A Fatal Grace

by Louise Penny

  ‘Here, give me the keys.’ Gamache held out his hand and Beauvoir, without protest, dropped them in. ‘You all right?’ He got the Inspector into the passenger’s seat.

  ‘I’m fine. That woman, that place.’ He waved a weary hand around his head. He still felt nauseous and hoped he’d be able to hold it in until they got back to the B. & B. But he couldn’t.

  Five minutes later Gamache was holding Beauvoir’s head at the side of the road as he vomited and coughed and cursed that woman and her cloying claustrophobic calm.

  TWENTY

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ Beauvoir looked like death.

  ‘Eventually, yes,’ said Gamache as he practically carried the man up the stairs and into Beauvoir’s bedroom at the B. & B. He helped Beauvoir undress and ran a bath, and eventually, clean and warm, Beauvoir subsided into the large comfortable bed, with its soft flannel sheets and eiderdown duvet. Gamache fluffed up the pillows and brought the duvet up to Beauvoir’s chin, all but tucking him in. He placed the tray with tea and crackers within reach.

  Beauvoir’s feet rested on a hot water bottle, wrapped in a cozy, the warmth spreading slowly from his freezing feet up his shivering body. Beauvoir had never felt so sick or so relieved.

  ‘Feel better?’

  Beauvoir nodded, trying not to let his teeth chatter. Gamache put his huge cool hand on the younger man’s brow and held it there a moment, looking into Beauvoir’s feverish eyes.

  ‘I’ll get you another hot water bottle. How does that sound?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  Beauvoir felt as if he was about three years old, sick, and looking beseechingly into his father’s strong and certain eyes. Gamache returned a few minutes later with the hot water bottle.

  ‘She cursed me,’ said Beauvoir, curling himself round the hot water bottle, no longer caring whether he looked like a little girl.

  ‘You have the flu.’

  ‘That Mother woman cursed me with the flu. Oh, God, do you think I’ve been poisoned?’

  ‘It’s the flu.’

  ‘Bird flu?’

  ‘People flu.’

  ‘Or SARS.’ Beauvoir struggled up. ‘Am I dying of SARS?’

  ‘It’s the flu,’ Gamache said. ‘I need to leave. Here’s the cell phone, here’s a cup of tea. Here’s the wastepaper basket.’ He held the tin bucket up for Beauvoir to see, then placed it on the floor by the bed. His own mother had called it a ‘burp bowl’ when he’d been sick as a child, though they both knew burping wasn’t the problem. ‘Now rest and sleep.’

  ‘I’ll be dead when you get back.’

  ‘I’ll miss you.’ Gamache straightened the fluffy white duvet, felt the man’s forehead again, and tiptoed out. Beauvoir was already asleep.

  ‘How is he?’ Gabri asked as Gamache descended the staircase.

  ‘Asleep. Will you be here for a while?’

  ‘I’ll make sure I am.’

  Gamache put his coat on and stood at the threshold. ‘Getting colder.’

  ‘Snow’s stopped. I hear tomorrow’s supposed to get down to minus twenty.’

  Both men looked out the door. The sun had long since set and the trees and pond were lit. A few people were walking their dogs and skating. The bistro was throwing its welcoming light and the door opened and closed as villagers went for their late afternoon toddy.

  ‘Must be five,’ said Gabri, nodding toward the village green. ‘Ruth. She looks almost lifelike.’

  Gamache left the warmth of the B. & B. and hurried round the Commons. He considered pausing to speak to Ruth but decided against it. Something about the woman warned against casual, or any kind of, conversation. His feet squeaked on the snow, a sure sign that the temperature was plunging. His face felt as though he was walking through a cloud of tiny needles and his eyes watered slightly. With regret he walked past the bistro. It had been his intention to sit in the bistro each afternoon with a quiet drink to review his notes and meet the villagers.

