What on earth was that dreadful racket?
The dogs were barking their heads off downstairs. I scrambled out of bed and threw on my dressing gown. A loud irregular thumping met me as I flung open my bedroom door and hurried down to find out if the sky was falling in. Zig and Zag, our two German shepherds, snatched themselves away from their defense of our home long enough to flash me a doggy warning look before turning back to their assault on our front door. They wanted out… and now. Zag launched himself at the door again while poor Zig, her belly heavy with puppies, snuffled and snorted at the crack below the door.
I couldn’t get to the door to open it. They wouldn’t give way. I turned aside and entered the kitchen. Jimbo, my younger brother, and Gwinny, my mother, were leaning out of the front window facing the seawall lining the bay, Jimbo almost falling out, my mother hanging on to his t-shirt at the back.
As I crossed over to join them, possibilities for the excited disturbance ran through my mind: a fight, a delivery van, a helicopter on the beach? Any giveaway aural clues had been overlaid by the dogs’ frenzied barking.
Gwinny pointed with her free hand. “Look, Penzi.”
Jimbo twisted round when he heard her. “Don’t let the dogs out, Penzi. It’s too dangerous for them.”
Too dangerous for two German shepherds? This I had to see.
I peered over Jimbo’s shoulder.
There, on the far side of the road, strutting along the seawall on his businesslike trotters was the most enormous wild boar. The largest I’d ever seen. He had to be at least four feet high and six feet long... at a guess. Whiskers bristling, long snout sniffing the air, he tossed his head from side to side brandishing his deadly curling tusks.
He was heading for the Esplanade. All lethal 300 pounds of him.
Left alone and in their own environment, wild boar are not to be feared. But, riled up and in town, he was as dangerous as an escaped circus lion. His piggy little eyes could make him take offense where none was meant. His weight could turn his tusks into deadly missiles. Set at the right height, those tusks could slice through a man’s femoral artery, leaving him to die from loss of blood.
Thank goodness, Jimbo had had the sense not to let the dogs out. They’d have been gored and shredded.
I had to do something about it, but I’d left my phone upstairs.
“Quick, Gwinny, call the Fire Brigade,” I said, taking over her hold on Jimbo’s shirt.
She snatched her phone from the kitchen table and speed dialed the pompiers - the French fire brigade - who are trained to deal with all unexpected emergencies.
The little white poodle from two doors down ran out into the road yapping a challenge at our strange tourist. The boar stopped, shook his head, peered myopically at the dog. His muscles tensed in launch readiness. He was going to wipe that pesky little pup off the face of the earth.
Riding to the rescue like a medieval knight on a charger, came Martine, our postwoman, in her yellow van. She swerved around the dog, flung on the brakes forming a protective barrier against the boar’s anticipated charge. And charge he did, straight for Martine’s front door, ramming it with his bony head and sideswiping a long scratch all the way along the vehicle as he met an immovable object larger than him.
He shook his head, whether in disbelief or defeat I couldn’t guess. Martine opened the window and screamed at the animal to go away. Her language was a little more fruity than that, but the boar got her meaning and moved off on his promenade towards the Esplanade even if not quite so jauntily.
“We have to call the mayor,” I said to Gwinny. “That beast could hurt someone, maybe even kill a child.”
“On it,” she replied, handing the phone to me.
My relationship with Monsieur Bonhomie, the mayor of our little French seaside town of Beaucoup-sur-Mer, has been rocky at times, mostly when he thought that I and my associate, Felix, had not respected the dignity of his office. However, we now worked well together. Felix and I had solved several murders in our little town. Monsieur Bonhomie was grateful for the work we’d done in restoring the faith of visitors in the safety of our town as a vacation destination. Tourism is our town’s main earner now that the fishing industry has declined.
He was surprised to hear that a wild boar was parading around the town and as alarmed as I was at the possible danger to the citizens. He said he would call out the gendarmes to help the pompiers.
As I swiped off the phone, Gwinny passed me a mug of hot tea. I’m useless in the morning until I’ve had my dose of an Englishman’s panacea of all evil.
Jimbo dropped back into the room. “He’s out of sight. I want to follow him and see what happens,” he said making for the door.
