Louise Penny - Brutal Telling

“You found that out on the Queen Charlotte Islands?”

“Indirectly. Have you kept them?”

“The scraps of paper? Of course not. Why? Are they important to the case?”

Gamache sighed. He was weary. He had a distance to go that day and he couldn’t afford a stumble. Not now.

“No. I suppose not. But it’s a shame to lose them.”

“Yeah, you say that. Just wait until she turns her pen on you.”

“ . . . and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck and caress you into darkness and paradise ,” Gamache whispered.

“Where to?” Beauvoir asked as they bumped along the road toward Three Pines.

“The bistro. We need to speak to Olivier again. You looked into his finances?”

“He’s worth about four million. One and a half from the sales of the carvings, a little over a million from the antiques the Hermit gave him and his property’s worth about a million. We’re not much further along,” said Beauvoir, grimly.

But Gamache knew they were very close indeed. And he knew this was when the ground either became solid, or fell out from beneath them.

The car glided to a stop in front of the bistro. The Chief Inspector had been so quiet in the passenger seat Beauvoir thought maybe he was catching a nap. He looked tired, and who wouldn’t after the long flight on Air Canada? The carrier that charged for everything. Beauvoir was convinced there’d soon be a credit card slot next to the emergency oxygen.

The Inspector looked over and sure enough Gamache’s head was down and his eyes closed. Beauvoir hated to disturb him, he looked so peaceful. Then he noticed the Chief’s thumb softly rubbing the picture he held loosely in his hand. Beauvoir looked more closely. The Chief’s eyes weren’t closed, not altogether.

They were narrow and staring intently at the image in his hand.

On it was the carving of a mountain. Barren, desolate. As though it had been clear-cut. Just a few scraggly pines at its base. There was a sadness about it, Gamache felt, an emptiness. And yet there was something about this work that was very different from the others. There was also a kind of levity. He narrowed his eyes and peering closer he saw it. What he’d mistaken for another pine at the foot of the mountain wasn’t.

It was a young man. A boy, stepping hesitantly onto the base of the carving.

And where he stepped, some seedlings sprouted.

It reminded him of Clara’s painting of Ruth. Capturing that moment when despair turned to hope. This remarkable carving was forlorn, but also strangely hopeful. And without needing to look any closer Gamache knew this boy was the one in the other works. But the fear was gone. Or had it not yet arrived?

Rosa quacked on the village green. Today she wore a pale pink sweater set. And pearls?

“ Voyons ,” said Beauvoir, jerking his head toward the duck as they got out of the car. “Can you imagine listening to that all day long?”

“Wait till you have kids,” said Gamache, pausing outside the bistro to watch Rosa and Ruth.

“They quack?”

“No, but they sure make noise. And other things. Are you planning on kids?”

“Maybe one day. Enid isn’t keen.” He stood next to the Chief and they both stared at the peaceful village. Peaceful except for the quacking. “Any word from Daniel?”

“Madame Gamache spoke to them yesterday. All’s well. Baby should be along in a couple of weeks. We’ll be going to Paris as soon as it happens.”

Beauvoir nodded. “That’s two for Daniel. How about Annie? Any plans?”

“None. I think David would like a family but Annie’s not good with kids.”

“I saw her with Florence,” said Beauvoir, remembering when Daniel had visited with the Chief Inspector’s granddaughter. He’d watched Annie holding her niece, singing to her. “She adores Florence.”

“She claims not to want any. Frankly we don’t want to push her.”

“Best not to interfere.”

“It’s not that. We saw what a balls-up she made of every babysitting job she had as a kid. As soon as the child cried Annie called us and we’d have to go over. We made more money babysitting than she did. And Jean Guy.” Gamache leaned toward his Inspector and lowered his voice. “Without going into details, whatever happens never let Annie diaper me.”

“She asked the same thing of me,” Beauvoir said and saw Gamache smile. Then the smile dimmed.

“Shall we?” The Chief gestured to the door to the bistro.

The four men chose to sit away from the windows. In the cool and quiet interior. A small fire muttered in both open fireplaces, at either end of the room. Gamache remembered the first time he’d walked into the bistro years before and seen the mismatched furniture, the armchairs and wing chairs and Windsor chairs. The round and square and rectangular tables. The stone fireplaces and wooden beams. And the price tags hanging from everything.

Everything was for sale. And everyone? Gamache didn’t think so, but sometimes he wondered.

“ Bon Dieu , are you saying you haven’t told your father about me?” Gabri asked.

“I did. I told him I was with a Gabriel.”

“Your father thinks it’s a Gabrielle you’re with,” said Beauvoir.

“ Quoi ?” said Gabri, glaring at Olivier. “He thinks I’m a woman? That means . . .” Gabri looked at his partner, incredulous. “He doesn’t know you’re gay?”

“I never told him.”

“Maybe not in so many words, but you sure told him,” said Gabri, then turned to Beauvoir. “Almost forty, not married, an antiques dealer. Good God, he told me when the other kids would dig for China he dug for Royal Doulton. How gay is that?” He turned back to Olivier. “You had an Easy Bake oven and you sewed your own Halloween costumes.”

“I haven’t told him and don’t plan to,” Olivier snapped. “It’s none of his business.”

“What a family,” sighed Gabri. “It’s actually a perfect fit. One doesn’t want to know and the other doesn’t want to tell.”

But Gamache knew it was more than simply not wanting to tell. It was about a little boy with secrets. Who became a big boy with secrets. Who became a man. He brought an envelope out of his satchel and placed seven photographs on the table in front of Olivier. Then he unwrapped the carvings and put them on the table too.

“What order do they go in?”

“I can’t remember which he gave me when,” said Olivier. Gamache stared at him then spoke softly.

“I didn’t ask you that. I asked what order they go in. You know, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Olivier looked confused.

Then Armand Gamache did something Beauvoir had rarely seen. He brought his large hand down so hard on the table the little wooden figures jumped. As did the men.

“Enough. I’ve had enough.”

And he looked it. His face was hard, carved and sharp and burnished by lies and secrets. “Do you have any idea what trouble you’re in?” His voice was low, strained, forced through a throat that threatened to close. “The lies must stop now. If you have any hope, any hope at all, you must tell us the truth. Now.”

Gamache moved his splayed hand over the photographs and shoved them toward Olivier, who stared as though petrified.

“I don’t know,” he stumbled.

“For God’s sake, Olivier, please,” Gabri begged.

Gamache radiated anger now. Anger, frustration and fear that the real murderer would slip away, hiding in another man’s lies. Olivier and the Chief Inspector stared at each other. One man who spent his life burying secrets and the other who spent his life unearthing them.

Their partners stared, aware of the battle but unable to help.

“The truth, Olivier,” Gamache rasped.