by Katie Penryn
I’d kept quiet so far, not having anything to add to the discussion but I now had a point I wanted to make.
“Madame?”
“Yes, Penzi. You have an insight to offer?”
“It’s bothered me all along. Why did both the children go with Menton? They said they’d done so because they’d known him a long time ago. Have you found out anything about that?”
The prosecutor sighed. “This was always a difficult case. I’m sure we would have hit upon Menton eventually had we continued to investigate all the past casual workers at the château. Luckily we found him sooner than that owing to Dubois’s excellent idea of searching for the cave.”
Dubois winked at me.
Madame Fer-de-Lance continued, “Since then we have discovered Menton did work at the château, shortly after coming out of prison. Madame de Portemorency was charitable towards him because he was the father of the gardener, Paul Menton, and offered him part-time work in the garden. The children would have seen him around the place and trusted him.”
Of course. How could we have missed that? Menton isn’t that common a name.
“The obvious question, madame, is: was Paul Menton, the gardener, involved in this plot?” I asked.
“That we don’t know. If he was, it would explain a few holes we have in the story. He’s waiting to be interviewed. We’ll take him first, before his father.”
There was a knock at the door and an officer came in with a tray of coffee and biscuits.
Dubois thanked him and suggested a ten-minute break before interviewing Paul Menton. Felix and I helped ourselves to refreshments and went to sit outside on the low wall by the front steps, leaving the prosecutor and the police to go over their list of questions for the two Mentons.
*
“What do you think so far, boss?” Felix asked me.
“Jean-Claude isn’t going to be happy that Menton can’t be charged with causing Hélène’s death.”
“True, but on the bright side, he won’t have to sit through days of gruesome details.”
As usual Felix was right. I hadn’t thought about it that way.
Chapter 40
Dubois came out to call us back in. He showed us to a room next door to the one marked Interview Room 2. Unlike the interview rooms at the Beaucoup-sur-Mer gendarmerie, there was no two-way mirror. Dubois noticed me looking around.
“We have a video feed in this station,” he said and switched on two monitors set on a desk at the side of the room. “One focuses on one side of the table and the other on the other side, so you get both views.”
Immediately, Madame Fer-de-Lance sprang into view seated opposite a young man I hadn’t seen before. I’d never have put him down as the older Menton’s son. Where his father was plump, Paul Menton was skinny to the point of malnutrition. Where his father hadn’t a hair on his head, the younger Menton sported the latest hairstyle with a giant quiff at the front.
Seated beside him was the woman I took to be his lawyer.
Dubois opened a drawer and took out a couple of yellow notepads and Bic pens.
“Here, use these if any ideas come to mind. We need all the help we can get on this case even though Madame Fer-de-Lance thinks we have the Mentons in the bag.”
Felix and I pulled out the chairs and sat down. A couple of minutes later, the door to the interview room opened and Dubois entered.
He pointed at the two cameras set in the ceiling in the two corners facing the chairs, sat down next to the prosecutor and spoke into the recording device giving the date, time and people present.
At the end of the preliminaries, Dubois told Menton Junior that the police had his father in custody. Paul shuddered and shrank down within himself.
“Can you guess why?” Dubois asked.
Menton did not reply but looked down at his knees.
“Are you charging my client? If so, what with?” the lawyer asked.
“This is an exploratory interview,” Dubois answered, “to gauge the level of your client’s complicity with his father’s actions.”
The lawyer subsided.
Dubois flicked the pages of his file backwards and forwards, making Menton wait for his next utterance. At last he looked across the desk at Menton. “We have arrested your father and charged him with a double count of child kidnapping and sequestration.”
“Not murder?” Menton blurted out.
“Now, why would you think we’d charged him with murder?” Dubois asked sitting back in his chair knowing he’d got the younger Menton on the run.
Menton looked at his lawyer who nodded her head for him to reply.
Menton closed his eyes for five seconds before opening them and looking up again at Dubois.
“He’s my father, Inspector. I owe him everything. He brought me up, looked after me when my mother died. What do you want me to say?”
“Tell the truth. It will go better for you if you do.”
“I heard about Madame de Portemorency’s accident.”
“Yes,” said Dubois. “Why would you think that had anything to do with your father?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I’m afraid it had. My father hasn’t been himself since he came out of prison. He’s a bitter, vengeful man now.”
“And?”
“I know he shared a cell with a vicious criminal who’d been involved in a series of internet frauds. This man convinced my father that fraud and extortion were an easy way to make money. My father had always been envious of the wealth of the de Portemorencys.”
“How do you know?” asked Dubois.
“My father told me of his great plan–his words–to force Monsieur de Portemorency to cough up a million Euros.”
“And what was this plan?”
“He was going to kill off the famous ugni blanc vines one by one until de Portemorency paid over the money.”
“Did you help him with this plan? Set up the IP address for instance?” asked Dubois.
“I did help him, yes, but not with the computer stuff. His chum in the prison did all that.”
“So, what part did you play?”
