Still Life
There it was again, thought Clara. The blind.
This was far worse than any injuries Ben had given her. Ruth was staring at them, her face hard. How could they have been so gullible? How could Ben’s words have been stronger than Timmer’s actions? Ruth was right. Timmer had been nothing but tolerant, kind and generous.
Clara realised with a chill that Ben had begun to assassinate his mother long ago.
‘You’re right. I’m so sorry. Even the snakes. I’d believed the snakes.’
‘Snakes?’ said Peter. ‘What snakes?’
Clara shook her head. Ben had lied to her, and used Peter’s name to add legitimacy to it. Why had he told her there were snakes in his mother’s basement? Why had he made up that story about himself and Peter as boys? Because it made him even more of a victim, a hero, she realised. And she’d been more than willing to believe it. Poor Ben, they’d called him. And poor Ben he’d wanted to be, though not literally as it turned out.
Timmer’s basement had proven, once the electricity had been restored, to be clean, absolutely fine. No snakes. No snake nests. No indication anything had ever slithered in or out of there, except Ben. The ‘snakes’ dangling from the ceiling had been wires, and she’d kicked and tossed pieces of garden hose. The power of the imagination never ceased to amaze Clara.
‘Another reason I was slow to catch on,’ admitted Gamache, ‘was that I made a mistake. Quite a big one. I thought he loved you, Clara. Romantically. I even asked him about it. That was the biggest mistake. Instead of asking him how he felt about you, I asked him how long he’d loved you. I gave him the excuse he needed for all his guarded looks. He wasn’t sneaking peeks at you out of passion, but fear. He knew how intuitive you are, and that of anyone, you’d figure it out. But I let him off the hook and fooled myself.’
‘But you came to it in the end,’ said Clara. ‘Does Ben realise what he’s done?’
‘No. He’s convinced he was totally justified in what he did. The Hadley money was his. The Hadley property was his. His mother was simply holding them until they were passed on to him. The idea of not getting his inheritance was so unimaginable he felt he had no choice but to kill her. And because she put him in that position, well it wasn’t his fault. She brought it on herself.’
Olivier shivered. ‘He seemed so gentle.’
‘And he was,’ said Gamache, ‘until you disagreed with him, or he didn’t get what he wanted. He was a child. He killed his mother for the money. And he killed Jane because he thought she was announcing it to the world with Fair Day.’
‘It’s ironic,’ said Peter, ‘he thought his face in Fair Day gave him away. But what gave him away was erasing his face. Had he left the picture as it was he’d never have been caught. He’d been passive all his life. The one time he actually acts he condemns himself.’
Ruth Zardo walked slowly and painfully up the hill, Daisy on a lead beside her. She’d volunteered to take Ben’s dog, surprising herself more than anyone else when she’d made the offer. But it felt right. Two stinky, lame old ladies. They picked their way along the uneven path, being careful not to slip on the gathering snow and twist an ankle or aggravate a hip.
She heard it before she saw it. The prayer stick, its brightly colored ribbons catching the wind, sending their gifts into the air, knocking against each other. Like true friends. Bumping, and sometimes hurting, though never meaning to. Ruth took hold of the old photograph, the image almost worn off by the rain and snow. She hadn’t looked at this picture in sixty years, since the day she’d taken it at the fair. Jane and Andreas, so joyous. And Timmer behind, looking straight at the camera, at Ruth holding the camera, and scowling. Ruth had known then, years ago, that Timmer knew. Young Ruth had just betrayed Jane. And now Timmer was dead. And Andreas was dead, and Jane was dead. And Ruth felt, maybe, it was time to let go. She released the old photograph and it quickly joined the other objects, dancing and playing together.
Ruth reached into her pocket and took out the book she’d chosen as her gift from Jane. With it she withdrew the envelope Jane had left her. Inside was a card, hand-drawn by Jane, a near duplicate of the image on the wall of Jane’s living room. Except, instead of two young girls embracing, they were now old and frail. Two elderly women. Holding each other. Ruth slipped it into the book. The worn little book that smelled of Floris.
