by Katie Penryn
While the prosecutor organized the second Alerte-Enlèvement, Dubois had his men phone round all their prime suspects in the hope of catching one of them unable to explain his whereabouts or provide an alibi. At first inquiry, everyone was accounted for. Anyone who hadn’t had an alibi for Nina’s kidnapping, had one for Marc’s and vice versa. Nevertheless, Dubois sent men to check all alibis in person for completeness but not expecting any information to change.
While Dubois stood lost in thought facing the white board without seeing anything written or pasted thereon, the door to the library opened, and Jean-Claude entered accompanied by his two young daughters, Violette in tears and Nina barefoot in her pajamas.
“You haven’t found him?” Jean-Claude called out.
Dubois turned to face the distraught father and shook his head slowly. “Not yet, monsieur. We’re looking. My men are searching as we speak. I’ve dispatched them to check the alibis of all our known suspects.”
“My daughters need to see that something is being done to find their brother.”
Dubois stepped towards the two little girls and held out his hands to them. “I can understand that. Come with me and I’ll–”
At that moment, the lights went out and all the computer screens died.
Dubois broke off and exclaimed, “What the hell? Another power cut? What is wrong with the electricity service?”
Immediately, everyone switched on their phones and lit the room with splashes of light, but this was no rock concert. This was the middle of an important police investigation with the safety of a small child at stake.
“Inspector,” called out one of his men waving his phone. “It’s not a power cut. I’ve just rung them. Something’s tripped the main circuit breaker.”
“Oh not again,” said Jean-Claude letting go of the two girls and striding towards the door. “Anyone got a flashlight?” he called back over his shoulder.
The man who’d phoned to check on the power cut ran after him saying, “Yes, I have, monsieur. I’ll come with you.”
The two little girls burst into tears and collapsed onto the floor. Madame Fer-de-Lance knelt down beside them speaking softly. She coaxed them to their feet and with her arms around them both, led them over to one of the sofas that had been pushed against the wall to clear space for the police equipment.
“Don’t worry, little ones,” she told them. “Your father’s sorting out the light and we’re going to catch the nasty man who’s taken Marc. We’ll bring your brother back home to you.”
She sat down on the sofa pulling the girls down to join her. She hugged them both and soothed them with soft whispers of encouragement.
“Fetch a blanket,” she ordered one of her men, and he left in a hurry to return with the covers off Nina’s bed.
Madame Fer-de-Lance tucked Nina and Violette into the duvet and comforted them until the lights came back on.
“There you are,” she said. “Nothing serious.”
Violette had perked up and was smiling now that the scary darkness had been banished. “It keeps happening, madame. Don’t you remember the electricity went off last night?”
Madame Fer-de-Lance nodded. “You’re right and at about the same time.”
Violette continued, “I was watching television in the kitchen with Marc. It was the final of one of our favorite programs, Future Number One. It’s an important talent show. The winner is given a huge contract to make them famous and rich.”
The prosecutor murmured, “Everyone knows about that show although I don’t watch it myself.”
Nina stared at her big sister. “Was it a power cut?”
“No,” Violette answered. “It was like this. They said something in the house had made it go off.”
Nina edged sideways along the sofa, her back stiffening as she settled in her new position.
“What’s wrong, Nina,” asked Madame Fer-de-Lance.
Nina gazed at the floor as if trying to make sense of what she’d heard.
“Nina?”
The girl looked up. “It’s peculiar, madame. When I was in the cave watching the same program last night, that happened to me. Just as they were about to announce the winner, the lights went out and the television went dark.”
“And me,” said Violette. “I had to find out who’d won on the news this morning.”
“I still don’t know who won,” said Nina.
“It was Pierre Duchamps. I voted for him.”
“Pierre Duchamps?” asked Nina in surprise. “I didn’t think he was the best.”
Madame Fer-de-Lance held up her hands. “Wait girls. Tell me again. Are you saying that the electricity was cut off here in the château at the same time as it was in the cave where you were being held prisoner, Nina?”
