The Murder Stone (3 page)

‘Monsieur Gamache.’ Pierre Patenaude came forward smiling and wiping his hands on a cloth. He was a few years younger than Gamache and slimmer. All that running from table to table, thought Gamache. But the maitre d’ never seemed to run. He gave everyone his time, as though they were the only ones in the auberge, without seeming to ignore or miss any of the other guests. It was a particular gift of the very best maitre d’s, and the Manoir Bellechasse was famous for having only the best.

‘What can I do for you?’

Gamache, slightly bashfully, extended his glass. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I need some sugar.’

‘Oh, dear. I was afraid of that. Seems we’ve run out. I’ve sent one of the garcons to the village to pick up some more. Desole. But if you wait here, I think I know where the chef hides her emergency supply. Really, this is most unusual.’

What was most unusual, thought Gamache, was seeing the unflappable maitre d’ flapped.

‘I don’t want to put you out,’ Gamache called to Patenaude’s disappearing back.

A moment later the maitre d’ returned, a small bone china vessel in his hands.

‘Voila! Success. Of course I had to wrestle Chef Veronique for it.’

‘I heard the screams. Merci.’

‘Pour vous, monsieur, c’est un plaisir.‘ Patenaude picked up his rag and a silver rose bowl and continued his polishing while Gamache stirred the precious sugar into his lemonade. Both men stared in companionable silence out of the bank of windows to the garden and the gleaming lake beyond. A canoe drifted lazily by in the still afternoon.

‘I checked my instruments a few minutes ago,’ said the maitre d’. ‘A storm’s on the way.’

‘Vraiment?‘

The day was clear and calm, but like every other guest at the gracious old lodge he’d come to believe the maitre d’s daily weather reports, gleaned from his home-made weather stations dotted around the property. It was a hobby, the maitre d’ had once explained, passed from father to son.

‘Some fathers teach their sons to hunt or fish. Mine would bring me into the woods and teach me about the weather,’ he’d explained one day while showing Gamache and Reine-Marie the barometric device and the old glass bell jar, with water up the spout. ‘Now I’m teaching them.’ Pierre Patenaude had waved in the direction of the young staff. Gamache hoped they were paying attention.

There was no television at the Bellechasse and even the radio was patchy, so Environment Canada forecasts weren’t available. Just Patenaude and his near mythical ability to foretell the weather. Each morning when they arrived for breakfast the forecast would be tacked outside the dining-room door. For a nation addicted to the weather, he gave them their fix.

Now Patenaude looked out into the calm day. Not a leaf stirred.

‘Oui. Heat wave coming, then storm. Looks like a big one.’

‘Merci.‘ Gamache raised his lemonade to the maitre d’ and returned outside.

He loved summer storms, especially at the Bellechasse. Unlike Montreal, where storms seemed to suddenly break overhead, here he could see them coming. Dark clouds would collect above the mountains at the far end of the lake, then a grey curtain of rain would fall in the distance. It would seem to gather itself, take a breath, and then march like a line of infantry clearly marked on the water. The wind would pick up, catching and furiously shaking the tall trees. Then it would strike. Boom. And as it howled and blew and threw itself at them, he’d be tucked up in the Manoir with Reine-Marie, safe.

As he stepped outside the heat bumped him, not so much a wall as a whack.

‘Find some sugar?’ asked Reine-Marie, stretching out her hand to touch his face as he leaned down to kiss her before settling back into his chair.

‘Absolument.‘

She went back to reading and Gamache reached for Le Devoir, but his large hand hesitated, hovering over the newspaper headlines. Another Sovereignty Referendum Possible. A Biker Gang War. A Catastrophic Earthquake.

His hand moved to his lemonade instead. All year his mouth watered for the home-made Manoir Bellechasse lemonade. It tasted fresh and clean, sweet and tart. It tasted of sunshine and summer.

Gamache felt his shoulders sag. His guard was coming down. It felt good. He took off his floppy sun hat and wiped his brow. The humidity was rising.

Sitting in the peaceful afternoon Gamache found it hard to believe a storm was on its way. But he felt a trickle down his spine, a lone, tickling stream of perspiration. The pressure was building, he could feel it, and the parting words of the maitre d’ came back to him.

‘Tomorrow’s going to be a killer.’

