He cocked his head to one side and listened more closely. Then he stood up.
It wasn’t a bird calling. It was a cry, a shriek.
‘It’s just Bean again,’ Sandra said, wandering into the porch.
‘Just wants attention,’ said Thomas, from the Great Room. Ignoring them Gamache walked into the hallway and ran into Bean.
‘That wasn’t you?’ asked Gamache, though he knew the answer. Bean stared.
Another scream, even more hysterical this time, reached them.
‘My God, what’s that?’ Pierre appeared at the door to the kitchen. He looked at Bean, then at Gamache.
‘It’s coming from outside,’ said Reine-Marie.
Gamache and the maître d’ hurried into the rain, not stopping for protection.
‘I’ll go this way,’ yelled Pierre, motioning towards the staff cabins.
‘No, wait,’ said Gamache. Again he held his hand up and Pierre stopped dead. This man was used to giving orders and being obeyed, Pierre realized. They stood for what seemed an eternity, rain running down their faces and plastering their light clothes to their skins.
There was no more screaming. But after a moment Gamache heard something else.
‘This way.’
His long legs took him quickly down the fieldstone walk and round the puddled corner of the old lodge, Pierre splashing and slipping after him.
Colleen, the gardener, stood on the sodden lawn holding her hands to her streaming face. She was whimpering and he thought she’d been stung in the face by wasps, but as he got closer he saw her eyes. Staring and horrified.
Following her gaze he saw it too. Something he should have noticed as soon as he’d turned the corner of the Manoir.
The statue of Charles Morrow had taken that hesitant step. Somehow the huge stone man had left his plinth and toppled over. He now lay deeply imbedded in the soft and saturated ground but not as deeply as he might have been, for something had broken his fall. Beneath him, barely visible, lay his daughter Julia.
TEN
The maître d’ stopped dead.
‘Oh, Christ,’ he exhaled.
Gamache looked at Colleen, as petrified surely as Charles Morrow. Her hands covered her face and her bulging blue eyes stared out from between rain-soaked fingers.
‘Come away,’ Gamache said gently but firmly, standing in front of her to block the sight.
Her lips moved but he couldn’t make out the words. He leaned closer.
‘Help.’
‘It’s all right, we’re here,’ he said and caught Pierre’s eye.
‘Colleen.’ The maître d’ laid a hand on her arm. Her eyes flickered and refocused.
‘Help. We need to help her.’
‘We will,’ Gamache said reassuringly. Together, he and the maître d’ guided her through the rain to the back door into the kitchen.
‘Take her inside,’ Gamache instructed Pierre. ‘Ask Chef Véronique to make her hot sugared tea. In fact, ask her to make a few pots. I think we’re going to need them. Earl Grey.’
‘Je comprends,’ said Pierre. ‘What do I say?’
Gamache hesitated. ‘Tell them that there’s been a death, but don’t tell them who. Keep everyone inside. Can you round up the staff?’
‘Easily. On a day like today most are inside the main lodge doing chores.’
‘Good. Keep them there. And call the police.’
‘D’accord. The family?’
‘I’ll tell them.’
The door swung closed and Armand Gamache stood alone in the pelting rain. Then he made his way back to Julia Martin. Kneeling down he reached out and touched her. She was cold and hard. Her mouth and eyes were wide open, surprised. He half expected her to blink as the raindrops fell onto her open eyes. He blinked a few times in sympathy then his gaze continued down her body. Her legs were collapsed and invisible under the statue, but her arms were flung open as though to embrace her father.
Gamache stood for a long minute, rain dripping from his nose and chin and hands and running inside his collar. He stared at the surprised face of Julia Martin, and thought of the face of Charles Morrow, filled with sorrow. Then he turned slightly and stared finally at the white cube that had reminded him of a grave marker when first he’d seen it. How had this massive statue fallen?
Reine-Marie and Bean were sitting in the hallway of the Manoir playing I Spy when he returned. One look at his face told her all she needed to know, for now.
