We must visit the cats in the Library tonight, Penzi,” said Felix coming up behind me and laying his hands on my shoulders as I sat at my desk. I was sifting through bills and quotes with the help of my eighteen-year-old brother Sam. I couldn’t do it without Sam as reading is not my strength.
A week had passed since the end of what I think of as the fridge murder. The police had performed their reconstruction of the crime in our back yard and had taken the ancient chamber of death away with them. My brothers, Sam and nine-year-old Jimbo, aided by our house guest Audrey and our long lost mother, Gwinny, had cleared up the smaller items of rubbish that had escaped the hands of the dumpster men. Neat piles of coiled wire, old pots and pans, and indeterminate shanks of metal stood against the seawall at the side of the property awaiting transportation to the recycling center. The prospect from my window was improving daily as we worked on the tidy-up operation. It had been a shock when we arrived from England at our new home in Beaucoup-sur-Mer in France to find the garden choked with ancient kitchen machines and barrels of goodness-knows-what lurking in the corners.
“Penzi, did you hear me?” asked Felix giving my shoulders a squeeze with his powerful hands.
Felix was my bodyguard. My father, Sir Archibald Munro, world famous anthropologist, had sent Felix to me as his dying wish when my father failed to return from an expedition to the jungle of the Middle Congo. Felix arrived as a Savannah cat, the most expensive cats in the world and the most beautiful with their leopard spotted coats. Therein lay the clue. What a surprise Felix had given me when I’d walked in on him one night to find he had shifted from cat to man, a man to take one’s breath away – over six foot, tawny locks, businesslike muscles and his signature peridot green eyes that followed him through all his feline manifestations, for he could morph into a leopard, too. He had only been with us for a fortnight and already he had saved my life. Fortunately for me, he took his duties seriously.
“Penzi?”
“Yes, what?” I asked tearing my thoughts back to the present.
“The cats. The Library cats. We have to visit them.”
I turned in my chair and looked up at Felix. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why do we have to visit the cats in the Library?”
“I made them a promise when they helped me. We owe them. They want to see you.”
“I’ve all this paperwork to sort through. I can’t spare the time.”
“We have to go at night, not now. You can’t afford to upset them, Penzi. You’re a witch and they want to meet you. You know, it’s this thing about cats and witches.”
I sighed as I scrabbled all the pieces of paper up together into a rough pile and handed them off to Sam who had been listening to our conversation with his eyes wide.
“You can talk to cats?” he asked Felix.
“Cats, dogs, you name it. It’s all part of being a supernatural being. I always knew I could talk to other animals when I was a cat, but I hadn’t known it worked when I was in man mode until I met the cats in the Library.”
“What did they do?” asked Sam.
“They helped us solve the murder and all they asked was to meet Penzi. Of course, I had sold her to them as my boss, a beautiful redheaded witch.”
Sam pulled a face. He was having as much trouble getting used to all this magic stuff as I was. It was harder for him as he had to take it all on trust because he wasn’t a witch or a wizard.
“I guess you’d better go then, Penzi. We’ve only been here for two weeks and we need all the friends we can get, even if they’re only cats.”
“Never say only when you’re talking about cats,” I admonished him. “Cats are special.”
“I prefer dogs myself,” said Sam bending down to stroke Zig and Zag, our two German Shepherds, and Piffle, a cute Dachshund we had adopted. The dogs offered him vigorous tail waggings in return.
Felix harrumphed. “Now you’ve hurt my feelings, young Sam.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to,” I said to smooth things over. “You’ve broken my concentration and, anyway, we have to prepare ourselves for lunch with the mayor.”
“What today?” asked Sam, “That’s short notice. And who’s going? All of us? Can I get out of it?”
“Just Felix, you and I. I phoned Monsieur Bonhomie to make an appointment to see him about advice on setting up the antiques business. He invited us to lunch, the three of us. It would be discourteous not to turn up, Sam, and I’ll need your help with the forms we’ll have to fill in. It’d be more efficient for you to be there from the beginning.”