Gwinny grabbed hold of him before I could.
“No, you don’t, young man. That creature could turn and attack you. We’ll wait here quietly for the authorities to catch him and take him back to the forest.”
Jimbo let out an exasperated sigh but obeyed his grandmother.
I went out into the hall where the dogs had fallen quiet as the perceived danger to their pack had moved on. They lay on the tiled floor, cooling off with their tongues hanging out.
I rubbed their fur with my bare foot as I drank my hot tea. In between sips I told them how silly they were to get so worked up about an animal that couldn’t get into the house.
“It’s not good for Zig in her condition to become so over-excited,” I added.
Zag sat up at that, raised his head and gave me a stare. “Don’t you think I know that, Penzi. She’s my sister after all. But it’s my job to defend this family, especially when Felix isn’t around.”
That’s a point. Where was Felix? How had he missed out on all the kerfuffle?
The slap of his flip-flops preceded his descent of our old oaken stairs.
Rubbing his eyes in his usual pre-coffee daze, he asked, “What the hell’s going on down here? Can’t a chap have a moment’s peace in this house?”
Zag ran to greet him, tail wagging, glad that he could pass the responsibility of defending the family back to Felix who was better equipped to tackle a wild boar than he was.
Felix is my associate, my invaluable sidekick in keeping Beaucoup-sur-Mer and its surroundings free from the evil doings of sundry murderers. He’s gorgeous to look at with peridot colored eyes and tawny blond hair. Looks which hint at his alter ego for Felix is a shape shifter, sometimes a leopard, sometimes a Savannah cat. He arrived in the guise of a cat, unannounced as a posthumous gift from my father, Sir Archibald Munro, the famous anthropologist. Felix’s remit in life is to protect me from all things evil in the natural world. Although a supernatural himself, he cannot extend this protection to things supernatural. We both need the help of magic for that. I am, of course, a white witch. I haven’t always known that, but am now resigned to my destiny as a champion of good against evil. I’m even beginning to like my occupation. Tracking down killers is mentally challenging, and the pay-off when we get our man is so rewarding, an endorphin feast.
“So?” Felix asked again, sitting down on the bottom step and looking at the three of us with bleary eyes.
I quickly explained what was happening.
Felix sprang to his feet. “I’ll sort him out,” he said.
Oh no. The tips of his ears were turning yellow. He was shifting involuntarily. He couldn’t let the townspeople see him as a leopard. Not only would it give away his precious secret second identity, but the sight of a leopard would be far more terrifying than a familiar old boar, dangerous as the porker might be.
I crossed the hall and reaching up, took hold of Felix’s ears and gave them a tug.
“Calm down, Felix. You cannot shift now in broad daylight, in front of our fellow citizens. You may catch the wild boar, but you’ll scare everyone to death.”
He put his hands over mine. A look of astonishment crossed his face as he touched the fur.
“Wow! That’s never happened before. I’ve always had to will the change. What should I do?”
“I don’t know. Try some deep breaths while I rub your ears. You probably need to relax.”
He breathed in deeply and let his breath out slowly. As I rubbed, the fur disappeared until there was only skin beneath my fingers.
“You’re all right now,” I said giving him a comradely slap on the shoulder.
He scrambled to his feet and rushed into the kitchen to look out of the window.
“Where’s that creature?” he asked.
Jimbo pointed out the gray-brown blob disappearing into the distance in the direction of the Esplanade. From time to time, the boar stopped and snuffled about the cobbles. If he was looking for truffles, he was out of luck.
Felix hurried out of the kitchen calling out, “Pour me some coffee, Gwinny. I’ll throw some clothes on. Penzi and I’ll follow the creature.”
“At a safe distance, I hope,” Gwinny interrupted. “And you’re not to take Jimbo.”
“Oh, no,” Jimbo answered, slumping down into a chair in a sulk. “I always miss the fun.”

When a still disheveled but operational Felix returned, I snatched up my camera. Gwinny handed him a mug of coffee and we made for the front door. And the worst happened. Felix was so busy trying to get out of the door without spilling his coffee that the dogs shot through his legs and ran off down the road after their vanishing quarry.
