He put it aside and went back to the original photograph, of the Quints and their horrified father. It was the first of what would prove to be thousands of pictures of the girls taken during their lifetimes. The babies were imperfectly wrapped in sheets soiled with their mother’s blood and feces and mucus and membranes. It was a miracle, but it was also a mess.
It was the first picture, but it was also the last time the real girls were photographed. Within hours of the Quints being born, they were manufactured. The lies, the role-playing, the deceit, had begun.
He turned the original photo over. There, scrawled in neat, rounded schoolchild letters, were the children’s names.
Marie-Virginie, Marie-Hélène, Marie-Josephine, Marie-Marguerite, Marie-Constance.
They must have been quickly wrapped in whatever the midwife and Monsieur Ouellet could find, and laid on the kitchen table in the order in which they were born.
Then he picked up the picture with Dr. Bernard, taken just hours later. On the back someone had written M-M, M-J, M-V, M-C, M-H.
No longer their full names, now they were just initials. Today it would have been bar codes, thought the Chief. He could guess whose handwriting he was seeing, and again he looked at the kindly country doctor whose life had also changed that night. A whole new Dr. Bernard had been born.
Gamache pulled one more photo from his breast pocket and placed it on the coffee table. Myrna picked it up. She saw four young women, probably in their early thirties, arms around each other and smiling for the camera.
She turned the photograph over, but nothing was written on the back.
“The girls?” she asked, and Gamache nodded.
“They all look so different,” she marveled. “Hairstyles, taste in clothing, even their bodies.” She looked over the picture, to Gamache, who was watching her. “It’s impossible to tell they’re even sisters. Do you think that was on purpose?”
“What do you think?” he said.
Myrna went back to the photo, but she knew the answer. She nodded.
“That’s what I think too,” said the Chief, taking off his glasses and leaning back in his armchair. “They were obviously very close. They didn’t do it to distance themselves from each other, but from the public.”
“They’re in disguise,” she said, lowering the picture. “They made their bodies a costume, so no one would know who they were. More like armor really, than a costume.” She tapped the photo. “There’re four of them. Where’s the other one?”
“Dead.”
Myrna tilted her head at the Chief. “Pardon?”
“Virginie,” said Gamache. “She died in her early twenties.”
“Of course. I forgot.” She scoured her memory. “It was an accident, wasn’t it? Car? Drowning? I can’t quite remember. Something tragic.”
“She fell down the stairs at the home they shared.”
Myrna was quiet for a moment before she spoke. “I don’t suppose it was more than that? I mean, twenty-year-olds don’t normally just fall down stairs.”
“What a suspicious mind you have, Madame Landers,” said Gamache. “Constance and Hélène saw it happen. They said she lost her footing. There was no autopsy. No obituary notice in the paper. Virginie Ouellet was quietly buried in the family plot in Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu. Someone at the mortuary leaked the news a few weeks later. There was quite a public outpouring of grief.”
“Why hush up her death?” asked Myrna.
“From what I gather, the surviving sisters wanted to grieve in private.”
“Yes, that would fit,” said Myrna. “You said, ‘They said she lost her footing.’ There seems a bit of a qualifier there. They said it, but is it true?”
Gamache smiled slightly.
“You’re a good listener.” He leaned forward so that they looked at each other across the coffee table, their faces half in the firelight, half in darkness. “If you know how to read police reports and death certificates, there’s a lot in what isn’t said.”
“Did they think she might’ve been pushed?”
“No. But there was a suggestion that while her death was an accident, it wasn’t altogether a surprise.”
“What do you mean?” asked Myrna.
“Did Constance tell you anything about her sisters?”
“Only in general terms. I wanted to hear about Constance’s life, not her sisters’.”
“It must have been a relief for her,” said Gamache.
“I think it was. A relief and a surprise,” said Myrna. “Most people were only interested in the Quints as a unit, not as individuals. Though, to be honest, I didn’t realize she was a Quint until about a year into therapy.”
Gamache stared at her and tried to contain his amusement.
“It isn’t funny,” said Myrna, but she too smiled.
“No,” agreed the Chief, wiping the smile from his face. “Not at all. Did you really not know she was one of the most famous people in the country?”
“OK, so here’s the thing,” said Myrna. “She introduced herself as Constance Pineault and mentioned her family, but only in response to my questions. It didn’t occur to me to ask if she was a quintuplet. I almost never asked that of my clients. But you didn’t answer my question. What did you mean when you said the youngest Quint’s death was an accident but not a surprise?”