The two girls looked at each and shrugged. “Looks like it,” they answered together.
Nina added, “I thought it was a power cut.”
“But it wasn’t,” Violette said.
Madame Fer-de-Lance stood up quickly. “I have to talk to Inspector Dubois. This could be important.”
She hurried down to the kitchen where she found Jean-Claude, Dubois and the other policeman talking in front of the fusebox.
“What caused it?” she asked.
Dubois pointed to the last fuse on the bottom rung. “This one flicked down setting off the main circuit breaker. It’s the one for the cellars.”
Jean-Claude broke in. “We’ve had the electrician here. He can’t find anything wrong but said we should leave the fuse off until we have the cellars rewired. Someone keeps flicking the cellar fuse on in spite of my instructions.”
Madame Fer-de-Lance put her hand on Jean-Claude’s arm to attract his attention.
“Yes, madame?” he asked. “Did you want me?”
“I may be wrong, of course, but this electricity problem could be a big clue to the whereabouts of the kidnapper’s cave,” she said.
“How so?” asked Dubois.
Madame Fer-de-lance told the three men what the two girls had said about the electricity going off at exactly the same time in both the château and the cave.
“And it was not a general power cut,” she added.
Dubois grinned. “Ah, I see where you’re going, madame. It was too much of a coincidence. Let’s get the electrician back here now to make sure.”
“At this time of night?” asked Jean-Claude in surprise.
“Do you want your son back or not, monsieur?” asked Dubois.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Inspector,” Jean-Claude snapped back, taking his phone out of his pocket and putting the call through.
Jean-Claude’s face told Dubois the electrician was reluctant to come out so late at night.
“Give it me,” Dubois said snatching Jean-Claude’s phone from him. “At once, do you hear me, monsieur,” he shouted down the phone. “At once. This is Inspector Dubois speaking. If you’re not here in fifteen minutes, I’ll charge you with obstructing the course of justice.”
“That did it,” he said with a grim smile. “Now, monsieur, would you fetch that giant key of yours while we wait?”
Jean-Claude hastened away and returned to hand it to Dubois. “I must see to my daughters. Nina needs to get dressed or go back to bed though I doubt either of them will settle for some time yet after all the excitement and drama.”
“He’s a good father,” said the prosecutor as the kitchen door closed behind him. “He doesn’t deserve what’s happened to him. We have to make the villain pay.”
Headlights flashed through the kitchen windows. Dubois was at the door to let the electrician in before the bell had rung.
On the way back to the kitchen Dubois explained their reasoning to the electrician: that there had to be something wrong with the cellar circuit if it kept tripping the circuit breaker. The electrician, a Monsieur Lafarge, insisted he’d advised Jean-Claude to leave the cellar circuit out of use until it had been rewired, even though he’d found nothing wrong when he’d tested it on t
he last call-out. Lafarge said he had promised to do the job as soon as he had a gap in his workload.
When they reached the fusebox, Lafarge clicked the cellar circuit on. It immediately shut itself off and tripped the main breaker sending the room into darkness. The light had lasted for a second. Lafarge hastily switched the main breaker on again but left the cellar circuit off.
“What exactly do you expect me to do, Inspector?” he asked Dubois. “It’s late and dark outside.”
“Accompany us down to the cellars and show us what’s what. Take another look. Check to see if anything appears out of the ordinary. But first we require some more flashlights if we can’t turn the cellar circuit on.” He turned to his sidekick, “Go fetch some flashlights from the library.”
While they waited Dubois laid out their theory again that there could be a connection between the electricity supply at the château and the cave for which they were searching.
“I didn’t see anything like that last time I was here,” said Lafarge, “but it won’t hurt to look again.”
When the officer returned with the flashlights, Dubois set off for the small hallway that led from the kitchen and the exterior door to the stairs down to the cellars. Dubois and his officer watched while the electrician checked all the electrical fittings in the first two cellars. He shook his head, “Nothing.”
