The Murder Stone (34 page)

‘Come on, we’ll just look in.’ He took her hand and they pushed through the revolving door.

The place was chaos, though after a moment, shoved to the wall and clinging to it as waiters whizzed by balancing trays of glasses and dishes, Gamache could see the ballet. It wasn’t chaos at all, but more like a river in full flood. There was a near frantic movement to it, but there was also a natural flow.

‘Is that her?’ Reine-Marie asked, nodding across the crowded room. She didn’t dare point.

‘That’s her.’

Chef Veronique wore a white chef’s hat and a full apron, and wielded a huge knife. Her back was to them. Then she turned and saw them. She paused.

‘She doesn’t look pleased to see us,’ whispered Reine-Marie, smiling and trying to signal to the clearly annoyed chef that it was her husband’s fault.

‘Let’s get out of here. Me first,’ he said and the two scampered out.

‘Well, that was embarrassing,’ Reine-Marie laughed once they got outside. ‘I’d watch your food from now on.’

‘I’ll get Inspector Beauvoir to taste it first,’ he smiled. The reaction of Chef Veronique had surprised him. In the past she’d seemed in command and not particularly stressed. Tonight she seemed upset.

‘Do you know, I think I’ve met her before after all,’ said Reine-Marie, slipping her arm through her husband’s, feeling his reassuring strength. ‘Probably around here somewhere.’

‘She’s the one who tends the beehives, so maybe you have seen her.’

‘Still,’ said Reine-Marie, straightening up after sniffing the sweet perfume of a peony, ‘she’s quite singular. Hard to forget.’

The garden smelled of fresh-turned earth and roses. Every now and then she caught a slight scent of herbs wafting from the kitchen garden. But the scent she longed for, and caught as she leaned into her husband, was sandalwood. It was more than his cologne, he seemed to exude it. It was how every season smelled. It was how love and stability and belonging smelled. It was the perfume of friendship and ease and peace.

‘Look.’ He pointed into the night sky. ‘It’s Babar.’

He swirled his fingers around, trying to get her to see the elephant shape in the stars.

‘Are you sure? It looks more like Tintin.’

‘With a trunk?’

‘What’re you pointing at?’

The little voice came out of the darkness. The Gamaches squinted and then Bean appeared, carrying the book.

‘Hello, Bean.’ Reine-Marie bent down and hugged the child. ‘We were just looking at the stars, seeing shapes.’

‘Oh.’ The child seemed disappointed.

‘What did you think we’d seen?’ Gamache knelt down too.

‘Nothing.’

The Gamaches paused, then Reine-Marie pointed to the book. ‘What’re you reading?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I used to read about pirates,’ said Gamache. ‘I’d put a patch over my eye, a teddy bear on my shoulder’ – Bean smiled – ‘and find a stick for a sword. I’d play for hours.’

The large, commanding man swept his arm back and forth in front of him, fighting off the enemy.

‘Boys,’ said Reine-Marie. ‘I was National Velvet, riding my horse in the Grand National race.’

She grabbed imaginary reins, tucked her head down, leaned forward and urged her steed over the very highest of fences. Gamache smiled in the darkness, then he nodded.

He’d seen that very pose before, recently.

‘May I see your book?’ He didn’t hold out his hand, he simply asked. After a moment the child handed it to him. It was warm where Bean had clutched it and Gamache had the impression of small indents, as though Bean’s fingers had melded with the hard cover.

‘Myths Every Child Should Know,’ he read, then flipped open the book. ‘It belonged to your mother?’

Bean nodded.

Gamache opened it and let the leaves splay. He looked at Bean.

‘The story of Pegasus,’ he said. ‘Shall I show you Pegasus in the night sky?’

Bean’s eyes widened. ‘He’s up there?’

‘He is.’ Gamache knelt again and pointed. ‘Do you see the four bright stars?’ He put his cheek against the child’s, feeling it soft and warm, then he lifted Bean’s reluctant hand, until Bean relaxed and pointed along with Gamache. Bean nodded.

‘That’s his body. And down below, those are his legs.’

‘He isn’t flying,’ said Bean, disappointed.

‘No, he’s grazing, resting,’ said Gamache. ‘Even the most magnificent of creatures needs a rest. Pegasus knows how to soar and chase and glide. But he also knows how to be at peace.’

