by Louise Penny
‘When did she decide to go?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, did she decide to go to the breakfast and curling at the last minute, or was it something she’d planned to do for a while?’
‘Oh, it was planned. I told her about it, but she already knew. They’d gone the year before, just after she bought the house here. She told me to get shots of her surrounded by common folk, her words not mine. So I went off to the breakfast and shot a couple of rolls, then we went to the curling. Cold as hell. My camera eventually froze up. Had to put it under my coat, under my armpit, to thaw it out. I was moving around, trying to get different angles. CC wasn’t very photogenic, so it was important to get the right lighting and angles and preferably some other point of interest in the shot. That old lady sitting beside her was great. Face full of character and the way she looked at CC, fantastic.’ Petrov threw himself back in the chair and laughed at the memory of Kaye glaring as though CC was something her dog had thrown up. ‘And she kept at CC to sit still, sit still. CC didn’t listen to many people. Anyone, actually, in my experience, but this old lady she listened to. I would too. Scary as hell. And sure enough CC sat still. Kinda. Made my job easier, anyway.’
‘Why was Kaye Thompson telling CC to sit still?’ Chief Inspector Gamache asked.
‘CC was a nervous sort. Always jumping up to straighten an ashtray or picture or a lamp. Nothing was ever right. I guess it finally got on the old girl’s nerves. She looked as though she was about to kill her.’
Gamache knew it was just a figure of speech, and Petrov clearly didn’t even realize what he’d said.
‘We got your developed film from the lab this morning,’ said Beauvoir, walking to the table and setting them out. Petrov followed as did the others. There on the table was a series of stills. CC’s final moments, and beyond.
‘Notice anything curious?’ Beauvoir asked.
After a minute or so Petrov straightened up and shook his head. ‘It looks like what I remember.’
‘Nothing missing? Like, oh, the entire series of pictures from here to here? From CC alive to CC dead. The entire murder is missing.’ Beauvoir’s voice rose. Unlike Gamache, who could sit and chat with suspects all day hoping they’d eventually open up, Beauvoir knew the only way to handle a suspect was to show them who was boss.
‘That’s where the camera froze, I guess,’ said Petrov, scanning the images, trying not to let the fear out, trying not to sink into the petulance and self-pity so much a part of his life with CC.
‘That’s convenient,’ said Beauvoir, taking a deep breath. ‘Or maybe I just inhaled the frame that shows the murder? What do you think? Did you burn the film that shows CC being murdered?’
‘Why would I? I mean, if I have film of CC being murdered, wouldn’t that prove I didn’t do it?’
That stopped Beauvoir cold.
‘I gave you all the rolls I shot that day. I promise.’
Beauvoir’s eyes were narrow as he watched this little man cower. He’s done something wrong, I know it, thought Beauvoir. But he couldn’t figure out how to nail him.
The officers left, Beauvoir stomping to the car and Lemieux trailing behind, not wanting to become the target for Beauvoir’s unexercised frustration. Gamache stood on the stoop squinting into the sun, feeling his nostrils contract in the bitter cold.
‘It’s lovely here. You’re a lucky man,’ and Gamache pulled off a glove and offered his hand. Saul Petrov took it, feeling the warmth of human contact. He’d been with CC so long he’d almost forgotten that most humans generate heat. ‘Don’t be a foolish man, Mr Petrov.’
‘I’ve told you the truth, Chief Inspector.’
‘I hope so, sir.’ Gamache smiled and walked quickly to the car, his face already beginning to freeze. Petrov went into the warm living room and watched the car disappear round a bend, then he looked again on the bright new world, and wondered just how foolish he’d been. He rummaged through some drawers and found a pen and an unused Christmas card. He wrote a short message then headed into St-Rémy to find the mailbox.
‘Stop the car,’ said Gamache. Beauvoir applied the brakes then looked at the chief. Gamache sat in the passenger’s seat staring out the window, his lips moving slightly and his eyes narrow. After a minute he closed his eyes and smiled, shaking his head.
