The Witch Who Mysteries Box Set 2 Page 5

  “It’s a popular port of call for yachtsmen and other private sailors on their way from Spain to Northern Europe or England. If they don’t hug the coast, they must cross the Bay of Biscay which is one of the most perilous stretches of sea in the world and has been responsible for many shipwrecks down through the centuries.”

  A group of five of the visiting sailors rose from their table and we pushed forward to take their place. As they left one of them called out, “Gracias, hasta luego,” to the barman.

  They jostled past us laughing amongst themselves.

  “Spanish,” I guessed.

  Everyone laughed.

  “That wasn’t difficult,” said Felix. “What if they’d been Russian or Polish?”

  “I wouldn’t have had a clue,” I said taking my seat and reaching for the soggy menu.

  Ben took it away from me. “Just order the catch of the day with frites.”

  He called the waiter over and placed our order plus two carafes of the local Charentais red wine.

  “By the way,” he said turning back to us. “Those Spaniards own the most beautiful boat, perfect lines. A double-masted ketch, ninety foot long with powerful engines. I’ll take you for a walk along the key after lunch and show her to you… and my Princesse.”

  *

  The sun continued to bless us as we strolled along the key later on that afternoon. Ben showed us his Princesse, a no-nonsense boat built to be a workhorse for the oyster business. Trawling derricks hung out over the sea aft. He took us on board for a quick visit and showed us the nets they used to scrape the baby oysters up from the bottom of the ocean, now neatly stowed away ready for next spring.

  “What do you use your boat for during the rest of the year?” Felix asked him.

  “Joseph and I do a bit of fishing, when we’re not fighting, that is. I use it for open water dives for my school. Sometimes Joseph crews for me, sometimes I get a friend in, one of the local fishermen and pay him with a dive. She’s a sturdy boat. You need something dependable in these waters which can be hostile. A storm can blow up in minutes.”

  We admired the fittings and the general shipshapeness of everything on board.

  “I see you have the old and the new,” said Garth running his hand over the elegant brass compass and its mahogany housing before waving his hand at the onboard computer and accessories.

  “I believe in belt and buckle,” said Ben with a laugh. “This new stuff is all very well, but I like to think I can do it the old way if necessary.”

  Ben invited us to sit down in the saloon. He made excellent coffee which he offered us together with a shot of cognac. Sailing and diving with Ben would be a pleasant experience.

  “Now, lessons for Penzi,” he said and handed me a booklet. “That’s the PADI booklet for beginners. Read that tonight and tomorrow we’ll pick up where we left off. On Wednesday we’ll try you in the sea close to the beach. No boats involved. I won’t be free from Thursday to Saturday, but if you’re up for it, we could go out for a proper dive on Sunday.”

  Everyone looked at me and, of course, I said it sounded great.

  “Come, we’ll walk along the key and look at the boats in harbor.”

  We followed him out onto the deck and he locked up then waited for us to make our way down the gangplank. We passed several fishing boats, some in the process of tying up after a long morning out at sea. In the last berth we came to the boat belonging to the Spaniards, the Eva, port of registry Barcelona.

  “So, she’s a Spanish boat. She’s beautiful,” I said as I walked on ahead along the key looking up at her.

  She had a sleek bow and graceful lines even tied up alongside. In a sharp breeze with her sails full she would be wonderful.

  “Come and see her from this angle,” I shouted back to the others.

  A man stuck his head over the side.

  “Hola,” I called up. “Permission to come aboard?” I asked, hola being the extent of my Spanish.

  “Non, non,” he answered waving his arms backwards and forwards across his chest. “Interdit, prohibido!”

  The others had caught up with me. Ben laughed at my dismay.

  “I should have warned you. They’re not friendly. They keep to themselves in the bar. They’ve been here a while and go out most days to fish or sail about or do whatever rich people with a boat like that do.”

  I shrugged and turned away. The man’s rudeness had spoiled the day for me, and it was time I was getting back to collect Jimbo from the school bus stop.