The three of them stared at the stars for a few minutes, then they walked around the quiet garden and spoke of their days. Eventually Bean decided to go in and ask for a hot chocolate before bed.

The Gamaches linked arms again and strolled, then turned to walk back.

‘Do you know who killed Julia Morrow?’ she said as they approached the old lodge.

‘Not yet,’ he said quietly. ‘But we’re getting closer. We know who wrote the notes and we have an assortment of clues and facts.’

‘Jean Guy must be very happy.’

‘You have no idea.’ In his mind’s eye he saw the foolscap with its columns. And then, again, the one column without clues or facts, without even theories or guesses.

How.

They walked past the corner of the lodge and both instinctively looked at the white marble cube. Then a figure detached itself from the corner of the lodge. It was as though one of the logs had righted itself and decided to walk back into the forest. In the moonlight they watched the shadow make its way across the lawn, but instead of heading into the dark woods it turned towards the lake.

Bert Finney’s steps echoed on the wooden dock and then were silent. Armand Gamache told Reine-Marie about Finney, and his father.

‘And he told the others?’ she asked.

Beside her Armand nodded. She looked up at the stars.

‘Have you spoken to Daniel again?’

‘I’ll call him tomorrow. I wanted to give him time to calm down.’

‘Him time?’

‘Both of us time. But I’ll call.’

Before they drove back they stopped in at the library to say goodnight.

‘And don’t let the Chief Inspector leave tomorrow without bringing a jar of Chef Veronique’s honey,’ she instructed Beauvoir.

‘Her honey?’

‘She’s a bee-keeper too. Amazing woman.’

Beauvoir agreed.

As they drove back Reine-Marie remembered where she’d seen Chef Veronique before. It was most extraordinary and unexpected. She smiled and had opened her mouth to speak when he asked about the Canada Day festivities and soon she was describing the day the villagers had planned.

Once he’d dropped her off she realized she’d forgotten to tell him, but determined not to forget the following day.

*

When he got back to the Manoir Gamache found Agent Lacoste on the phone to her children and Jean Guy Beauvoir sipping espresso on the sofa surrounded by books. On beekeeping.

Gamache wandered the shelves and before long he had an espresso, a cognac and a stack of books of his own.

‘Did you know there’s only one queen bee per hive?’ asked Beauvoir. A few minutes later he broke into the chief’s reading with another announcement. ‘Did you know a wasp or hornet or queen can sting over and over but a worker bee can only sting once? Only honey bees have poison sacs. Isn’t that amazing? When they sting it gets ripped out of them and stays in the victim. Kills the bee. They give up their lives for the queen and the hive. I wonder if they know they’ll die.’

‘I wonder,’ said Gamache, who didn’t really. He went back to his reading, as did Beauvoir.

‘Did you know honey bees are the pollinators of the world?’

It was like living with a six year old.

Beauvoir lowered the book and looked at the chief, sitting on the sofa opposite reading poetry.

‘Without honey bees we’d all starve. Isn’t that amazing?’

For a moment Beauvoir imagined moving to the Bellechasse and helping expand Veronique’s honey empire. Together they’d save the world. They’d be given the Legion d’honneur. Songs would be written about them.

Gamache lowered his book and stared out of the window. All he could see was his own reflection and that of Beauvoir. Two ghostly men reading on a summer evening.

‘Bees form a ball and protect the queen if the hive is attacked. Isn’t that beautiful?’

‘It is.’ Gamache nodded and went back to his reading. Every now and then Beauvoir would hear a murmur from the chief.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed … and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of.

Beauvoir looked over and saw the chief, his eyes closed and his head tilted back, but his lips moving, repeating a phrase.

Up, up the long delirious burning blue,

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights …

Where never lark, or even eagle flew.

‘Where’s that from?’ asked Beauvoir.

‘A poem called “High Flight” by a young Canadian aviator in the Second World War.’

‘Really? He must’ve loved flying. Bees love flying. Can cover long distances for food, if they have to, but they stay close to the hive if they can.’

‘He died,’ said Gamache.

‘Pardon?’

‘Says here the poet was killed. Shot down. The poem was quoted by President Reagan after the Challenger disaster.’ But he’d lost Beauvoir to the bees again.

