The Murder Stone (39 page)

‘Why?’ Gamache whispered to himself. ‘Why Bean?’

‘Do something, man,’ Mrs Finney shouted.

‘I need to think,’ he said.

He placed his hands behind his back and started to walk with a measured pace, around the library. In disbelief they watched. Then finally he stopped and turned, reaching into his pocket.

‘Here, take my Volvo and park it across the drive. Are there other ways in and out of the property?’ He tossed his keys to Colleen and walked rapidly to the door, Mesdames Dubois and Finney following and Colleen dashing into the rain.

‘There’s a service road,’ said Madame Dubois. ‘Little more than a track, at the back. We use it for heavier equipment.’

‘But it puts out onto the main road?’ asked Gamache. Madame Dubois nodded. ‘Where is it?’

She pointed and he dashed into the rain and climbed into the huge
RCMP
pickup, finding the keys in the ignition, as he expected. Soon he was clear of the lodge, heading down the service road. He had to find a narrowing of the woods where he could leave the truck and seal off the property.

The murderer was still with them, he knew. As was Bean. He needed to keep them there.

He parked the truck across the track and was just jumping out when another vehicle rounded the corner in his wake and skidded to a stop. Gamache couldn’t see the driver’s face. The bright orange hood put it in shadow. It looked as though a spectre was driving the car. But Gamache knew it was no spirit, but flesh and blood behind the wheel.

Spinning tyres spewed mud and dead leaves as the car strained to back up. But it was sunk into the mud. Gamache raced forward just as the door opened and the murderer leapt out and began running, the orange raincoat flapping madly.

Gamache skidded to a halt and thrust his head into the car. ‘Bean?’ he shouted. But the car was empty. His heart, thudding, stopped for a moment. He turned and raced after the orange figure, just disappearing into the lodge.

Within a moment Gamache also plunged through the door, pausing only long enough to tell the women to lock themselves in the inner office and to get on the walkie-talkie to tell the others to return.

‘What about Elliot?’ Colleen shouted after him.

‘He’s not in the woods,’ said Gamache, not looking back. He was looking down, following the line of drips, like transparent blood.

Up the polished old stairs they went, along the hall, and puddled in front of one of the bookcases.

The door to the attic.

He yanked it open and took the stairs two at a time. In the dim light he followed the drops to an opening. He knew what he’d find.

‘Bean?’ he whispered. ‘Are you here?’ He tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice.

Stuffed cougars, hunted almost to extinction, stared glassy eyed at him. Little hunted hares, moose and delicate deer and otters. All dead, for sport. Staring.

But no Bean.

Downstairs he heard boots and masculine voices, raised. But in this room there was only a hush, as though a breath had been held for hundreds of years. Waiting.

And then he heard it. A slight thumping. And he knew what it was.

Ahead of him a square of light and water hit the floor. The grimy skylight was open. He scrambled towards it, and stuck his head out. And there they were.

Bean, and the murderer, on the roof.

Gamache had seen terror many times. On the faces of men and women newly dead, and those about to die, or believing they were. He saw that look now, in Bean’s face. Mouth covered with tape, book clutched in little tied hands, feet dangling. Gamache had seen terror, but never like this. Bean was literally in the clutches of the murderer, standing on the very peak of the rain-slick metal roof.

Without thinking Gamache clutched the sides of the skylight and hoisted himself through, his feet immediately slipping on the wet metal. He fell on one knee, feeling the jar.

And then the world started to spin and he grabbed hold of the edge of the open skylight. He could barely see, blinded by the rain in his eyes and the sheer panic in his head. It shrieked at him to get off the roof. Either through the hole into the attic, or over the edge.

Do it, shove yourself off, his howling head pleaded. Do it.

Down below people were yelling and waving and he dragged his eyes up.

To Bean.

And Bean too looked into the face of terror. The two of them stared at each other, and slowly, with wet, trembling hands, Gamache dragged himself to his feet. He took a tentative step along the peak of the steep roof, one unhappy foot on either side. His head spinning, he kept himself low, so that he could grab hold. Then he shifted his eyes, from Bean, to the murderer.

‘Get away from me, Monsieur Gamache. Get away or I’ll throw the kid over.’

‘I don’t think you will.’