‘Bean, why don’t you get your book and we can read together.’
‘OK.’ The child left but not before giving Gamache an appraising look. After Bean ran upstairs Gamache took his wife into the library and told her everything as he headed for the phone.
‘But how?’ she asked, immediately grasping the question.
‘I don’t know, yet. Oui, bonjour. Jean Guy?’
‘You’re not calling for advice again, are you, Chief? Eventually you’re going to have to figure things out on your own.’
‘Harrowing as that thought is, I do need your help.’
Jean Guy Beauvoir recognized this wasn’t a social call from his long-time boss. His voice sharpened and Gamache could almost hear his chair fall back to the ground as his feet whisked off the desk.
‘What is it?’
Gamache succinctly passed on the details.
‘At the Manoir Bellechasse? Mais, c’est incroyable. That’s the top auberge in Quebec.’
It always amazed Gamache that people, even professionals, thought Frette sheets and a superb wine list guarded against death.
‘Was she murdered?’
And there was the other question. The two questions that had gotten up from the crime site and started to shadow Armand Gamache as soon as he’d seen Julia Martin’s body: how had the statue tumbled down, and was it murder?
‘I don’t know.’
‘We’ll soon find out. I’m on my way.’
Gamache looked at his watch. Ten to eleven. Beauvoir and the rest of the team should arrive from Montreal by twelve thirty. The Manoir Bellechasse was buried south of Montreal, in an area known as the Eastern Townships, close to the American border. So close that some of the mountains he’d contemplated that misty morning were in Vermont.
‘Armand? I think I hear a car.’
That would be the local Sûreté, he thought, grateful for the maître d’s help.
‘Merci.’ He smiled at Reine-Marie and made for the hallway, but she stopped him.
‘What about the family?’
She looked worried and for good reason. The thought that Mrs Finney would find out about her daughter from a waiter, or, worse, by perhaps wandering outside, was terrible.
‘I’ll just give the officers their instructions and go right in.’
‘I’ll go in and make sure they’re all right.’
He watched her go, her step resolute, walking into a room filled with people whose lives were about to change forever. She could have sat quietly in the library and no one would have faulted her, but instead Reine-Marie Gamache chose to sit in a room soon to be overwhelmed with grief. Not many would make that choice.
Walking quickly outside he introduced himself to the officers, who were surprised to meet this renowned Sûreté investigator in the middle of the woods. He gave them directions, then motioning to one of them to follow he went inside to tell the Morrows.
‘Something has happened. I have bad news.’
Armand Gamache knew it was never a kindness to prolong bad news.
But he knew something else.
If it was murder, someone in this room almost certainly did it. He never let that overwhelm his compassion, but neither did he let his compassion blind him. He watched closely as he spoke.
‘Madame.’ He turned to Mrs Finney, sitting composed in a wing chair, that day’s Montreal Gazette folded on her lap. He saw her stiffen. Her eyes darted quickly about the room. He could read her nimble mind. Who was there, and who was missing?
‘There
’s been a death.’ He said it quietly, clearly. He was under no illusions about what his words would do to this woman. They were statue words, heavy and crushing.
‘Julia,’ she exhaled the name. The missing child. The one not there.
‘Yes.’
Her lips parted and her eyes searched his, looking for some escape, some back door, some hint this might not be true. But he didn’t blink. His brown eyes were steady, calm and certain.
‘What?’
Thomas Morrow was on his feet. The word wasn’t yelled. It was expelled across the room at him.
What. Soon someone would ask how and when and where. And finally the key question. Why.
‘Julia?’ Peter Morrow asked, standing. Beside him Clara had taken his hand. ‘Dead?’
‘I have to go to her.’ Mrs Finney stood, the Gazette slipping to the floor, unattended. It was the equivalent of a scream. Mr Finney rose unsteadily to his full height. He reached for her hand then pulled back.
‘Irene,’ he said. Again he reached out, and Gamache willed with all his might that Bert Finney could go the distance. But once again the old twig hand stopped short and finally fell to the side of his grey slacks.
