The Witch Who Mysteries Box Set 2

by Katie Penryn

  I gave a quick Shave and a haircut on the horn, and Felix rapped his knuckles on the dashboard, Two bits.

  Jimbo rolled his eyes at me in the mirror, but he relaxed back into his seat and was silent for the rest of the journey.

  It wasn’t so quiet overhead. As we approached Cognac, the thrup-thrup of a pair of helicopters buzzed backwards and forwards across the sky in a grid search pattern. Dubois had called the police helicopters out from Bordeaux.

  “They’re using every tool at their disposal,” said Felix peering up through the windscreen.

  *

  We were to find out the vast scope of the search when we reached the command post Dubois had set up at the Château de Portemorency where he’d taken over the library. A low buzz of voices reached us as we opened the door. Several officers manned computer stations, all working in deep concentration. Dubois and Madame Fer-de-Lance stood talking in front of a huge white board which straddled the ancient fireplace. Dubois broke off and came towards us.

  “Good, Penzi. I’m glad you’re here… for moral support if nothing else.”

  “You’ve wasted no time, Dubois. I wasn’t expecting this hive of activity.”

  “We’ve been working all night. It’s crucial we hit this search hard in the first twenty-four hours, as you know. My men are making lists of all white van owners in the area. Now that it’s daylight, we’re tracking them down. We’re conducting door-to-door inquiries in the streets around the ballet school. Other men have been working on lists of previous employees. They’ll carry on when Monsieur de Portemorency comes back to advise them.”

  “Oh, where is he?” I asked looking around for him.

  “He’s gone to catch some sleep at our insistence.”

  “I hope he has better luck than I had. I have something important to tell you about that, Dubois.”

  “I’ll listen to anything you have to tell me, Penzi. You know that. Come and sit down over here,” he said leading me out onto the verandah. “Now, what is it?”

  I sat down quickly with Felix taking the chair next to me.

  “Don’t laugh at me, Dubois, but I had a vision of Nina. Some sort of strange telepathy, I guess.” I looked up at him expecting to find him suppressing a smile of disbelief, but he was staring at me, waiting for me to continue. “She was in what looked like a cave. The walls were hewn out of rock. She was sitting on the ground, not on a man-made floor.”

  “And?” he asked.

  “That’s all. I’m sorry, the picture faded before I noticed anything else.”

  Felix caught my eye. “Tell him about the feeling you had, boss.”

  “What feeling?”

  “You know. That seawater feeling,” Felix hinted.

  Silly me. I’d almost forgotten about our unsuccessful scrying attempt to find Nina.

  “You have something to add?” asked Dubois.

  “Yes. I’ve had this strong sensation that Nina could be underground somewhere. That would fit in with my vision of a cave, wouldn’t it?”

  “Possibly, but not necessarily. The cave could be open to the elements, not underground. But what you say is important. We’ve been concentrating on streets, houses, everything above ground level. Perhaps we need to look deeper. This area is riddled with tunnels, some natural some man-made. I’ll get a couple of my men working on that idea straight away,” he said and strode back inside.

  Madame Fer-de-Lance came outside to greet us… in a surprisingly friendly way. I asked her how she thought the search was progressing.

  “It’s still early. In spite of the ransom demands and Monsieur de Portemorency’s assurances that this is not a sexual crime, we are checking all known sexual predators to make sure we don’t miss anyone.”

  “Jean-Claude does have a point though,” I said. “Money is the motive, isn’t it? And while we’re on the subject of the ransom demands, madame, my colleague Felix and I are offering to pay the million Euros to have Nina released.”

  Madame Fer-de-lance rocked back on her feet and stared at me, her mouth and eyes wide open. “Comment?” she asked at last.

  Felix jumped up and pulled out a chair for her and pushed her down into it, not too gently.

  “She was going to faint,” he whispered to me in an aside.

  We waited for her to catch her breath. I repeated my offer.

  “Not a chance,” she said waving her arms in front of her to emphasize her disapproval.