In a tremulous voice Ruth started to read out loud, the words taken by the wind to play among the snowflakes and bright ribbons. Daisy looked at her with adoration.
Gamache sat in the Bistro, having come in to say goodbye, and maybe buy a licorice pipe, or two, before heading back to Montreal. Olivier and Gabri were having a heated discussion about where to put the magnificent Welsh dresser Olivier had chosen. Olivier had tried not to choose it. Had spoken with himself quite sternly about not being greedy and taking the best thing in Jane’s home.
Just this once, he begged himself, take something symbolic. Something small to remember her by. A nice bit of famille rose, or a little silver tray. Not the Welsh dresser. Not the Welsh dresser.
‘Why can’t we ever put the nice things in the B. & B.?’ Gabri was complaining, as he and Olivier walked around the Bistro, looking for a place for the Welsh dresser. Spotting Gamache, they went over to him. Gabri had a question.
‘Did you ever suspect us?’
Gamache looked at the two men, one huge and buoyant, the other slim and self-contained. ‘No. I think you’ve both been hurt too much in your lives by the cruelty of others to ever be cruel yourselves. In my experience people who have been hurt either pass it on and become abusive themselves or they develop a great kindness. You’re not the types to do murder. I wish I could say the same for everyone here.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Olivier.
‘Who do you mean?’ asked Gabri.
‘Now, you don’t expect me to tell you, do you? Besides, this person may never act.’ To Gabri’s observant eye Gamache looked unconvinced, even slightly fearful.
Just then Myrna arrived for a hot chocolate.
‘I have a question for you.’ Myrna turned to Gamache, after she’d ordered. ‘What’s with Philippe? Why’d he turn on his father like that?’
Gamache wondered how much to say. Isabelle Lacoste had sent the item she’d found taped behind a framed poster in Bernard’s room to the lab and the results had come back. Philippe’s fingerprints were all over it. Gamache hadn’t been surprised. Bernard Malenfant had been blackmailing the young man.
But Gamache knew Philippe’s behavior had changed before that. He’d gone from being a happy, kind boy to a cruel, sullen, deeply unhappy adolescent. Gamache had guessed the reason but the magazine had confirmed it. Philippe didn’t hate his father. No. Philippe hated himself, and took it out on his father.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Gamache. ‘I can’t tell you.’
As Gamache put on his coat Olivier and Gabri came over.
‘We think we know why Philippe’s been acting this way,’ said Gabri. ‘We wrote it on this piece of paper. If we’re right, could you just nod?’
Gamache opened the note and read. Then he folded it back up and put it in his pocket. As he went out the door he looked back at the two men, standing shoulder to shoulder, just touching. Against his better judgment, he nodded. He never regretted it.
They watched Armand Gamache limp to his car and drive away. Gabri felt a deep sadness. He’d known about Philippe for a while. The manure incident, perversely, had confirmed it. That’s why they’d decided to invite Philippe to work off his debt at the Bistro. Where they could watch him, but more importantly, where he could watch them. And see it was all right.
‘Well,’ Olivier’s hand brushed against Gabri’s, ‘at least you’ll have another munchkin if you ever decide to stage The Wizard of Oz.’
‘Just what this village needs, another friend of Dorothy.’
‘This is for you.’ From behind her back Clara brought a large photograph, stylised, layered by video and taken as a still o
ff her Mac. She beamed as Peter stared at it. But slowly the smile flattened. He didn’t get it. This wasn’t unusual, he rarely understood her work. But she’d hoped this would be different. Her gift to him was both the photograph and trusting him enough to show it to him. Her art was so painfully personal it was the most exposed she could ever be. After not telling Peter about the deer blind and the trail and holding back other things she now wanted to show him that she’d been wrong. She loved and trusted him.
He stared at the weird photo. It showed a box on stilts, like a treehouse. Inside was a rock or an egg, Peter didn’t know which. So like Clara to be unclear. And the whole thing was spinning. It made him feel a little nauseous.
‘It’s the blind house,’ she said, as though that explained it. Peter didn’t know what to say. Recently, for the last week, there hadn’t been a lot to say to anyone.