  The bistro was his secret weapon in tracking down murderers. Not just in Three Pines, but in every town and village in Quebec. First he found a comfortable café or brasserie, or bistro, then he found the murderer. Because Armand Gamache knew something many of his colleagues never figured out. Murder was deeply human, the murdered and the murderer. To describe the murderer as a monstrosity, a grotesque, was to give him an unfair advantage. No. Murderers were human, and at the root of each murder was an emotion. Warped, no doubt. Twisted and ugly. But an emotion. And one so powerful it had driven a man to make a ghost.

  Gamache’s job was to collect the evidence, but also to collect the emotions. And the only way he knew to do that was to get to know the people. To watch and listen. To pay attention. And the best way to do that was in a deceptively casual manner in a deceptively casual setting.

  Like the bistro.

  As he walked by he wondered whether the murderer was in there now, enjoying a Scotch or hot cider on this cold night. Warming himself by the open hearth and by the company of friends. Or was the murderer out here, in the cold and dark? An outsider, bitter and brittle and broken?

  He walked over the arched stone bridge, enjoying the silence of the village. Snow did that. It laid down a simple, clean duvet that muffled all sound and kept everything beneath alive. Farmers and gardeners in Quebec wished for two things in winter: lots of snow and continuous cold. An early thaw was a disaster. It tricked the young and vulnerable into exposing themselves, only to be nipped in the root. A killing frost.

  ‘And then he falls, as I do,’ quoted Gamache to himself, surprised by the reference. Wolsey’s farewell. Shakespeare, of course. But why had he suddenly thought of that quote?

  The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;

  And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely

  His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,

  And then he falls, as I do.

  Was he falling? Was he being lulled into believing he was in control, that everything was going to plan?

  The Arnot case isn’t over, his friend Michel Brébeuf had warned. Is a killing frost on the way? Gamache clapped his arms round himself a few times for warmth and reassurance. He snorted in amusement and shook his head. It was quite humbling. One moment he was the distinguished Chief Inspector Gamache, head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, investigating a murder, the next he was chasing his imagination all over the countryside.

  Now he paused and again took in the venerable village, with its ring of old, well-loved homes, inhabited by well-loved people.

  Even Ruth Zardo. It was a tribute to this quiet, calm place that its people found space in their hearts for someone as wounded as Ruth.

  And CC de Poitiers? Would they have been able to find a place for her? Or her husband and child?

  He reluctantly raised his eyes from the glowing circle of light that was Three Pines up to the darkness and the old Hadley house, sitting like the error that proved the point. It stood outside the circle, on the verge of the village. Beyond the pale.

  Was the murderer in there, in that foreboding and forbidding place that seemed to breed and radiate resentment?

  Gamache stood in the freezing cold and wondered why CC had wanted to breed resentment. Why had she created it at every turn? He had yet to find a soul saddened by her death. Her departure diminished no one, from what he could see. Not even her family. Perhaps especially not her family. He tilted his head slightly to one side as though that might help his thinking. It didn’t. Whatever small idea he’d had was lost. Something about breeding resentment.

  Now he turned and walked toward the old railway station, lit and almost as welcoming as the bistro.

  ‘Chief,’ Lacoste called as soon as he entered, cold air clinging to him. ‘Am I glad to see you. Where’s the Inspector?’

  ‘Sick. He thinks Beatrice Mayer put a curse on him.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first woman.’

  ‘True.’ Gamache laughed. ‘Where’s Agent Nichol?’

  �

�Gone. Made a few calls then disappeared a couple of hours ago.’ She watched to see if his face reflected how she felt. Nichol had buggered up again. It was as though she had a compulsion to screw up her career and their cases. But Gamache didn’t react.

  ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘A mountain of messages. The coroner called. She says she’ll meet you in Olivier’s Bistro at five thirty. She lives around here, doesn’t she?’

  ‘In a village called Cleghorn Halt, down the railway line. This is on her way home. Does she have something?’

  ‘The completed autopsy report. Wants to talk to you about it. Also you have a call from Agent Lemieux in Montreal. He says he sent something to you over the internet. It’s from headquarters. But he also wants a callback. But, before you do…’ She walked back to her desk, Gamache following. ‘I found Eleanor de Poitiers.’