‘I need to speak to Kaye Thompson. Drop me off in Williamsburg, then get back to Three Pines and take The Lion in Winter over to Clara Morrow. Ask her to show you what she meant. She’ll understand.’
Beauvoir turned the car toward Williamsburg.
Gamache had just figured out what Clara was saying in their garbled conversation, and if she was right, it could explain a great deal.
‘Fuck the Pope?’
Gamache never thought he’d hear himself say that, even as a question. Especially as a question.
‘That’s what they said.’ Kaye looked at him, her blue eyes sharp, but now veiled by something else. Exhaustion. Beside her on the sofa Émilie Longpré sat forward and listened, watching her friend closely.
‘Why?’ Kaye asked him.
It was, of course, the one question he asked all the time and now someone was asking him. He had the impression there was something he didn’t understand going on, some subtext that was escaping him.
He thought for a moment, looking out the picture window of her modest room in the seniors’ home. She had a splendid view across Lac Brume. The sun was setting and long mountain shadows cut the lake so that part was in blinding light and part in darkness, like yin and yang. Slowly the scene faded and he saw the boys in the trench, their young eyes filled with terror. They were being told to do the inconceivable, and, inconceivably, they were about to do it.
‘I wonder whether they knew that words could kill,’ said Gamache, slowly, thinking out loud, seeing the defenseless, indefensibly young men preparing for death.
What did it take to do that? Could he? It was one thing to rush without thought into a dangerous situation, it was quite another to wait, and wait, and wait, knowing what was coming. And do it anyway. For no purpose. To no end.
‘That’s ridiculous. Yelling “Fuck the Pope” wouldn’t kill a single German. What do you use for ammunition? When a murderer shoots at you what do you do? Run after him yelling “Tabernacle!”, “Sacré!”, “Chalice!”? I hope I’m never in a life and death situation with you. Merde.’
Gamache laughed. Clearly his insightful comment had failed to impress. And she was probably right. He couldn’t begin to understand why the young men had yelled that at the Somme.
‘I have pictures here I’d like you both to see.’ He spread Saul’s photographs on a table.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Kaye.
‘That’s you, ma belle,’ said Émilie.
‘Are you kidding? I look like a potato in a laundry hamper.’
‘You seem to be speaking to CC in a few of the pictures,’ said Gamache. ‘What were you saying?’
‘Probably telling her to keep still. She kept wiggling. Very annoying.’
‘And she listened to you? Why?’
‘Everyone listens to Kaye,’ said Em with a smile. ‘Like her father, she’s a natural leader.’
Gamache thought that wasn’t totally true. He thought that of the three friends Émilie Longpré was the real leader, though the quietest.
‘Our Kaye here ran Thompson Mills up on Mont Echo for decades, all by herself. Trained and organized a bunch of mountain men, and they adored her. It was the most successful logging operation around.’
‘If I could get some brute into a lye bath once a week I could get CC to stop fidgeting,’ said Kaye. ‘Never could stand the nervous sort.’
‘We now believe de Poitiers wasn’t her real name,’ said Gamache, watching their reactions. But both women continued to stare at the photographs. ‘We think her mother came from Three Pines and that’s why CC came here. To find her mother.’
‘Poor child,’ said Em, still not looking up. Gamache wonde
red whether she was deliberately avoiding eye contact. ‘Did she?’
‘Find her mother?’ said Gamache. ‘I don’t know. But we know her mother’s name started with an L. Do you know of anyone?’
‘Well, there is one,’ said Émilie. ‘A woman named Longpré.’
Kaye sputtered with laughter. ‘Come on, Chief Inspector. You can’t suspect Em here? Do you think she could abandon a child? Em could no more do that than she could win a curling match. Absolutely incapable.’
‘Thank you, dear.’
‘Anyone else?’ he asked. There was a pause and both women eventually shook their heads. Gamache knew then they were hiding something. They had to have been. They’d both lived in Three Pines when CC’s mother was there and back in the fifties in a small Quebec village a pregnant girl would have been noticed.
