After Marcel left, Armand walked over to Ruth, who was holding Rosa and looking at the punch bowl.
“I don’t dare have any,” she said. “It might not be spiked.”
“Noli timere,” said Gamache, and when she smiled, he said, “You knew?”
“About Professor Massey? No. If I had, I’d have said something.”
“But you were afraid of him,” said Gamache. “You saw something in him that scared you. That’s why you were so nice to him. Jean-Guy caught on. We all assumed you were nice because you liked him, but Jean-Guy said you probably hated him.”
“I didn’t hate him,” said Ruth. “And how can you trust the opinion of someone who’s sober?”
“But Jean-Guy was right, wasn’t he? You might not have hated him, but there was fear there. Otherwise why say, noli timere? Be not afraid.”
“That blank canvas on his easel was one of the saddest things I’ve seen,” said Ruth. “An artist who’s lost his way. It builds up. Eats away at you. Beauvoir over there”—she gestured with the duck across the room, where Jean-Guy and Annie were talking with Myrna—“he’s a numbskull. And you?” She gave Gamache a sharp assessing look. “You’re a fool. Those two?” She turned to Olivier and Gabri, putting food onto the long table. “Are just plain ridiculous.”
She turned back to Gamache.
“But you’re all something. Professor Massey was nothing. Empty. Like the canvas. I found that terrifying.” She paused, remembering. “What happened to that painting? The only one of Professor Norman’s that survived?”
“The one at the back of Massey’s studio? The good one?”
“The great one,” said Ruth. “It was poetry.”
“The asbestos would never come out. It was destroyed.”
Ruth lowered her head, then raised it again. Her chin high, her eyes hard. She gave a curt nod and limped away, to stand beside Clara.
Noli timere, thought Gamache as he watched the two women. And Rosa.
* * *
The next morning Armand sat on the bench overlooking the village. Olivier and Gabri waved to him from the bistro. And he waved back.
He saw the pines sway in the slight breeze and smelled the musky forest and the roses and the lilies and the strong coffee in the mug beside him.
He tilted his head back and felt the warm sun on his face.
Beside him Henri slept, the ball in his mouth and his tongue lolling.
Snoring slightly.
And in Armand’s hands was the book, closed on his lap.
Clara joined him on the bench. They sat in silence, side by side. Then Clara leaned back, her body touching the words someone had freshly carved into the wood. Above Surprised by Joy.
A Brave Man in a Brave Country
She looked out, across to the mountains and the world beyond. And then her eyes returned, as they always would, to the calm little village in the valley.
Beside her on the bench Armand opened The Balm in Gilead to the bookmark, took a deep breath, and started forward.
Clara held the letter in her hand. From Peter. That had finally found its way to Three Pines.
And she opened it.
ALSO BY LOUISE PENNY
How the Light Gets In
The Beautiful Mystery
A Trick of the Light
Bury Your Dead
The Brutal Telling
A Rule Against Murder
The Cruelest Month
A Fatal Grace
Still Life
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LOUISE PENNY is the #1 New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling author of nine previous Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels. She has won numerous awards, including a CWA Dagger and the Agatha Award (five times), and was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel. She lives in a small village south of Montréal. Visit her on Facebook or at www.LouisePenny.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE LONG WAY HOME. Copyright © 2014 by Three Pines Creations, Inc. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Excerpts from “Cressida To Trolius: A Gift” and “Sekhmet, the Lion-Headed Goddess of War” from Morning in the Burned House: New Poems by Margaret Atwood. Copyright © 1995. Published by McClelland & Stewart in Canada, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company in the United States. Used with permission of the author and her publishers (in their respective territories) and the author’s agent, Curtis Brown Group Ltd., London, acting on behalf of Margaret Atwood. All rights reserved.
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover printing of Evening on the North Shore by Clarence Gagnon
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[email protected] The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-02206-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-02207-3 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781250022073
First Edition: September 2014
Louise Penny, The Long Way Home
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