Still Life (21 page)

‘You’ve got to listen. The words don’t just fall into some sterile bin to be regurgitated later. When Mrs Croft said there was nothing in the basement, did you notice how she spoke, the inflection, what went before, the body language, the hands and eyes? Do you remember previous investigations when suspects said the same thing?’

‘This is my first investigation,’ said Nichol, with triumph.

‘And why do you think I told you to just listen and take notes? Because you have no experience. Can you guess what the last sentence is?’

Nichol was now literally wrapped up in herself.

‘I was wrong.’ Gamache suspected he was talking to himself, though he had to try. All these things he was passing on to Nichol he’d heard as a 25-year-old rookie in homicide. Inspector Comeau had sat him down and told him all these things in one session, then never spoken of it again. It was a huge mountain of a gift, and one that Gamache continued to unwrap each day. He also understood, even as Comeau was speaking, that this was a gift designed to be given away. And so when he’d become an Inspector he’d started passing it on to the next generation. Gamache knew he was only responsible for trying. What they did with it was their business. There was one more thing he had to pass on.

‘I asked you this morning to think about the ways you learn. What did you come up with?’

‘I don’t know.’

Lines from Ruth Zardo’s famous poem came back to him:

‘
I’ll just go further away, where you will never find me, or hurt me, or make me speak.’

‘What?’ said Nichol. This was so unfair. Here she was doing her best. Following him around, even willing to stay in the country for the sake of the investigation. And she’d solved the damn thing. And did she get any credit? No. Maybe Gamache was losing it and her solving the case had made him see how pathetic he’d become. That’s it, she thought, as her weary, wary eye spotted the island. He’s jealous. It’s not my fault. She grabbed hold of the shifting sand and scrambled out of the frigid sea just in the nick of time. She’d felt the hands brushing against her ankles, hoping to pull her under. But she made it on to her island, safe and perfect.

‘We learn from our mistakes, Agent Nichol.’

Whatever.

EIGHT

‘Oh great,’ said Ruth, looking out of Peter and Clara’s mudroom door. ‘The village people.’

‘Bonjour, mes amours,’
cried Gabri, waltzing into the home, ‘and Ruth.’

‘We have bought out the health food store.’ Olivier struggled into the kitchen and deposited two shepherd’s pies and a couple of paper bags on the counter.

‘I was wrong,’ said Ruth, ‘it’s just a couple of old bags.’

‘Bitch,’ said Gabri.

‘Slut,’ snarled Ruth. ‘What’s in them?’

‘For you, my little Brillo pad …’ Gabri grabbed the bags and, like a maniacal magician, turned them upside down with a flourish. Out spilled bags of potato chips, cans of salted cashew nuts, handmade chocolates from Maison du Chocolat Marielle, in St Rémy. There were licorice Allsorts, St Andre’s cheese, jelly beans and Joe Louis cakes. Lune Moons tumbled to the ground, and bounced.

‘Gold!’ cried Clara, kneeling down and scooping up the ridiculous, fabulous yellow cream-filled cakes. ‘Mine, all mine.’

‘I thought you were a chocoholic,’ said Myrna, grabbing up the perfect, delectable cream-filled sweets lovingly made by Madame Marielle.

‘Any port in a storm.’ Clara ripped open the cellophane around the Lune Moons and gobbled one down, miraculously getting at least half of it in her mouth. The rest nestled on her face and in her hair. ‘Haven’t had one of these in years. Decades.’

‘And yet they’re so becoming,’ said Gabri, surveying Clara who looked as though the POM bakery had exploded in her face.

‘I brought my own paper bags,’ said Ruth, pointing to the counter. Peter was there, his back turned to his guests and rigid, even for him. His mother would have finally been proud, of both his physical and emotional posture.

‘Who wants what?’ He spoke the clipped words to the shelving. Unseen behind him his guests exchanged glances. Gabri brushed the cake from Clara’s hair and cocked his head in Peter’s direction. Clara shrugged and immediately knew her betrayal of Peter. In one easy movement she’d distanced herself from his bad behavior, even though she herself was responsible for it. Just before everyone had arrived she’d told Peter about her adventure with Gamache. Animated and excited she’d gabbled on about her box and the woods and the exhilarating climb up the ladder to the blind. But her wall of words hid from her a growing quietude. She failed to notice his silence, his distance, until it was too late and he’d retreated all the way to his icy island. She hated that place. From it he stood and stared, judged and lobbed shards of sarcasm.

‘You and your hero solve Jane’s death?’

‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ she half lied. She actually hadn’t thought at all, and if she had, she probably could have predicted his reaction. But since he was comfortably on his Inuk island, she’d retreat to hers, equipped with
righteous indignation and warmed by moral certitude. She threw great logs of ‘I’m right, you’re an unfeeling bastard’ on to the fire and felt secure and comforted.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked. ‘Why didn’t you ask me along?’

And there it was. The simple question. Peter always did have the ability to cut through the crap. Unfortunately, today, it was her crap. He’d asked the one question she was even afraid to ask herself. Why hadn’t she? Suddenly her refuge, her island, whose terrain was unremitting higher ground, was sinking.

On that note the guests had arrived. And now Ruth had made the astonishing announcement that she too had brought something to share. Jane’s death must have shaken her to the marrow, thought Clara. On the counter stood her grief. Tanqueray gin, Martini & Rossi vermouth and Glenfiddich Scotch. It was a fortune in booze, and Ruth did not run to fortunes. Great poetry doesn’t pay the bills. In fact, Clara couldn’t remember the last time Ruth had bought her own drink. And today the elderly woman had gone all the way to the Societé des Alcools in Williamsburg and bought these bottles, then lugged them across the green to their home.

