The Long Way Home

Gamache listened some more.

“Can you patch me through to the plane?”

Even Clara, a couple feet away, heard the laugh.

“But you must be able to,” said Gamache.

Now Clara heard words, in rapid French, that sounded like “idiotic,” “impossible,” “delusional.”

“You can do it, I’ve done it before. And I insist. My name is Armand Gamache, I’m the Chief Inspector of homicide for Québec. Emeritus.” The last word was mumbled at best, and he looked at Clara and grimaced.

While the Emeritus seemed to have been lost on whoever was on the other end of the phone, Gamache’s tone of authority was not.

There was another brief pause while Gamache listened and finally said, “Merci.”

Clara took a step closer.

“He’s connecting us.” Gamache stared into the sky, as though that would help. Finally he gave Clara one curt nod.

“Bonjour. Is this Marc Brossard? My name is Gamache. You flew us to Sept-?les today.”

Beside him Clara was praying the frayed, fragile connection held. Just a minute more. One minute.

“Oui, oui,” said Gamache. “Listen.” But the young man continued to talk. “Listen to me,” said Gamache sharply.

And the young pilot did.

“We showed you a photograph, on an iPhone. You said you recognized the man. Which man?”

Gamache held Clara’s eyes as he spoke. He listened now, with such intensity Clara felt her own heart racing.

“There were two men,” said Gamache clearly. Loudly. “An older and a younger.”

Clara could hear static. The connection was breaking up, but it hadn’t yet broken off. Not yet. Not yet.

“Where did you take him?”

Gamache listened.

“When?”

He listened, and Clara stared into his eyes.

“When?” he repeated, his eyes showing surprise. “Are you sure?”

Clara could feel her heart throbbing in her throat.

“We’re in Port-Menier,” Gamache was saying. “Can you pick us up?” After a pause he shook his head. “I understand. Merci.”

He hung up.

“It was Professor Massey he recognized,” Clara confirmed. “Not Peter.”

Gamache nodded, grim-faced. “He flew to Tabaquen yesterday.”

*

“Where’re you headed?” The old woman slid into the booth beside Beauvoir.

“Up the coast,” he waved.

“I figured that. Where?”

“Tabaquen.”

“Are you sure?”

He laughed. “Pretty sure.”

“Here,” she said. “You’ll need this.”

She took the hat from beside her on the torn Naugahyde seat and placed it on his head.

“It’s wet and cold out there.”

“I’m not heading into the North Atlantic,” he assured her, taking it off and smoothing his hair.

“You have no idea where you’re headed.” She brought something from the pocket of her cardigan and placed it on the table in front of him.

He looked at it.

A rabbit’s foot. No, not rabbit. Hare.

“No hares here on the island,” she said. “It was given to me years ago, by another visitor. Said it would bring me luck. And it has.”

She looked at all her sons. And all her daughters. Not of her loins, but the family of her heart.

“It’s yours.” She pushed it toward him.

“You need it.” Beauvoir pushed it back.

“I’ve had it. Now it’s your turn.”

Beauvoir put it in his pocket. And as he did he heard a long, deep horn.

The Loup de Mer was calling them.

*

“Yesterday?” Clara gaped. “I just saw him a few days ago. He didn’t say anything about going. What’s this about?”

“I don’t know,” said Gamache. He looked across the calm waters of the sheltered harbor. Then he dropped his eyes. Below the dock he could see fish darting. Flashes of silver in the cold, clear water.

“Professor Norman’s in Tabaquen,” he spoke to the fish. “And now Professor Massey’s gone there. Why?”

“Massey lied to us,” said Clara. “He said he didn’t know where Norman was.”

“And maybe he didn’t at the time,” said Gamache. “Maybe our questions got him to wondering, and he looked at the file too.”

“But why would he go there? It’s not just down the street, it’s halfway across the continent. You’d have to be pretty desperate.”

Yes, thought Gamache. That was the word. And he was feeling increasingly desperate to get there himself.

“I asked the pilot if he could pick us up here but he said the weather had closed in. All along the coast. He wasn’t flying in or out of the villages.”

“So we couldn’t have made it to Tabaquen today anyway?”

“I doubt it,” said Gamache. “Red sky in the morning.”

The ship’s horn sounded, deep and mournful. She looked at her watch. “It’s leaving.”

She started walking rapidly to the quai.

“Wait, Clara. I have another question. It’s about Chartrand.”

Clara stopped. And turned. “What about him?”

The ship’s horn gave another cry.

“Why do you think he came with us?”

Gamache could see Jean-Guy waving at them from beside the Loup de Mer.

“Because he likes our company?” Clara suggested.