‘Can I offer you a lift home?’ Em asked after a long, uncomfortable silence.
Gamache bent to pick up the photographs and his eye caught something. Kaye looking particularly cross at CC, and CC staring ahead at the empty chair as though desperate to get to it. He knew then how the murderer had done it.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Clara and Peter Morrow turned their television and VCR on and Beauvoir shoved the tape into the slot.
He wasn’t looking forward to this. Two hours of some old English movie where all they probably did was talk, talk, talk. No explosions. No sex. He thought he’d rather have the flu than sit through The Lion in Winter. Beside him on the sofa Agent Lemieux was all excited.
Kids.
Émilie Longpré dropped Gamache at the old Hadley house as he requested.
‘Would you like me to wait?’
‘No, madame, mais vous êtes très gentille. The walk back will do me good.’
‘It’s a cold night, Chief Inspector, and getting colder.’ She pointed to her dashboard. The time and temperature were displayed. Minus fifteen Celsius already and the sun had just set. It was four thirty.
‘I’ve never liked this house,’ she said, looking at the turrets and blank windows. Ahead the village of Three Pines beckoned, the lights glowing and warm with a promise of company and an aperitif by a glad fire. With a wrench Gamache opened the car door, which screamed in protest, its hinges frozen and crying. He watched as Émilie’s car disappeared over the small hill into the village, then he turned back to the house. A light could be seen in the living room and a hall light went on after he’d rung the bell.
‘Come in, come in.’ Richard Lyon practically yanked him through the door then slammed it shut. ‘Terrible night. Come in, Chief Inspector.’
Oh, for God’s sake, don’t sound so hearty. Can’t you just once sound normal? Try to be like someone you admire. President Roosevelt, maybe. Or Captain Jean Luc Picard.
‘What can I do for you?’ Lyon liked the sound of his voice now. Calm and measured and in control. Just don’t fuck up.
‘I need to ask you some questions, but first, how’s your daughter?’
‘Crie?’
Why was it, Gamache wondered, that every time he asked about Crie, Lyon seemed perplexed, almost surprised to discover he had a daughter, or that anyone cared.
‘She’s doing all right, I suppose. Ate something for lunch. I put the heat up so she’s not so cold.’
‘Is she speaking?’
‘No, but then she never did much.’
Gamache felt like shaking this lethargic man who seemed to live in a world of cotton batting, insulated and muffled. Without being invited Gamache walked into the living room and sat down opposite Crie. The girl’s clothes had changed. Now she wore white shorts that strangled her legs, and a pink halter top. Her hair was in pigtails, and her face blank.
‘Crie, it’s Chief Inspector Gamache. How are you?’
No reply.
‘It’s cold in here. Do you mind if I give you my sweater?’ He removed his cardigan and draped it over her bare shoulders, then turned to Lyon.
‘When I leave I suggest you put a blanket round her and light the fireplace.’
‘But it doesn’t throw much heat,’ said Lyon. Don’t sound petulant. Sound strong, sound like the man of the house. Sound decisive. ‘Besides, there’s no wood.’
‘There’s wood in the basement. I’ll help you bring it up, and you’re probably right about the heat, but the fire is cheerful and bright. Those things are important as well. Now, I have some questions for you.’ Gamache walked out of the living room and into the hall. He didn’t want to spend much time there. He wanted to meet Myrna in her bookstore before it closed.
‘What was your wife’s real name?’
‘De Poitiers.’
‘Her real name.’
Lyon looked completely at sea. ‘Not de Poitiers? What’re you saying?’
‘She made that up. You didn’t know?’
Lyon shook his head.
‘What are your finances, Monsieur Lyon?’
He opened his mouth then clamped it shut before the lie could escape. There was no longer any need to lie, to pretend to be something and someone he wasn’t. CC was the one who insisted and had made him go along. Pretend they were born to be in a house like this, the manor house, the one on the hill. Born to greatness. Born to riches.
‘I signed over my pension to buy this house,’ he admitted. ‘We’re in way over our heads.’