  I expected her to say it was unwise to pay the ransom because there’d be no assurance Nina would be returned, alive or dead, but what she said stunned me.

  “You are English,” she said. “We do things differently here in France. Our state considers itself responsible for the safety of every one of its citizens. If we are unable to find Nina within twenty-four hours, the state will pay the ransom.”

  Felix and I exchanged looks of surprise. Neither of us had known that.

  “Are you sure, madame?” I asked.

  She nodded vigorously. “It’s been that way for years now. I have already set the request in motion by sending all the details of the case to the Ministry. I await their approval. So, you see, Mpenzi, generous as your offer is, it is not required in this instance.”

  She took another deep breath, rose to her feet and disappeared back into the library.

  Felix was smiling at the thought of saving a million Euros. I smiled back thinking that we could be sure that Nina would be found safe now.

  Chapter 28

  But it wasn’t to be. When the clock ticked round to twenty-four hours after Nina’s capture outside the ballet school without her being found, we looked to Madame Fer-de-Lance. She’d taken up position in the corner of the library at a temporary work station with her back to the room for peace and privacy. She was watching the lower corner of her screen. As the time limit ran out, she picked up her mobile and dialed her contact at the Ministry. We expected her to turn around and face us with news that the payment of the ransom was imminent, but that is not what happened. As her contact spoke to her, she tensed up, her shoulders rising up to her ears.

  She shook her head violently from side to side, shouting loudly, “Non, non, non. C’est-pas vrai!”

  Everyone turned to listen to her side of a heated discussion. Again we heard her say, “That can’t be true. What am I to tell the poor father? And the English?”

  She closed the call and spun round on her chair to face the room and swept us all up with her look of despair.

  Jean-Claude hurried over towards her. She held up her hand to stop his progress. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Government policy regarding kidnapping and the payment of ransom demands is undergoing review. In the circumstances, the state will not pay out to rescue Nina at this time.”

  A gasp of horrified dismay ran round the room and Jean-Claude fell to his knees with his hands clasped over his face.

  “What are we to do?” he cried out. “It’s twenty-four hours now and we are no nearer finding my daughter than we were yesterday.”

  I rushed over to him and crouched down throwing my arms around his shoulders. “We are going to pay the ransom, personally, Felix and I. We’ll sort it out now.”

  Madame Fer-de-Lance stared down at us. “You cannot. The Ministry has expressly forbidden it. No one is to pay the ransom. No one.”

  “But why are they changing their policy?” Felix asked. He was as usual the only person to keep a level head.

  Madame Fer-de-Lance wrung her hands. “Believe me, if I could change things, I would. It’s all to do with the recent events in Africa.

  “Africa?” Jean-Claude cried out again. “But that’s thousands of miles away.”

  “Nevertheless,” Madame Fer-de-Lance continued, “that is the reason. You can blame the new policy on the kidnapping of a French family in Northern Cameroon in 2013. It was said to be in retaliation for our military operations against the Jihadists in Mali.”

  “Mali’s not even in France,” I protested.

  “It
’s a former French colony,” said Felix. “The French don’t want Mali taken over by Jihadists. And don’t forget the 2014 seizure of 276 female students by Boko Haram in Nigeria, another extreme group allied to Al-Shabab and Al-Qaeda.”

  Madame Fer-de-Lance added, “Our government now feels that would-be kidnappers and extortionists will be encouraged if they know that a pay-out by the French state is guaranteed. Just before our president visited Mali this year to re-state France’s support against extremism in Western Africa, Al-Qaeda released a video of six captives, including a French citizen, a woman who’d been working to feed malnourished children in Northern Mali. All this has hardened our government’s stance on kidnappings.”

  A collective sigh soughed around the library. We all understood the government’s hesitation once Madame Fer-de-Lance had explained the official reasoning to us, but their refusal to pay the ransom hit us all hard.

  She stood up and held out her hand to Jean-Claude. “So, we have to re-double our efforts to find your daughter, monsieur.”

