When Freja, Finnegan and Tobias returned home for lunch, the front door was open.
‘That’s odd,’ said Tobias. ‘I’m sure I closed it behind us this morning.’
‘And locked it,’ Freja added. ‘I remember you hiding the key beneath the flowerpot.’
Tobias bent forward and shifted the pot. The key was gone. ‘Whoopsy. It looks like we’ve had an uninvited guest.’
‘Maybe Grand-Mère Perrier made us another apple tart,’ suggested Freja. ‘She might have taken it to the kitchen, then forgotten to close the door behind her.’
‘Yes! Of course!’ cried Tobias. ‘One wouldn’t want to leave an apple tart outside on the doorstep. A dog might gobble it up.’
‘Or the squirrels,’ said Freja.
‘Or a donkey with a sweet tooth,’ said Tobias.
‘Or Christophe,’ said Freja, giggling. ‘Not even the largest of apple tarts would stand a chance against Christophe’s appetite. Not even when he’s been scoffing croissants all morning.’
Tobias grimaced.
‘Woof!’ said Finnegan. Tired of waiting, he shoved past Tobias, barrelled inside and bolted up the stairs.
‘Yes, well,’ muttered Tobias, running his hand through his hair. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’
Freja stepped forward, but Tobias grabbed her arm. ‘Better let me go first, old chap. Just in case.’
‘In case what?’ asked Freja.
‘In case the squirrels have made a mess of the apple pie. Can’t have you slipping on baked apples, sliding across the kitchen tiles and hitting your head on the edge of the table.’ Tobias smiled, but only his lips were involved. None of the sparkle reached his eyes.
Freja’s neck prickled. She grabbed Tobias’ hand. ‘We’ll go together,’ she whispered.
The writer nodded.
Slowly, on tippy-toes, they crept upstairs. When they got to the top of the first flight, Tobias pressed Freja back against the wall and poked his head around the doorway, into the kitchen.
‘Oh! How terribly disappointing!’ he cried.
‘What?’ gasped Freja.
‘No apple tart.’ Tobias sighed. ‘Lunch will be a plain affair — baguettes, salami and Camembert.’
‘But if there’s no tart,’ said Freja, ‘that means the door wasn’t opened by Grand-Mère Perrier.’
Tobias tugged at his ear and looked up towards the ceiling. He grabbed Freja’s hand, a little too firmly for comfort, and they tippy-toed onward and upward.
The bedrooms were just as they had left them. Except that Finnegan was now lying on Tobias’ bed, ripping the sole off one of his slippers. But on climbing the final flight of stairs, they were greeted with a piece of paper lying on the landing. A piece of paper that had not been there this morning.
Tobias reached down and picked it up. It was the cover page of the manuscript for his latest crime novel, Fool’s Lavender. Thick red felt-tip pen had been used to cross out the ‘s’ and the word ‘Lavender’ and add more words so that it now read: ‘GO HOME, ENGLISH Fool.’
‘Well, that’s a little bit rude,’ muttered Tobias. He folded the page into quarters and stuffed it into his pocket. He stepped into the living room and Freja followed.
The floor was covered with the pages of Tobias’ manuscript — some scrunched into balls, some torn to shreds, and others scribbled over with the same thick red pen. The beautiful old typewriter lay upside down on the floor, three keys — A, F and W — lying several metres away. Every single pencil and nib pen had been snapped in half and tossed to the floor along with the shattered remains of Tobias’ pineapple teapot. And an entire bottle of black ink had been tipped over the pretty blue velvet lounge.
‘Wicked!’ gasped Freja. ‘Who . . .? Why . . .?’ Her words were lost in a deep, silent sob. She dropped to her knees and started gathering up the pages and shreds of paper, trying to sort them into some sort of order as she went.
Tobias squatted beside her and rested his hand on her arm. ‘Don’t worry about it, old chap.’
‘But your story,’ she cried. ‘So much work wasted.’
Tobias took the stack of paper from her hand and tossed it over his shoulder. Paper flopped and fluttered to the floor like a flock of injured birds.
Freja began to weep.
‘It’s okay,’ said Tobias. ‘I make copies. Always. I post pages to my agent once a week and keep another copy locked away in a secret spot, just in case such a thing happens. Remember?’
Freja nodded. She did remember, now. She sniffed and threw herself into Tobias’ chest. His breast pocket bulged with a notebook, a bottle of ink and a half-eaten croissant. The feel of the familiar objects pressing into her cheek was comforting.