‘Going to risk it? I’ve killed already. I have nothing to lose. I’m at the end of the world. Why’d you block the roads out? I could’ve gotten away. By the time you found the child tied up in the attic I’d have been halfway to …’

The voice faltered.

‘To where?’ Gamache called, over the moaning wind. ‘There was nowhere to go, was there? Don’t do this. It’s over. Bring Bean to me.’

He held out unsteady arms, but the murderer didn’t budge.

‘I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I’d come here to forget it all, to get away. I thought I had. But seeing her again—’

‘I understand, I do.’ Gamache tried to sound reassuring, reasonable. Tried to keep the tremble from his voice. ‘You don’t want to harm a child. I know you. I know—’

‘You know nothing.’

Far from being frightened, the murderer seemed almost calm. A panicked, cornered murderer was a terrible thing, and the only thing worse was a calm one.

‘Bean,’ Gamache said, his voice steady. ‘Bean, look at me.’ He caught the child’s panicked eyes, but could tell Bean wasn’t seeing anything any more.

‘What’re you doing? No! Get down!’ The murderer suddenly grew agitated, and looked beyond Gamache.

The Chief Inspector turned carefully and saw Beauvoir climbing through the skylight. His thumping heart calmed, for an instant. Beauvoir was there. He wasn’t alone.

‘Tell him to get down.’

Beauvoir saw the horrific scene. The murderer standing like a lightning rod in the storm, holding the horrified child. But the most horrifying was the chief, who was looking at him with eyes so grave. Frightened, his fate sealed, and knowing it. A Burgher of Calais.

Gamache lifted his hand and gave Beauvoir the signal to withdraw.

‘No, please,’ Beauvoir rasped. ‘Let me come too.’

‘Not this time, Jean Guy,’ said Gamache.

‘Get away. I’ll toss the kid over.’ Bean was suddenly thrust into space, the murderer barely holding on. Even with tape over the child’s mouth Beauvoir could hear the scream.

With one last look, Beauvoir disappeared, and Gamache was alone again, with a dangling Bean and the murderer and the wind and rain that buffeted them all.

Bean struggled in the murderer’s arms, twisting to break free and letting out a high-pitched, strangled shriek, muffled by the tape.

‘Bean, look at me.’ Gamache stared at Bean, willing himself to forget where he was, trying to trick his traitor brain into believing they were on the ground. He wiped the fear from his own face. ‘Look at me.’

‘What’re you doing?’ the murderer repeated, staring at Gamache with suspicion and clutching the squirming child.

‘I’m trying to calm the child. I’m afraid Bean’ll knock you off balance.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ The murderer hoisted the child higher. And Gamache knew then the murderer was going to do it. To throw the child over.

‘For God’s sake,’ Gamache pleaded. ‘Don’t do it.’

But the murderer was beyond listening to reason. For reason had nothing to do with what was happening. The murderer now heard only a very old howl.

‘Bean, look at me,’ Gamache called. ‘Remember Pegasus?’

The child calmed slightly and seemed to focus on Gamache, though the squealing continued.

‘Remember riding Pegasus into the sky? That’s what you’re doing now. You’re on his back. Can you feel his wings, can you hear them?’

The moaning wind became the outstretched wings of the horse Pegasus, who gave a powerful beat and took Bean into the sky, away from the terror. Gamache watched as Bean slipped the surly bonds of earth.

Bean relaxed in the murderer’s arms, and slowly the big book slipped from the small, wet fingers and hit the roof, sliding down and launching into the air, the leaves spreading like wings.

Gamache glanced down and saw frenzied activity, arms waving and pointing. But one man held his arms outstretched, to catch someone falling from the heavens.

Finney.

Gamache took a deep breath and looked briefly beyond Bean, beyond the murderer, beyond the chimney pots. To the tree tops, and the lake and the mountains.

‘This is my own, my native land!’

And he felt himself relax, a little. Then he looked further. To Three Pines, just on the other side of the mountains. To Reine-Marie.

Here I am, can you see me?

He stood up, slowly, a firm hand on his back steadying him.

‘Now, higher, Bean. I’ve seen you take Pegasus higher.’

Below, the men and women saw the three figures, the Chief Inspector standing upright now in the driving rain and the other two, melded as though the murderer had sprung tiny arms and legs from the chest.