Menton shook his head slowly up and down as if in denial of actions he couldn’t undo.
“Inspector, I didn’t want to do any of it. You have to believe me. My father made me get the traps out of the cellars and clean them up. I had access to the key, you see, for when I put junk away down there or helped out with deliveries of one kind or another. So I made a copy.”
“Didn’t you wonder what your father wanted the traps for?”
“I didn’t want to think about it. And he kept me busy doing other stuff. I had to fix up an electrical cable for him from the cellars to the hide-out he set up. That took me a long time because I couldn’t get the old door open in the cellars. I had to break through one of the adjoining tunnels and then push the cable through the rockfall. And the job wasn’t over then. I had to approach from the other end. It took me a long time.”
“What else did you do?” Dubois asked.
“I patched up the hole in the wall with cement blocks.”
“Was that the extent of your involvement?”
“Inspector, when I heard what had happened to Madame de Portemorency, I was horrified. She was always kind and courteous to me, treated me like a regular human being and not like a servant. I told my father I wanted nothing more to do with his evil plot, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said he’d tip off the police to the theft of the traps if I didn’t do as he said.”
“So, you helped with the kidnappings?”
Menton twisted his body round in violent denial. “Never. I would never have done that whatever my father said. I think he went a little mad towards the end. What he wanted me to do was cover up for the power surges. Every time the main circuit breaker tripped, I had to unplug the cable in the cellar. And when the electrician came round to check.”
Dubois thought for a moment, doodling on the cover of his file. Madame Fer-de-Lance took up the questioning.
“What about when the little girl Nina went missing? Didn’t you realize your father was involved?”
Menton shook his head violently from side to side. “No. I didn’t go to the cave after I’d set up the cable right in the beginning. My father didn’t tell me anything. I just handled the power cuts as he’d asked me to. I didn’t know he had the child.”
“You didn’t know about the ransom demands for the children?”
“No.”
“You don’t know your father has a million Euros that the Munros paid over to him to have Nina released?”
“No. No. I don’t. You have to believe me.”
*
Felix turned to me. “Do you believe him? That he had nothing to do with Hélène’s accident or the kidnappings?”
I shrugged. How can we ever know if someone is telling the truth if we don’t have proof that they aren’t?
“He sounds convincing,” I replied. “His DNA in the van and in the cave is explained by his work fixing up the electrics for his father and transporting the traps. The children didn’t mention seeing him when they were taken or when they were imprisoned in the cave.”
“But the police will get him for aiding and abetting extortion. He will serve time, won’t he?” asked Felix.
“I guess so. He seems to have been under his father’s control. Shush, Dubois’s asking him about the lawn mower.”
*
“How do you explain Monsieur de Portemorency’s accident with the lawn mower?” Dubois was asking Menton.
Menton sighed heavily. “I don’t know what happened there. My father told me not to mow that part of the lawn and to water it. That’s all I know. I was as surprised as anyone to find out the safety switch had been disconnected.”
“You must have wondered,” said Dubois.
“Of course, I did, Inspector, but what was I to do? He’s my father.”
Madame Fer-de-Lance nodded at Dubois who told Menton he’d be held for the next twenty-four hours pending a charge.
The officer standing outside the door was called in to take Menton off to the cells.
*
“Well,” said Madame Fer-de-Lance when she and Dubois joined us. “He seemed to be telling the truth, and we’ll never be able to prove he wasn’t. We’ll have to settle for an accessory to extortion charge.”
“How long will he get?” I asked.
“Probably five to ten years in view of the circumstances,” she answered. “If he’d spoken up earlier, Hélène de Portemorency would still be alive and the two children would not have had to go through the ordeal of being kidnapped by that villain of a father of his.”
“Will you be informing Jean-Claude?” I asked. “He should know as soon as possible what action you’re taking. Felix and I need to get home to our family tonight and tell my little brother his friends will have justice for the death of their mother. You don’t need us now for your interview of Menton father, do you?”
“No,” the prosecutor answered. “His son’s given us the evidence we needed. And Inspector Dubois will visit Monsieur de Portemorency on his way home. Thank you for your assistance, Penzi,” she said to me. “Take care of yourself. We may need to call upon your intuition in the future.”
Chapter 41
Jean-Claude called us a few days later to thank us for our work on the case and to invite us to a soirée in memory of Hélène.
“I didn’t want to hold a party,” he said. “It would be disrespectful and probably misunderstood, but I did want to thank everyone involved. We’ll have refreshments at 7 p.m. followed by a recital given by the Bordeaux String Quartet who’ll play some of Hélène’s favorite music.”
Everyone connected with the case had been invited except Gilbert Clancy. Hélène’s trois brunes greeted Felix and me with warmth, saying how glad they were that their friend’s killer would serve out the rest of his life behind bars.
“I’m sorry that her death has been officially classified as death by misadventure,” said Catrine, “but I’m glad I don’t have to give evidence as the pathologist who signed her death certificate.”
We parted from the three young women with promises to keep in touch.