‘How do you know?’ snapped Mariana, also on her feet now. ‘You’re not a doctor, are you? Maybe she’s not dead.’
She approached Gamache, her face red and her fists clenched.
‘Mariana.’ The voice was still commanding and it stopped the charging woman in her tracks.
‘But Mommy—’
‘He’s telling the truth.’ Mrs Finney turned back to the large, certain man in front of her. ‘What happened?’
‘How could she be dead?’ Peter asked.
The shock was lifting, Gamache could see. They were beginning to realize a woman in her late fifties, apparently healthy, doesn’t normally just die.
‘An aneurysm?’ asked Mariana.
‘An accident?’ asked Thomas. ‘Did she fall down the stairs?’
‘The statue fell,’ said Gamache, watching them closely. ‘It hit her.’
The Morrows did what they did best. They fell silent.
‘Father?’ asked Thomas, finally.
‘I’m sorry.’ Gamache looked at Mrs Finney, who stared as though stuffed. ‘The police are with her now. She isn’t alone.’
‘I need to go to her.’
‘The police aren’t letting anyone close. Not yet,’ he said.
‘I don’t care, they’ll let me.’
Gamache stood in front of her and held her eyes. ‘No, madame. Not even you, I’m afraid.’
She looked at him with loathing. It was a look he’d received often enough, and understood. And he knew it would get worse.
Gamache left them to their sorrow, taking Reine-Marie with him, but he quietly motioned the Sûreté officer into a corner.
Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir stepped out of the car and looked at the sky. Unremitting grey. It would rain for a while yet. He looked down at his shoes. Leather. His slacks designer. His shirt. Casual linen. Perfect. Fucking middle of nowhere murder. In the rain. And mud. He slapped his cheek. And bugs. Flattened to his palm were the remains of a mosquito and some blood.
Fucking perfect.
Agent Isabelle Lacoste opened an umbrella and offered him one. He declined. Bad enough to be here, he didn’t need to look like Mary Poppins.
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache came out of the auberge and waved. Beauvoir waved back then slapped his forehead. Gamache hoped it was a bug. Beside Beauvoir Agent Lacoste walked with an umbrella. In her late twenties, she was married and already a mother of two. Like most Québécoises, she was dark and petite with a comfortable flair and confidence. She wore a blouse and slacks that managed to be both sensible and soignée, even with rubber boots.
‘Salut, Patron,’ she said. ‘How’d you manage to find the body?’
‘I’m staying here.’ He fell into step between them. ‘The victim is a guest at the Manoir.’
‘Hope she gets a discount,’ said Beauvoir. They turned the corner of the lodge and Gamache introduced the local Sûreté officers.
‘Anyone come out?’ he asked. Beside him Beauvoir was staring over at the scene, anxious to get there.
‘Some older woman,’ said a young female agent.
‘English?’ asked Gamache.
‘No, sir. Francophone. Offered us tea.’
‘Tall, with a deep voice?’
‘Yes, that’s her. Looked a little familiar, actually,’ said one of the men. ‘Suppose I’ve seen her in Sherbrooke.’
Gamache nodded. Sherbrooke was the nearest town, where the detachment was based.
‘That would be the chef here, Véronique Langlois. Did she seem interested in the scene?’ Gamache looked over to where the agents had encircled the site in yellow tape.
‘Who wouldn’t be?’ The young woman laughed.
‘You’re right,’ he said quietly. He turned sombre, kindly eyes on her. ‘There’s a woman over there who was alive hours ago. It might be an accident, it might be murder, but either way, this isn’t the time or place for laughter. Not yet.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re too young to be hardened and cynical. So am I.’ He smiled. ‘It’s no shame to be sensitive. In fact, it’s our greatest advantage.’
‘Yes sir.’ The young agent could have kicked herself. She was naturally sensitive but had thought she should hide it, that a certain cavalier attitude would impress this famous head of homicide. She was wrong.