Attached to the side of the house was a brocante, an antiques shop, which had been left to us along with the house by our father. In its present state shop was perhaps too smart a word as it hadn’t been opened for close on sixty years. Furniture, paintings and objets d’art whose value we couldn’t even guess at filled every square inch. Our father’s request was that we run an antiques business to provide us with income to supplement the trust fund his will had set up for us.
“I suppose it would give me a chance to practice my French,” said Sam. “I’d better go and make myself presentable,” he added as he left the study to Felix and me.
“Did you warn Audrey we wouldn’t be in for lunch?” Felix asked.
“Yes. She said she’d take Jimbo and her two kids down on the beach this afternoon if we’re late returning from the mayor’s.”
I’d met Audrey by accident, literally. She crashed her car into mine, totaling her unroadworthy Deux Chevaux. The sight of her distress had taken my anger away in a second. Old bruises and scabs bore witness to the reason for her headlong flight and lack of care on the road. We’d taken her in to hide her from her abusive husband. She was a pleasant young woman and had taken on the task of cook, enjoying working in the kitchen Gwinny had revamped for us in accordance with Dad’s Last Will and Testament.
Felix clicked his fingers in front of me. When I looked up at him he smiled, green lights sparkling in his eyes. “Thought I’d lost you for a moment there. So? We’ll visit the cats tonight?”
I smiled back at him. “I’m sorry if I didn’t catch on straight away. There’s so much to think about at the moment.”
“It’ll be fun. You’ll enjoy it. We never know when we’re going to need their help again. For another murder maybe.”
My smile gave way to outright laughter. “Never going to happen. This is peaceful Beaucoup-sur-Mer beloved of holidaymakers looking for a fun holiday by the sea, free from big city crime. Last week’s murder was a one-off. You heard what Inspector Dubois said. They’d never had a CSI unit here before. We can concentrate on our own lives now. There’s no chance of another murder. It’s statistically impossible.”
“There you go again with the logic. I’m crossing my fingers and I suggest you do to,” he said sticking his crossed fingers into my side.
Oh, what the heck. Better safe than sorry. I crossed mine and thought positive thoughts.

We didn’t have far to go to the mayor’s house. It sat on the other side of the horseshoe bay that makes up the seafront of Beaucoup-sur-Mer. The similarity ended there. His modern bungalow hung low on the promontory, its verandah running all the way around the house. The drive curled behind the house leaving the front aspect open to the sea. The mayor’s wife, Madame Bonhomie, had set up a table for lunch under the clump of wind battered fir trees that edged the terrace.
“Tina Bonhomie,” she said coming forward to meet us holding out her hand in welcome.
She explained that her husband had been held up at the office but would be along shortly. This was the first time I’d a good look at her. It had been too dark at our party the previous week to see much of anyone. Where the mayor was portly, she was slim. Where he was rough like a bear, she was as neat as a doll.
As she showed us to our seats she said, “It’s lucky my husband is late. It gives us a chance to get to know one another.”
I smiled as I sat down in a chair facing the sea. It was good to feel the breeze coming in off the tide and cooling me down in what must have been a good 95 degrees F even in the shade. Felix took the seat beside me and Sam sat opposite. Tina handed round an apéritif of kir royale and we made small talk until Monsieur Bonhomie arrived all in rush, his face bright red in the heat.
“Welcome, welcome, my dear friends, welcome,” he greeted us, shaking hands with the guys and brushing a kiss across mine. “We have much to discuss… and where better, eh?” he said sweeping his stubby arm across the view and missing his wife’s nose by an inch.
She flinched, caught his arm and led him to his seat at the head of the table.
“I’ll fetch the hors d’oeuvres,” she said turning to go into the house.
“I’ll help,” I said springing to my feet, but she pushed me down saying she didn’t need me.
When she returned, a tall girl of model proportions with chestnut hair and eyes like almonds accompanied her. Sam perked up and began to pay attention.
“This is my daughter, Emmanuelle,” she said as the beautiful creature set plates down in front of us.
Sam’s mouth dropped. I had to kick him to break his enchantment before he gave himself away.