We followed as quickly as we could, Felix spilling half his coffee down his t-shirt. The boar reached the Esplanade well ahead of us. What a scene and what a noise.
Two fire engines blocked the main entrances to the Esplanade while a couple of blue police vans, sirens blaring and lights flashing, stood across the small lanes running down towards the sea front. From one of the vans a public service announcement blared out a warning to everyone to stay indoors.
Customers peered out from the safety of shop doors and windows. I glanced down at the beach. A gendarme was herding sun worshipers and their children towards a large rock at the end of the beach. Another gendarme was pushing people up onto the rock out of the way of a possible incursion by the wild boar.
The firemen were attempting to trap the creature with crowd control barriers. The boar had other ideas. He rammed the railings repeatedly, stamped and snorted as his tusks rang against the hollow metal. Zig and Zag darted back and forth outside the barriers, barking defiance at the boar.
The mayor called out to me, “Over here, Penzi.”
He had managed to get his portly body up onto the top of the Esplanade wall, a safe vantage point.
I shook my head and pointed at my dogs. I had to get them away from the makeshift enclosure before they got themselves into trouble. I was only a few feet away from them with Felix following me when one of the firemen misjudged the barriers. Before anyone could stop them, Zig and Zag pushed through into the makeshift pen and confronted the boar. Zag took him on from the front while Zig snapped at his rear flank. The boar tossed his head in fury. He sideswiped Zig with his rear haunches, flinging her across the paving stones to crash against the shaky barrier. If Zag hadn’t kept the boar’s attention on him by darting in and out snapping at the boar’s snout, Zig would have been finished. I wasn’t sure that she wasn’t. I rushed around to the outside of the barrier where she was lying. I put my hand through the bars and felt for a breath or the beat of her heart.
There was no sign of life. I’m ashamed to say I burst into tears. Tough old me. Bulwark of the Munro family. Felix crouched down beside me and enveloped me in his arms. Meanwhile Zag continued to bait the boar and withdraw, advance and retreat, living up to his name. Such a brave dog.
The furor ebbed and flowed until all became silent. No one moved. The boar and Zag froze like a twinned marble sculpture. Reality receded. Time hung.
I came to when Felix shook me and pulled me to my feet.
“Penzi, come on, boss. The vet’s here. She’s been called in to dart the boar. Brave as they are, the gendarmes and the firemen are unwilling to confront the beast without protective hunting gear.”
Dr Julie Bécard reached past me to squat beside Zig. She checked the poor bitch with her stethoscope.
“She’s alive. She’s breathing. She’s in shock. I’ll treat her as soon as I’ve dealt with that tusker. We don’t want him to kill your other dog, do we? Meanwhile, you must breathe, too.”
I sat back on the cold paving stone and did as I was told. The vet stood over me, her blowpipe swaying from side to side above my head as she tried to find a clean shot to tranquilize the boar without hitting Zag. Meanwhile, our courageous dog, not knowing what was going on, kept veering into target range. How I wanted to call out to him, but I cannot talk to the dogs when there are natural humans about.
Zut! A dart flew out hitting the boar squarely in the left shoulder. The huge creature swayed on his feet and fell over, out cold. All those there, let out a community sigh of relief. Some clapped. Some called out bravo. The vet entered the enclosure with her bag, checked the boar and said it was all right to move him. Not an easy task, but not one I stayed to see. Julie moved across to attend to Zig.
She checked Zig’s heart and lungs again and nodded with satisfaction. Taking her time, she felt all over for broken bones. She palpated Zig’s bellyful of puppies.
“Well?” I asked, anxious to know the worst.
Julie smiled.
“Everything seems all right. We’ll give it twenty-four hours. If she shows any signs of distress, we’ll have to scan her. Meanwhile, you can take her home and keep her quiet.”
“I’ll carry her,” said Felix, stooping to gather our precious dog in his arms. “Boss, you take Zag.”
We thanked Julie and hurried away, leaving the firemen and the gendarmes to the task of hauling the heavy boar onto a trailer for his journey back to the forest.
All in all, the whole town was lucky to have escaped what could have been a sad ending to the boar’s adventure. The boar had injured no one but Zig and both had lived to tell the tale.

COMING SOON - ISBN 9782901556305