Gamache turned to the scene. He could almost feel Beauvoir vibrating beside him. Inspector Beauvoir was the alpha dog, the whip-smart, tightly wound second in command who believed in the triumph of facts over feelings. He missed almost nothing. Except, perhaps, things that couldn’t be seen.
Agent Lacoste also stared at the scene. But unlike Beauvoir she could become very still. She was the hunter of their team. Stealthy, quiet, observant.
And Gamache? He knew he was neither the hound nor the hunter. Armand Gamache was the explorer. He went ahead of all the rest, into territory unknown and uncharted. He was drawn to the edge of things. To the places old mariners knew, and warned, ‘Beyond here be monsters.’
That’s where Chief Inspector Gamache could be found.
He stepped into the beyond, and found the monsters hidden deep inside all the reasonable, gentle, laughing people. He went where even they were afraid to go. Armand Gamache followed slimy trails, deep into a person’s psyche, and there, huddled and barely human, he found the murderer.
His team had a near perfect record, and they did it by sorting facts from fancy from wishful thinking. They did it by collecting clues and evidence. And emotions.
Armand Gamache knew something most other investigators at the famed Sûreté du Québec never quite grasped. Murder was deeply human. A person was killed and a person killed. And what powered the final thrust wasn’t a whim, wasn’t an event. It was an emotion. Something once healthy and human had become wretched and bloated and finally buried. But not put to rest. It lay there, often for decades, feeding on itself, growing and gnawing, grim and full of grievance. Until it finally broke free of all human restraint. Not conscience, not fear, not social convention could contain it. When that happened, all hell broke loose. And a man became a murderer.
And Armand Gamache and his team spent their days finding murderers.
But was this a murder at the Manoir Bellechasse? Gamache didn’t know. But he did know that something unnatural had happened here.
‘Take this in to them, s’il vous plaît.’ Chef Véronique’s large ruddy hand trembled slightly as she motioned to the trays. ‘And bring out the pots already there. They’ll want fresh tea.’
She knew this was a lie. What the family wanted they could never have again. But tea was all she could give them. So she made it. Over and over.
Elliot tried not to make eye contact with anyone. He tried to pretend he heard nothing, which was actually possible given the sniffles and snorts co
ming from Colleen. It was as though her head contained only snot. And too much of it.
‘It’s not my fault,’ she sputtered for the hundredth time.
‘Of course it’s not,’ said Clementine Dubois, hugging her to her huge bosom and readjusting the Hudson’s Bay blanket she’d put on the young gardener for comfort. ‘No one’s blaming you.’
Colleen subsided into the soft chest.
‘There were ants everywhere,’ she hiccuped, pulling back but leaving a thin trail of mucus on the shoulder of Madame Dubois’s floral dress.
‘You and you,’ said Chef Véronique, pointing to Elliot and Louise, not unkindly. The tea would be too strong if they waited much longer. The waiters were young, she knew, and had no experience with death. Unlike herself. Sending them in to wait on the Morrows was bad enough at the best of times, and this was far from the best of times. A room full of grief was even worse than a room full of anger. Anger a person got used to, met most days, learned to absorb or ignore. Or walk away from. But there was no hiding from grief. It would find you, eventually. It was the thing we most feared. Not loss, not sorrow. But what happened when you rendered those things down. They gave us grief.
All around the staff sat in easy chairs, perched on counters, leaned against walls, sipping strong coffee or tea, comforting each other. Murmured guesses, theories, excited speculation, filled the air. The maître d’ had brought Colleen in, delivered her into their arms for comfort and dry clothing, then rounded up the rest of the staff. Once the family had been told he’d broken the news to the employees.
Madame Martin was dead. Crushed by that statue.
Everyone had gasped, some had exclaimed, but only one cried out. Pierre scanned the room, but didn’t know who. But he did know the sound had surprised him.
Inspector Beauvoir finally stared into the hole. Only it wasn’t a hole. It was filled with a human. A woman, wide eyed, surprised, and dead, a statue imbedded in her chest.