by Katie Penryn
“What the hell, Penzi?” said Felix releasing his collar from Clancy’s stiff fingers before easing himself out from under Clancy’s petrified body. “You might have given me some warning. Good thing you got that right and didn’t freeze me as well.”
“It’s more than you deserve. Your questioning smacked of interrogation. It was never going to get us any useful answers.”
Felix straightened his clothes, and I picked up my purse. A tactical retreat was in order. When we reached the door, I turned back and clicked my fingers to release the spell. Poor Clancy fell to the floor in a heap now that there was no one beneath him.
We left him rubbing his head and wondering what on earth had happened.
Chapter 23
“So what did you make of that?” I asked Felix as we walked quickly back to our car to get away before Clancy realized something odd had occurred and came after us for an explanation.
“Nasty creature that he is, it’s unlikely he’s our killer. He’s one sad individual, living in a fantasy world. Completely delusional.”
I strode across the last few paces to the car and thumped my hand on the roof in frustration.
“Whoa,” said Felix as I snatched my hand back and rubbed it. “No point hurting yourself.”
I looked at him over the top of the car as he waited for me to unlock the doors.
“We’re not getting anywhere. And he was the last person on our list. All that’s left now are the dozens, possibly hundreds, of casual workers, one of whom may hold a grudge. It’s too vast a pool for us to deal with. We don’t have the resources.”
“Open the door, Penzi, and let’s get home. We need to do some thinking and regroup.”
I clicked the doors open and got into the car. I was about to switch the engine on when I hit my palms on the steering wheel.
“I need a drink, Felix, after that. And I want to wash Gilbert Clancy off my hands.”
Felix chuckled. “In that order? And isn’t it a little early?”
“It’s never too early for medicinal purposes,” I said climbing out of the car again. I bent down and peered at him, saying, “Well, are you coming or not?”
Felix sighed his give-me-patience sigh and got out of the car.
We crossed the road to a jolly looking bar and ducked in out of the bright early evening sunshine to the dusky interior. I perched myself on a barstool while Felix stood alongside me. A pineau on ice later and I could weigh up our situation more calmly if not optimistically.
That’s when I remembered Martine’s cousin, the postman. I pointed out to Felix that Henri Duval lived in Cognac. As we had no one else to interview in the city, it would be sensible to find out if he could give us a few minutes before we drove home.
“Aren’t you clutching at straws, boss?”
“We have to. We have no other leads. If he can’t help us, we’ll have to wait until Dubois’s investigation turns up something.”
Felix put the call through to Duval who said he’d be happy to offer any friend of his cousin’s a drink. Felix wrote down the directions, we paid our bill and took off for Duval’s house which lay to the south of the city, on the way home for us.
*
Henri Duval welcomed us with a double kiss for me and a mighty man hug for Felix as if he’d known us all his life. I couldn’t miss the family likeness. Duval was as stout as Martine and with the same mustache.
On the way to his house I’d rabbited on to Felix that this man could have the answer to our problems. Postmen knew everything there was to know about the people who lived on their rounds. As I accepted yet another glass of pineau, I anticipated a few quick snippets of information that would shine a light on the murk of suspicion and confusion.
I couldn’t fault Duval’s manners or his willingness to help us, but he knew nothing. His current round was nowhere near the Château de Portemorency. He’d worked that round in the past, he said, but not for a good five years or so. As he talked my spirits sank lower, part disappointment and part too much pineau on an empty stomach.
By the time we got out to our car again, I was close to tears. Clancy had left an unpleasant feeling on my skin, Duval hadn’t been the savior I’d expected him to be and we had got nowhere.
“We have no avenue left to us,” I said to Felix as we waved goodbye to Duval.
“Don’t be so downcast, boss,” Felix replied. “Something will turn up. It always does.”
“Meanwhile the person responsible for Hélène’s death, whether through carelessness or intent, is living their life having robbed Hélène of hers. I’ve never felt so down in all the time we’ve been in Beaucoup-sur-Mer. I’m afraid this is one case that is going to get away from us.”
Felix put his hand on my knee to cheer me up. “Give it time, boss. You’re tired.”
I hoped fatigue was the cause of my depression and feeling of inadequacy, but I feared things were more serious than that. I shook my head at my dark thoughts. This wasn’t about me. It was about Jean-Claude and his three children. I had to pull myself together, find some inspiration and solve the puzzle.
Chapter 24
It was two weeks later that we got the call that changed everything. At six thirty on a Saturday night, my phone buzzed. It was Jean-Claude. Through his hysterical sobbing, I managed to work out that he wanted us at the château immediately. Why, he wouldn’t say over the phone.
“P-p-please, please, come now. The worse thing possible has happened. I need you here to h-h-help and advise me,” he stuttered and cut the call.
“What was that all about?” Felix asked me. “You’ve gone quite pale.”
“It was Jean-Claude,” I said snatching up my jacket and throwing it on as I hurried out into the hall to pick up the car keys. “He needs us urgently. Come on, Felix. Hurry up.”