Clara wondered whether she should explain about the stone and its symbolism with death. But the object might be an egg. Symbolic of life. Which was it? That was the glorious tension in the luminous work. Up until that morning the treehouse had been static, but all that talk of people being stuck had given Clara the idea of spinning the house, like a little planet, with its own gravity, its own reality. Like most homes, it contained life and death, inseparable. And the final allusion. Home as an allegory for self. A self-portrait of our choices. And our blind spots.
Peter didn’t get it. Didn’t try. He left Clara standing there with a work of art that, unbeknownst to either of them, would one day make her famous.
She watched him wander almost aimlessly into his studio and shut the door. One day she knew he’d leave his safe and sterile island and come back to this messy mainland. When he did she’d be waiting, her arms open, as always.
Now Clara sat in the living room and took a piece of paper from her pocket. It was addressed to the minister of St Thomas’s church. She crossed out the first bit of writing. Below it she carefully printed something, then she put on her coat and walked up the hill to the white clapboard church, handed the paper to the minister and returned to the fresh air.
The Revd James Morris unfolded the slip of paper and read. It was instructions for the engraving on Jane Neal’s headstone. On the top of the page was written, ‘Matthew 10:36.’ But that had been crossed out and something else had been printed underneath. He took out his Bible and looked up Matthew 10:36.
‘And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.’ Below it was the new instruction. ‘Surprised by Joy.’
At the top of the hill Armand Gamache stopped the car and got out. He looked down at the village and his heart soared. He looked over the rooftops and imagined the good, kind, flawed people inside struggling with their lives. People were walking their dogs, raking the relentless autumn leaves, racing the gently falling snow. They were shopping at M. Beliveau’s general store and buying baguettes from Sarah’s boulangerie. Olivier stood at the Bistro doorway and shook out a tablecloth. Life was far from harried here. But neither was it still.
Keep reading for an excerpt from
Louise Penny’s new Three Pines mystery
A FATAL GRACE
Coming soon in hardcover from St. Martin’s Minotaur
ONE
Had CC de Poitiers known she was going to be murdered, she might have bought her husband, Richard, a Christmas gift. She might even have gone to her daughter’s end of term pageant at Miss Edward’s School for Girls, or ‘girths’ as CC liked to tease her expansive daughter. Had CC de Poitiers known the end was near, she might have been at work instead of in the cheapest room the Ritz in Montreal had to offer. But the only end she knew was near belonged to a man named Saul.
‘So, what do you think? Do you like it?’ She balanced her book on her pallid stomach.
Saul looked at it, not for the first time. She’d dragged it out of her huge purse every five minutes for the past few days. In business meetings, dinners, taxi rides through the snowy streets of Montreal, CC’d suddenly bend down and emerge triumphant, holding her creation as though another virgin birth.
‘I like the picture,’ he said, knowing the insult. He’d taken the picture. He knew she was asking, pleading, for more and he knew he no longer cared to give it. And he wondered how much longer he could be around CC de Poitiers before he became her. Not physically, of course. At forty-eight she was a few years younger than him. She was slim and ropy and toned, her teeth impossibly white and her hair impossibly blonde. Touching her was like caressing a veneer of ice. There was a beauty to it, and a frailty he found attractive. But there was also danger. If she ever broke, if she shattered, she’d tear him to pieces.
But her exterior wasn’t the issue. Watching her caress her book with more tenderness than she’d ever shown when caressing him, he wondered whether her ice water insides had somehow seeped into him, perhaps during sex, and were slowly freezing him. Already he couldn’t feel his core.
At fifty-two Saul Petrov was just beginning to notice his friends weren’t quite as brilliant, not quite as clever, not quite as slim as they once were. In fact, most had begun to bore him. And he’d noticed a telltale yawn or two from them as well. They were growing thick and bald and dull, and he suspected he was too. It wasn’t so bad that women rarely looked at him any more or that he’d begun to consider trading his downhill skis for cross country, or that his GP had scheduled his first prostate test. He could accept all that. What woke Saul Petrov at two in the morning, and whispered in his ears in the voice that had warned him as a child that lions lived under his bed, was the certainty that people now found him boring. He’d take deep dark breaths of the night air, trying to reassure himself that the stifled yawn of his dinner companion was because of the wine or the magret de canard or the warmth in the Montreal restaurant, wrapped as they were in their sensible winter sweaters.