  I attempted to rise to my feet putting out my hand for Felix. I needed his solidity after the buffeting we’d all received. He clasped my hand and gave it a tug, simultaneously jerking his head towards the door.

  I picked up his cue at once and said, “Madame, we amateurs should leave things to you professionals. We’ll take Monsieur de Portemorency with us to visit his other children. He should spend time with them.”

  Jean-Claude gave me a puzzled look. I smiled at him in reassurance and linked my arm in his. Thus joined together in friendship and mutual support, we made our way out of the library leaving the door to close behind us with a clunk.

  *

  Felix drew us both across the hall into the reception room. “We need to talk,” he said, “in private.”

  “What are you up to now, Felix?” I asked him.

  “Sit down both of you and let me explain.”

  I took a seat on one of the gilded and brocade covered Louis XV sofas, and Jean-Claude dropped down beside me. “Well?”

  Felix pulled a chair across the floor towards and sat down back to front, his arms resting on the chair back and his long legs stretching out either side.

  “It’s not like you, boss, to allow yourself to be reined in once you have the bit between your teeth. You’re not going to let the Ministry’s ban on the paying of the ransom stop you, are you?”

  I looked at Felix in astonishment. “You’re suggesting we do something illegal–pay the ransom, anyway?”

  “What’s to stop us? I can fix it so that the police can’t track the payment. I’m not a hacker for nothing.”

  “Apart from the fact that as a barrister, I’m an officer of the court, you resisted my idea at first. You did eventually change your mind, but I’m surprised you want to press ahead now we’ve been warned off by the Ministry of the Interior.”

  Felix got up and turned his chair around the right way, sat down again and leaned forwards towards us with his elbows on his knees. After a pause of a few seconds, he reached out and laid his hand on Jean-Claude’s knee.

  “What I’m about to say will distress you, but it needs saying.”

  Jean-Claude shifted his weight. “There’s not much you can say that I haven’t been thinking. The situation is dire. It would be marvelous if you could pay the ransom and get Nina back before any harm comes to her.”

  “What’s your point, Felix?” I asked him conscious that time was passing while he pussyfooted around the subject.

  Felix breathed in deeply and exhaled again with a loud blast of air. “The police will not find Nina the way they’re going. There’s no CCTV footage of the kidnapper or his van. They have only the vaguest of images of him done by the police artist. No one’s come forward with a definite sighting. They’ve been through our list of suspects for Hélène’s death and come up with nothing concrete. Now, they’re wading through past employees and owners of white vans. The list is endless and incomplete. If we don’t pay the ransom and get Nina back, I dread to think what will happen to her.”

  Jean-Claude had begun to shake while Felix gave us his summing up of the problem facing the father of three. “Can you really do it?” he asked.

  “Yes, if I can contact the villain. Do you know his email address without going back into the library to look it up on your laptop?”

  Jean-Claude nodded. He brushed Felix’s hand away and walked over to a credenza. He opened a drawer and took out a pen and a letterhead. With care, he write down the email address and handed the sheet of paper to Felix who stowed it away in his pocket.

  “Right, we should go,” he said. “The sooner we get home, the sooner I can start this rolling.”

  Jean-Claude stepped forwards to shake Felix’s hand and exchange a quick man hug. As he broke away, he asked, “How are you planning to do this exactly?”

  “I’ll use the dark web. That’s where this man is hiding. That’s why the police can’t home in on his IP address any more than the guy you employed to find him could.”

  I hugged Jean-Claude, told him to keep his spirits up and hurried after Felix. As the car turned out onto the main road and I had to check the rear view mirror, I realized we’d forgotten Jimbo. I flung the car around and tore back up the drive to the château.

  “Don’t you dare tell Jimbo we didn’t remember to collect him,” I warned Felix. “The last thing he needs is to feel insecure.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Felix replied as we hurried up the stairs and back into the château.