“Right,” he said stopping at the kitchen door to let Gwinny know we had to go out and she was in charge of Jimbo.
I had the engine running and in gear by the time Felix joined me. I let in the clutch and we tore off bouncing over the cobbles and then across the Esplanade. A couple of minutes later we shot through the medieval town gates and out onto the road to Cognac.
I now had the time to relate the gist of Jean-Claude’s call to Felix, stressing how upset he’d been but that he wouldn’t say what was wrong.
“I’ve got a nasty feeling about this,” Felix said. “Unpleasant events tend to happen in three’s: first Jean-Claude’s accident with the lawn mower, then Hélène’s bizarre death and now… what?”
We made the journey to the château in half the time it usually took us. Fortunately, we met with no speed checks on the way. The two towers guarding the gateway came into view in the gathering dusk. I swung the car through and sped up the avenue coming to a gravel-spraying halt in front of the château whose every window was ablaze with light.
Jean-Claude was at my car door wrenching it open before I’d switched off the engine. He half pulled me out of my seat and flung his arms around me.
“Thank you, thank you for coming so quickly.” He caught hold of my arm and dragged me up the steps almost making me lose my footing.
“Steady on,” Felix called out at him as he clutched my thighs and gave me a boost.
I flashed Felix a warning look not to interfere and followed Jean-Claude’s hobbling lead as he dragged me down the hall and into the library.
Waiting for us on the ornate brocade sofa was Madame Brune. Sitting alongside her and holding tightly to her two hands were two of Jean-Claude’s children: his older daughter, Violette, and the boy twin, Marc. I wondered vaguely where Nina, the girl twin, was.
Jean-Claude flung me down into an armchair facing the sofa and pointed at his housekeeper and his children.
“You see?” he shouted at me. “She’s gone. Nina’s gone… vanished. We can’t find her anywhere. And it’s gone seven o’clock. It’s dark out there,” he added waving distractedly out of the window.
Felix put his arm around Jean-Claude�
�s shoulders and tried to get him to sit down, but he shook Felix off and continued his shuffling pace up and down.
I jumped up out of my chair and took hold of Jean-Claude’s arm to stop him. I wrenched him around to face me and asked if he’d told the police yet.
“I can’t. I simply can’t. You don’t understand,” he ended with a wail.
“Right, Calm down. And tell us what you know. And then we should let the children leave the room.”
“I’ve asked them both, but they know nothing. Nina had a ballet class this afternoon in Cognac. Madame Brune always collects her at the end of her class, but she was a few minutes late today. That’s so, isn’t it?” he asked her.
Madame Brune nodded. “She’s a good girl, Nina is. Very obedient and careful. All the children know they mustn’t accept lifts from strangers.”
“Is that right?” I asked looking at Marc and Violette.
They murmured, “Yes. Nina knows, too. Papa is strict about this.”
Perhaps Madame Brune could add a little more. I asked her what exactly had happened when she arrived at the ballet school.
“Several of the children were sitting on the steps waiting to be collected,” she said. “Nina wasn’t among them. It was unlike her to dawdle inside, but I wasn’t too worried at first. Maybe she’d gone to the cloakroom or something harmless like that. I sat waiting in my car watching the door for her to come out. The children gradually peeled off as they were fetched one by one and still no Nina. After fifteen minutes, I judged the delay too long.”
“You went in to ask about her?”
“Yes. Most of the teachers had left by then. The one teacher who remained was not Nina’s teacher, so she didn’t know her very well, but she said there were no pupils left in the building. She had checked prior to locking up and was on her way home herself.”
“How about you, two?” I asked Violette and Marc. “Did Nina say anything to you about being collected by someone else? Did she mention going home with a friend?”
They both shook their heads. It was clear they knew nothing about the incident and were growing more and more frightened by the tension in the room and their father’s anxiety.
I suggested to Jean-Claude that Madame Brune take the children into the kitchen and give them some cookies and soda to distract them while we got down to business. As soon as the door closed behind them, I asked Jean-Claude if he had called the principal of the ballet school to find out if any of the teachers knew anything.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “I’m in such a panicky state, I can’t think clearly. We should do that. I’ll find the last invoice for the phone number.”
He ferreted about in his desk drawer and fished out an invoice which he passed to Felix. Felix dialed the number and passed his phone to Jean-Claude who asked the principal if she could help. He shook his head at us but he did write down a number and a name. He closed the call.
“She knows nothing, but she’s given me Nina’s teacher’s home number. I’ll try that now.”
He put the second call through. As he listened, his face fell and his brows scrunched up. He didn’t like what he was hearing.
As he put the phone down I asked him, “What did she say? You look upset.”
“She said she saw Nina get into a car she hadn’t seen before, and it wasn’t Madame Brune at the wheel.”
“Didn’t she do anything? Run out to check?”
“Yes, she did. The driver was a man. Elderly, about sixty. She asked what he was doing collecting Nina, and he said he was a friend of the family and I’d asked him to fill in because Madame Brune was busy.”
“But what about Nina? Was she happy to go along with this?”
