The Murder Stone (43 page)

‘We’re all blessed and we’re all blighted, Chief Inspector,’ said Finney. ‘Every day each of us does our sums. The question is, what do we count?’

The old man brought his hand to his head and removed his hat, offering it to Gamache.

‘No, please, keep it,’ said Gamache.

‘I’m an old man. I won’t need it again, but you will. For protection.’

Finney handed him back his hat, the hat he’d bought at the same time he’d bought one for Reine-Marie, after her skin cancer scare. So that she wouldn’t feel foolish in her huge, protective hat. They’d be foolish together. And safe together.

Gamache accepted the hat.

‘You know the Mariana Islands, sir? They’re where the American troops left to liberate Burma. The Marianas.’

Finney stopped then looked over to the four chairs, one of which contained a young woman and her child, both very unlike the other Morrows.

‘Now, I’d like to tell you a story,’ said Reine-Marie when Bean had finished excitedly telling the adults about Pegasus. ‘It’s about Pandora.’

Beside her Peter made to get up. ‘I don’t think I need to hear this again.’

‘Come on, Peter, stay,’ said Clara, taking his hand. He hesitated then sat back down, squirming in his seat, unable to get comfortable. His heart raced as he listened to the familiar tale. Once again he was on the sofa at home, struggling to find and hold his space next to his brother and sisters, not to be tossed off. And across the room their mother sat, upright, reading, while Father played the piano.

‘This is for Peter,’ she’d say, and the others would snicker. And she’d tell them about Pandora who lived in Paradise, a world without pain or sorrow, without violence or disease. Then one day Zeus, the greatest of the gods, gave Pandora a gift. A magnificent box. The only catch was that it should never be opened. Every day Pandora was drawn to the box and every day she managed to walk away, remembering the warning. It must never be opened. But one day it was too much for her, and she opened the box. Just a crack. But it was enough. Too much.

Out flew all the winged horrors. Hate, slander, bitterness, envy, greed, all shrieked and escaped into the world. Disease, pain, violence.

Pandora slammed the box shut, but it was too late.

Peter wriggled in his chair, feeling the panic crawling like ants over him. Just as he’d wriggled on the sofa, his brother and sisters pinching him to keep still. But he couldn’t.

And he couldn’t now. His eyes fell on the glowing white thing in the perpetual shade of the black walnut, the tree that kills. And Peter knew that despite what Gamache might believe, that box had opened on its own. And horrors had been unleashed. It had tilted and dropped his father on Julia. Crushing. Killing.

He heard Reine-Marie’s voice again.

‘But not everything escaped. Something lay curled at the very bottom of the box.’

Bean’s eyes were wide. Peter stopped twitching and stared.

Something was left in the box? This was new. His mother hadn’t mentioned this.

‘At the very bottom, underneath everything else, one thing sat and stayed. Didn’t flee.’

‘What was it?’ asked Bean.

‘Hope.’

‘Here, let me help.’ Peter reached for his mother’s suitcase.

‘Bert can do it, or one of the porters.’

‘I know they can, but I’d like to.’

‘Suit yourself.’

He carried her case out of the door. Thomas and Sandra were leaving, without saying goodbye. Thomas did honk his horn. To say goodbye or warn Peter out of the way?

‘Bert’s bringing the car,’ said Mrs Finney, staring ahead.

‘Will you be all right?’

‘Of course I will.’

‘I’m so sorry about the graffiti, Mother. I never should have done it.’

‘That’s true. It was a terrible thing you did.’

Peter waited for the ‘but’.

Irene Finney waited for the car. What was taking Bert so long? He’d pleaded with her in their room as they packed to tell the children everything. To explain why she never held them, never hugged them. Never gave or accepted kisses. Especially that. To explain the pain of neuralgia, that any touch, even the lightest, was excruciating.

She knew what they thought. That she was cold. Couldn’t feel. But in fact she felt too much. Too deeply.

But she was raised never to admit a flaw, a failing, a feeling.

She looked over at Peter. Holding her valise. She opened her mouth, but the car appeared just then. She stepped back from the void.

‘Here he is.’

Without a backward glance she got in the car and left.

You can’t get milk from a hardware store.

Mariana had told Peter about the note Father had left her. Maybe, thought Peter, if we put all our notes together, the code would be complete. But then he smiled and shook his head. Old habits. There was no code, and he had his answer.

His father had loved him.

As he watched his mother disappear into the woods he wondered if he could ever bring himself to believe that she loved him too. Perhaps one day, but not today.

He walked back to Clara, knowing not everything had left. One thing remained.

Reine-Marie found her husband on the dock, his floppy hat restored, his slacks rolled up and his feet dangling in the clear cool waters.

‘I almost lost you today, didn’t I?’ She sat beside him, catching the aroma of rosewater and sandalwood.

‘Never. Like the Manoir, I’m built to last.’

She smiled and patted his hand, and tried not to think about it.

‘I finally got through to Daniel in Paris,’ said Gamache. ‘I apologized.’

And he’d meant it.

‘I told him if he wanted to name his son Honore he had my blessing. He was right. Honore is a good name. Besides, his child will make his own way. Like Bean. I’d thought it cruel naming the child Bean, that it helped explain the child’s unhappiness. But Bean isn’t unhappy at all.’

‘It could have been worse,’ said Reine-Marie. ‘Mariana could have married David Martin.’

‘How would that make it worse?’

‘Bean Martin?’

Gamache laughed, low and rumbling. ‘It’s an amazing thing to know your child has more courage than you.’

‘He’s his father’s son.’

They looked across the lake, lost in their own thoughts.

‘What are you thinking?’ she asked quietly after a few moments.

‘I’m counting my blessings,’ he whispered, looking at her in her floppy hat. ‘Daniel told me something else. They found out today the sex of their child and they’ve decided on a name.’

‘Honore?’

‘Zora.’

‘Zora,’ said Reine-Marie. She reached for his wounded hand and together they did their sums. It took some time.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have a few people to thank for this book. The first and foremost, as always, is my kind and gentle husband Michael. It took me a lot longer than it should have to realize that Armand Gamache isn’t simply my fictional husband, he’s my real husband. Indeed, without even realizing it I based Chief Inspector Gamache on Michael. A man who is content and knows great joy, because he’s known great sorrow. And mostly, he knows the difference.

I’d also like to thank Rachel Hewitt who curates the sculpture collection at the Royal Academy in London.

Hope Dellon, of St Martin’s Minotaur and Sherise Hobbs of Headline are my editors and worked to make this book what it is. I owe them both a huge debt, as I do the most wonderful agent in the world, Teresa Chris. She is very wise.

I owe a great debt to Lise Page, my assistant, who patiently tends gardens in the summer and tends to us the rest of the year. Everything she touches flourishes. And she rarely finds the need to use fertilizer.

And finally Jason, Stephen and Kathy Stafford who own and run Manoir Hovey in the village of North Hatley, Quebec. The Manoir Bellechasse is inspired by Hovey Manor, and by the many, many wonderful days and nights we’ve spent there. If you read this book and then visit Hovey you’ll notice that it is far from an exact replica – of the Inn or the lake. But I hope I have, at least, captured the feel of Manoir Hovey. In fact, Michael and I love it so much we got married in the tiny Anglican Chapel in North Hatley many years ago, then had a two-day wedding party at Hovey.

Bliss.

Though, as Stephen has pointed out, they happily do not have nearly the number of blackflies as the fictional Manoir Bellechasse. Nor, it must be said, nearly the number of murders.