The three men passed through into the last cellar, the one with the cement blocks sealing up the old tunnels off to the side. Still nothing, but then Lafarge moved a large wicker basket full of rusting garden tools to disclose another electrical socket in the room.
“Look at this extension cable,” he called out. “Someone’s plugged it into this socket. It wasn’t here on my last visit.”
He followed the cable as it made its way behind boxes and piles of junk to the far wall. “See, it disappears through the wall here, at the edge of this old door.”
Dubois hurried over and bent down to look. Someone had drilled a hole through the ancient oak door jamb. He tried the door before he remembered that Jean-Claude had said the door hadn’t been opened for decades because the main tunnel was unsafe on the other side. Nor did he have the key. Dubois tried the one he had anyway, but it didn’t turn.
“So, what do you suggest, Lafarge,” he asked the electrician.
Lafarge scratched his head. “Someone is stealing electricity, using your power source. My guess is they’re overloading the circuit from time to time and that’s triggering the main circuit breaker. I’ll unplug the cable. If you send someone upstairs to flick the cellar fuse on and the main circuit breaker doesn’t trip, we’ll know I’m right.”
Dubois deputized his officer to do as Lafarge suggested and the lights came on in the cellars. When he returned, the officer asked, “Is it possible, chief, that the cable runs to our villain’s hideout?”
“Only one way to find out. We must get this door open. Run upstairs again and fetch some of the lads. Meanwhile, Lafarge have you got a bit big enough to drill round the lock?”
“I’ll give it a try,” he said opening up his tool kit and taking out his drill. He scrabbled around in the bottom tray and came out with a one-inch wood bit and a pair of safety goggles.
“Wait a moment,” Dubois told Lafarge. “I have to get Monsieur de Portemorency’s permission to break down his door. He hurried back upstairs leaving the electrician alone with his officer to size up the task.
Five minutes later Dubois was back with several policemen and Jean-Claude.
“We have your permission, monsieur?” Dubois asked Jean-Claude who nodded and said, “Of course. Give it everything you’ve got, Lafarge.”
Lafarge’s first exploratory hole showed that the door was four inches thick and made of solid old oak. “Let’s hope it’s not bolted on the other side,” he said as he began the second hole.
The smell of burning oak filled the cellar making the men cough. The bit grew so hot Lafarge had to wait for it to cool down between holes. Drilling stopped when Lafarge hit the fifth hole. The centuries old oak had blunted the drill bit.
“I don’t have a spare,” he said rifling his tool kit again, “but I do have my circular saw with me and a metal cutting diamond blade. Give me a minute.”
He laid his drill down and took a circular saw out of his kit, fitted the blade, plugged the flex in and switched the saw on.
“We have power,” he said. “Stand aside. I’m going to cut through where I estimate the bolt of the lock to be.”
He braced himself and began to saw through the door on a line level with the keyhole. The whirring of the saw cut through the silent attention of the men waiting behind him.
He pulled the saw back and switched it off. “Now if you all ram the door with your shoulders at the same time, it might give.”
Dubois lined everyone up. “On the count of three: one, two, THREE!”
They crashed into the old oak and the door juddered but didn’t open. “Again,” Dubois called out. “One, two, THREE!”
The door flew open sending the men hurtling through to crash land in a pile on the other side.
As they picked themselves up they noticed with dismay that the tunnel was indeed blocked. The ceiling had fallen in centuries ago. The band of men heaved a collective sigh.
“So near, yet so far,” Jean-Claude muttered from the rear.
“Not at all,” Lafarge called out. “Look, the cable’s been threaded into lead piping. I bet this comes out on the other side of the rockfall.”
Dubois measured up the task before them. “We can’t move that mountain of rubble tonight.”
“Inspector, Inspector,” someone called from the château end of the cellars. It was Madame Brune.
“A truck has arrived. They say they’re from the Archeology Department of the University of Bordeaux. It’s urgent that they speak with you.”