He was surprised how easy that was. CC had told him they could never admit the truth. If people knew what life was really like for them, they’d be ruined. But deceit and secrecy had brought them to ruin anyway. And now Richard Lyon told the truth and nothing bad happened.
‘Not any more. Your wife was insured for hundreds of thousands of dollars.’
Something bad just happened, and now Lyon deeply regretted telling the truth. What would President Roosevelt do? Captain Picard? CC?
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Lie.
‘Your signature’s on the policy. We have the documents.’
Something very bad indeed was happening.
‘You’re an engineer by training, and an inventor. You could easily hook up the booster cables that electrocuted your wife. You’d know that she’d need to be standing in water and have bare hands. You could have slipped her the niacin over breakfast. You knew her well enough to know she’d take the best seat under the heat lamp.’ Now Gamache’s voice, which had been so reasonable it somehow added to the nightmare, grew very quiet. He reached into the satchel and brought out a photograph. ‘What’s troubled me from the very start was how the murderer knew CC would grab the chair in front of her. It’s not the sort of thing people do. Now I know. This is how.’
He showed Richard Lyon the picture. Richard saw his wife in the minute or so before she died. Beside her Kaye was saying something, but CC’s attention was riveted on the chair in front.
Richard Lyon blanched.
‘You, sir, would know too.’
‘I didn’t do it.’ His voice was tiny and reedy. Even the voices in his head had fled, leaving him alone now. All alone.
‘He didn’t do it,’ said Myrna twenty minutes later.
‘How d’you know?’ Gamache asked, settling into the rocking chair. He stretched his long legs out in front of the woodstove, which was radiating heat. Myrna had stirred up a hot rum toddy for him and it sat on a stack of New York Review of Books on the blanket box between them. Gamache was thawing out.
‘He sat beside me on the bleachers the whole time.’
‘I remember you told me that, but is it possible he left for a few minutes without you noticing?’
‘As you were walking here from the old Hadley house would you have noticed if your coat had fallen off, just for a few minutes?’ She had a twinkle in her eye as she asked.
‘Maybe.’ He knew what she was getting at, and didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to hear that his perfect suspect, his only perfect suspect, couldn’t have done it because Myrna here would have noticed the sudden absence of Lyon’s body heat, i
f not his personality.
‘Look, I don’t have any love for the man,’ she said. ‘Someone over a period of years has screwed Crie up to the point where she’s almost comatose. At first I thought she might be autistic, but after spending a few minutes with her I don’t think so. I think she’s run away, inside her head. And I think Richard Lyon’s to blame.’
‘Tell me.’ Gamache picked up his warm mug. He could smell the rum and the spices.
‘Well, let me be careful here. In my opinion Crie’s been emotionally and verbally abused all her life. I think CC was the abuser, but there are generally three parties to child abuse. The abused, the abuser and the bystander. One parent does it but the other knows it’s happening and does nothing.’
‘If CC emotionally abused her daughter, would she also have abused her husband?’ Gamache remembered Lyon, frightened and lost.
‘Almost without a doubt. Still, he’s Crie’s father and he needed to save her.’
‘And didn’t.’
Myrna nodded. ‘Can you imagine what it was like living in that house?’ Myrna’s back was to the window and she couldn’t see the old Hadley house, but she could feel it.
‘Should we call Family Services? Would Crie be better somewhere else?’
‘No, the worst is over, I think. What she needs is a loving parent and intense therapy. Has anyone spoken to her school?’
‘They say she’s bright, in fact her grades are very high, but she doesn’t fit in.’
‘And probably never will now. Too much damage done. We become our beliefs, and Crie believes something horrible about herself. Has heard it all her life, and now it haunts her, in her own mother’s voice. It’s the voice most of us hear in the quiet moments, whispering kindnesses or accusations. Our mother.’
‘Or our father,’ said Gamache, ‘though in this case he said nothing. She said too much and he said not enough. Poor Crie. No wonder it led to murder.’
‘We live in a world of guided missiles and misguided men,’ said Myrna. ‘Dr Martin Luther King, Junior.’