  Lacoste sat and clicked her computer. A picture appeared. It was a black and white drawing of a medieval woman on horseback carrying a flag.

  ‘Go on,’ said Gamache.

  ‘That’s it. That’s her. Eleanor de Poitiers was Eleanor of Aquitaine. Her.’ She pointed to the screen. Gamache pulled up a chair and sat beside Lacoste, his brows drawn together and his whole body leaning forward, drawn to the screen. He stared, trying to make sense of it.

  ‘Tell me what you know.’

  ‘What I know or what I think? Either way, it’s not much. CC de Poitiers listed her mother and father as Eleanor and Henri de Poitiers, of France. In her book,’ Lacoste pointed to the copy on her desk, ‘she describes her childhood of privilege in France. Then there was some sort of financial catastrophe and she was sent away to Canada, to live with distant, unnamed relatives, right?’

  Gamache nodded.

  ‘Well, Eleanor is her.’ Once more Lacoste nodded to the medieval equestrienne, then she clicked again and the screen changed. ‘And that’s her father.’ A picture came up of a stern, strong, blond man wearing a crown. ‘Henry Plantagenet. King Henry the Second of England.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The only Henry and Eleanor de Poitiers in France are them.’ Again Lacoste pointed to the screen, now split and showing both old drawings.

  ‘But it doesn’t make any sense,’ said Gamache, struggling with the information.

  ‘You’ve never been a teenage girl.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This is the sort of thing that appeals to romantic girls. A strong and tragic queen, a noble king. The Crusades. Eleanor de Poitiers actually went on crusade with her first husband. She created an army of three hundred women and rode bare-breasted part of the way. At least, that’s the story. She eventually divorced Louis of France and married Henry.’

  ‘And lived happily ever after?’

  ‘Not exactly. He put her in prison, but not before she’d had four sons. Richard the Lionheart was one. She was amazing.’ Lacoste gazed at the woman on horseback and imagined being part of her army. Riding bare-breasted through Palestine in the wake of this remarkable woman. It wasn’t just teenagers who were drawn to Eleanor of Aquitaine.

  ‘Richard the Lionheart?’ Gamache asked. ‘But no daughter named CC?’

  ‘Who was a designer living in Three Pines? No. King Henry died in 1189. Eleanor in 1204. So either CC de Poitiers was long overdue for death herself or, just maybe, she was lying. No wonder the entire Sûreté in Paris was laughing at me. Thank God I told them I was Agent Nichol.’

  Gamache shook his head. ‘So she made them up. She reached back almost a millennium to create parents. Why? Why would she do it? And why them?’

  The two sat in silence for a moment, thinking.

  ‘So who were her real parents?’ Lacoste finally asked.

  ‘I think that might be an important question.’

  Gamache went to his desk. It was twenty past five. Just time to speak to Lemieux before meeting Dr Harris. He downloaded his messages and dialed the number left by Lemieux.

  ‘Agent Lemieux,’ came the shouted answer.

  ‘It’s Gamache,’ he shouted back down the line, not sure why he was shouting.

  ‘Chief, I’m glad you called. Did you get the drawing from the Sûreté artist? He said he’d email it to you.’

  ‘I’m just opening my messages now. What did he say and why are we yelling?’

  ‘I’m at the bus station. A bus just arrived. The Sûreté artist said it looked as though Elle had been holding something in her hand as she died, and it had cut into it.’

  ‘And that explains the pattern of cuts in her palm?’

  ‘Exactly.’ The bus must have left or shut off because the background noise settled down. Lemieux spoke normally. ‘I gave him the autopsy picture and he drew a sketch as you asked. It’s not very precise, as you’ll see.’

  As Lemieux spoke Gamache was going through his messages, looking for the one from the eccentric artist in the bowels of Sûreté headquarters. He clicked on it and waited while the excruciatingly slow dial-up connection downloaded the image.

  Little by little a picture emerged.

  ‘I’ve talked to other vagrants here about Elle,’ Lemieux continued. ‘They’re not a very talkative lot but most remember her. There was a scuffle over her spot when she left. Apparently she had the equivalent of a penthouse suite. Right over one of the heating grates. Strange that she’d leave it.’