“Her teacher says she asked Nina about the situation and Nina said she knew the man. She’d known him for, quote, a very long time.”
“So, to recap: a man, who was not authorized to do so by you, picked up Nina after her ballet class. Nina said she knew him and had known him a long time. She wasn’t distressed and appeared happy to be driven home by him. She never arrived home. You don’t know who this man was?”
Jean-Claude collapsed into his chair and put his head in his hands. He rocked from side to side as if in denial of his thoughts. That wasn’t surprising given the circumstances of his missing daughter. I gave him a few moments and repeated my question.
“Do you have any idea who this man could be?”
He let out a groan and slowly raised his head, his eyes staring off into the distance watching a scenario visible to him alone.
Felix sat down opposite Jean-Claude and leaned across the desk to take hold of his hand to bring him back to the present. “Jean-Claude?”
He swung his gaze back to us.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to tell you. Help me out here. If I tell you what I know it could be dangerous for Nina… and for my other children.”
“Tell him, boss,” said Felix.
I took a deep breath. “Jean-Claude we should have informed the police by now. As soon as they know they will put out an Alerte-Enlèvement. To my knowledge, they have a one hundred per cent success rate with finding missing children here in France.”
One of the first things I’d done when we arrived in France was check out what to do if either of my brothers ever went missing, being especially concerned for Jimbo who was nine. The French system of Alerte-Enlèvement which literally means Abduction Alert, is based on the US Amber Alert system. However, I knew that it could not be triggered without parental consent. Therefore, we could do nothing if Jean-Claude insisted he couldn’t tell the police. We had to find out why he was so reluctant before the trail grew too cold to find the poor child.
Jean-Claude shuddered. “Not in this case,” he said. “You simply don’t understand.”
Felix lifted Jean-Claude’s hand up in the air and thumped it down on the desk to get his attention. “Jean-Claude, why do I get the feeling you know more about this than you’re letting on?” he asked.
“I don’t know for certain,” he replied. “I would be guessing at this stage, but I don’t think she’s been taken by a pedophile.”
“How could you possibly know that? If you know something… anything… you must tell the police.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” he said as his laptop pinged to say he’d received a new email.
“Excuse me,” he said. He reached over to slide the laptop in front of him and click the email open.
He read through the message and gasped as he reached the end.
“See what I mean?” he said turning the screen around towards us.
I was put on alert before I knew what it said by the large bold italic font which made it clear it was anything but a normal email. The distorted characters shouted at me and made it even more difficult than usual for someone dyslexic like I was. I had to wait for Felix to read it out loud.
How many warnings do you need? First your accident, then your wife’s untimely death, not to mention that of your precious vines. Maybe this warning will show you I mean business. Cough up the million Euros or else… Can you guess which one of your pretty little chicks I’ll snatch next? And don’t even think about contacting the police.
The message validated Jean-Claude’s instincts. A pedophile would never contact a parent in this way. He’d make off with the child and that would often be the last the child would be heard of alive.
“Felix, this sounds more complicated than a straight forward child abduction, if there is such a thing,” I said. “Read it again more slowly this time.”
Felix did as I asked. The second reading didn’t diminish the threat implied in the message. I realized the writer had to have been involved in the previous strange happenings at the château to list them in such a way.
“What is all this about, Jean-Claude?” I asked him. “Now is not the time for secrets. You need to tell us everything you know.”
The color had left Jean-Claude’s face leaving his
skin a transparent gray. He began to sway from side to side. Although he was sitting down, he was on the point of passing out.
“Felix,” I said quickly pointing at the bar in the corner of the library. “Give him a large tot of cognac, now.”
Felix leapt to obey my instruction and poured some out for himself and for me at the same time.
“We all need it,” he said handing both of us a glass.
We waited until Jean-Claude had drunk half before pushing him to tell us the whole story. We were both so certain there was more to it than he’d told us up to that point. Maybe it hadn’t been instinct that had made him so sure Nina hadn’t been snatched by a pedophile but prior knowledge of some kind.
He put his glass down and breathed in deeply but didn’t speak.
I drained mine to give me strength and replaced it on the desk with a clunk.
“Jean-Claude, you say this is obviously not a sex crime and that at first sight, it doesn’t appear that Nina has been snatched by a pedophile. So, what is this all about?”
When Jean-Claude still didn’t answer my question, Felix walked round to him, seized him by the shoulders and shook him.
“Snap out of it, man. Tell us what you know. This is not the time to hold your cards close to your chest. You’re gambling with Nina’s safety here.”
One look at Jean-Claude’s face showed me he’d closed down in denial of the situation. It was clear he was not coping. I had to do something and quickly. Every second counts in the kidnapping of a child. I had to take the initiative.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Dubois’s number.
He answered immediately as if heaven-sent. “Salut, Penzi. Not another murder, I hope. I’m about to go out to dinner with friends. It is Saturday n—.”
I broke through his waffling. “Dubois, we need you, now. At the Château de Portemorency. Jean-Claude’s younger daughter Nina has been kidnapped.”