After a while Gamache put down the slim leather book of poetry and picked up the next volume. Peterson’s field guide to North American birds.

They sat together for the next hour, the quiet punctuated by Beauvoir’s bee bulletins.

Finally it was time for bed and after Beauvoir said goodnight Gamache took a final stroll in the quiet garden, looking up at the stars.

And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

TWENTY-SEVEN

The first of July, Canada Day, dawned misty and cool. It threatened rain. Armand Gamache looked across the breakfast table at Irene Finney. Between them sat her Earl Grey teapot and his cafe au lait. In the background waiters set up the morning buffet.

‘When can I bury my daughter, Chief Inspector?’

‘I’ll call the coroner, madame, and let you know. I expect she’ll release your daughter in the next day or so. Where will you have the funeral?’

She hadn’t expected this question. To be asked about her family, yes. Herself, almost certainly. Their history, their finances, even their feelings. She’d been prepared for an interrogation, not a conversation.

‘Is that really your business?’

‘It is. We reveal ourselves in our choices. The only way I’ll find your daughter’s killer is if he reveals himself.’

‘What an odd man you are.’ It was clear Madame Finney didn’t like odd. ‘You really think where a murder victim is buried is a clue?’

‘Everything’s a clue. Especially where bodies are buried.’

‘But you’re asking me. Does that mean you suspect me?’

The woman in front of him was unflinching, almost daring him to press her.

‘I do.’

Her eyes narrowed slightly. ‘You’re lying,’ she said. ‘You can’t possibly suspect an eighty-five-year-old woman of pushing a several-ton statue onto her own daughter. But perhaps you’ve lost sight of reality. Must run in the family.’

‘Perhaps. Frankly, madame, it is as likely that you did it as anyone. None of you could have shoved Charles Morrow from his pedestal, and yet it happened, I’m sorry to say.’

The less gracious she became the more gracious he grew. And she was quickly becoming very ornery indeed. Not a surprise to the Chief Inspector who knew she was of the type who could be both extremely courteous and excessively offensive.

‘Thank you.’ She smiled to the young waiter, then turned ice water eyes on Gamache. ‘Go on. You were accusing me of killing my own daughter.’

‘That isn’t true.’ He leaned forward, careful not to invade her personal space, but close enough to threaten it. ‘Why would you say that? I can’t imagine you aren’t desperate to find out who really did it. So why aren’t you helping?’

He spoke with curiosity, his voice calm and reasonable.

She radiated rage now. He felt his face would bubble and scald. And he knew why none of the Morrow children had ever been this close. And wondered, fleetingly, about Bert Finney, who had.

‘I am trying to help. If you’d ask sensible questions I’ll answer them.’

Gamache leaned back slowly and looked at her. Her face was etched with a network of tiny lines, like a glass that had just shattered and not yet collapsed. Small patches of pink marked her cheeks, making her even lovelier, more vulnerable. He wondered how many poor souls had been taken in.

‘What are the sensible questions?’

This too surprised her.

‘Ask about my family, ask about their upbringing. They wanted for nothing, you know. Education, sports. Ski trips in winter, tennis and sailing in the summer. And I know you think we gave them things.’ She picked up the sugar bowl and thumped it down, a geyser of sugar leaping out and landing on the honeysuckle wood. ‘And we did. I did. But we also gave them love. They knew they were loved.’

‘How did they know?’

‘Another foolish question. They knew because they knew. They were told. They were shown. If they didn’t feel it that was their problem. What have they told you?’

‘They’ve said nothing about love, but I haven’t asked.’

‘You ask me but not them? Blame the mother, is that it?’

‘You mistake me, madame. When it comes time to blame, you’ll know it. I’m simply asking questions. And you were the one to mention love, not me. But it’s an interesting question. Do you think your children love each other?’

‘Of course they do.’

‘And yet they’re strangers to each other. It doesn’t take a detective to know they barely tolerate each other. Have they ever been close?’

‘Before Julia left, yes. We used to play games. Word games. Alliteration. And I’d read to the children.’

‘Peter told me about that. He still remembers those times.’

‘Peter’s an ungrateful man. I heard what he told you. That I’d be better off dead.’