“Let’s get out of here,” Felix said as soon as we were out of earshot. “I’ve had enough of death and villainy. An atmosphere of doom still hangs about this place.”
I agreed. It would take time and much love to restore tranquility to the de Portemorency Château, but the family would recover.
*
As we turned down off the Esplanade onto the cobbled street that runs past Les Dragons to the sea, Felix let out a deep breath and said, “I need some exercise, boss. I want to feel the wind in my fur and the sea mist in my face. Let’s go for a long walk along the cliffs before we go to bed tonight. I won’t sleep otherwise. My mind’s too busy and my spirit is low.”
I felt the same way. Part of it was anti-climax, part exhaustion both mental and physical. Fighting evil is wearing. I, too, needed to replenish my soul.
The moment the front door closed behind us, Felix began to morph into his leopard form saying, “I want the freedom, boss.”
I stood aside watching the process of which I never grow tired: beautiful pelt of dark rosettes, long tail, powerful muscles, big cat’s whiskers and a hunter’s claws.
“Now, what can we do about you, boss?” he asked.
I flicked Zag’s lead down off the hall peg and slung it round Felix’s neck. In one slick movement, I vaulted onto his back and grasped the lead like a rein.
“You can carry me, can’t you?” I asked.
He swung his heavy head round to look at me and winked one of his bewitching peridot green eyes. “You’d better cast the invisible spell, boss, or we’ll have the town in an uproar.”
Help. It was months since I’d last made us invisible. What would happen if I didn’t get it right?
“You can do it, boss. Just relax and it will come to you.”
I closed my eyes and concentrated, saying to myself, Trust the magic. Trust the magic. And the spell popped into my mind. I cast it with the last ounce of energy left to me after the strain of the last few weeks.
“Can you see me?” I asked Felix.
His shoulders moved as he turned his head to look back at me. “No, boss.”
Felix couldn’t see me when I was invisible, but I could see him because I was a witch.
“Let’s go,” I said reaching down to open the door.
And out we went into the dark night, padding over the cobbles to the sea wall at the end of our street. All was calm; the only sound that of the waves falling softly on the beach of our little bay.
We took the corner onto the cliff road, Felix crying out, “Hold on!” and off we sped.
The path rushed past beneath us as Felix accelerated from an amble to a gallop. His tail flew out like a streamer, his ears flattened to his head and his great hind legs pounded the ground as he drove us onwards leaving our woes behind us.
On we charged, on and on, until we came to a series of steep chines running down into the sea. No footbridge for Felix. He gathered his haunches beneath him and launched himself into the air with a mighty bound, soaring through the night air, legs and tail spread out like a kite, to land with a soft footfall on the other side.
*
But the exhilaration had to end. Fantasy had to give way to the reality of our life back in the town of Beaucoup-sur-Mer.
We came to a stop. I slid down off Felix’s back and clicked my fingers to end the invisible spell.
“Phew,” said Felix panting. “I needed that, but you don’t look a bit tired, boss. We’ll walk back to give you some exercise–just as soon as I get my breath back.”
We strolled down the cobbled road to find Jimbo in nothing but his pajamas sitting on the top step in front of our house with Zag beside him.
Jimbo jumped up and ran to meet us. “I woke up and couldn’t find you. You left the front door unlocked. I was so worrie
d. I woke the dogs up. Zag was worried, too, but he can’t talk to me. I wanted to look for you, but Zag wouldn’t let me leave the house.”
Zag woofed and asked, “Where have you been at this time of night? You should have told me.”
Felix scooped Jimbo up into his arms and walked up the steps with him and into the house with me following along behind, Zag scolding me all the way.
With the front door shut behind us all, I threw my hands up in apology and said, “Look, guys, we’re sorry. We won’t leave without telling Zag again, and we’ll take care not to leave the front door unlocked. We needed some fresh air, is all.”
Jimbo wriggled to be let down. He threw his arms around me. “That’s all right, Penzi. I know you’ve been working hard for Nina and Marc. Can I go and see them?”
“Of course,” I answered, “but we’ll give it a few days. They need some space, too.”
*****
END OF BOOK SIX
Read on for the first chapter of Book 7, The Witch who Hated Halloween
THE WITCH WHO HATED HALLOWEEN
Chapter 1
(La Toussaint is the French for All Saints’ Day and is pronounced La-too-san(d), like sand without the d.)
“Vandals. Grave robbers. Here in Beaucoup-sur-Mer. What is the world coming to?” asked the mayor, Monsieur Bonhomie, as he heaved himself out of his executive chair, or tried to.
He wasn’t getting any slimmer. Too many of those delicious little sponge madeleines he always offered us when we visited his office at the mairie.
Stuck at that awkward angle that makes your thighs ache, jammed half in half out by the arms of the chair, he let out a wail, “Help me, Penzi.”
I threw my purse down on a chair and rushed around the desk to aid the poor man. Felix, my shape shifting bodyguard, beat me to it on his other side.