  ‘Strange indeed,’ Gamache mumbled as he watched the image haltingly appear on his screen. It was only half there. ‘You’ve done well, Lemieux. Come home.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  Gamache smiled. He could almost see the grin on Lemieux’s face.

  For the next five minutes Gamache stared at the screen, watching the image download. A centimeter at a time. And when it was finished Gamache sat back in his chair, hands folded over his stomach, and stared.

  He suddenly remembered himself and looked at the clock. Five thirty-five. Time to meet the coroner.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Dr Sharon Harris had just settled into her easy chair and ordered a Dubonnet when Gamache arrived, full of apologies and smiles. He joined her in a Dubonnet and sat down. They had a window seat, looking through the mullions at the frozen pond and Christmas trees. Over her shoulder he could see the fire crackling and playing in the hearth. Dr Harris was absently toying with a discreet white tag hanging from their table. She glanced at it.

  ‘Two hundred and seventy dollars.’

  ‘Not the Dubonnet, I hope.’ Gamache stopped his untouched drink partway to his mouth.

  ‘No.’ She laughed. ‘The table.’

  ‘Santé.’ He took a sip and smiled. He’d forgotten. Everything in the bistro was an antique, collected by Olivier. And everything was for sale. He could finish his drink and buy the cut crystal glass. It was, actually, a lovely glass. As he held it up and looked through it the crystal picked up and refracted the amber light from the fireplace, splitting it into parts. Like a very warm rainbow. Or the chakras, he thought.

  ‘Are you still looking to move here?’ he asked, bringing himself back to the table and catching her wistful gaze out the window.

  ‘If a place comes up I would, though when they do they get bought fast.’

  ‘The old Hadley home came up about a year ago.’

  ‘Except that place, though I have to admit I looked at the listing. Cheap. Almost gave it away.’

  ‘How much were they asking?’

  ‘I can’t remember exactly but it was less than a hundred thousand.’

  ‘C’est incroyable,’ said Gamache, taking a handful of cashews.

  Dr Harris looked around the bistro, filling up with patrons. ‘No one seems too bothered by the murder. Not a popular woman, our victim?’

  ‘No, it seems not. She was the one who bought the Hadley house.’

  ‘Ahh,’ said Dr Harris.

  ‘Ahh?’ questioned Gamache.

  ‘Anyone who’d buy that house must have been insensitive in the extreme. I didn’t even like looking at its picture on the computer listing.’

  ‘People have different sensibilities.’ Gamache smiled.

  ‘True,’ she agreed, ‘but would you buy it?’

  ‘I don’t even like going in it,’ he whispered to her conspiratorially. ‘Gives me the willies. What’ve you got for me?’

  Dr Harris leaned down and drew a dossier from her briefcase. Placing it on the table she took a handful of nuts, leaned back and looked out the window again, sipping her drink between salty mouthfuls.

  Gamache put on his half-moon reading glasses and spent the next ten minutes going over the report, finally putting it down and taking a contemplative sip of Dubonnet.

  ‘Niacin,’ he said.

  ‘Niacin,’ she agreed.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Besides the niacin she was a healthy, though perhaps underweight, forty-eight-year-old woman. She’d given birth. She was pre-menopausal. All very natural and normal. Her feet were charred from the shock and her hands were blistered, in the same pattern as the tubing of the chair. There was a tiny cut underneath that but it was old and healing. It’s all consistent with electrocution except for one thing. The niacin.’

  Gamache leaned forward, taking his glasses from his face and tapping them gently on the manila folder. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A vitamin. One of the B complex.’ She leaned forward so that they were both talking over the table. ‘It’s prescribed for high cholesterol and some people take it thinking it can increase brain power.’

  ‘Can it?’

  ‘No evidence.’

  ‘Then why do they think that?’

  ‘Well, what it does produce is a facial flush, and I guess someone thought that meant blood was rushing to the brain and you know what that can only mean.’

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