‘Stop,’ snapped Ruth, waving her cane at Peter who was about to unscrew the Tanqueray cap. ‘That’s mine. Don’t touch it. Don’t you have booze to offer your guests?’ she demanded, elbowing Peter aside and shoving the bottles back into their paper sleeves. Cradling them she hobbled to the mudroom and laid them on the floor below her cloth coat as a mother might lay a particularly precious child.

‘Pour me a Scotch,’ she called from there.

Strangely, Clara felt more comfortable with this Ruth than the momentarily generous one. It was the devil she knew.

‘You said there were books you wanted to sell?’ said Myrna, drifting into the living room, a red wine in one hand and a bunch of Allsorts in the other.

Clara followed, grateful to be away from Peter’s eloquent back. ‘The murder mysteries. I want to buy some more but I need to get rid of the old ones first.’ The two women inched along the floor-to-ceiling bookcases across from the fireplace, Myrna every now and then selecting one. Clara had very specific tastes. Most of them were British and all were of the village cozy variety. Myrna could spend happy hours browsing bookcases. She felt if she could just get a good look at a person’s bookcase and their grocery cart, she’d pretty much know who they were.

This was not the first time she’d stood in front of these books. Every few months the frugal couple would sell some off and replace them with others, also used and also from Myrna’s shop. The titles drifted by. Spy novels, gardening, biography, literature, but mostly mysteries. The books were a jumble. Some order had been attempted at one stage, the art restoration books were alphabetical, though one had been replaced incorrectly. Without thinking, Myrna put it in its proper alphabetical home. Myrna could guess who had taken a stab at order but the rest had succumbed to everyday literary glee.

‘There.’ Myrna looked at her pile when they reached the end of the bookcase. From the kitchen came the promise of comfort food. Clara’s mind followed her nose, and she again saw Peter, frozen in his anger. Why hadn’t she told him about the blind and the trail right away?

‘I’ll give you a dollar each for them,’ said Myrna.

‘How about trading them for others?’ It was a familiar and practiced dance. The two women engaged each other and emerged, both satisfied. Ruth had joined them and was reading the back of a Michael Innes.

‘I’d make a good detective.’ Into the stunned silence Ruth explained: ‘Unlike you, Clara, I see people the way they really are. I see the darkness, the anger, the pettiness.’

‘You create it, Ruth,’ Clara clarified.

‘It’s true,’ Ruth roared with laughter and unexpectedly hugged Clara in a grip that was disconcertingly strong. ‘I’m obnoxious and disliked –’

‘I hadn’t heard,’ said Myrna.

‘It can’t be denied. Those are my best qualities. The rest is window dressing. Actually, the real mystery is why more people don’t commit murder. It must be terrible to be human. I heard in the Societé des Alcools that that great oaf Gamache had actually searched the Croft place. Ridiculous.’

They drifted back into the kitchen where dinner was on the table in steaming casseroles, ready for each to help themselves. Ben poured Clara a glass of red wine and sat down next to her. ‘What have you been talking about?’

‘I’m not really sure.’ Clara smiled into Ben’s kind face. ‘Ruth said Gamache had searched the Croft place. Is that true?’

‘He didn’t tell you this afternoon?’ Down the table, Peter snorted.

‘Oh yeah, big to-do,’ said Olivier, trying to ignore Peter slapping food on to his plate from the serving spoons. ‘Turned the place upside down and apparently found something.’

‘But they won’t arrest Matthew, surely?’ said Clara, her fork stopped halfway to her mouth.

‘Could Matthew have killed Jane?’ Ben asked, offering more chili con carne around. He meant the question for the whole group, but he naturally and instinctively turned to Peter.

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Olivier when Peter failed to reply.

‘Why not?’ Ben turned again to Peter. ‘Accidents happen.’

‘That’s true,’ Peter conceded. ‘Though I think he’d own up to it.’

‘But, this was no ordinary mistake. I think it’d be only natural to run away.’

‘Do you?’ Myrna asked.

‘I think so,’ said Ben. ‘I mean, I’m not sure how I’d react if I threw a rock, say, and it hit someone in the head and killed them, and no one saw. Can I say for sure I would admit to it? Don’t get me wrong, I really hope I’d call for help and take what’s coming. But can I stand here today and say for sure? No. Not till it happens.’

‘I think you would,’ said Peter, quietly. Ben could feel his throat constrict. Compliments always made him want to cry and left him deeply embarrassed.

‘It goes back to what we were talking about Friday night. That quote of yours, Clara,’ said Myrna. ‘Conscience and cowardice are the same thing.’

‘Oscar Wilde, actually. He was more cynical than me. I think that’s true for some people, but fortunately not the majority. I think most people have a pretty good moral compass.’ To her left she heard Ruth snort. ‘Sometimes it just takes time to get your bearings, especially after a shock. When I try to see it from Gamache’s point of view, it makes sense. Matthew’s a skilled bow hunter. He knew there were deer in that area. He had the ability and the knowledge.’

‘But why not admit to it?’ Myrna wanted to know. ‘Sure, I agree with you totally, Ben. At first it would be understandable for Matthew to run, but after a while wouldn’t he admit to it? I couldn’t live carrying that secret.’

‘You just have to get better at keeping secrets,’ said Gabri.

‘I think it must have been a stranger,’ said Ben. ‘God knows, the woods are full of them right now. All those hunters from Toronto and Boston and Montreal, firing away like maniacs.’

‘But,’ Clara turned to him, ‘how would a hunter from Toronto know where to stand?’

‘What do you mean? They go into the woods and stand. There’s not much to it, that’s why so many morons hunt.’