Louise Penny - Still Life (Three Pines Mysteries)

‘Help me,’ she pleaded, dumping the contents of her purse on to the living-room floor.

‘Here it is.’ Her sister Angelina came out of the kitchen holding the wallet and the warrant card. Nichol practically fell on Angelina and, kissing her, she rushed to put her coat on.

Ari Nikulas was watching his beloved youngest child, trying to memorise every inch of her precious face and trying not to give in to the wretched fear nesting in his stomach. What had he done, planting this ridiculous idea into her head? He’d lost no family in Czechoslovakia. Had made it up to fit in, to sound heroic. To be a big man in their new country. But his daughter had believed it, had believed there had once been a stupid Uncle Saul and a slaughtered family. And now it had gone too far. He couldn’t tell her the truth.

She flew into his arms and kissed him on his stubbled cheek. He held her for a moment too long and she paused, looking into his tired, strained eyes.

‘Don’t worry, Dad. I won’t let you down.’ And she was off.

He’d just had time to notice how a tiny curl of her dark hair hooked on to the side of her ear, and hung there.

Yvette Nichol rang the doorbell within fifteen minutes of hanging up the phone. Standing awkwardly on the stoop she looked around. This was an attractive quartier, within an easy walk of the shops and restaurants along Rue Bernard. Outremont was a leafy neighborhood populated by the intellectual and political elite of French Quebec. She’d seen the Chief Inspector at headquarters, bustling through the halls, always with a group of people in his slipstream. He was very senior and had a reputation for acting as a mentor to the people lucky enough to work with him. She counted herself fortunate.

He opened the door promptly, just fixing his tweed cap to his head and gave her a warm smile. He held out his hand and after a slight hesitation she shook it.

‘I’m Chief Inspector Gamache.’

‘It’s an honour.’

As the passenger door of the unmarked car was opened for him, Gamache caught the unmistakable fragrance of Tim Horton’s coffee in cardboard cups and another aroma. Brioche. The young agent had done her homework. Only while on a murder case did he drink fast-food coffee. It was so associated in his mind with the teamwork, the long hours, the standing in cold, damp fields, that his heart raced every time he smelt industrial coffee and wet cardboard.

‘I downloaded the preliminary report from the scene. A hard copy is in the file back there.’ Nichol waved toward the back seat while negotiating Blvd St Denis to the autoroute which would take them over the Champlain Bridge and into the countryside.

The rest of the trip was made in silence, as he read the scant information, sipped coffee, ate pastry and watched the flat farmlands around Montreal close in and become slowly rolling hills, then larger mountains, covered with brilliant autumn leaves.

About twenty minutes after turning off the Eastern Townships autoroute they passed a small pockmarked sign telling them Three Pines was two kilometers off this secondary road. After a tooth-jarring minute or two along the washboard dirt road they saw the inevitable paradox. An old stone mill sat beside a pond, the mid morning sun warming its fieldstones. Around it the maples and birches and wild cherry trees held their fragile leaves, like thousands of happy hands waving to them upon arrival. And police cars. The snakes in Eden. Though, Gamache knew, the police were not the evil ones. The snake was already here.

Gamache walked straight toward the anxious crowd that had gathered. As he approached he could see the road dip down, gently sloping into a picturesque village. The growing crowd stood on the brow of the hill, some looking into the woods, where they could just make out the movement of officers in bright yellow jackets, but most were looking at him. Gamache had seen their expression countless times, people desperate for news they desperately didn’t want to hear.

‘Who is it? Can you tell us what happened?’ A tall, distinguished man spoke for the others.

‘I’m sorry, I haven’t even seen for myself yet. I’ll tell you as soon as I can.’

The man looked unhappy with the answer but nodded. Gamache checked his watch: 11 a.m., Thanksgiving Sunday. He turned from the crowd and walked to where they were staring, to the activity in the woods and the one spot of stillness he knew he’d find.

A yellow plastic tape circled the body and within that circle the investigators worked, bowing down like some pagan ritual. Most had been with Gamache for years, but he always kept one position open for a trainee.

‘Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir, this is Agent Yvette Nichol.’

Beauvoir gave a relaxed nod. ‘Welcome.’

At thirty-five years old, Jean Guy Beauvoir had been Gamache’s second in command for more than a decade. He wore cords and a wool sweater under his leather jacket. A scarf was rakishly and apparently randomly whisked around his neck. It was a look of studied nonchalance which suited his toned body but was easily contradicted by the cord-tight tension of his stance. Jean Guy Beauvoir was loosely wrapped but tightly wound.

‘Thank you, sir.’ Nichol wondered whether she would ever be as comfortable at a murder scene as these people.

‘Chief Inspector Gamache, this is Robert Lemieux,’ Beauvoir introduced a young officer standing respectfully just outside the police cordon. ‘Agent Lemieux was the duty officer with the Cowansville Sûreté. He got the call and came here immediately. Secured the scene then called us.’

‘Well done.’ Gamache shook his hand. ‘Anything strike you when you arrived?’

Lemieux looked dumbfounded by the question. At best he’d hoped to be allowed to hang around and watch, and not be shooed away from the scene. He’d never expected to meet Gamache, never mind actually answer a question.

‘Bien sûr, I saw that man there. An Anglais, I suspected by his clothes and his pallor. The English, I have noticed, have weak stomachs.’ Lemieux was pleased to pass this insight on to the Chief Inspector even though he’d just made it up. He had no idea whether Les Anglais were more prone to pallor than the Quebecois, but it sounded good. It had also been Lemieux’s experience that the English had no clothes sense, and this man in his plaid flannel shirt could not possibly be francophone. ‘His name is Benjamin Hadley.’

On the far side of the circle, half sitting against a maple tree, Gamache could see a middle-aged man. Tall, slim, looking very, very ill. Beauvoir followed Gamache’s gaze.

‘He found the body,’ said Beauvoir.

‘Hadley? As in Hadley’s Mills?’

Beauvoir smiled. He couldn’t imagine how he knew this, but he did. ‘That’s the one. You know him?’

‘No. Not yet.’ Beauvoir cocked his eyebrow at his chief and waited. Gamache explained, ‘The mill has faded writing at the top.’

‘Hadley’s Mills.’

‘Well deduced, Beauvoir.’

‘A wild guess, sir.’

Nichol could have kicked herself. She’d been everywhere Gamache had been and he had noticed that and she hadn’t. What else did he see? What else didn’t she? Damn. She looked suspiciously at Lemieux. He seemed to be ingratiating himself to the Chief Inspector.

‘Merci, Agent Lemieux,’ she said, putting out her hand while the Chief Inspector’s back was turned, watching the wretched ‘Anglais’. Lemieux took it, as she hoped he would. ‘Au revoir.’ Lemieux stood uncertainly for a moment, looking from her to Gamache’s broad back. Then he shrugged and left.

Armand Gamache turned his attention from the living to the dead. He walked a few paces and knelt down beside the body that had brought them there.