Tobias folded his arms around Freja’s small body and patted her back. ‘There, there, my darling girl. It’s all fine. The novel is safe — on paper and in my head. Nobody can ever steal the words from my mind.’
‘But the typewriter!’ cried Freja. ‘And the pencils and pens . . . and the blue sofa.’
‘Yes,’ sighed Tobias. ‘My poor old typewriter. I’ll have to get someone clever to fix it. Monsieur Delahaye, or Monsieur Joly, perhaps.’
Freja sniffed. ‘Who would do such a nasty thing?’
But even as she said the words, a name came to mind.
Mimosa Astérisque.
Freja’s mind raced through all the clues. Mimosa Astérisque was furious with Tobias. He’d filled her mouth with pebbles and dust when the motorcycle skidded through the gravel. Then, when Mimosa had tripped over the log and landed face first in the mushrooms, he’d told her she looked like a wild pig. Mimosa had not been pleased about that! And the sorry perfume they’d bought had made her sneeze because Mimosa was allergic to jasmine. She was allergic to Finnegan too. Freja had never seen anyone snuffle and snottle and sneezle with such moisture, such violence! And last but not least, Mimosa was terribly offended when Tobias had compared her precious Fru Fru to a rare Bolivian pygmy tapir that could eat an entire human being in three days.
Freja shook her head and sighed. ‘Bolivian pygmy tapir.’
‘The brown Bolivian pygmy tapir!’ cried Tobias. He held Freja at arm’s length and smiled into her face. ‘Why, thank you, old chap. You know just the thing to cheer us up amidst this mess.’ He chuckled. ‘I’d forgotten all about the brown Bolivian pygmy tapir. What a delight! Phenomenal appetite for such a small creature.’ He pulled his notebook from his pocket and a pencil from behind his ear. ‘I think it would be fabulous fun to set an entire novel in the Amazon. Ralph Emerson, explorer — tall, thin, handsome — sets out in search of a lost —’
‘Tobby!’ cried Freja. ‘What I really wanted to talk about was . . .’
But it was too late. The writer had sprung to his feet and was pacing back and forth across the room, muttering. His pencil swept across the page as his mind raced through a great adventure that would one day fill a novel.
Freja scrunched her nose and whispered to herself, ‘What I really wanted to talk about was Mimosa Astérisque. The queen of tantrums.’ She thought back to the éclairs des feuilles that Monsieur Diderot had refused to sell because he’d made them especially for Freja. Mimosa was furious . . . and jealous. Monsieur Diderot had never made anything special for Mimosa. Tobias said that jealousy drives people to do all sorts of dreadful things. Just like Suzette Leclerc in Fool’s Lavender.
Freja’s chest tightened. She was certain that Mimosa had destroyed Henri’s merry-go-round out of anger and jealousy. She’d seen Mimosa’s raw fury over the swan. She’d even borne some of it. And now . . .
Freja picked up one of the pages from the floor. Had Mimosa done this terrible thing too? Was it she who had ruined Tobias’ manuscript and typewriter and their pretty lounge? Did she hate them so much that she hoped to drive them out of Claviers?
Her heart said yes. But her head reminded her that it was all just a theory. Mimosa certainly had a motive for each of the crimes, but there was no real evidence. Freja had read all of Tobias’ crime novels and knew that motive proved nothing. One needed cold hard evidence to crack a case open.
At that moment, Finnegan bounded into the room and leapt up onto the sofa. He was about to flop down when he noticed something amiss. He stopped and stared at the ugly black ink stains. He whimpered and licked the soiled velvet. He snuffled about, then barked. ‘Woof!’
‘Poor Finnegan,’ cried Freja. ‘Your snoozing spot is ruined.’
Finnegan’s nose twitched and that was when Freja noticed it: a single hair, dangling from the tip of his nose.
Freja leaned over and plucked it off.
The hair was long and black.
‘Mimosa Astérisque!’ gasped Freja. She turned around to show Tobias, but he was gone. Probably in search of the hidden copy of his manuscript.
Freja held the hair up towards the French doors and stared at it. ‘Cold hard evidence,’ she whispered.
Taking a sheet of paper from the floor, she folded the hair carefully inside and slipped it into the drawer at the bottom of the armoire, beneath a pile of Tobias’ research notes. She felt ever so clever. Just like one of the brave characters from Tobias’ novels. As though she was embarking on her own secret investigation.
‘Stealth, silence and keen observation are essential,’ whispered Freja. She smiled. ‘I’ve spent most of my life studying animals in the remote regions of the Arctic. Stealth, silence and keen observation are my specialities!’