Chapter 38
Dubois’s Story:
“Good,” said Dubois brushing the dirt of his hands and knees. “Everyone out and upstairs to the kitchen. We have to work out our next step. Madame Brune,” he called out to the housekeeper who’d walked down the cellars and was now standing with a look of astonishment on her face. “Madame, can you rustle up some food for my men? We have a long night ahead of us.”
“Of course, Inspector,” she answered and turned to lead the way out of the cellars while Dubois took photos of the scene with his phone. At the last moment, he thought of registering the GPS of the rockfall. He’d be needing it if he put his plan into action.
As the last man out, he locked up the cellars and put the old key in his pocket making a mental note to remember to return it to Jean-Claude who’d said it was the only key. Dubois didn’t want to leave the poor man without access to his wine collection; he had enough to worry about.
With something of a hop, skip and a jump Dubois passed through the kitchen on his way to see the man about his truck. The heart-warming smell of garlic had reached him from the top of the cellar stairs, and he wasn’t surprised his men were already tucking into bowls of cassoulet, the French country standby of beans with sausage and chunks of pork. Oh dear, cassoulet twice in one day. That would mean a tornado of farting, but if he went ahead with his idea for finding the cave, they’d all be out in the fresh air so it wouldn’t matter.
The driver stood waiting by his truck dragging on a hand rolled cigarette.
“Good evening,” said Dubois advancing with his hand outstretched for the obligatory French handshake. “Didn’t anyone invite you in for a glass of wine and a coffee?”
The driver pinched off the end of his roll-up and tucked the remainder away in his pocket for later.
“Inspector,” he nodded. “This equipment is valuable. I didn’t want to leave it until I’d handed over responsibility. I came as quickly as I could as they told me the delivery was urgent.”
He reached into his jacket pocket for a form which he handed to Dubois to sign.
Formalities over, he asked Dubois where he wante
d the machine. “Will here do?”
Dubois nodded, and the driver moved round to the back of the pickup to let down the tailgate. “By the way, have any of you ever used one of these things?”
“You don’t have to worry about that. I have… on a police training course I did once. We were looking for bones.”
Together the two men rolled out of the vehicle what looked like a lawn mower with a computer monitor mounted on the handlebar.
“What on earth is that?” asked Jean-Claude appearing in the front door to find out what was going on.
Dubois looked up at him and smiled. “This is our secret weapon. It’s a Ground Penetrating Radar machine. We’re going to start from the GPS co-ordinates of that cable we found in the cellars but up here at ground level. Then we’ll follow that tunnel using this machine to detect it below the ground. It’s good for up to a depth of about sixty feet in chalk.”
Jean-Claude hobbled down the steps to take a good look at the machine. “But we’ve only just found the cable. How did you know in advance to get the machine?”
Dubois touched his finger to his nose. “Ah, professional secrets. No… As soon as Penzi mentioned her visions of a cave and tunnels, I phoned around for one of these. We don’t have one in our department. A model like this costs over twenty thousand Euros. So, I tried the university. Now, we’ve found the cable, we at least know which direction to go. We also have the maps the Ministry sent us earlier today.”
Jean-Claude clapped Dubois on the back. “For the first time, I feel hope, but shouldn’t you phone Penzi and let her know what you’re planning? I’m sure she’d like to be in on Marc’s rescue.”
“It’s late, Penzi’s tired. People with unusual powers of intuition like Penzi fatigue easily because they use up so much mental energy on things we ordinary people can’t do. When we find Marc, I’ll call her no matter what time of night or day it is. Now, let’s get the team moving.”
Jean-Claude whistled for Juno and Jupiter and told them to stand guard over the truck and the GPR machine. Dubois led the way back to the kitchen to brief his men and arrange for refreshments for the truck driver before he left on his trip back to Bordeaux. Jean-Claude brought up the rear, his wounded leg dragging more than usual due to the lateness of the hour.