  We hurried back along the key to our cars, confirmed the time for the lesson the next day and left.

  Chapter 7

  At the end of my lesson on Wednesday, Ben had suggested to us that we might like to visit La Rose des Vents on the Friday evening.

  “They have live music every week and this Friday is salsa night. It’s usually good fun.”

  We took him up on the suggestion. Felix and I met up with Izzy and Garth at the restaurant on the Friday evening. The Latin beat reached us from a long way off. Because the restaurant was situated so close to the harbor and away from the residential area, the owners didn’t have to worry about the noise laws. It was so busy we had to park a long way off and walk down to the venue. Inside we found a special functions room leading off the restaurant area had been opened up for the music and dancing. We cast about for a table and found one, not too close to the band on the edge of the dance floor. Izzy and I sat down to watch the dancers while the boys went off to fetch our drinks. We’d barely settled before we were both approached and invited to dance by a couple of the local guys. I didn’t know them but we were there to dance, so I accepted.

  My partner’s enthusiasm made up for my lack of skill and I found I enjoyed it. When the music stopped, we had a chance to hear each other speak. He told me that the French loved dancing.

  “Every town and village has a Salle des Fêtes where they hold dances for all ages and all styles throughout the year.”

  I knew that Salle des Fêtes meant Room for Celebrations, like a town or village hall. “And do many bars have live music for dancing?” I asked him. “I’ve been to the Club de Blues.”

  “I thought I recognized you,” he said. “You sang there with Jonny Sauvage’s band. Dreadful what happened to him.”

  A chill ran through me at the memory. I’d liked Jonny and hadn’t grown used to the idea of his unnecessary death.

  “I’d like to sit the next one out, if you don’t mind,” I told my partner.

  As he escorted me back to our table he said, “He was your friend, no?”

  I nodded.

  “We’ll dance later?”

  I looked up and forced a smile. “With pleasure.”

  “What was all that about?” asked Felix as he and Garth arrived with our drinks.

  “Nothing much. He asked me about Jonny Sauvage and the memories dampened my mood.”

  “Only one thing to do about that,” Felix said, pulling me to my feet and sweeping me off into an exuberant salsa. And another one until I gasped for breath and demanded a break.

  As we sat down at our table, the music changed from salsa to tango. The crowd on the dance floor thinned out, but the couples who remained proved the French could dance. Unlike similar events I’d been to in England, the Frenchmen did not disappear to the bar and leave the women searching the room hoping to catch the eye of a man brave enough to dance. One woman was dancing a competent tango. I realized after watching her for a while that she was Bella Marin, Joseph’s wife. Contrary to the thoughts I’d just had about Frenchmen being willing to dance, she was not dancing with her husband but with a man I didn’t know. He wasn’t a bad dancer either but nothing like as good as the man who asked her to dance the next tango, one of the sailors from the Eva. He was stunning, competition standard. He led her from a classical tango into an Argentine tango, sexy and smoldering. Everyone else faded from the floor leaving Bella and the Spaniard alone to their dipping and flicking. Conversation stopped while
we all watched an exhibition of flawless control and artistry. Too soon the music ended breaking the spell of sensuality.

  Bella returned to earth with a thump when her erstwhile partner, the Frenchman, grabbed hold of her wrist and dragged her off the floor and out of the room. The Spaniard shrugged his shoulders before bowing to the applause.

  “Sólo un baile,” he said with a rueful grin as he left the floor and joined his fellow sailors.

  “It may have been only a dance,” said Felix, “but, man, it was hot.”

  The band began to play a salsa again, so the four of us took to the floor. We danced and danced, and the room heated up from all the energy we expended.

  Just in time the band signaled they were taking a break.

  “Phew, I won’t be able to walk tomorrow,” I said flopping down into my chair and reaching for the water jug.

  “Let’s take a walk outside to cool down,” Felix suggested holding his hand out to me.

