Louise Penny - Still Life (Three Pines Mysteries)

‘Even the old wooden ones?’

‘Yes. I suspect these hunting heads came originally from the old wooden arrows in the clubhouse. Someone took them off and replaced them with the target heads.’

Gamache nodded. Ben had told them that he’d picked up the old wooden arrows from families who were upgrading their hunting equipment. The arrows would have come originally with hunting heads and he’d have to replace them with the target ones.

‘Good. Get them all to the lab.’

‘Already on their way,’ said Lacoste, taking a seat next to Nichol, who moved her chair slightly away.

‘What time is our appointment with Notary Stickley about the will?’ Gamache asked Nichol. Yvette Nichol knew very well it was at one-thirty, but saw an opportunity to prove she’d heard his little lecture that morning.

‘I forget.’

‘I’m sorry?’

Ha, she thought, he gets it. He’d given her one of the key statements in response. She quickly went through the other statements, the ones that lead to promotion. I forget, I’m sorry, I need help and what was the other one?

‘I don’t know.’

Now Chief Inspector Gamache was looking at her with open concern.

‘I see. Did you happen to write it down?’

She considered trying out the last phrase but couldn’t bring herself to say, ‘I need help.’ Instead she lowered her head and blushed, feeling she’d somehow been set up.

Gamache looked in his own notes. ‘It’s at one-thirty. With any luck we’ll get into Miss Neal’s home after we sort out the will.’

He had called his old friend and classmate Superintendent Brébeuf earlier. Michel Brébeuf had been promoted beyond Gamache, into a job they’d both applied for, but it hadn’t affected their relationship. Gamache respected Brébeuf and liked him. The Superintendent had sympathised with Gamache, but couldn’t promise anything.

‘For God’s sake, Armand, you know how it works. It was just stinking bad luck she actually found someone dense enough to sign the injunction. I doubt we’ll find a judge willing to overturn a colleague.’

Gamache needed evidence, either that it was murder or that the home didn’t go to Yolande Fontaine. His phone rang as he contemplated the interview with the notary.

‘Oui, allô?’ He got up to take the call in a quiet part of the room.

‘I think a ritual would be perfect,’ said Clara, picking at a piece of bread but not really hungry. ‘But I have this feeling it should just be women. And not necessarily just Jane’s close friends, but any women who’d like to take part.’

‘Damn,’ said Peter, who’d been to the Summer Solstice ritual and had found it embarrassing and very strange.

‘When would you like it?’ Myrna asked Clara.

‘How about next Sunday?’

‘One week to the day Jane died,’ said Ruth.

Clara had spotted Yolande and her family arriving at the Bistro and knew she’d have to say something. Gathering her wits she walked over. The Bistro grew so silent Chief Inspector Gamache heard the sudden drop off in noise next door after he’d hung up from the call. Tiptoeing around the back he stood just inside the servers’ entrance. From there he could see and hear everything, but not be observed. You don’t get to be that good at this job, he thought, without being a sneak. He then noticed a server standing patiently behind him with a tray of cold cuts.

‘This should be good,’ she whispered. ‘Black forest ham?’

‘Thank you.’ He took a slice.

‘Yolande,’ Clara said, extending her hand. ‘I’m sorry for your loss. Your aunt was a wonderful woman.’

Yolande looked at the extended hand, took it briefly and then released it, hoping to give the impression of monumental grief. It would have worked had she not been playing to an audience well acquainted with her emotional range. Not to mention her real relationship with Jane Neal.

‘Please accept my condolences,’ Clara continued, feeling stiff and artificial.

Yolande bowed her head and brought a dry paper napkin to her dry eye.

‘At least we can re-use the napkin,’ said Olivier, who was also looking over Gamache’s shoulder. ‘What a pathetic piece of work. This is really awful to watch. Pastry?’

Olivier was holding a tray of mille feuilles, meringues, slices of pies and little custard tarts with glazed fruit on top. He chose one covered in tiny wild blueberries.

‘Thank you.’

‘I’m the official caterer for the disaster that’s about to happen. I can’t imagine why Clara is doing this, she knows what Yolande has been saying behind her back for years. Hideous woman.’

Gamache, Olivier and the server stared at the scene unfolding in the silent bistro.

‘My aunt and I were extremely close, as you know,’ Yolande said straight into Clara’s face, appearing to believe every word she said. ‘I know you won’t be upset if I mention that we all think you took her away from her real family. All the people I talk to agree with me. Still, you probably didn’t realise what you were doing.’ Yolande smiled indulgently.

‘Oh my God,’ Ruth whispered to Gabri, ‘here it comes.’

Peter was gripping the arms of his chair, wanting with all his being to leap up and scream at Yolande. But he knew Clara had to do that herself, had to finally stand up for herself. He waited for Clara’s response. The whole room waited.

Clara took a deep breath and said nothing.

‘I’ll be organising my aunt’s funeral,’ Yolande plowed on. ‘Probably have it in the Catholic church in St Rémy. That’s André’s church.’ Yolande reached out a hand to take her husband’s, but both his hands were taken up clutching a huge sandwich, gushing mayo and meat. Her son Bernard yawned, revealing a mouth full of half-chewed sandwich and strings of mayo glopping down from the roof of his mouth.

‘I’ll probably put a notice in the paper which I’m sure you’ll see. But maybe you can think of something for her headstone. But nothing weird, my aunt wouldn’t have liked that. Anyway, think about it and let me know.’

‘Again, I’m so sorry about Jane.’

When she’d gone over to speak with Yolande, Clara had known this would happen. Known that Yolande, for some unfathomable reason, could always get to her. Could hurt her where most others couldn’t reach. It was one of life’s little mysteries that this woman she had absolutely no respect for, could lay her flat. She thought she’d been ready for it. She’d even dared to harbour a hope that maybe this time would be different. But of course it wasn’t.

For many years Clara would remember how it felt standing there. Feeling again like the ugly little girl in the schoolyard. The unloved and unlovable child. Flatfooted and maladroit, slow and mocked. The one who laughed in the wrong places and believed tall stories, and was desperate for someone, anyone, to like her. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The polite attention and the balled up fist under the school desk. She wanted to run to Jane, who’d make it better. Take her in those full, kindly arms and say the magic words, ‘There, there.’

Ruth Zardo would also remember this moment and turn it into poetry. It would be published in her next volume called, ‘I’m FINE’:

You were a moth brushing against my cheek in the dark.

I killed you, not knowing you were only a moth, with no sting.

But more than anything, Clara would remember André’s toxic laugh ringing in her ears as she silently made her way back to her table, so far away. A laugh such as a maladjusted child might make on seeing a creature hurt and suffering. It was a familiar sound.

‘Who was on the phone?’ Beauvoir asked when Gamache slipped back into his seat. Beauvoir was unaware the boss had gone anywhere other than the washroom.