TWO

After a refreshing swim and gin and tonics on the dock the Gamaches showered then joined the other guests in the dining room for dinner. Candles glowed inside hurricane lamps and each table was adorned with simple bouquets of old English roses. More exuberant arrangements stood on the mantelpiece, great exclamations of peony and lilac, of baby blue delphinium and bleeding hearts, arching and aching.

The Finneys were seated together, the men in dinner jackets, the women in cool summer dresses for the warm evening. Bean wore white shorts and a crisp green shirt.

The guests watched the sun set behind the rolling hills of Lake Massawippi and enjoyed course after course, beginning with the chef’s amuse-bouche of local caribou. Reine-Marie had the escargots a l’ail, followed by seared duck breast with confit of wild ginger, mandarin and kumquat. Gamache started with fresh roquette from the garden and shaved parmesan then ordered the organic salmon with sorrel yogurt.

‘And for dessert?’ Pierre lifted a bottle from its bucket and poured the last of the wine into their glasses.

‘What do you recommend?’ Reine-Marie barely believed she was asking.

‘For Madame, we have fresh mint ice cream on an eclair filled with creamy dark organic chocolate, and for Monsieur a pudding du chomeur a l’erable avec creme chantilly.’

‘Oh, dear God,’ whispered Reine-Marie, turning to her husband. ‘What was it Oscar Wilde said?’

‘I can resist everything except temptation.’

They ordered dessert.

Finally, when they could eat no more, the cheese cart arrived burdened with a selection of local cheeses made by the monks in the nearby Benedictine abbey of Saint-Benoit-du-Lac. The brothers led a contemplative life, raising animals, making cheese and singing Gregorian chants of such beauty that they had, ironically for men who’d deliberately retreated from the world, become world-famous.

Enjoying the fromage bleu Armand Gamache looked across the lake in the slowly fading glow, as though a day of such beauty was reluctant to end. A single light could be seen. A cottage. Instead of being invasive, breaking the unspoiled wilderness, it was welcoming. Gamache imagined a family sitting on the dock watching for shooting stars, or in their rustic living room, playing gin rummy, or Scrabble, or cribbage, by propane lamps. Of course they’d have electricity, but it was his fantasy, and in it people in the deep woods of Quebec lived by gas lamp.

‘I called Paris and spoke to Roslyn today.’ Reine-Marie leaned back in her chair, hearing it creak comfortably.

‘Everything all right?’ Gamache searched his wife’s face, though he knew if there was a problem she’d have told him sooner.

‘Never better. Two months to go. It’ll be a September baby. Her mother will be going to Paris to take care of Florence when the new one arrives, but Roslyn asked if we’d like to go as well.’

He smiled. They’d talked about it, of course. They were desperate to go, to see their granddaughter Florence, to see their son and daughter-in-law. To see the baby. Each time he thought about it Gamache trembled with delight. The very idea of his child having a child struck him as nearly unbelievable.

‘They’ve chosen names,’ she said casually. But Gamache knew his wife, her face, her hands, her body, her voice. And her voice had just changed.

‘Tell me.’ He put his cheese down and folded his large, expressive hands on the white linen tablecloth.

Reine-Marie looked at her husband. For a man so substantial he could be so calm and contained, though that only seemed to add to the impression of strength.

‘If it’s a girl they think they’ll call her Genevieve Marie Gamache.’

Gamache repeated the name. Genevieve Marie Gamache. ‘It’s beautiful.’

Is this the name they’d write on birthday and Christmas cards? Genevieve Marie Gamache. Would she come running up the stairs to their apartment in Outremont, little feet thumping, shouting, ‘Grandpapa, Grandpapa’? And would he call out her name, ‘Genevieve!’ then scoop her up in his strong arms and hold her safe and warm in that pocket of his shoulder reserved for people he loved? Would he one day take her and her sister Florence on walks through Parc Mont Royal and teach them his favourite poems?

Breathes there the man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said,

‘This is my own, my native land!’

As his own father had taught him.

Genevieve.

‘And if it’s a boy,’ said Reine-Marie, ‘they plan to call him Honore.’

There was a pause. Finally Gamache sighed, ‘Ahh,’ and dropped his eyes.

‘It’s a wonderful name, Armand, and a wonderful gesture.’

Gamache nodded but said nothing. He’d wondered how he’d feel if this happened. For some reason he’d suspected it would, perhaps because he knew his son. They were so alike. Tall, powerfully built, gentle. And hadn’t he himself struggled with calling Daniel ‘Honore’? Right up until the baptism his name was supposed to be Honore Daniel.