  On the way out between the ancient towers for the second time that night, Felix turned to me and asked, “What if this doesn’t work, boss? What if he keeps the money and doesn’t free Nina?”

  I didn’t know how to answer, but Jimbo did.

  “Penzi can use her magic, can’t she?” he said.

  I smiled at him in the mirror, but for the fifty-mile drive home to Beaucoup-sur-Mer I questioned myself. Could I? Was my magic strong enough? My knowledge of the craft had so far to go. I had to hope our plan worked and the villain gave Nina back to her father.

  Chapter 29

  As soon as we reached home I handed Jimbo off to Gwinny. Felix and I hurried into the study. Felix opened up his laptop to put into motion our determination to pay the ransom of a million dollars to end the kidnapping of Nina de Portemorency. I asked him if he wanted me to help in any way.

  He smiled at me in answer and said, “I’ll call you if I manage to make contact with him. I’ll need you then as we’ll both have to transfer our five hundred thousand each. Why don’t you take some time out to consider all we know? You may come up with a brilliant idea.”

  Dismissed from Felix’s digital bubble, I wandered out onto the veranda where the warmth of the day hadn’t yet been replaced by the evening coolness of spring. A few tardy bees buzzed about the garden on their way to their hives for the night. Beyond the sea wall separating our garden from the path that skirted the Atlantic Ocean, the waves of high tide crashed against the cliffs below our house. The milky blur of the waning crescent moon hung in the paling blue sky far out over the ocean waiting for the sun to sink below the horizon and let the stars out.

  I stretched my arms high above my head and shook them out relieving the tension and stress of the last thirty hours. Zig and Zag appeared at my side like bookended security guards.

  “Are you all right?” Zag asked. “You’ve been gone a long time.”

  “Have the police found the little girl?” asked Zig. “I don’t want nasty things to happen to her.”

  I bent down to give them both a cuddle and a fuss and told them the police search had so far been unsuccessful. I thought about telling them that Felix and I’d decided to pay the ransom but wasn’t sure they would understand, so I didn’t.

  Instead I said, “I need to do some thinking. Come and sit with me and join your mental energy to mine.”

  They wagged their tails in unison, glad to help. I turned and walked over to the Roman litter
and lay down upon it with my head cradled in my arms looking out at the sky and waiting for the stars to appear. The litter may have been a stupid mistake but it was comfortable. Zig climbed up beside me and rested her head on my leg while Zag sat on his haunches on the floor at my head. The events of the past few weeks floated in and out of my mind as I set my thoughts adrift. All of a sudden I sat up with a wrench. How dare I lie relaxing on the veranda admiring the sky at dusk when the villain held Nina somewhere she couldn’t see the sky? There it was again. The certainty he held Nina captive below ground. I’d thought it was a cave the first time I saw the image. Now, I concentrated and scanned the walls surrounding her. They seemed to break away at one point and disappear into the darkness along a badly lit corridor. It wasn’t a cave. It was a tunnel.

  I pulled out my phone and called Dubois. “Xavier,” I said when he answered. “I’m sure Nina’s in a tunnel. I just had another vision. It’s a tunnel not a cave.”

  “Relax,” he replied. “I’ve got my men working on that. They’re collating all the local information on the tunnels around here. Once we have it together, we’ll start searching. It’ll be a long task and I’ll have to ask for help from the Gironde and the Dordogne. We’ll need their men and dogs. Now you take things easy tonight and I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow? With any luck the search would be over by tomorrow. Money transfers by internet are instantaneous. As soon as Felix made contact with the villain, we’d get him to release Nina.

  I fell asleep waiting for Felix’s summons. I awoke in the dark when he jiggled my foot.

  “Come along, sleepyhead. I’ve made contact. I need you to transfer your half of the ransom to the villain.”

  I shook myself, slid my feet to the floor dislodging poor Zig. Zag already stood to attention by the side of the litter as if he realized how serious the situation was.

  “Is everything all right, Penzi?” he asked.