  I rose as gracefully as I could, given my exhausted muscles and the perspiration running down my back. Felix shouldered a way through the crowd towards the front door leading out onto the key. We strolled down to the end noting some of the boats we’d seen earlier that week had left and others had arrived. The beautiful Eva rode gently at her moorings. The moon shone down on her, scintillating off her white paintwork. It was such a pity the Spaniards kept to themselves. I ached to inspect their lovely boat.

  “You look wistful,” said Felix. “Maybe they’ll come round if they stay here longer. Maybe they’re worried that if they’re too friendly, people will start tramping around on their boat and spoil her pristine freshness.”

  “Perhaps it’s a hired boat and they have to be careful, but I’d love to go on board.”

  The autumn night air had cooled me down and I was ready to return to the dancing. We turned and sauntered back up the key. I pushed my hair back from my face, realizing the damp sea air had turned it to frizz and I’d left my purse in the car for safe keeping.

  I asked Felix if he’d mind if we walked up through the parking area to our car. I wanted to fetch my comb. Of course he told me I looked fine, but I insisted. The air had turned nippy by now so we increased our pace. We hurried past the last vehicle before ours, a pickup. A flash of movement caught my eye. I nudged Felix. He glanced back.

  “Just a couple making out,” he said quietly.

  I retrieved my purse from our car and we turned back the way we’d come, passing the pickup again. This time I peeked inside and was astonished to see Bella Marin in the passenger seat. The man’s face was hidden by the couple’s long French kiss, but I read the sign on the pickup door: Éts André Preneur, Ostréiculteur.

  I pulled on Felix’s arm and nodded my head towards the vehicle.

  “That’s Bella Marin, but she’s not with Joseph. This André Preneur must be another oyster farmer according to the sign on the car door.”

  “It’s that guy she was dancing with when we first arrived. Oh well, dancing stirs the blood and all that. It’s not our business, boss.”

  “Dead right,” I said, “but I wonder if Joseph knows. He may have more on his mind than the business’s financial problems.”

  “Forget it. Let’s enjoy the rest of the evening without thinking about other people’s worries.”

  And so we did. We danced the night away as they say, but without another exhibition from the Spanish sailor. We said good night to Izzy and Garth and reconfirmed with them our trip out to sea on the Princesse on Sunday morning at seven thirty.

  Felix and I returned home planning to spend Saturday with the family especially as it was Jimbo’s first weekend after his start at his new school.

  Chapter 8

  On Sunday morning, we arrived at the end of the key as the dawn was breaking. Mist hung low over the boats tied up alongside. As we stepped out of the car, I sucked the autumn dampness down into my lungs and looked across expecting to see lights shining out from the Princesse, but all was gray. Perhaps Joseph and Ben had overslept. Leaving Felix to unpack our gear, I snatched up my bag and made a slippery way over the cobbles to the boat.

  With one foot on the bottom of the gangplank I called out, “Permission to come aboard?”

  The mist swirled around my feet but no one answered. I mounted the wooden slope holding onto the hand rope, taking care not to slip and topple into the turgid water between the dock and the Princesse. I halted at the top. The mist churned about me as I called out again. A loud keeeeow greeted me. Two seagulls whirled out of the mist at me and batted my face with their wings as they fled. Tremors of premonition ran up and down my spine. I stood wavering with my foot in the air. I didn’t want to step onto that deck.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Felix bumping into me and staggering back a step or two from the weight of the equipment he was carrying.

  “I don’t like this,” I whispered.

  “Don’t be a scaredy-cat,” he said. “And be more careful. I nearly dropped our stuff in the drink.”

  I turned around and pushed my hands against his chest.

  “We should leave,” I said.

  “Nonsense. Get on board and move over to the side so that I can put this lot down.”

  There was nothing for it but to do what he said. He wasn’t going to walk down the gangplank backwards with all that weight on his shoulders and there wasn’t room for him to turn around.

  I took that final step onto the deck and inched myself along to the left far enough to let Felix past.

  “Have you got your flashlight handy? This mist is thick enough to hide an army,” he said.

  I switched my flashlight on only to find the mist threw the light back at us.