“She will be lunching with us. The little ones are too young. At eighteen Emmanuelle is sensible and discreet. You may talk in front of her without fear of her passing on anything you say.”
With everyone served and the wine poured, Emmanuelle sat in the chair next to Sam. He raised his brows at me to say wow!
While the three of us enjoyed the delicious food, our attention was taken up with the matters under discussion. Even Sam paid attention. The mayor gave us something of a lecture on carrying on a business in France.
“So many dossiers,” he said. “That’s the French way. Everything in quintuplicate, on paper and on the computer system. Files everywhere. Forms galore.”
I couldn’t stop myself from sighing. I hated paperwork and not only because I had trouble reading.
The mayor patted my hand. “Don’t worry, little one. We have ways of getting round much of it, you’ll see.”
Tina touched her finger to her nose. “The black economy, you see. Anyone who runs a small business declares eighty per cent and puts the other twenty in their pock—”
“Sous la table,” the mayor interrupted. “Under the table, we say.”
“Isn’t that risky?” the lawyer in me asked.
“But of course. Where would the fun be if it wasn’t, eh? It’s a national pastime.”
Sam kicked my foot. His turn. He was laughing at me. He knew me well enough to know that I would find it difficult to do what I’d consider was cheating the government.
“Loosen up, Penzi. When in Rome and all that.”
By the time we reached the cheese course – a delicious ripe camembert with fresh apricots – the mayor had finished his lecture.
“I’ll put you in contact with a good accountant, not too expensive. But you don’t tell him everything, you understand,” he said, tapping his nose with a laugh in replication of his wife’s earlier gesture. “Any time you need advice, you come and ask me. I can never repay you for solving the murder last week and restoring the good name of Beaucoup-sur-Mer.”
Emmanuelle stood to remove the cheese plates. Sam jumped up to help her and together they went off into the house to collect the dessert.
The mayor took advantage of the lull to mention that Camion, the dumpster driver who’d cleared away the bulk of the junk in our back yard, had told him about a rat infestation on our property.
“He had to, you understand. It is a reportable event touching as it does on the town’s sanitation.”
Felix put his wine glass down. “I killed nearly two hundred of them.”
I nudged him quickly in case memories of his feline prowess threatened his secret life as a shape shifter. “And Camion and his chaps shot up a few dozen,” I added.
“But the rats will be down in the tunnels and cellars beneath the houses on that side of the bay,” the mayor warned. “We shall have to poison them.”
“I couldn’t do that,” I said. “Use poison I mean.”
“So softhearted,” the mayor said giving my arm a surreptitious stroke while his wife watched the progress of Sam and Emmanuelle as they tripped down towards us carrying a lemon tart and a pot of crème fraîche.
“Are you serious?” asked Felix giving me a wry look. “You really couldn’t bring yourself to poison those loathsome creatures?”
“Don’t make fun of me, Felix. I think we should use humane traps.”
“We’d need hundreds and they’ll be breeding as fast as we catch them.”
The mayor chuckled. “And what will you do with them when you’ve caught them?”
I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to poison them. It was too cruel. A horrible death.
And then the thought struck me. I could use magic, couldn’t I? Could I justify using magic? It wouldn’t be for my benefit only if the mayor was to be believed, so it would qualify. Being a white witch I was limited to using magic for the benefit of others. Magic used for one’s own interests quickly turned to black magic as everyone knew.
“What are you smiling about?” asked Felix.
“Nothing.”
Conversation grew more general over the dessert and coffee. As we were leaving the mayor pulled me aside and whispered that he’d have to send a sanitation inspector round to our house and there would have to be a follow up.
“Unavoidable, you see. My secretary opened a file on the subject and once that’s happened one is trapped in bureaucracy and we French have the most industrious civil service in the world.”
I wasn’t worried. I’d have to learn a new spell to deal with the rats, but I wouldn’t have to make a bargain with the Pied Piper. The children of Beaucoup-sur-Mer would be safe with my newfound magic skills tackling the problem.

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