CHAPTER 20
“Hello,” Nathaniel Smythe called. “Bonjour?”
The front door was ajar. He took a deep breath and opened it enough to get his head in.
“Madame Zardo?”
He stepped inside, hitching his satchel up on his sloping shoulders.
It was past six. He was tired and hungry. Enough to finally seek out his billet.
The door opened straight into the living room, which was in darkness except for a single lamp.
He stood still.
There were no sounds. Not a creak. Or a quack. In the demi-darkness, all he saw were books. The walls were made of them. The tables were stacked with books. The one chair, illuminated, was covered in them, splayed open. Upholstered in stories.
He’d been holding his breath, pretty sure the place would stink. Of decay. Of dander and old lady. But now, no longer able to hold it, he breathed in. Deeply.
There was a familiar smell. Not a scent. Not an aroma. Nothing that exotic. It was more earthy. It certainly wasn’t cooking.
It was books. Musky words filled the air.
*
“I’m in here.”
Amelia dropped her bag in the kitchen and followed the voice.
At the door into the back room, she stopped.
Clara Morrow was sitting on a wooden stool with a wind-up seat, her back to the door. A paintbrush in her mouth. Staring at a canvas.
Amelia couldn’t see that much of the painting. It was hidden behind a mass of Clara’s hair.
“So what should I do?” asked Amelia. “Aren’t you supposed to cook or something?”
Clara snorted, then turned. At her feet, a very tiny lion stirred.
She looked at her guest.
Jet-black hair. Luminous white skin, almost transparent. Piercings through her nose, her brows, her cheek. But the studs weren’t black or blood-red. They were tiny faux diamonds. Gleaming where they caught the light. Like stars.
Her ears were encased in rings. Her fingers looked like they’d been dipped in metal.
It was as though this girl was encasing herself in armor.
And where skin was exposed, there were tattoos.
But the one thing this girl could not mark or pierce or hide were her eyes. The only original bit left. They were bright, like diamonds.
*
“What?” said Huifen when Gabri handed her an apron and pointed to the dishes in the bistro kitchen. “I’m—”
“Yes, I know. You’re this close”—he brought his thumb and forefinger up—“to being a S?reté officer. You’ve said. And I’m this close”—he brought the fingers even closer—“to kicking you out.”
“You can’t.”
“Of course I can. This is a favor we’re doing for Monsieur Gamache, not for you. I’m happy to put you up, but you have to work for your room and board. An hour a day here in the bistro or the B and B. Wherever we need you.”
“That’s slave labor.”
“That’s life in the real world. You sat here most of the afternoon ordering food. Then you went to the B and B and ate all the cake. Well, here’s the bill.”
He tossed her a tea towel.
*
“We didn’t get off to a good start,” said Myrna, putting a Coke down in front of Jacques. He was slumped on the sofa in her loft above the bookstore, hitting the screen of his iPhone with increasing force.
“Fucking thing doesn’t work here.”
“Language,” said Myrna, sitting in a large chair in which her outline was permanently stamped.
“I heard that old woman say worse.”
“And when you’re an old woman, we’ll tolerate it from you too. For now, you’re a guest in my home, in this village, and you’ll watch your language. And you’re right. There’s no wireless here, no satellite coverage.”
Jacques shoved his iPhone into his pocket.
“Should we start again?” Myrna asked.
She’d calmed down since their confrontation in the bistro. Seeing Ruth as the reasonable one had been deeply humbling to her. She’d returned to her bookstore for the afternoon, then headed upstairs, made a bed for her guest, and began dinner.
“Do you want to talk about what happened at the academy?” she asked. “You were close to the professor?”
Jacques stood up. “You make me sick. A man’s dead, murdered. And all you want is gossip.”
Myrna also stood and stared at him. Her look steady, unwavering.
“I know what you’re going through.”
“Oh, really,” he laughed. “You know about murder? In books, maybe. You have no idea what it’s like out there.” He waved out the window. “In the real world.”
“Oh, I have some idea,” she said quietly. “This isn’t the peaceful village it appears.”
“What? Has your car been scratched? Did someone steal your recycling bin?”
“Before I had a bookstore, I was a psychologist in Montréal. Among my clients were inmates at the SHU. You know it?”
Myrna could see some of the anger turn to surprise, then interest. But he was too invested in his opinion to change now.
“The Special Handling Unit,” he said.
“The worst cases.”
“And did you cure anyone?”
“Now, you know that’s unlikely, perhaps even impossible.”
“So you failed. And you came here. Like Gamache. A village filled with failures.”
Myrna wasn’t going to be goaded again by this kid. Though she felt anger crooking its finger at her. Instead, she nodded toward the laptop, plugged into a phone line. “You’re welcome to use it. Look up some things. Change the facts and you’ll change the feelings.”
“Wow, thanks for that insight.”
He grabbed his jacket and took the stairs two at a time, down to Myrna’s New and Used Bookstore, then out the door.
Myrna stood at the large window in her loft and saw him on the road below, visible in the light thrown by the bistro.
He turned and looked up at her. Then he took long strides away from the bookstore and the bistro. Past Clara’s home. Myrna watched him until he disappeared into the night.
And then the darkness was broken, by a small light.
*
After checking the house, including under the beds in case the demented old woman had died and rolled under one, Nathaniel went to the bistro.
She wasn’t there. But the big guy, one of the owners, had suggested the house along the road. Clara Morrow’s.
He headed there but met Amelia on her way out.
“Ruth Zardo? No, she’s not there. I wish. Just that old painter woman. She keeps staring at me. Gives me the creeps. I had to leave.”
“Why do you do that to yourself”—he indicated her piercings and tattoos—“if you don’t want people to stare?”
“Why do you dress like that?” She waved her hand at him.
“What?” He looked down at his coat and jeans. “Everybody dresses like this.”
“Exactly. Why do you want to be everyone?”
“Why do you want to be no one?”
The truth was, Amelia hadn’t left because of Clara.
When her host had gotten off her stool, Amelia had seen the painting. A full-on portrait. A self-portrait. It had blasted off the canvas, getting right up to Amelia. Getting in her face. They’d locked eyes, the painting and the person.
The painted woman glared at her. Like she knew Amelia. And knew what she’d done.
And Amelia had fled.
*
The light was on and the door was open.
Amelia couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in a church. Probably her christening, though now that she thought of it, Amelia didn’t know if she had been christened.
It was a tiny church, the smallest she’d ever seen. It was actually too dark to see the building itself. All they could see was the light through a stained-glass window.
The image, though, wasn’t of a crucifix, or a saint, or a martyr. What glowed in the night were boys. Barely men. Slogging through a glass battlefield.
“Come on,” said Nathaniel, already up the stairs and at the door. “Gabri said if Madame Zardo wasn’t at home or in the bistro or with the painter, she’d be here. Sleeping it off, probably.”
“Why’re you so anxious to find her?” asked Amelia, stomping up the steps after him.
“Because she’s my home,” he said. “Where else am I supposed to go?”
*
Ruth Zardo was indeed lying down, the duck nesting on her stomach. Her head propped on hymnals.
“Is she dead?” Nathaniel whispered.