Beside Finney the book thudded to the ground, leaves outstretched and flattened. And in the sobbing wind they heard a far-off song in a deep baritone.

‘Letter B, Letter B,’ it sang, to the tune of the Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’.

‘Oh, God,’ Lacoste whispered and raised her arms too. Beside her Mariana was staring, numb and dumb and uncomprehending. Everything else could fall, she saw it all day, every day. Except Bean. She stepped forward and raised her arms. Unseen beside her, Sandra lifted her hands towards the child. The precious thing, stuck on the roof.

Bean, hands now free of the book, brought them together in front. Clutching reins, eyes staring at the big man opposite.

‘Higher, Bean,’ Gamache urged. Wheeled and soared and swung, said a voice in his head, and Gamache’s right hand opened slightly, to grasp a larger, stronger one.

The child gave a mighty yank and kicked Pegasus in the flanks.

Shocked, Pierre Patenaude let go and Bean fell.

Armand Gamache dived. He sprang with all his might and seemed to hover in the air, as though expecting to make the other side. He strained, reached out his hand, and touched the face of God.

THIRTY

Gamache’s eyes locked on the flying child. They seemed to hang in mid-air then finally he felt the fabric of Bean’s shirt and closed his grip.

Hitting the roof he scrambled for purchase as they started skidding down the slick steep side. His left hand shot up and gripped the very top of the roof, where skilled hands had battered and connected the now tarnished copper hundreds of years earlier. And had placed a ridge along the peak of the roof. For no reason.

Now he was hanging down the side of the metal roof, clinging on to the copper ridge with one hand, and Bean with the other. They looked into each other’s eyes and Gamache could feel his grip firm on the child, but slipping on the roof. He could see, in his peripheral vision, frantic activity below, with shouts and calls and screams that seemed another world away. He could see people running with ladders, but he knew it would be too late. His fingers were tearing away from the roof and he knew in another instant they would both slide over the edge. And he knew if they fell he’d land on top of the child, as Charles Morrow had done. Crushing what lay beneath. The thought was too much.

He felt his fingers finally lose contact with the ridge, and for a blessed and surprising moment nothing happened, then the two of them started over.

Gamache twisted in one final effort, to heave the child away from him and towards the open arms below. Just then a hand gripped his from above. He didn’t dare look, in case it wasn’t real. But after a moment he looked up. Rain fell into his eyes and blinded him, but he still knew whose hand held his in a grip from long ago, and long ago lost.

Ladders were quickly raised and Beauvoir scrambled up, taking Bean and handing the child down, then crawling up onto the roof and supporting the Chief Inspector with his own young body.

‘You can let go now,’ said Beauvoir to Pierre Patenaude, who was clinging to Gamache’s hand. Patenaude hesitated a moment, as though he didn’t yet want to release this man, but he did and Gamache slid gently into the younger man’s arms.

‘All right?’ Beauvoir whispered.

‘Merci,’ Gamache whispered back. His first words in his new life, in a territory he hadn’t expected to see, but one that stretched, unbelievably, before him. ‘Thank you,’ he repeated.

He allowed himself to be helped down, his legs shaking and his arms like rubber. Once on the ladder he turned and looked up, into the face of the person who’d saved him.

Pierre Patenaude looked back, standing upright on the roof as though he belonged there, as though the coureurs du bois and the Abinaki had left him there when they’d departed.

‘Pierre,’ a small but firm voice said in a conversational tone. ‘It’s time to come in.’

Madame Dubois’s head poked out of the skylight. Patenaude looked at her and stood straighter. He put his arms out and tilted his head back.

‘Non, Pierre,’ said Madame Dubois. ‘You are not to do that. Chef Veronique has made a pot of tea and we’ve lit a fire so you won’t get a chill. Come down with me now.’

She held out her hand and he looked at it. Then, taking it, he disappeared into the Manoir Bellechasse.

Five of them sat in the kitchen of the Manoir. Patenaude and Gamache had changed into dry clothes and were wrapped in warm blankets by the fire while Chef Veronique and Madame Dubois poured tea. Beauvoir sat beside Patenaude, in case he made a run for it, though no one expected him to any more.

‘Here.’ Chef Veronique hesitated a moment, a mug of tea in her large grip. It hovered between Gamache and Patenaude, then it drifted over to the maitre d’. She handed the next one to Gamache with a small, apologetic smile.