  Felix dumped our baggage down on the wooden deck with a thump.

  “That should wake them up if they’re dozing down below,” he said.

  We edged forwards, me one step behind Felix and holding onto his jacket, until we reached the open cabin door.

  “Someone must be on board. You stay here, boss,” Felix said as he ducked through the opening and slid down the steps navy style.

  He landed with a bump as I crouched down to watch him. He took out his flashlight and searched about for the light switches. Flick and light flooded the cabin dispelling the spookiness below me.

  “Anybody there? Joseph? Ben? Il y a quelqu’un?” Felix called out.

  The anchor and mast lamps switched on spilling light around me and down into the cabin.

  I straightened up and look about me. The lights had thinned the mist, reducing the eerie atmosphere, and that emboldened me to take a look around the deck. I set off aft along the port deck.

  Headlights flashed away down the key. I hoped it was Garth and Izzy. With the ship’s lights on, the visibility had improved, but the sun hadn’t risen high enough to burn off the mist. As I edged gingerly forwards towards the wheelhouse on my own, the jitters came back. If I’d been a dog, my hackles would have been up to my ears. So hard was I concentrating on the way ahead that I tripped over something on the deck. I stumbled and caught hold of the rail to steady myself. As I bent my head down in an effort to catch my breath, a seaman’s boot came into view. It stuck out from the shadow at the back of the wheelhouse. My stomach flip-flopped. I straightened up and scanned the deck for Felix. I shouted for him and shuffled towards the owner of the boot. He lay sprawled out on his front, his head turned to the side in a pool of blood.

  “Felix,” I screamed. “He’s here. Joseph’s here.”

  I bent to feel for a pulse, but there was so much blood and congealing at that I didn’t have any hope of finding him alive.

  Felix pulled me back and away.

  “Don’t touch anything, Penzi.”

  I shook his hand off. “As if I would. I was only feeling for a pulse but he’s long gone. He’s cold.”

  “Where’s Ben?” asked Felix looking around and seeing no one. “Ben? Ben?” he called out, but no one replied.

  My flashlight blinked out. I
shook it but it refused to come on again.

  “Shine yours down here,” I said to Felix pointing at Joseph’s head and neck.

  The beam picked up the end of a bloody slash. Even without turning his body over we could guess what had happened to Joseph.

  I turned away retching.

  When I got a hold of myself I said, “Someone cut his throat.”

  “And where’s Ben in all this?” asked Felix again. “Why is Joseph here on his own?”

  Felix pulled me away towards the gangplank. As we passed the wheelhouse, Felix shone his flashlight over the bank of navigational instruments.

  “The whole lot’s been sabotaged. It’s the same with the equipment down below.”

  Someone had taken a sledge hammer and reduced thousands of Euros worth of state-of-the-art navigational aids to a pile of plastic, metal and glass.

  Felix looked at me. “We have to call the police, boss. You do it. It will come better from you. Dubois won’t mind missing his Sunday lie-in if you call him.”

  As I pulled out my phone Izzy called up from the foot of the gangplank. “What’s going on? You both look as white as ghosts, or is it the strange light?”

  Felix warned them to stay on the key. I heard him giving them an explanation while I waited for Dubois to pick up. My call went to voice mail. Not good enough. I shuffled my feet to warm them up and called again. This time he answered.

  “Salut, Penzi. So early on a Sunday morning. It can’t be anything good.”

  “How right you are.” I paused to work out how to tell him and decided straight out was the best way to go. “We’ve found a body.”

  “A body? You mean a dead one, a corpse?” and he chuckled.

  “This isn’t a joke, Xavier. This is deadly serious. It’s Joseph Marin, the oyster farmer. Someone’s cut his throat.”

  Silence while a sleepy Dubois came to terms with the overthrow of his quiet weekend in Beaucoup-sur-Mer.

  “Where?” he asked at last.

  I gave him the details. He told us not to touch anything and said he’d be there in twenty minutes. The forensics team from Bordeaux would take a little longer, at least an hour.