  “Hélène knows how important this article is to our business. We need to capitalize on our gold medal win and get the tourists visiting here in the summer so they can spread the word.”

  “Why don’t we give her few more minutes?” I asked.

  “Excellent idea,” he said shuffling his feet on the footrest and gazing out down the road again. “I can fill you in on the history of the business while we wait.”

  I switched on my recording device, and Felix and I both listened to what was a fascinating story of how Hélène’s great-grandfather had traveled to Cognac from Sweden and fallen in love with the countryside and the region’s precious eau-de-vie. He’d gone to work for one of the local distilleries and had never looked back, eventually setting up his own business which became the de Portemorency vineyards and distillery. That explained Hélène’s blond hair and clear blue eyes here in a part of France where most of the locals had the dark hair and brown eyes of their Catalan heritage.

  Jean-Claude tried once more to reach his wife but gave up when the call went to voice mail again. “I can’t think what’s delayed her, but we should carry on with the tour if we’re to make it back in time for lunch.”

  Felix held the great door open while Jean-Claude wheeled himself inside.

  We passed through the hall holding the giant grape presses, silent and empty at that time of the year, and on to another hall lined with floor-to-ceiling copper stills, like a steam-punk dream. Next, Jean-Claude rushed us to a lift which descended to the cellars where the slowly maturing spirit aged gently in old oak barrels. Up again to the dazzling light of a vast room filled with chemical apparatus.

  “This is the heart and
soul of our business,” Jean-Claude said, “where the magic of tasting and blending takes place,” but that was as much as he said about the subject.

  He couldn’t wait to lead us along the corridor at the other end as fast as his wheelchair would go. The clinking of glass on glass heralded the conveyor belts of the bottling plant. He waved his arm vaguely over the scene, turned around and hurried us back to the entrance.

  Throughout the tour, Jean-Claude would break off his meager narration and stare into the distance only coming back to the present when one of us said his name. So deep was his abstraction at times that our questions hung fire and went unanswered. Granted he was worried that his wife was late, but his anxiety seemed to have deeper roots than that.

  Hélène still hadn’t turned up by the time we’d finished our visit of the business premises and were making our way back to the car.

  “Never mind,” said Jean-Claude looking anything but reconciled to Hélène’s absence. “She probably decided it wasn’t worth coming over here as she was so late. We’ll catch up with her when we get back to the château, but I’ll have to ask you for a lift. Can you fit my wheelchair in the back of your car?”

  I helped him to his feet and pushed the chair towards Felix who folded it up and carried it down the front steps to our car where it fitted easily into the trunk. On our way out of town we drove through an avenue of horse chestnuts, a glorious florescence of vanilla and raspberry making me dream of giant ice cream cones. Then on through the miles of vines, all burgeoning in the bright May sunshine. It was a glorious early summer’s day without a cloud in the sky, a sky of that bright cerulean blue that dazzles the eyes and gladdens the heart after the long dreary months of a wet winter. No gloomy shades or spooky portents this time as the car turned in through the ancient gates of the Château de Portemorency. Life was good. I was looking forward to the promised French cuisine in a beautiful setting and a glass of de Portemorency cognac to round off the meal.