But in the end he couldn’t do that to his son. Wasn’t life difficult enough without having to walk through it with the name Honore Gamache?

‘He’d like you to call him.’

Gamache looked at his watch. Nearly ten. ‘I’ll call tomorrow morning.’

‘And what will you say?’

Gamache held his wife’s hands, then dropped them and smiled at her. ‘How does coffee and liqueur in the Great Room sound?’

She searched his face. ‘Would you like to go for a walk? I’ll arrange for the coffees.’

‘Merci, mon coeur.‘

‘Je t’attends.‘

Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Armand Gamache whispered to himself as he walked with measured pace in the dark. The sweet aroma of night-scented stock kept him company, as did the stars and moon and the light across the lake. The family in the forest. The family of his fantasies. Father, mother, happy, thriving children.

No sorrow, no loss, no sharp rap on the door at night.

As he watched the light flickered out, and all was in darkness across the way. The family at sleep, at peace.

Honore Gamache. Was it so wrong? Was he wrong to feel this way? And what would he say to Daniel in the morning?

He stared into space, thinking about that for a few minutes, then slowly he became aware of something in the woods. Glowing. He looked around to see if there was anyone else there, another witness. But the terrasse and the gardens were empty.

Curious, Gamache walked towards it, the grass soft beneath his feet. He glanced back and saw the bright and cheerful lights of the Manoir and the people moving about the rooms. Then he turned back to the woods.

They were dark. But they weren’t silent. Creatures moved about in there. Twigs snapped and things dropped from the trees and thumped softly to the ground. Gamache wasn’t afraid of the dark, but like most sensible Canadians he was a little afraid of the forest.

But the white thing glowed and called, and like Ulysses with the sirens, he was compelled forward.

It was sitting on the very edge of the woods. He walked up, surprised to find it was large and solid and a perfect square, like a massive sugar cube. It came up to his hip and when he reached out to touch it he withdrew his hand in surprise. It was cold, almost clammy. Reaching out again, more firmly this time, he rested his large hand on the top of the box, and smiled.

It was marble. He’d been afraid of a cube of marble, he chuckled at himself. Very humbling. Standing back, Gamache stared at it. The white stone glowed as though it had captured what little moonlight came its way. It was just a cube of marble, he told himself. Not a bear, or a cougar. Nothing to worry about, certainly nothing to spook him. But it did. It reminded him of something.

‘Peter’s perpetually purple pimple popped.’

Gamache froze.

‘Peter’s perpetually purple pimple popped.’

There it was again.

He turned round and saw a figure standing in the middle of the lawn. A slight haze hung about her and a bright red dot glowed near her nose.

Julia Martin was out for her secret cigarette. Gamache cleared his throat noisily and brushed his hand along a bush. Instantly the red dot fell to the ground and disappeared under an elegant foot.

‘Good evening,’ she called merrily, though Gamache doubted she could possibly have known who was there.

‘Bonsoir, madame,’ said Gamache, bowing slightly as he came up beside her. She was slender and was wearing an elegant evening dress. Hair and nails and make-up were done, even in the wilderness. She wafted a slim hand in front of her face, to disperse the pungent tobacco smell.

‘Bugs,’ she said. ‘Blackflies. The only trouble with the east coast.’

‘You have no blackflies out west?’ he asked.

‘Well, not many in Vancouver. Some deerflies on the golf courses. Drive you crazy.’

This Gamache could believe, having been tormented by deerflies himself.

‘Fortunately smoke keeps the bugs away,’ he said, smiling.

She hesitated, then chuckled. She had an easy manner and an easy laugh. She touched his arm in a familiar gesture, though they weren’t all that familiar. But it wasn’t invasive, simply habit. As he’d watched her in the past few days he’d noticed she touched everyone. And she smiled at everything.

‘You caught me, monsieur. Sneaking a cigarette. Really, quite pathetic.’

‘Your family wouldn’t approve?’

‘At my age I’ve long since stopped caring what others think.’

‘C’est vrai? I wish I could.’

‘Well, perhaps I do just a little,’ she confided. ‘It’s a while since I’ve been with my family.’ She looked towards the Manoir and he followed her gaze. Inside, her brother Thomas was leaning over and speaking to their mother while Sandra and Mariana looked on, not speaking and unaware anyone was watching them.