But still the night voice growled and warned of dangers ahead. Of impending disaster. Of telling tales too long, of an attention span too short, of seeing the whites of too many eyes. Of glances, fast and discreet, at watches. When can they reasonably leave him? Of eyes scanning the room, desperate for more stimulating company.
And so he’d allowed himself to be seduced by CC. Seduced and devoured so that the lion under the bed had become the lion in the bed. He’d begun to suspect this self-absorbed woman had finally finished absorbing herself, her husband and even that disaster of a daughter and was now busy absorbing him.
He’d already become cruel in her company. And he’d begun despising himself. But not quite as much as he despised her.
‘It’s a brilliant book,’ she said, ignoring him. ‘I mean, really. Who wouldn’t want this?’ She waved it in his face. ‘People’ ll eat it up. There’re so many troubled people out there.’ She turned now and actually looked out their hotel room window at the building opposite, as though surveying her ‘people’. ‘I did this for them.’ Now she turned back to him, her eyes wide and sincere.
Does she believe it? he wondered.
He’d read the book, of course. Be Calm she’d called it, after the company she’d founded a few years ago, which was a laugh, given the bundle of nerves she actually was. The anxious, nervous hands, constantly smoothing and straightening. The snippy responses, the impatience that spilled over into anger.
Calm was not a word anyone would apply to CC de Poitiers, despite her placid, frozen exterior.
She’d shopped the book around to all the publishers, beginning with the top publishing houses in New York and ending with Publications Réjean et Maison des cartes in St Polycarpe, a one-vache village along the highway between Montreal and Toronto.
They’d all said no, immediately recognizing the manuscript as a flaccid mishmash of ridiculous self-help philosophies, wrapped in half-baked Buddhist and Hindu teachings, spewed forth by a woman whose cover photo looked as though she’d eat her young.
‘No goddamned enlightenment,’ she’d said to Saul in her Montreal office the day a batch of rejection letters arrived, ripping them
into pieces and dropping them on the floor for the hired help to clean up. ‘This world is messed up, I tell you. People are cruel and insensitive, they’re out to screw each other. There’s no love or compassion. This,’ she sliced her book violently in the air like an ancient mythical hammer heading for an unforgiving anvil, ‘will teach people how to find happiness.’
Her voice was low, the words staggering under the weight of venom. She’d gone on to self-publish her book, making sure it was out in time for Christmas. And while the book talked a lot about light, Saul found it interesting and ironic that it had actually been released on the winter solstice. The darkest day of the year.
‘Who published it again?’ He couldn’t seem to help himself. She was silent. ‘Oh, I remember now,’ he said. ‘No one wanted it. That must have been horrible.’ He paused for a moment, wondering whether to twist the knife. Oh, what the hell. Might as well. ‘How’d that make you feel?’ Did he imagine the wince?
But her silence remained, eloquent, her face impassive. Anything CC didn’t like didn’t exist. That included her husband and her daughter. It included any unpleasantness, any criticism, any harsh words not her own, any emotions. CC lived, Saul knew, in her own world, where she was perfect, where she could hide her feelings and hide her failings.
He wondered how long before that world would explode. He hoped he’d be around to see it. But not too close.
People are cruel and insensitive, she’d said. Cruel and insensitive. It wasn’t all that long ago, before he’d taken the contract to freelance as CC’s photographer and lover, that he’d actually thought the world a beautiful place. Each morning he’d wake early and go into the young day, when the world was new and anything was possible, and he’d see how lovely Montreal was. He’d see people smiling at each other as they got their cappuccinos at the café, or their fresh flowers or their baguettes. He’d see the children in autumn gathering the fallen chestnuts to play conkers. He’d see the elderly women walking arm in arm down the Main.